Sherman R. Frederick
Marinscope
The vice chair of the Novato Police Advisory & Review Board was arrested last week in Sausalito during a homeless protest.
Jereme Portje, 43, a freelance videographer who works closely with homeless advocates, was arrested for battery on a police officer and resisting police with violence. The officer involved required medical attention, police said.
Portje did not respond to inquiries about his arrest, but he and his attorney have suggested that this is not an assault case but is really a press freedom issue as he was there to chronicle the protest.
Because of his position as an official in the City of Novato, his arrest may also have repercussions there, though so far the city has been mum on the development.
Here’s what is known:
Mayor Jill Hoffman said Portje’s arrest is “an ongoing matter I am not able to provide further comment.” She said this is what Sausalito is prepared to confirm:
“On Monday, Nov. 30, at approximately 5 p.m. Jeremy Portje was placed under arrest for 243(B) PC – battery on a police officer, 243(C) PC – battery on a police officer requiring medical treatment, and 69 PC – resisting a law enforcement officer with violence. The incident occurred at Marinship Park, 2290 Marinship Way. Sausalito Police Department Sergeant Thomas Georges was injured.
The extent of those injuries were not detailed by Sausalito.
Portje is a fixture at homeless protests in Marin. But he is known to be aggressive with his camera.
At a public meeting in Novato earlier this year, people said he was unsuitable to sit on the advisory committee. One elderly woman told the Council during public comment that Portje knocked her to the ground as she protested against the homeless occupying Lee Gerner Park. That charge could not be substantiated and no charges appeared to have been filed.
His critics also claim that he uses his camera to intimidate protesters advocating for causes for which he disagrees.
Over the weekend as news of his arrest circulated through town, a conservative group called for the resignation of Portje from the Police Advisory Commission:
“Do we want a representative of the City of Novato who is filmed resisting arrest advising police on critical matters? Someone who is also charged with injuring a police officer? Novato can and should do better than Jeremy Portje, who is not, and never has been a ‘journalist.’ He’s an activist with a cellphone and selfie stick.,” said Melanie Morgan, who has been a reporter for over 40 years, including stints at KGO Radio and TV in San Francisco.”
Morgan told the Novato Advance that she is “dismayed that Portje is positioning himself as a journalist in order to play the victim in the alleged assault last week. Journalists don’t become part of a story in order to make political points. Journalists also don’t harass and engage in threatening behavior, even knocking elderly citizens to the ground because he disagrees with their politics, as I have witnessed at protests at Lee Gerner Park in Novato.”
Morgan said that the entire City of Novato will be watching this situation, and members of her group will attend the arraignment of Portje on Dec. 20.
Circumstances leading to the arrest on Nov. 30 remain unclear at presstime. A video has circulated on social media that shows two officers detaining Portje on his knees with a third officer holding other homeless protesters at bay. Portje is smiling most of the time and police did not appear to be using excessive force. Homeless protesters, however, can be heard in the background taunting the police and chanting “Let him go.”
It appears from the social media video that police officers were wearing body cams. No video cam footage has been released. At one point in the video, Portje appears to plead with onlookers that he wasn’t “resisting” arrest and referred to Sgt. Thomas Georges as an “asshole.” Police took his camera gear at the time of the arrest.
Officers arrested Portje and took him to jail where he spent the night and was released the morning after on $15,000 bail. The charges are expected to be handed over to the District Attorney’s office this week.
(Editor’s note: Marinscope Community Newspapers has asked Sausalito to release officer video cam related to the incident.)
You are disgusting Sherm. This “article” is a racist hit piece devoid of facts. You will have to answer for it.
Can you please point out the exact portion of this article that is racist?
For one thing you are particularly hard on this particular advocate and journalist when there are many who support homeless people. And yes he is a journalist having won “best videographer” in Marin in 2019. You could take a few lessons from him on journalism. You get your info from Facebook and do not fact check, having been forced to retract misstatements under threat of legal action. Oh and by the way Jeremy was injured as well in the arrest, a fact you conveniently left out. If I were being taken to the ground by my hair I’d call the guy an asshole too. Eyewitnesses say Jeremy was not the aggressor. But I don’t want to confuse your “journalism” with the facts.
You’ve entirely framed this as a race-baiting dog-whistle issue for conservatism: “‘known’ ‘aggressive’ anti-cop black man assaults police and resists arrest.”
