(Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
“Any missions related to traffic issues will have to be done at the precinct level, if the call load and personnel allow for it.”
— Officer Derek Carmon, PPB
In a move the Portland Police Bureau says it must take to manage budget and staffing woes, Chief Chuck Lovell announced a reorganization plan on Friday that will result in zero officers dedicated to traffic law enforcement.
Chief Lovell said a major shift of officers from several speciality units is necessary in order to boost response times of precinct-based patrols. The PPB had been hiring officers on overtime to fill patrol positions, but with a budget deficit of $2 million, Lovell says that’s no longer prudent. Due to budgeting choices, retirements, and recruiting challenges, the PPB currently has 290 patrol officers to cover the city’s three precincts.
By early February of 2021 Chief Lovell’s plan will boost the number of patrol officers to 365. That number includes 20 officers from the Traffic Division, essentially wiping out the entire unit.
I followed up with PPB Public Information Officer Derek Carmon to clarify what this means for enforcement of traffic laws on Portland streets.
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Ofcr Carmon confirmed that all Traffic Division officers are going back to routine patrols. “They can still work traffic enforcement as time allows but they won’t be focused on it anymore,” he said. The only piece of the Traffic Division that will remain are five investigators and reconstructionists on the Major Crash Team that’s called out to all serious and fatal crashes.
The Traffic Division has a team to investigate hit-and-runs, do school zone and speeding enforcement missions, and so on. Once Chief Lovell’s reorganization is in place, the PPB will no longer have personnel dedicated to these issues. “Any missions related to traffic issues will have to be done at the precinct level,” Ofcr Carmon shared in an email with me this week. “If the call load and personnel allow for it.”
Traffic Division officers typically issue about 90% of all traffic citations citywide. According to the PPB’s latest annual report, in 2019 the Traffic Division responded to 14,293 calls including 906 crashes and 6,961 hit-and-runs (6,606 of which led only to property damage). The unit issued 31,527 traffic citations and conducted 35 “Vision Zero missions”.
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Ofcr Carmon said there’s no plan to reinstate Traffic Division positions and that it’s “entirely based on budgeting.”
This move comes about five weeks after Chief Lovell and the president of the Portland Police Association (an officer’s union) used the elimination of the Traffic Division as a negotiation tactic in response to a proposal from City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty to cut $18 million from the police budget. Hardesty is a critic of police traffic enforcement because she feels it is too often biased against Black people. Those cuts failed to pass due to a lack of support on City Council.
In October, Chief Lovell said, “I believe these cuts [to Traffic Division] will be detrimental to the safety of our community members and visitors to the City of Portland and dramatically impact the livability of our neighborhoods.”
Commissioners Hardesty and her supporter on council Commissioner Chloe Eudaly have both expressed interest in reducing the role of police in traffic enforcement; but neither have made significant progress on the issue.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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This should be an interesting experiment. How soon will we reach 100 traffic deaths per year?
Eh. Even I’ve made traffic errors in front of Portland Police and they did absolutely nothing.
Nothing new here, except they finally said it out loud.
Looks like the City’s new ‘Zero Vision’ policy. This makes a great case for automated traffic enforcement now…
I really do think that we should all be advocating for this as hard as possible right now. Since there won’t be officers enforcing traffic laws, time to put the machines to work. Make speeding cameras so pervasive that we create the culture of compliance necessary to realize vision zero. Not to mention all the other benefits such as increased ticket revenue, reduced number of officers needed, elimination of racial bias, and more!
Sounds like a dystopian paradise!
A fear one might have repercussions while moving around heavy metal objects with impunity? Seems like a reasonable cultural adjustment to a chronic century-long disease of road violence.
Responsibility is good; “surveillance society” is not.
But I should probably get over it; when the robot cars arrive, all trips will be tracked, as will issues with inattentive and low-skilled drivers driving dangerously.
Surveillance is our least worry when it comes to cars. In the Dutch system, for example, only cars that are speeding will be forwarded on to have their ID verified for ticketing. The rest are purged. I am almost always in for methods of positive reinforcement rather than punitive measures.
Photo enforcement works well for those who normally follow the law and have their vehicle legally registered displaying license plates. Not so much for those running around without tags, which are plentiful in Portland.
Then there is the fact photo enforcement only fines the vehicle owner, it does nothing to stop the illegal behavior. No threat of enforcement leads to no deterrent to reckless or impaired driving.
Na. These aren’t really issues. The owner pays the fine or has their car booted. Would you lend your car to someone who drives dangerously and forces you to pay hundreds in fines?
Go Traitor Joe. . .
Zero vision = zero enforcement! What could go wrong.
We are rid of Eudaly, now it’s Hardesty’s turn. She should resign. And rest assured we’ll be looking for another police chief within a year. Best of luck to Lovell. Nobody can tolerate working in this dysfunctional mess of a city.
Anarchy is coming! This is what Portland gets for electing leftist politicians like JoAnn Hardesty who hate on the police yet call them for their personal disputes. We need to restore the $15 million cut from the PPB and bring back the Gun Violence Reduction Team. Violent and property crimes are out of hand in Portland. Stay safe and ride on!
