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A Multnomah County jury heard opening arguments July 8 in the bias crime trial of Mike Bivins, a former freelance journalist accused of starting a fire at a mosque, vandalizing two Jewish synagogues, and smashing the window of a Black-owned restaurant in 2022. Bivins, who worked as a stringer for WW and other news outlets covering extremism and political street brawls, faces felony charges of criminal mischief and arson.
In his opening statement Tuesday morning, deputy district attorney Charlie Weiss said the state would demonstrate that Bivins picked his victims for their race and religion. “These are five targeted acts of violence and intimidation against members of our community,” Weiss said.
Those who knew Bivins have told WW his mental state deteriorated in 2021, about two years after his last bylines as a journalist. An internal review of his work for WW found no evidence of prejudice in the stories Bivins wrote for the paper between 2016 and 2019, says editor Aaron Mesh.
On Tuesday, prosecutors showed the jury Bivins’ computer search history, which included queries for the Ku Klux Klan and Stormfront, and displayed his antisemitic and racist posts on social media.
Prosecutors brought witnesses including Joshua Kashinski, executive director of Congregation Beth Israel, who described the fear congregants felt after learning Bivins had scrawled “Die Juden” on the temple. The events “make congregants nervous about coming to the campus,” Kashinski said.
His defense attorney said if the jury weighed Bivins’ intentions and actions individually for each incident, they would find him not guilty.