You accept it as truth without question. You ignore the statements of witnesses to this actual event who say otherwise while piling on every bit of unrelated hearsay possible to demonstrate that he’s “aggressive.” You mention that the cops aren’t using excessive force in the video but fail to mention Portje isn’t seen resisting either (he’s on his knees, not attempting to get up, asking questions and appears to be trying to gesture, not to resist or get away). You go out of your way to discredit or identify him as a journalist or even as a citizen conducting newsgathering activities that would be constitutionally protected, even as a documentary videographer. You make no attempt to learn why they sought to arrest him in the first place (ie, you can’t resist arrest until they seek to arrest you for something else). You fail to mention Portje had just done a CPRA for bodycam footage of these same cops arresting someone else, which influences the dynamic of their existing relationship.
Novato conservatives want the social-justice activist black man off the police oversight board, and you found just the race-baiting perspective to make your case with extreme levels of selective reporting disguised as news. It’s hackery start to finish.
Get a better vocabulary and a better understanding of the incident. It had nothing to do with race or journalism, and everything to do with a poser assaulting police officers and resisting arrest.
That’s exactly correct he resisted arrest and assumed a police officer! Nothing to do with race or being a so called journalist
assaulted a police officer
Aren’t you a “patriot” Jenette? Don’t you believe in innocent before proven guilty? And as for your baseless accusation of him pushing you to the ground, where is the police report? I was there. It never happened. You were obnoxiously blowing a whistle in everyone’s faces. Including Jeremy’s. It’s on video.
Everybody knows you never fell down and made The Whole thing up,, Jeanette. It’s pathetic. Where are the witnesses who support your story? Every person there says it didn’t happen. Where is the police report? Injuries? Jeremy should sue you for defamation if you were anybody of any importance,.
Well hopefully the charges wont dropped with all the videos and stories of his previous antics that have been sent to the mayor of Sausalito.
This is disgusting. How do you call yourself a journalist? There were numerous witnesses that will attest to the fact that Jeremy Portje did nothing wrong and was the victim of an out of control cop with anger issues. You don’t know how to report objectively and included “unsubstantiated” statements about a lie that Jeremy pushed an old lady to the ground. This is appalling and the reason nobody likes you and you were voted WORST person in America on MSNBC. I would love to know how you felt about George Floyd’s murder. People like you are the reason people like Jeremy are getting murdered by cops. You should be ashamed and delete this article entirely.
Odd cause when I watch the video, the officers I see are remaining completely calm and showing so much restraint (pun intended). It shouldn’t take 2 officers 6 minutes or more to handcuff a person unless they are resisting.
I’m referring to what happened prior to Jeremy being forced to his knees. You didn’t see the aggression from Ofc. Thomas Georges who backed Jeremy up to a fence and yanked at his camera. That footage hasn’t been released yet. There are numerous witnesses who attest to this.
Unfortunately this article shares false news. It is sad to see people share false news for a living. Share the truth.
You failed to point out which part of the story was “false news.” Perhaps you realize it was factual and you can’t refute it?
– Portje is not a “police official.” He’s an unpaid volunteer private citizen appointee who sits on an oversight board that meets four times a year, on which police officers and city employees cannot sit.
– Portje has not yet been charged, as police do not file charges. This assertion, repeated several times, is not factual.
– Portje has a journalism degree and has worked for professional Bay Area media outlets for nearly two decades. A LinkedIn search demonstrates this easily, but the author allowed a third party to claim Portje is not and has never been a journalist without countering with a correction of the facts.
– The article asserts, as though factual, that he’s “known” to be aggressive. As the author does not purport to be a witness to aggression or to have viewed footage of such aggression, this is only an accusation, which may be a lie, presented as fact.
– This is the newspaper of Sausalito, so one might expect the paper have ties to various communities within Sausalito, yet chose not to interview any of the witnesses of the incident (while fully willing to interview and extensively quote a non-witness who lied repeatedly). Those witnesses have told other outlets that police tried to block Portje from filming, and in attempting to seize his camera inadvertently injured themselves. This paper chose to not even cite those witnesses with attribution to the other publications. One might consider the withholding of this witness information a lie by omission, as without footage these witness statements still present reasonable doubt important to the reader about what actually happened.
– In another lie by omission, the author fails to point out that everyone is afforded the freedom of the press, and that newsgathering activities are protected under the First Amendment. By attempting to delegitimize Portje’s professional credentials (calling him a police official and videographer instead of a journalist, while allowing a third party to say he’s not a journalist) attempts to undermine him and undercut any protections Portje may have while conducting newsgathering activities as journalist. In fact, it attempts to create the entire prism of false pretense with which he wants you to read this article.
