Protest performer Rob Potylo, a musician and onetime regular on the Cambridge comedy scene as the character Robby Roadsteamer, was detained briefly by federal agents Tuesday in Portland, Oregon.
Videos show Potylo in his usual tailed giraffe costume outside a gated Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
A post to his Instagram account noted the detainment came “after singing Rod Stewart with the Portland Frog” and asked supporters to help with his defense fund. Potylo was released less than an hour later. Someone on the scene said he headed for the airport to return home to Massachusetts.
“He was singing with the Portland Frog when Ice started shooting pepper balls at him, then detained Robby,” according to a crowdfunding page set up for his legal defense. There have been 4,300 donations as of late Saturday for $117,810, bringing the fund 85 percent of its way to a goal of $140,000.
The arrest, and details such as Potylo being shot in the chest with pepper balls, has been reported by sites such as Yahoo! News and Rolling Stone, quoting people on the scene.
“Robby is being brought up on trespassing charges and asked to appear in court in Portland even though Ice dragged him onto their property,” according to the crowdfunding page. A Roadsteamer YouTube video with 91,000 views confirms that three men clad in military gear come out of the facility and drag Potylo in, over a painted blue banner on the ground identifying where the Ice property begins.
Potylo has brought his talents to the front lines of demonstrations for more than a decade, palling around with perennial presidential candidate Vermin Supreme and others who bring laughter to tense and even violent situations. In 2012, a video of Potylo serenading a female police officer at Occupy Wall Street went viral.
During a move to Los Angeles in the 2010s, he appeared on “The Gong Show” and made an appearance on “Ellen” but was most famous as the companion of the wrestler Chyna before her death in 2016. As a protector and promoter of her legacy, he was an associate producer on a 2021 documentary about Chyna.
In the years since, Potylo remained active at protests, and also at one point revived the Robby Roadsteamer character he became known for years earlier, a hyperbolic masshole high on coke and Dropkick Murphys music. Since Donald Trump’s most recent campaign and election, Potylo has ramped up his protesting along with his exposure.
With several hundred thousand followers across multiple social media platforms, last year he crashed a number of ornery rightwing events big and small, from Turning Point USA gatherings to congregations on bridge crossings in Massachusetts.
A version of this story appeared originally on HorizonMass.
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