Prosecutors in Portland, Oregon, charged a right-wing gunman with murder on Tuesday, three days after he opened fire on a group of unarmed women who were directing traffic along the route of a protest march against police violence.

The gunman, Benjamin Smith, 43, killed a 60-year-old woman and wounded three other women, as well as a male protest medic who responded to their calls for help, before a volunteer security guard for the protest ended the rampage by shooting the attacker in the hip.

When Portland police officers arrived at the scene of the rampage, however, they were skeptical of the testimony from the victims and other witnesses that the attack had been unprovoked, and they arrested the volunteer security guard after he reportedly described his role and surrendered his semi-automatic pistol.

The next day the Portland Police Bureau outraged survivors of the attack and their allies in the racial justice community by issuing a press release that wrongly stated that the incident had “started with a confrontation between an armed homeowner and armed protesters.” The police also claimed that a lack of cooperation from protesters who witnessed or recorded the shootings meant that “investigators are trying to put this puzzle together without having all the pieces.”

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