Portland, Ore., Can’t Find Police for Unit to Fight Rising Murder Rate

[teamgreen02]

The liberal idiocy in these big cities is blowing up on them.  I wonder if they will ever learn?

Quote

 

Leaders in Portland, Ore., are looking to combat the city’s rising homicide rate by resurrecting a police unit focused on gun violence. But after a year of growing tension within the department, they can’t find enough officers to join.

Since 14 job openings were announced in May, only four police personnel have applied to work with the new version of Portland’s Gun Violence Reduction Team, which was shut down last year amid long-running protests seeking racial justice and an overhaul of police practices. None have yet been assigned.

Portland officers say such positions, once considered prestigious, are now less desirable, given the increased scrutiny that accompanies them. The new unit has its own citizen-advisory board, instituted after the old unit was criticized by city leaders for racial profiling. A job description says qualifications include the ability to fight systemic racism.

“They’re demonizing and vilifying you, and then they want to put you in a unit where you’re under an even bigger microscope,” said Daryl Turner, head of the union that represents Portland’s officers.

Portland police have coped with frequent late-night street violence in the past year, as well as criticism from politicians and activists on the right and left.

Jami Resch, assistant chief of the Portland Police Bureau’s investigations branch, acknowledged that morale is down in the department. She said criticism of the old unit and uncertainty surrounding the new one and its relationship with the oversight committee have slowed applications. Once those roles are clarified, there will be more interest, she predicted.

Homicide rates rose 24% in a sample of 32 American cities in the first quarter of 2021, compared with the same period last year, according to a recent study by the Council on Criminal Justice, a think tank focusing on criminal-justice policy and research. The rates are far below peaks from the 1990s.

Jami Resch, assistant chief of the Portland Police Bureau’s investigations branch, predicted the gun-violence unit would attract more interest once roles are clarified.

But with 53 homicides so far this year, Portland is on pace to surpass its all-time high of 70 in 1987, according to Portland police officials. The trend is reversing Portland’s decades long history of having one of the lowest homicide rates among large cities.

Retirements and resignations are rising at departments across the country. There was an 18% increase in resignations and a 45% increase in retirements from April 2020 through March 2021, when compared with the same period a year earlier, according to a June survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

In addition, officers around the country have become more reluctant to take on tasks that could lead to controversy or criticism following last year’s Black Lives Matter protests over police treatment, according to police officials.

Some politicians and police officials say that has contributed to the nationwide rise in homicides. Prior research showed that following nationwide protests, a police pullback measured by a decline in arrest rates played a role in a rise in murder rates in 2015, in a few cities including Baltimore and Chicago. But it wasn’t a factor in most major cities, said Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, who co-wrote a study on the topic.

Researchers say other possible reasons for the current surge in homicides include stress from the Covid-19 pandemic, the temporary shutdown of courts and anti-violence nonprofits, and frayed relations between law enforcement and Black communities after high-profile police killings, such as that of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Following calls to defund the police, the Portland City Council last summer voted to cut $15 million from the police department, including the 38-person gun-violence team, which they criticized for racial profiling. In 2019, 52% of the team’s stops were of Black people, who make up 5.8% of the city’s population.

After the team was disbanded, homicides rose. This spring, Portland police officials proposed creating a new team.

In March, Mayor Ted Wheeler announced the new police unit, called the Focused Initiative Team, and said it would focus on lowering tensions with residents, along with combating gun violence. The Democrat said an 11-member board made up of community members would oversee it.

An internal posting described jobs on the Focused Initiative Team as focusing on the Portlanders most likely to be involved in gun violence, like the old unit. But it included a new list of required qualifications, including the “ability to identify and dismantle institutional and systemic racism in the bureau’s responses to gun violence.”

“Martin Luther King couldn’t dismantle systematic racism. Now you want a cop to do it?” a veteran Portland officer said of the new unit. “Nobody wants to be part of something that’s set up for failure.”

Mr. Wheeler’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

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Ms. Resch said the gun-violence team’s work in the past benefited minority communities, as shootings have disproportionately affected the 23% of Portland’s population that is nonwhite.

This year’s victims include Makayla Maree Harris, an 18-year-old who had just graduated high school. She was out with friends in downtown Portland on a Friday night last month when she was killed in a barrage of gunfire that also wounded six others. No arrests have been made.

Lionel Irving, a Portland nonprofit leader who is on the oversight committee for the new unit, said he is hopeful that it will focus more on taking down leaders of violent groups and less on the “stop-and-frisk” approach of the old unit.

Mr. Irving said he has seen during the past year how police presence waned in Portland neighborhoods as officers pulled back or were redeployed to patrol protests that started last summer and continued into this year.

“It created a sense of lawlessness,” said Mr. Irving, whose nonprofit Love Is Stronger tries to reduce violence and recidivism.

The veteran Portland officer said his colleagues “are incredibly hesitant to do anything proactive because either they have a complaint filed against them or every stop is a fight.”

Ms. Resch said that she doesn’t believe there was a police pullback. But she said that there was a dip in self-initiated activity such as investigative stops by officers because they were working protests and because there were fewer people on the street during the pandemic.

 

 

[CFM]

Repubs - thank our police !

dems - we hate the repubs so much we do what ever it takes to show our hate…..,.Defund the police ! Treat them like scum !

Fucking  idiots.

[irv]

3 minutes ago, CFM said:

Repubs - thank our police !

dems - we hate the repubs so much we do what ever it takes to show our hate…..,.Defund the police ! Treat them like scum !

Fucking  idiots.

