By Isabel Funk
oregonlive.com
PORTLAND, Ore. — A former freelance reporter who is in prison for a spree of hate crimes targeting houses of worship and a minority-owned business in Portland in 2022 will spend at least another two years behind bars for punching a cafeteria worker in prison.
“It is beyond dispute that I punched the food-service worker repeatedly in the face,” Michael Bivins said in court Thursday.
He stipulated to violating his probation during Thursday’s hearing, and it was revoked.
Bivins, 38, repeatedly called the cafeteria worker he hit a “spineless Democrat operative,” and he called Multnomah County Circuit Judge Eric Dahlin , who was presiding over the hearing, a “coward” several times, prompting his attorney to shush him and the judge to warn him that he would be removed from court if he continued.
In June, Bivins punched the food-service worker at Oregon State Correctional Institution. He was also on probation at the time for some counts of his 2022 conviction while he remained in custody.
Bivins was convicted last September by a Multnomah County jury of nearly a dozen counts of arson, criminal mischief and bias crime. He was sentenced to about five years in prison, with the possibility of parole after about eight months.
The assault on the cafeteria worker came while Bivins was still in prison, and it was not his first assault while behind bars, prosecutor Charlie Weiss said in court. Bivins had previously assaulted a transgender inmate, Weiss claimed.
“It appears that Mr. Bivins has clearly continued to espouse radical ideas,” Weiss said. “Those include antisemitic, racist, anti-Muslim and anti-transgender ideas. These are not just ideas because Mr. Bivins has committed several assaults now while in custody.”
Weis added that Bivins “has indicated … it is his plan to get revenge” once released, though he didn’t specify on whom.
In 2022, Bivins attempted to set fire to the Muslim Community Center of Portland using an accelerant, broke windows at two Portland synagogues, spray-painted “Die Juden” on one of them and shattered a window at Everybody Eats PDX, a now-closed Black-owned restaurant.
Bivins confessed to a television reporter and was arrested days later.
Judge Dahlin said the short sentence he received for the 2022 hate crimes was in large part due to the victims hoping Bivins would learn from his conviction and so “things like this wouldn’t happen in the future.”
But after watching prison surveillance footage of Bivins attacking the cafeteria worker, “It seems to be an unprovoked sucker punch and a tackle,” Dahlin said. “That’s not consistent with doing well in prison and turning things around.”
Bivins also faces a felony charge of assaulting a public-safety officer in Marion County and could receive additional prison time in that case.
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