Portland Police Just Issued Another Urgent Message

Police officials in Portland, Oregon, have an urgent warning for their residents. “You’re on your own.” The city has been handed over to Black Lives Matter. The police would love to help but there just aren’t enough of them to go around.

Portland afraid to anger Antifa

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell held a press conference on Tuesday to explain why Antifa and “back the blue” conservatives were allowed to battle it out in the streets for over two hours on Saturday with fireworks and paintballs. He’s afraid arresting people would make things worse. Worse than the anarchy, arson, and murder they have in their streets already?

According to Chief Lovell, “When you interject yourself as the police into this volatile mix, sometimes it has a worse intention or worse outcome than what was happening initially.” His deputy chief, Chris Davis, agrees. “Sometimes the more prudent course is to not get involved. You run the risk of making a bad situation remarkably worse.” Things in Portland could not possibly get much worse, it’s already the definition of anarchy there, a total lack of law and order.

While the Proud Boys  fought it out with Black Lives Matter, with forces numbered in the hundreds on both sides, Portland police stood back and watched. Deputy Chief Davis whines that they only had 30 cops to cover the whole riot because the rest of the police were still in bed after “a peaceful protest turned into a riot outside of a police precinct, which required a heavy police presence” the night before. In the incident he was referring to, “A violent crowd confronted officers at North Precinct the evening of August 23rd, into the following morning. Officers were targeted with ceramic debris, rocks, heavy metal bolts, fires, and more. When the crowd cleared, they left behind a field of debris.”

Aftermath: A violent crowd confronted officers at North Precinct the evening of August 23rd, into the following morning. Officers were targeted with ceramic debris, rocks, heavy metal bolts, fires, and more. When the crowd cleared, they left behind a field of debris. pic.twitter.com/iPHFwBgXFr

— Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) August 24, 2020

No response to 911 calls

Portland Police admit they can’t even help the ordinary citizens who depend on them. “There’s an expectation that we’ll do what we can to keep people safe, but we can’t be everywhere and intervene in every situation. We have to make some determination with what is safe to do.” That means for “the past few months, the protests and riots have impacted their ability to respond to some high priority calls.”

One twitter user posts, “I bet the good people of Portland who aren’t getting responses to their 911 calls wouldn’t mind some Fed help Mayor.” That tweet went out the night the riot was declared outside the North Precinct. Then, there’s the video one Sergent made.

Portland Sergent Joshua Silverman was one of only four patrol vehicles patrolling and taking “priority calls” in North Precinct. “We’re only going to calls where people are actively being hurt or there’s an active disturbance where people are physically in danger. Short of that, we’re not going to the call.” Along with the riots, “we have six to seven street racers doing donuts in a business parking lot. We have someone who was a victim of a hit and run and because they have dyslexia, they’re unable to fill out the online report, so they need an officer to come in person to take that.” Not happening.

https://twitter.com/TopFighterPilot/status/1297980006023364608

As many as 80 calls on hold

If you live in Portland, you might as well forget about dialing 911. Chief Lovell says they aren’t answering. “I’ve seen as many as 80 calls holding. We’ve had calls holding upward of 20-something hours depending on the staffing.”

Because every cop in Portland is out on riot patrol, and not doing much even then, “resources are getting stretched thinner and thinner.” Lovell notes that it doesn’t help that “more than 50 people retiring by the end of August.”

Burney Dean summed it up best with a rant against City Commissioner JoAnn Hardesty and Mayor Ted Wheeler. “We are in the midst of three straight months of rioting in Portland, Oregon. Not ‘peaceful protests’: rioting. During that three months, we did not hear the mayor, Ted Wheeler once condemn the violent protests.” There’s nothing, he insists, “peaceful about BLM now, Sweetheart. They’re murdering people in the streets! I lay this squarely at the doorstep of JoAnn Hardesty because her inflammatory language and standing down the police as well as the removal of Chief Resch led directly to these savages.”

There’s nothing peaceful about BLM now, Sweetheart. They’re murdering people in the streets! I lay this squarely at the doorstep of JoAnn Hardesty because her inflammatory language and standing down the police as well as the removal of Chief Resch led directly to these savages. pic.twitter.com/mGSfrRf0HU

— Dean Burney (@BurneyDean) August 17, 2020

As a footnote, Portland Mayor Wheeler did finally step up and condemn the violence. “This feckless, incompetent clown has stood on the sidelines for months and not condemned the violence that has gutted a once beautiful city.” Until now. “He finally crawled out from under his rock this past weekend and condemned violence—no, not the Antifa violence. He condemned the ‘right wing’ violence.” Mayor Wheeler actually posted, “I vehemently oppose what the Proud Boys and those associated with them stand for, and I will not tolerate hate speech and the damage it does in our city. White nationalists, particularly those coming to our city armed, threaten the safety of Portlanders, and are not welcome here.” But Antifa is.