– When someone is arrested for resisting arrest, the first question a journalist should ask is why police were trying to arrest the person in the first place, especially when the original alleged crime doesn’t appear among the rest of the recommended charges. In this case, the battery allegations came during the act of resisting, so the original “crime” for which he was to be arrested, and subsequently resisted, remains entirely unknown. By all accounts, police here were attempting to arrest Portje for conducting First Amendment protected newsgathering activities and seized both his person and his equipment in the process, a potential Fourth Amendment violation. The author makes no effort to address or get to the bottom of this.
It’s very possible Portje did everything he’s accused of. This paper has already concluded he did it.
dline is libelous, as are many portions of the story, and Mr. Portje should sue this newspaper. He was not arrested “for assault,” he was arrested on suspicion of committing assault, for which he has not been charged, tried or convicted. Mr. Sherman does not appear to know the basics that police arrest people on suspicion of committing a crime, then forward their recommendations to the DA for consideration, and it’s the DA who either charges or declines to charge a suspect. Mr. Portje was not “arrested for battery” (convicted by the paper again), while there were no charges “expected to the handed over” to the DA’s office (as police do not charge).
This newspaper is also legally accountable for the publication of false, defamatory and libelous statements, even those made by others, which includes Ms. Morgan’s statement. Like Mr. Sherman, she libelously states that Mr. Portje was charged, multiple times. This is false. She asserts he is not and never has been a journalist. This is also false and intends to defame. Mr. Portje is a journalist by training and was a professional photojournalist for the Telegraph Herald, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Marin Independent Journal and Bay Area News Group for nearly two decades. Ms. Morgan and Mr. Sherman also certainly know that all citizens are guaranteed press freedoms under the First Amendment, and that when any citizen conducts journalistic activity they are, immediately and by default, journalists conducting constitutionally protected activity.
We’re all certainly aware of Mr. Sherman’s brand of constitutionally protected activist conservative journalism, but as we await more facts in this case he should find it gravely concerning that a journalist, while performing journalism, appears to have been prevented from conducting protected activity and that both his person and his property were seized by the government while doing so.
Here is verbatim what Sausalito said:
“On Monday, Nov. 30, at approximately 5 p.m. Jeremy Portje was placed under arrest for battery on a police officer, battery on a police officer requiring medical treatment, and 6resisting a law enforcement officer with violence. “
And? You’re a journalist. It’s your job to know that’s not true and not repeat it, just like all the other lies you repeated. Eg, Police don’t charge and you repeated that lie too. Real basic stuff you’re getting wrong.
The police arrested him “on suspicion of”/“on accusations of”/“on allegations of” battery and resisting arrest. Not “on charges of” (DA charges) and not “for” (that’s a conviction)..
Police will forward their recommendations to the DA for potential charges and prosecution. The DA may choose to “charge him with” — “with,” not “for” — battery and resisting arrest.
He may accept a plea, or be tried by a jury, and “convicted of” (or even “for”!) battery and resisting arrest. This — this! — will be the first time you can legally say he committed a crime. We’re a long way from that, but you’ve already convicted him. By publishing that he was arrested “for” a crime, you’re saying he did it. No trial necessary., MarinScopes is judge and jury.
This “Novato group” decided to do nothing about Jeremy when I was verbally attacked and challenged to a fight, F bombs, followed, stalked and harassed on a Novato street simply trying to get my little dogs away from this deranged racist who may, or not, have been carrying a weapon.
Thank God I did not have two little dogs to protect or it could have gotten really ugly. Notice the woman who he was with is a Santa Barbara deputy sheriff going after Trump supporters after we held a legal and peaceful rally in Novato. Thank you to the Novato cop who ran the plate for me and privately got me the info on both of these racist stalkers. The Novato police chief would not press charges probably because I am not gay, black, or a registered democrat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTMYyKeR2Ig&t=2s
Time for him to step down from the Novato Police Commission. I watched the video. He deliberately stiff-armed the police and resisted. We want unbiased citizens on the panel. Not someone who is anti-law enforcement.
I saw the video too and if anyone was “stiff arming” it was the police. His arms were being yanked up into the air. He was on his knees not struggling at all. Your hero is Marjorie Taylor Greene, as I’ve seen on your FB page, so no one can take anything you say as anything but hate-filled rhetoric.
I dare you to print my above comment
Another excellent article by Sherman Frederick. Thank you!
According to arrest data provided by the Novato PD and racial demographics data provided by census.gov in 2020 a Black person in Novato was 5 times more likely to be arrested by the Novato PD than a white person. Could this movement to remove Mr. Portje from the Novato Police Advisory and Review Board be more about him being Black than it is about his arrest? Racial bias in arrests and in the make up of the Board?