Former Proud Boys member sentenced to 10 years for assault, other charges at Portland protests

Author: KGW Staff

PORTLAND, Ore. (KGW) — Former Proud Boys member Alan Swinney has been sentenced by Judge Heidi Moawad to 10 years in prison with three years post-prison supervision, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt announced on Friday.

Swinney has previously identified himself as a member of the far-right Proud Boys group, although a Friday press release from Schmidt’s officer referred to him as a “former Proud Boy.”

An Oregon jury found Swinney guilty in October on 11 charges stemming from his actions last year during the Portland protests that began after a white police officer murdered George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis.

The charges included multiple counts of assault, unlawful use of mace, unlawful use of a weapon with a firearm, unlawful use of a weapon (paintball gun) and pointing a firearm at another. The incidents all occurred on Aug. 15 and Aug. 22, 2020, and Swinney was arrested on Sept. 30, 2020 and has been in Multnomah County jail since then.

Swinney injured a man’s eye by shooting him in the face with a paintball gun, sprayed people directly in the face with bear mace on multiple occasions and aimed a loaded Ruger .357 magnum at a crowd of people, Shmidt’s office said in a press release.

Prosecutors with the District Attorney’s office presented evidence that Swinney used social media to amplify his white nationalist beliefs and to threaten and incite politically motivated violence, and that his beliefs motivated him to commit the crimes, Schmidt’s office said in the press release.

At sentencing, Senior Deputy District Attorney Nathan Vasquez called Swinney a “White nationalist vigilante cow-boy” who traveled to Oregon for the specific purpose of engaging in political violence.

The 120-month sentence is slightly less than what prosecutors had sought; in a Dec. 9 memorandum, Schmidt’s office recommended 130 months in prison, declaring Swinney was a danger to the community because his social media statements and testimony that showed that he “has no remorse for his actions, no desire to change and every intention of engaging in future acts of violence.”