Former alt-weekly reporter in Portland guilty of arson, hate crime spree

Mike Bivins

tried to torch a Muslim community center and vandalized

two synagogues and a Black-owned business during a four-day hate crime spree two years ago, a jury found.

The Multnomah County jury deliberated for about four hours Thursday before finding Bivins guilty

on all 11 counts

— including first-degree arson, criminal mischief and second-degree bias crime, the legal term for a hate crime.

Now 37, Bivins worked as an independent videographer and freelance journalist for Willamette Week in the mid-2010s, when he often covered far-right protests with a critical lens.

But sometime after leaving the profession in 2019, Bivins began trafficking in racial and religious hatred. In court, prosecutors presented as evidence the racist tracts found during a search of Bivins’ Sellwood neighborhood apartment as well as his undisguised statements on social media.

Prosecutor Quinn Zemel said during closing arguments Wednesday that the state had no interest in policing Bivins’ private thoughts or opinions.

“But the reason why we take actions matters – and they have different effects,” he explained. “When you spray paint ‘Die Juden’ on a synagogue, you don’t just inconvenience a building owner, you intimidate an entire community — and that’s what these bias crimes are about.”

Bivins’ rampage began April 30, 2022, when he smashed a window at Congregation Shir Tikvah, an east Portland synagogue, and broke a window at Everybody Eats PDX, a Black-owned restaurant in the Pearl.

He then vandalized Congregation Beth Israel in Northwest Portland and, on May 3, used

an accelerant to set fire

to the back of the Muslim Community Center in North Portland, according to surveillance footage.

The flames fizzled out on their own due to the building’s fire-resistant siding, leaving worshippers inside unaware of the attack until the next day, when the scorch marks were discovered by chance.

Irked that

most of his vandalism wasn’t being reported

in the media, Bivins traveled in disguise to KPTV’s headquarters in Beaverton, where he revealed the crimes to reporter Chandler Watkins and promised to return in two days once she had verified the information with police.

“He said he was going to do this again until he was caught,” Watkins testified Wednesday, adding that she and her managers quickly decided to alert the police.

Officers arrested Bivins

when he got off a bus

in Beaverton near the TV station at their scheduled meeting time.

Defense attorney Alicia Hercher, in her own closing, argued that the state hadn’t met the burden of proof, noting that detectives had also been investigating another suspect, who had sent threatening text messages to the imam at the Muslim Community Center.

“There’s no fingerprints, no DNA, no clear video that really shows who that person is,” she said. “These things are important when you’re trying to convict someone of a crime — details matter.”

The jury sided with the state, however.

Bivins had no supporters present during the three-day trial. His mother died while he was in custody, and he still

faces pending federal charges.

Deputies scolded him several times during the trial when he attempted to speak to the press gallery during breaks, remarking once that his own ordeal was “top news.”

At another point, he mused whether he could take the stand but refuse to reply to prosecutors’ questions, prompting Judge Eric Dahlin to warn him against intentionally triggering a mistrial. Dahlin said he would tell the jury they could make negative inferences as to the truth of each unanswered question.

Bivins ultimately didn’t take the stand and appeared unfazed when the verdict was read out.

But he did

mutter a few words

as he was taken away in handcuffs: “You haven’t heard the last of me.”

Sentencing is set for Sept. 19.

—Zane Sparling covers breaking news and courts for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-319-7083,

zsparling@oregonian.com

@pdxzane

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