Street Preacher Knocked Out at Airport Protest: "I Feel Extremely Threatened"

Grant Chisholm confirms he yelled invective at parishioners of a Spanish-language mass.

Bible Believer taken away by medics. (Adam Krogman)

On Sunday morning, a group of "Bible Believers"—hard-right street preachers who yell at protests against President Donald Trump—stood outside the Spanish mass at St. Peter's Church in Southeast Portland and screamed diatribes at parishioners.

The men, videotaped by churchgoers, were also at the protests at the Portland International Airport. One of these men, identified as Grant Chisholm, was knocked unconscious by protesters at the airport on Sunday night.

When we tried to reach Chisholm at his business yesterday, we were told he was in the hospital and wasn't feeling well that day.

Today, Chisholm is back at work. He told us he was released from the Legacy Emanuel Medical Center this morning.

He's feeling a bit better.

"I believe I was hit with something metal, so it kind of jiggled some brain cells and I got vertigo and I'm trying to get clarity," he says.

Chisholm says that people have been vandalizing his store, tagging it with phrases like, "Neo-Nazis get punched."

"I feel extremely threatened," he says. "They've been calling me and threatening me on the phone all day."

He believes he is unfairly being called a Nazi.

"Apparently anyone who voted for Trump is a Nazi," he says. "If they're going to have a preconceived idea of who I am and calling me a Nazi and trying to connect the dots, they need to look at themselves."

Chisholm did confirm that he was also outside the Spanish Mass at the church on Sunday, but when asked if it was an attack on immigrants, he responded: "No, absolutely not."

"We're street preachers, so we preach in front of churches, at Blazers games, at events. I've been doing this for 22 years," he says. "My business has done better than it's ever done, irregardless of what people believe. That's the thing that's supposed to make this city so great is that we celebrate what makes the city diverse."

He went on to say that they preach in front of all churches, including white churches, black churches, Presbyterian churches and Baptist churches.

"That had nothing to do with the fact that they were Hispanic," Chisholm says. "No, it's just a church. We preach in front of churches because we don't agree with most of the modern day churches," he says. "I'm preaching the Gospel if I'm going to Mardi Gras or Las Vegas or a political event."

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