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This story makes me tired: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/us/portland-protests-mayor-ted-wheeler.html
The abuses by the Portland Police Department are so pervasive and systemic that simply describing them sounds like editorializing.
The Portland Police is a systemically racist institution. https://www.opb.org/article/2021/02/07/portland-has-5th-worst-arrest-disparities-in-the-nation-according-to-data/
The Portland Police are under DOJ supervision for a pattern and practice of abusing and killing mentally ill people. The DOJ came to town nearly a decade ago and things are only getting worse: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/04/07/portland-police-bureau-force-us-department-justice/
Just last week a Portland Police officer with an AR-15 shot and killed an unarmed homeless man in mental distress. The officer had taken cover behind a the trunk of a giant tree and shot the victim from about 90 feet away. https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2021/04/bystander-captures-video-footage-of-fatal-police-shooting-in-se-portland.html
Portland Police routinely brutalize those who protest their tactics and culture: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/03/26/portland-police-use-of-force-department-of-justice/
Just last month the police were sanctioned by a federal judge for its indiscriminate use of less-than-lethal weapons against protesters. https://www.courthousenews.com/federal-judge-sanctions-portland-for-violent-policing/
The buck stops with Ted Wheeler, the mayor who is also the police commissioner. Instead of effectively disciplining lawless officers, or upending the culture, he's basically treated the police as an independent, unaccountable branch of city government.
Despite the pattern and practice of unconstitutional abuses, he's let officers policing protest cover their name badges with only a secret numbering system to identify officers.
These police have a pattern and practice of collaborating with Proud Boys and alt-right militia groups.
Now he's calling on vigilantes to dox those who protest the police in a campaign to "hurt them a little bit.”
Now he's calling on vigilantes to dox those who protest the police in a campaign to "hurt them a little bit.”
There's a lot more going on here than what's shorthanded in the Times story as: "The Police Bureau exacerbated tensions, using force and tear gas in ways that have drawn the ire of judges and the Justice Department."
I want you to take a rough look at the column inches dedicated to broken windows and other property damage in this piece...
To the column inches describing the the latest police killing:
The federal government places the value of a statistical life at $7.4 million. Have we reached the point that we need to put price tags on people's heads to properly weigh the costs inflicted by police violence?
Or what about the costs of city settlements with the families of police victims?
In March the city settled for more than $2 million with the family of Quanice Hayes, a black teen PPB also shot with an AR-15: https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2021/03/portland-city-council-apologizes-to-family-of-quanice-hayes-approves-21-million-settlement-in-his-fatal-shooting-by-police.html
In March the city settled for more than $2 million with the family of Quanice Hayes, a black teen PPB also shot with an AR-15: https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2021/03/portland-city-council-apologizes-to-family-of-quanice-hayes-approves-21-million-settlement-in-his-fatal-shooting-by-police.html
I should add that I like and respect Mike Baker and have publicly and privately complimented his work. But damn this story made me tired.
If you're interested in deeper background on the culture of PPB and its legacy of overt racism: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/portand-oregon-police-brutality-history-1027677/
Sidebar: The roots of systemic racism run deep through this state's criminal justice system: https://twitter.com/stillinprison/status/1387146951154491392
