Legal Group Joining Anti-Tesla Movement Has Violent, Far-Left History
A legal organization with ties to the far-left Antifa movement has joined forces with anti-Tesla activists angry about CEO Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration. The Oregon-based Civil Liberties Defense Center…
A legal organization with ties to the far-left Antifa movement has joined forces with anti-Tesla activists angry about CEO Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration.
The Oregon-based Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC) has been giving virtual training to groups leading anti-Tesla protests. The CLDC is known to help alleged Antifa agitators fight charges in court, adheres to their anti-police ideology and lost one of its volunteer workers in a shootout with law enforcement in 2019.
“It’s time to be strategic and effective, but it’s not time to be afraid or silenced,” CLDC Executive Director Lauren Regan told a virtual audience in a March 19 “Tesla Takedown” video call. She warned that protesters should be aware of their “geography” to avoid getting arrested.
“There are going to be some areas of the country that are very conservative and are going to be hard on dissidents or activists no matter what the timing, and then there are other places that are going to be less so,” Regan said.
The CLDC did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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The CDLC came under scrutiny in 2019 after its volunteer worker Charlie Landeros was fatally shot by police at his daughter’s middle school.
Landeros had come to the school in a fit of rage over custody decisions related to his daughter and ex-wife and began firing a handgun at an officer who confronted him before another officer killed him, according to a district attorney’s investigation that found no wrongdoing by police. The district attorney also revealed the FBI had received a tip about Landeros allegedly “posting violent anti-government messages on social media” such as, “time to start killing pigs,” referring to police officers.
The CLDC earned criticism from pro-police advocates for claiming Landeros’s death was not investigated thoroughly. The group casted suspicion by emphasizing that “people of color are disproportionately the victims of police violence.”
Among other past clients, the CLDC defended Antifa supporter Alissa Azar after Oregon prosecutors accused her of inciting a protest that devolved into a brawl between leftists and right-wing Proud Boys in 2021. The CLDC lost the case when a jury convicted Azar of felony riot and second-degree disorderly conduct, while deadlocking on a charge of illegal use of mace.
The CLDC later complained about Azar’s “dystopian” sentencing to 14 days in prison, saying she was just a “journalist” who was “truthfully reporting on the growing rise of fascist political violence and hate.”
Regan previously told a local newspaper she got her start in criminal defense work on behalf of environmental protesters who were arrested in 1997 for climbing on trees to stop them from getting cut down. She founded the CLDC under the pretense of keeping government authority in check after 9/11, according to the group’s “about” page.
An Antifa-linked “Stop Cop City” movement behind arson and attacks on police in Georgia in 2023 also drew the sympathy of the CLDC. The group declared in 2024 that “Cop City resisters” had been “labeled as ‘terrorists,’ even though none of them engaged in acts that fall within the federal definition.”
Through virtual video talks, the CLDC recently helped anti-Musk activists prepare for a “Global Day of Action” on March 29 that resulted in protests at Tesla facilities across the country and a few reports of assaults and violent threats from Tesla haters. Online organizers of the event with the “Tesla Takedown” movement said they “oppose violence, vandalism and destruction of property.”
“Tesla Takedown” does not appear to be a formal organization. The DCNF used the website’s contact form and did not receive a response.
The CLDC also reportedly gave a “know your rights training for activists” on March 21 in Eugene, Oregon with Indivisible, a left-wing group that participated in the March “Day of Action.” Indivisible did not respond to a request for comment.
An online warning from CLDC on March 26 gave anti-Musk and anti-Trump protesters instructions on how to deal with getting arrested or questioned by authorities.
“Our communities often cannot rely on or trust police, so we need to think, plan, and practice how we can help each other be safer,” the CLDC declared.
“Political movement participants do not cooperate or snitch to the State – which is often your political adversary,” the group said.
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