Tusitala Toese

Toese at a Patriot Prayer rally in Seattle, Washington in 2017

Toese, a resident of Vancouver, Washington[9] became involved with the far right group Patriot Prayer in 2017.[10] He is originally from American Samoa.[11][2][12] Toese, a friend of Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson, punched a man in the face during a Portland, Oregon rally in Chapman Square on May 13, 2017.[1][13] Described as "a regular presence at alt-right events in Portland throughout the year", Toese was detained and first cited for a crime at a rally for Patriot Prayer, a far right group, in August 2017.[14] He was then arrested at a Patriot Prayer rally on December 9, 2017, after he struck a counter protester in the face.[15] He was convicted of harassment stemming from the fight at the December 2017 rally in downtown Portland.[7]

Toese is affiliated with both Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys.[13] In January 2018, he led a group of Proud Boys in a counter protest at the 2018 Women's March in Seattle alongside members of Patriot Prayer.[5] The Proud Boys, some wearing shirts that targeted feminists as "parasites of the patriarchy", shouted misogynistic slurs at the women attending the event.[5]

The Southern Poverty Law Center described Toese as Gibson's right hand man in 2018.[16]

In May 2018, when in the company of several Proud Boys members, Toese was filmed getting into a physical altercation with a teenager at the Vancouver Mall in Clark County, Washington before security officers intervened and separated them.[17]

Toese appeared at a Patriot Prayer rally in August 2018 wearing a shirt printed with "Pinochet was right" and RWDS,[18] shorthand used by the Proud Boys for "right wing death squad".[19] The following month, he traveled to Austin, Texas with Gibson for a "Free Alex Jones" demonstration (an event protesting the removal of Jones, a conspiracy theorist and radio host, from several social media platforms) where police removed Toese after he threatened bystanders.[13]

The BBC reported that by March 2019, Toese had been arrested 18 times, on charges including assault, harassment and disorderly conduct.[11]

Toese was indicted by a grand jury[7] and charged with assault following a June 8, 2018, incident in Portland, Oregon[20] that left a man with "stitches and a concussion".[21] He was arrested on October 4, 2019, at Portland International Airport when returning from American Samoa.[7] He was charged with felony assault.[9]

He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault in January 2020 and was barred from attending protests for two years.[17] In June 2020, Toese was filmed engaging in a fight outside Seattle's Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone.[21][22][23]

In October 2020, Toese was sentenced to six months in jail for a probation violation[24] related to the 2018 conviction for misdemeanor assault.[25]

Toese was among the speakers at a Proud Boys event in Portland dubbed "The Summer of Love" on August 22, 2021, that ended in a brawl in the Parkrose neighborhood with shots fired in downtown Portland. Proud Boys and anti-fascist counter protesters deployed bear mace and shot paintballs at each other. After they flipped over a white van and smashed the windows out, the Proud Boys including Toese were observed shooting paintballs at people while driving around the suburban, residential Parkrose neighborhood.[26]

Toese was reportedly shot in the ankle during an anti COVID lockdown protest in Olympia, Washington on September 4, 2021.[4][27]

On September 10, 2021, he appeared at an anti-mask demonstration at Skyview High School in Vancouver, Washington alongside Gibson.[28]

Toese was arrested in December 2021 in connection with the August rally in East Portland which occurred earlier that same year.[8] He was extradited from Washington to Oregon and charged with three counts of second-degree assault with a weapon, two counts of third-degree assault, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon, two counts of riot and two counts of first-degree criminal mischief in Multnomah County Circuit Court.[29]

Toese was released from county jail on bail around June 8, 2022, and court records from November 15, 2022 allege that he was not returning calls to his pre-trial release officer and had let his GPS ankle monitor go dead.[30]

On March 2, 2023, Toese was found guilty on two counts each of second-degree assault with a weapon, third-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon, riot and first-degree criminal mischief. One count of second-degree assault was dropped.[31] Under Oregon's Measure 11 guidelines, second-degree assault is a felony carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and 10 months in state prison.[32]