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] Willamette Week reported that Toese, a friend of Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson, had punched a man in the face during a Portland, Oregon rally in Chapman Square on May 13, 2017.[1] Toese, described as "a regular presence at alt-right events in Portland throughout the year", was detained and first cited for a crime at a Patriot Prayer rally in Portland in August 2017.[13] He was then arrested at a Patriot Prayer rally on December 9, 2017 after he struck a counter protester in the face.[14] He was convicted of harassment stemming from the fight at the December 2017 rally in downtown Portland.[7]

In January 2018, Toese 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.[15]

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.[16]

Toese appeared at a Patriot Prayer rally in August 2018 wearing a shirt printed with "Pinochet was right" and RWDS,[17] shorthand used by the Proud Boys for "right wing death squad".[18]

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[19] that left a man with "stitches and a concussion".[20] 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.[16] In June 2020, Toese was filmed engaging in a fight outside Seattle's Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone.[20][21][22]

In October 2020, Toese was sentenced to six months in jail for a probation violation[23] related to the 2018 conviction for misdemeanor assault.[24]

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.[25]

Toese was reportedly shot in the ankle during an anti COVID lockdown protest in Olympia, Washington on September 4, 2021.[4][26]

On September 10, 2021 he appeared at an anti-mask demonstration at Skyview High School in Vancouver, Washington alongside Gibson.[27]

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.[28]