An ex-journalist is unfit to face hate crime charges in a string of attacks on two synagogues, a Black-owned business and a Muslim community center and must undergo treatment at the state psychiatric hospital, a judge has ruled.
Multnomah County Circuit Judge Nan Waller ruled Michael E. Bivins is unable to assist in his own defense.
Bivins, 35, remains in custody at the Inverness Jail in North Portland, records show, but a hearing is set next week regarding transporting him to the Oregon State Hospital in Salem.
He faces 11 counts, including first-degree arson, criminal mischief and second-degree bias crime, the legal term for a hate crime.
Wait times for admission to the Salem hospital are notoriously gridlocked and criminal defendants often wait weeks to begin treatment. Under a recent court order, Bivins can be held at the hospital for a maximum of six months.
The freelance journalist cut his teeth filming street brawls in downtown Portland in 2016 and later wrote for Willamette Week.
But Bivins made the news in a different way last year after prosecutors said he was caught on surveillance footage in May 2022 setting fire to the Muslim Community Center in North Portland. Videos also showed Bivins smashing windows at the Congregation Shir Tikvah in Northeast Portland, according to a probable cause affidavit. He later told a television news reporter that he smashed a window and scrawled anti-semitic graffiti at Beth Israel in Northest Portland.
Bivins is also linked to a smashed window at Everybody Eats PDX, a Black-owned soul food restaurant that has since closed, the affidavit says.
Since his arrest, Bivins has hand-written more than a dozen rambling letters to Presiding Judge Judith Matarazzo, claiming at times that his attorney was trying to kill him and complaining about the lack of Bibles inside the courthouse.
“I no longer recognize the authority of the federal government, so I’m not sure how things are going to work,” Bivins wrote in a letter to the judge in February.
Bivins also is charged in federal court with three counts of damaging religious property and one count of interfering with a federally protected activity. He has not been found mentally unsound in that case but has no pending court dates.
— Zane Sparling; [email protected]; 503-319-7083; @pdxzane
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