Portland #1 in death with 83% murder rise
https://oregoncatalyst.com/57173-portland-1-death.html
By Michael Bratland
Remember when Portland politicians and media cheerleaders used to boast about the Rose City’s “livability”?
Yeah, back in those days before the city’s exploding homeless crisis and the 2020 George Floyd/Antifa riots with the nightly craziness of the “protestors” and cravenness of police-defunding Portland officials. Portland, the self-proclaimed “City that Works” was leading the way for other big cities. Good times, right? Well, Portland’s still leading the way today, but this time it’s not in “livability.” It’s in what you might call “killability.”
That’s right, thanks in part to the anti-cop, defunding-the-police policies of Portland officials from Mayor Ted Wheeler (craven) to City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty (crazy) to Multnomah County District Attorney Schmidt (woke George Soros tool), Portland homicides skyrocketed since 2020. The Rose City killing increased at a higher rate than all other American cities. This is no small thing when you consider that 13 of the nation’s big cities (Rochester, Philadelphia, Columbus, Ohio, Baton Rouge, Austin, Albuquerque, Tucson, Louisville and St. Paul) shattered their homicide records last year. (It’s worth noting that, according to Forbes, at least 13 cities defunded their police by mid-August 2020. A coincidence? I don’t think so.) Homicides shot up 17 percent on average in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco. Portland witnessed an 83 percent rise in homicides in 2020.
And, in 2021, Portland racked up 90 homicides. That’s 24 more homicides than the city’s 1987 record. That’s more homicides than San Francisco and twice as many homicides as Seattle. This all comes, of course, after Wheeler and company cut the police budget by $27 million in June 2020. A full $15 million of the cuts came in response to the George Floyd riots; another $12 million came in pandemic-related budget reductions. Gone were school-resource officers, transit police and the gun-violence reduction team. Some 200 Portland cops have retired since August 2020. Low morale, lack of support from city officials and burnout from the nightly riot deployments – they were pretty clear about why they were leaving in their exit interviews. The result: The department is 128 officers below its authorized strength. A record shortage to match its record homicides. A coincidence? Again, I don’t think so.