Shop Owner Calls Out the Haters

A shop owner in Lake Oswego, Ore. garnered international attention when he placed a pro-Trump message in his shop window blasting liberals after a young man was kidnapped and tortured by four blacks simply because he supports Donald Trump. Read the story and listen to AFP’s audio interview with Kevin Kerwin exclusively here at AFP.

By Dave Gahary

Kevin Kerwin, the 58-year-old white, conservative owner of Kevin the Geek Computer Repair Store in Lake Oswego, Ore. (population 36,619), an affluent suburb of Portland, had enough of liberals, so he put up a sign. He couldn’t have known it, but it was destined to become the sign read all around the world.

Lake Oswego’s racial makeup is around 90% white, 6% Asian, 4% Hispanic, and 0.7% black. “Portland and the surrounding areas, it’s the whitest city in the country,” said Kerwin. It’s also one of the most liberal states in the nation.

This latest presidential primary in Oregon, which took place on May 17, 2016, saw Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) win the Democratic primary with almost 60% of the vote. In the general election, though, Hillary Clinton grabbed all seven electoral votes in the state, amassing over 1 million votes compared to Donald Trump’s 782,000.

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“I’m in the middle of ‘liberal land,’ ” explained Kerwin, “and they keep getting in my face, and I like putting it back in their face.”

On Jan. 19, AMERICAN FREE PRESS sat down with Kerwin, a Florida native who came to the Beaver State after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. He’s been putting up signs in his window since Barack Hussein Obama gave a speech in 2012.

“I started when [Obama] gave the ‘You didn’t build that’ speech for business owners,” Kerwin explained.

“I’ve been doing it ever since.” Obama’s July 13, 2012 remarks were delivered at a campaign rally in Roanoke, Va., where he was railing against his opponent’s tax proposals.

In the speech, which raised the hackles of millions of hard-working Americans, Obama said, “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

AFP asked Kerwin what motivated him to put up his latest seven-foot-by-18-inch sign. “It took about three seconds into the video once I realized what was going on that I had had my last straw with these people, these liberals,” he began. “The hate they had for Donald Trump was taught to them by the liberal media, by Black Lives Matter [BLM], by Al Sharpton, and all the racists—including our president—pushing the agenda that white people are nothing but white supremacists and racists. And after going through 15 months of supporting Donald Trump, and all the violence the liberals showed, when I saw that disabled kid kidnapped, I said, ‘I’m gonna put a sign that’s gonna punch these people in the face.’ And I might lose my business, but I was so mad. I’m emotional right now just thinking about it.”

The attack video Kerwin was referring to was made on Jan. 3, in which four black 18- and 24-year-olds—two men and two women—tortured an 18-year-old white man with special needs. The disturbing 30-minute video shows him tied up with his mouth covered and cowering in the corner of a room. The attackers laugh and yell “f*%# Donald Trump” and “f*%# white people,” as they assault him, including cutting into his scalp with a knife. The broadcast on Facebook Live of the beating and racial taunting led to the arrest of all four.

Kerwin’s sign, reproduced in full below, went viral, after Todd Starnes, the host of “Fox News & Commentary”—heard on hundreds of radio stations nationwide—contacted Kerwin via Twitter to interview him.

The sign reads: “To all Ignorant Liberals including Bruce Springsteen . . . the [four] people who kidnapped [and] tortured a disabled teenager just because he supports Donald Trump . . . just shows everyone you are a party of complete morons. I’m embarrassed to call you Americans. Go straight to hell where you belong. We’ve had it with you idiots.”

“The interview was on Friday evening,” Kevin explained, “and on Saturday I got a phone call and this guy says, ‘I’m in South America and I totally support your sign.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘You’re on the front page of FoxNews.com.’ ”

“When the big story broke, I was getting calls and threats like crazy,” he said. “Two o’clock, three o’clock, four o’clock, six o’clock in the morning, all day long, all night long.”

He was forced to place a restricted call block on his phone. “Never had to do that before,” he said.

AFP asked what kind of threats he was getting. “Oh, come down here and thrash me, come down here and punch me in the face, we’re gonna destroy your business, we’re gonna tie up your phones,” he explained.

He also had supporters. “I got calls from all over the world, saying ‘Right on. You said exactly how I feel,’ ” he said.

AFP asked about the race of the callers. “It’s mostly white,” Kevin said. “I think I got a black woman from Georgia one time.” He’s also received thousands of emails and about 20 letters by U.S. mail from all over the country, four negative.

AFP asked if his lease is in danger. “The landlord came in here and told me people are calling and saying they want me thrown out of the building,” he answered.

It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Kevin has since taken the sign down and replaced it with another.

“Well, I really pissed them off this time,” he said. “I put up ‘Oregon Welcomes President Donald J. Trump January 20, 2017’ in big letters. That’s like taking sandpaper and going over their sore and just rubbing it in.”

Kevin had a message for the readers of this newspaper who may not speak up when confronted by those with a Marxist mentality: “Silence is consent, and I don’t believe in tyranny, and I’m not gonna be a slave to it.”

Dave Gahary is a writer for AFP and lives in Florida.