‘Baby Lives Matter’ activist beaten, bloodied by Antifa rioters in Portland
A pro-life activist and independent journalist says he was beaten by a group of Antifa and other left-wing rioters in Portland, Oregon Tuesday as violent protests and riots continue to engulf the city after more than three months.
Tayler Hansen, who is is known as the founder of the “Baby Lives Matter” movement, took to Twitter on Wednesday to detail an attack he suffered at the hands of four violent activists wearing Antifa black bloc attire.
Hansen, who has made headlines for painting the phrase “BABY LIVES MATTER” on the streets in front of abortion clinics nationwide, had been covering the riots and unrest in Portland for several days prior to the attack.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
He was even arrested over the weekend along with several Antifa activists, writing on Twitter that he “spent a night in the dog house with those I was there to expose!”
Following his release from jail, Hansen returned to the streets of Portland to film the chaos Tuesday night. It didn’t take long for him to become the target of violent protesters.
Last night in Portland I was beaten bloody by four people in Black Bloc
— Tayler Hansen (@TaylerUSA) September 9, 2020
Here’s the story pic.twitter.com/7xTopp692t
“Last night in Portland I was beaten bloody by four people in Black Bloc,” Hansen wrote on Twitter.
A photo of Hansen with a bloody wound on his chin accompanied the tweet.
That tweet was part of a lengthy thread where Hansen explained the events that unfolded in Stumptown the previous night.
“It started with a press member recognizing me, he proceeded to get his phone to show a group of Black Bloc what I believe to be my Instagram,” Hansen recalled. “I fled and changed my disguise, and returned once they had arrived at a different location.”
Hansen provided video evidence documenting “two suspicious men” addressing him by name on a Portland street corner.
That encounter was preceded by a Twitter user announcing Hansen’s presence in the area and accusing him of saying that “he infiltrated antifa.”
As I was standing on the corner two suspicious men were looking at me and talking amongst themselves, they walked by and directly addressed me by my name.
— Tayler Hansen (@TaylerUSA) September 9, 2020
Here’s the video of them acknowledging my presence. pic.twitter.com/HllDYWyCBT
“I began walking away, a few blocks down there was a group of four dressed in Black Bloc waiting for me around the corner,” Hansen explained. “They proceeded to beat me. I was punched in the face, thrown on the ground where they began kicking me in the back and hitting me in the face again.”
“As they fled one yelled ‘Stay out of Portland b****!’” he added. “I am thankful they stopped the beating when they did and didn’t use weapons to inflict harm or death upon me.”
The attack on Hansen comes just over a week after a Trump supporter was shot to death in Portland by a left-wing protester sympathetic to the “anti-fascist” movement. The suspect of that attack was shot and killed by Portland police last Thursday when they tried to take him into custody.
In August, another man was hospitalized after he was beaten by Portland demonstrators.
Hansen first gained national attention after painting a mural reading “BABY LIVES MATTER” across the street from a Planned Parenthood clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah in July.
The pro-life activist felt compelled to start painting the murals after racial justice activists began painting the phrase “Black Lives Matter” on streets across the U.S. as part of the nationwide demonstration against the killing of African-Americans by police officers.
“[Ten] unarmed Black Americans were killed by police in 2019. They have murals all around the country. Almost 400,000 innocent babies were murdered by Planned Parenthood in 2019. It’s about damn time they get a mural too,” Hansen proclaimed in a tweet at the time.
Hansen has also painted “Baby Lives Matter” murals in Washington, D.C., Richmond, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina. He is six murals away from achieving his short-term goal of painting 10 “Baby Lives Matter” murals.
As the “Baby Lives Matter” movement expands nationwide, other pro-life groups have followed Hansen’s lead.
Over the weekend, members of Students for Life of America, Human Action Coalition and the Frederick Douglass Foundation teamed up to paint the phrase “Black Preborn Lives Matter” in front of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Baltimore.