Imagine being so stupid that you'd actually think defunding the Police was a good idea and that crime rates wouldn't soar? Then imagine for a moment that those that endorsed this idea and followed through with it are those same people running your country. 

[CFM]

Drugs impair the brain. Lots and lots of drugs in Portland. Think about that snd think about other troubled areas.

[800renegaderider]

20 minutes ago, irv said:

Imagine being so stupid that you'd actually think defunding the Police was a good idea and that crime rates wouldn't soar? Then imagine for a moment that those that endorsed this idea and followed through with it are those same people running your country. 

Also imagine we’ll sorta reality these people that voted for this nonsense are moving to rural areas to remote work now. How long before they ruin small towns

[akvanden]

"You made your bed, now sleep in it" seems fitting. Same with what's going on in Minneapolis. 

[Mag6240]

3 minutes ago, akvanden said:

"You made your bed, now sleep in it" seems fitting. Same with what's going on in Minneapolis. 

The only problem with that is the people that made the bed for those who bought into the defund idea, are the City council leaders, and they PAY with TAX PAYER FUNDS for private security.  So the ones pushing the defund, the bed makers, really don't experience any of it.  

[akvanden]

6 minutes ago, Mag6240 said:

The only problem with that is the people that made the bed for those who bought into the defund idea, are the City council leaders, and they PAY with TAX PAYER FUNDS for private security.  So the ones pushing the defund, the bed makers, really don't experience any of it.  

True, but hopefully voters see the outcome of this little experiment and realize everything isn't unicorns and rainbows in life and you need law and order. And maybe, just maybe, people think a bit more during the next election cycle.

[Zambroski]

Let them run these shit holes down to ashes for all I care.

cop from the article nails it: [Cops] are incredibly hesitant to do anything proactive because either they have a complaint filed against them or every stop is a fight.”

[Zambroski]

2 minutes ago, akvanden said:

True, but hopefully voters see the outcome of this little experiment and realize everything isn't unicorns and rainbows in life and you need law and order. And maybe, just maybe, people think a bit more during the next election cycle.

Obama was re elected.  We were given a choice between Trump and Hillary. I’m not optimistic about voters “seeing” anything anymore.

[Mag6240]

Just now, akvanden said:

True, but hopefully voters see the outcome of this little experiment and realize everything isn't unicorns and rainbows in life and you need law and order. And maybe, just maybe, people think a bit more during the next election cycle.

Its all about who has a D next to their name, and then who is the farthest from center.... nothing more, nothing less.  Just look at who is running against Small Frye, that person has already called out Small Frye for supporting police!  That is her platform.....

[akvanden]

2 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

Obama was re elected.  We were given a choice between Trump and Hillary. I’m not optimistic about voters “seeing” anything anymore.

Then I default back to my original statement "You made your bed, now sleep in it" 

 

[Zambroski]

1 minute ago, akvanden said:

Then I default back to my original statement "You made your bed, now sleep in it" 

 

Yep…or die in it.  Either/or.  

[Skidooski]

Fuck em  

[Anler]

They need more murder!

[racinfarmer]

9 hours ago, 800renegaderider said:

Also imagine we’ll sorta reality these people that voted for this nonsense are moving to rural areas to remote work now. How long before they ruin small towns

Thats my new neighbors, except I'm convinced they don't have any meaningful jobs.

Edited August 2, 2021 by racinfarmer

[Zambroski]

2 minutes ago, racinfarmer said:

That my new neighbors, except I'm convinced they don't have any meaningful jobs.

That’s me next to you!   Now, sell me your sled!!!!!!!!!

[racinfarmer]

2 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

That’s me next to you!   Now, sell me your sled!!!!!!!!!

I feel like you are super extra normal compared to this group of social rejects.

[Zambroski]

Just now, racinfarmer said:

I feel like you are super extra normal compared to this group of social rejects.

Eeesh.

[ActionfigureJoe]

9 hours ago, CFM said:

Drugs impair the brain. Lots and lots of drugs in Portland. Think about that snd think about other troubled areas.

The new fentanyl analogues and strong supply of meth is a game changer. Tripling the supply of cops wouldn’t do shit. There’s so much inertia with addiction in America that it’s unstoppable. I’m glad that I’m out of the treatment scene. It’s a fucking mess.   

[800renegaderider]

11 minutes ago, racinfarmer said:

Thats my new neighbors, except I'm convinced they don't have any meaningful jobs.

Time to make them regret that decision lol….target shooting in the backyard, driveway burnouts, late night fireworks usually do the trick 😂 

[racinfarmer]

3 minutes ago, 800renegaderider said:

Time to make them regret that decision lol….target shooting in the backyard, driveway burnouts, late night fireworks usually do the trick 😂 

Neighbor is relative term in this instance.  Country neighbor, 3 miles away by road.  Only a mile from the farm though.

They are a strange fucking group.

[Zambroski]

11 minutes ago, ActionfigureJoe said:

The new fentanyl analogues and strong supply of meth is a game changer. Tripling the supply of cops wouldn’t do shit. There’s so much inertia with addiction in America that it’s unstoppable. I’m glad that I’m out of the treatment scene. It’s a fucking mess.   

Death is the best cure at this point.  Citizen killings should be authorized.  Nobody from Chicago though.  Non shooting fucking breeders out there winging each other in and out of the emergency room.

[ActionfigureJoe]

2 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

Death is the best cure at this point.  Citizen killings should be authorized.  Nobody from Chicago though.  Non shooting fucking breeders out there winging each other in and out of the emergency room.

One more post like that and it’s the big C. 

[Zambroski]

1 minute ago, ActionfigureJoe said:

One more post like that and it’s the big C. 

Your code letter don’t scare me.