I'm still looking for some high-quality investigative journalism about who is responsible for the violence and disorder accompanying the protests.

On June 22, I wrote,"Why isn't there more reporting in the NYT about who's responsible for the violence and disorder accompanying the protests?" And then 2 days ago, I wrote, "I want to know who is doing the violence! Is it Antifa? Where is the investigative journalism? Are there peaceful protesters who deserve recognition for their dedication to nonviolence, whose cause is undermined by a separate set of people?"

A reader sent me a link to "What You Need To Know About The Battle of Portland" by Robert Evans (at Bellingcat)(July 20, 2020). Let's see if it's what I'm looking for:

I have been in the streets of Portland documenting this movement since the very first riot. Before the national press unleashes a flood of new stories based on their first few hours in town, I’d like to explain what’s been happening: State and Federal law enforcement are at war with the people of Portland....

[On] May 29th, Portland’s first night of large scale protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death... [a]t 10:35 p.m. local time, the crowd at the Justice Center marched off into the streets of downtown Portland and, several minutes later, met up with the crowd from Peninsula Park. Together, both groups marched back to the Justice Center and surrounded it.

At a little before 11 p.m., several dozen protesters began to shatter the windows of the Justice Center. They entered the building, trashing the interior and lighting random fires inside. I watched all this happen from feet away, and it is my opinion that the destruction was unplanned, yet more or less inevitable — you could feel it in the mood of the crowd.

Evans is a first-person observer, but he's not interviewing participants and asking them why they are doing what he's seeing them doing. He is only saying what it felt like to him. We're told the crowd had a "mood" and he purports to be able to read that mood and offers the opinion that what happened was "unplanned" and "more or less inevitable." The next sentence is simply an assertion about the basis for his belief that it was inevitable:

The 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis had just burned: there was absolutely no way Portland wasn’t going to try to do the same thing.

Using strong language like "absolutely no way" doesn't make this report more believable. It simply underscores that Evans is saying that the crowd has a mind and he can read it. Where are the human individuals?! Did he talk to anyone? Were they all absorbed into an irrational pyromaniacal mob?

Of course, the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) arrived very shortly thereafter. In one of the more gentlemanly moments of the entire uprising, they gave a warning to people who’d brought their families and dogs, urging them to leave. A sizable chunk of more moderate demonstrators went home.

So some portion of the crowd had kept their individual mind and disaggregated themselves from the mob. The reporter on the scene observes chunks of people and, because they followed the advice from the police, labels them "moderate." Did he interview everyone? Did they leave out of fear of the police or because they disapproved of the destructiveness they'd witnessed?

I don't want to copy the entire article, so please go to the link to see the details provided about how the police and the crowd behaved. Evans ends with:

The evening ended with small groups of protesters running through the streets, pursued by officers hanging off the sides of riot trucks and shooting wildly at everyone they saw. It kind of sucked — I have no other words to describe it....

This seems to be how it looked and felt to Evans. I find it hard to believe the police would be "shooting wildly at everyone they saw." The police tactics are a matter of serious concern, but separate from my original question about the source of the violence and disorder from the crowd.

The protest on June 1st was distinctly different from anything that had come before. A new group of inexperienced activists took the wheel, and they placed great emphasis on talking with the police and avoiding any confrontation...

A new group of inexperienced activists — who were they? Names? Interviews? Background? How do you know they were inexperienced?

This would prove to be the beginning of a split within Oregon’s protest movement. On one end were more moderate liberal marchers, who sought to avoid conflict with the police while engaging in “peaceful protest.” On the other end were more radical demonstrators, who found the rally on June 1st to be pointless. After this night, the two parts of the movement grew further and further apart.

All right. There were 2 groups, we're told, and they had very different ideas, we're told. But how does he know this? Who are they? What were their backgrounds? These are completely conclusory assertions.

The more moderate demonstrators coalesced around a new organization called Rose City Justice, which continued to lead mass demonstrations for the next couple of weeks....

Again, we're hearing about a chunk of people, the moderates. They coalesced. How does he know? Who are these people?

Meanwhile, the more extreme members of the movement gravitated towards a series of nightly protests around the fence walling the Justice Center and Courthouse off from the rest of the city. Thanks to a joke I made during a livestream, they began calling it the “Sacred Fence.” It has a Twitter account now....

So the extremists also have a name, and this reporter is the source of the name. Again, it's a group of people described only in group form, moving en masse. Are there any leaders? Are they too inexperienced activists, or do they come from somewhere? Are they local people?

Go to the link to see what the extremist group did and how the police reacted.

Several times a week, new rallies at places like the North Precinct or the Portland Police Association headquarters would occur. These were often heavily promoted by the anti-fascist group Youth Liberation Front, who are probably the strongest consistent voice for Portland’s radical protest scene....

Probably? Who are the other strong voices? Who are the less consistent voices? How many groups are there? Everyone but the Youth Liberation Front is lumped together as the "radical protest scene." Not one individual is interviewed or even described.

I'm skipping a lot of material about the interaction between journalists and the police. It's not that I think this is unimportant, but it doesn't address my question about who is responsible for the violence coming from the protesters. I keep hearing from conservatives that Antifa is behind the riots and saying I don't know that. But why don't I know that?

This article doesn't use the term "Antifa," but it does name the Youth Liberation Front and call it "anti-fascist." The article also refers generically to the "radical protest scene" and gives us the names "Sacred Fence" and "Rose City Justice" for the radicals and the moderates. Are the moderates "peaceful protesters who deserve recognition for their dedication to nonviolence" as I put it in my question, or are they just less violent people who are working to stay out of trouble with the police but supportive of the work of the radicals? Are the moderates more likely to be female? More likely to be black? Are they less likely to be part of a larger left-wing movement (which may or may not be called "Antifa")? I don't know!

So — my questions remain. I'm still looking for high-quality investigative journalism. I wouldn't put this article in that category, because it's on-the-scene eyewitness reporting and not deep research into the background beyond what was visible on the street.