Probably everyone here knows what I thought of Eudaly. I would never lump her in with Hardesty. On issues besides policing (where I don’t think Hardesty has been her best self), Hardesty has shown a deep level of understanding and thought, and, overall, I have been quite impressed with her performance.
Policing is becoming an ever more critical issue for Portland. Despite Hardesty’s false starts in that area, I still count myself as a supporter.
So you support someone who lies:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/portland-protests-hardesty-police-arson-1519883%3famp=1
So you support someone who is a hypocrite:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.kgw.com/amp/article/news/local/portland-commissioner-hardesty-lyft-driver/283-5dde0117-2258-42f2-b975-330ae089f5bf
So you support someone with a plan to take away public safety money and use it for unrelated items, such as food handouts, hygiene products and lawyers fighting evictions https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/11/05/portland-city-council-rejects-commissioner-hardestys-18-million-police-cut/
So you support someone who spearheaded the elimination of the Gun Violence Reduction Team and the subsequent explosion of gun violence in the city. https://www.opb.org/article/2020/08/06/gun-violence-portland-reduction-police-lovell-turner/
Those are all police related issues, where I think Hardesty is not thinking clearly. But on other issues, she’s been great.
So, as with any politician, I have mixed feelings. I support much of what she does, but not everything. At the moment, the positives outweigh the negatives for me, but I will continue to reassess. I have until 2022 to make my final evaluation, and a lot can happen between now and then. And, at the end of the day, the question is ultimately “who’s the alternative”?
Does Mingus Mapps have a twin? 🙂
There is not a politician (or person) out there who doesn’t lie. Show me one, I’ll wait. If you think the police don’t lie, you are in for a rude awakening.
Hardesty calling the cops there was not hypocrisy. She supports reform, not abolishment.
If you can’t see the relationship between food handouts, hygiene products and lawyers fighting for people to stay in houses and crime then you are pretty ignorant.
Gun violence across the US has grown. It’s not just Portland. As more and more people are put out of their houses, can’t afford food, can’t afford basic hygiene products, they will turn to violence and crime. I honestly see this as more of a coincidence than anything that proves the cops were actually slowing down gun crimes.
I don’t see a lot of people committing crimes in order to stay in their housing, or in order to get food for their children. What I do see is a lot of people committing crime to feed their drug habit, or because they are mentally ill.
You may call me ignorant, but what we need is drug treatment, mental health treatment, and the ability to compel people to use those resources if they are a menace to those around them.
Hardesty’s plan, such as it is, is woefully incomplete. Cutting the police budget will not help the people who really need it, and would probably be the last step in any comprehensive plan to address the major social problems we face.
How about after they have been removed from their housing?
How about after they lose their housing? What stats are you referring to people not committing crimes to stay in their housing? I would assume quite a number of people would resort to some petty crimes in order to pay rent – doesn’t seem too far off, pretty sure I would do it if I had to eat and keep a roof over my head.
The police chose to use a lot of their funding to pay overtime for officers harassing protesters. The more they harassed protesters, the more it motivated others to protest and became a self-reinforcing cycle. Now they have to make cuts. None of this has anything to do with “leftist politicians.”
The protests I attended didn’t have much (if any) police presence. This is probably because they were elsewhere dealing with rioters.
This is a chicken and egg issue. If the “protesters” hadn’t broken into the Justice Center and tried to burn it down, and looted and destroyed downtown businesses early in the summer, would the Feds and local police have felt the need to be present at future protests?
Peaceful protests don’t need police presence. You can’t blame the police for responding after the destruction we saw.
The cops started the majority of the most damaging riots. In fact, most of the riots in Portland this summer were plain ol cop riots
The May 29th Justice Center burning and the looting of downtown businesses was started by the cops? Can you cite that?
Pretty much every other one was. You should listen to Robert Evans new podcast on the subject. PPB’s heavy handed tactics, extreme brutality, and over-response to peaceful protests stoke the flames and made sure that the protests continued. The police chose to attack from the JC when they didn’t have to.
Not only did it do damage to chunks of downtown, the City of Portland will be settling lawsuits and paying them out for years to come.
I am current on his podcast. As one of the protesters and a known leftist, you can’t really expect his presentation to be unbiased, right?
I concede that both sides were at fault here, and that the police definitely made things worse. I just take issue with the framing that the “police caused this violence” because it ignores the key events that lead to the increased police presence.
1. It’s really hard to take someone seriously who uses the term “known leftist”.
2. Robert Evans is a reporter who covered the protests. If you want to give examples of his “bias”, feel free. I’m not aware of any nonfactual information he has reported.
The police can legally use violence. They have much more responsibility than random citizens. They made terrible decisions night after night and Portlanders paid the price.
It’s fair to Blame Tump more than anybody. He was looking for an opportunity to get DHS involved and create an even worse spectacle of ‘antifa riots’ to manipulate his pawns with on Fox News. Had he not done that things would have calmed down instead of being inflamed.
Trump absolutely wanted to stir things up and use us to show how tough he was. No question. But, as my mother used to say, “it takes two to tango”, and Portland played a leading role giving Trump exactly the spectacle he wanted.
So did the cops break windows and damage local owned businesses in Hollywood a couple weeks ago???
Come on, the nightly vandals er…protestors did not need help.
No, instead they beat-up people holding signs with batons and spread poison gas over huge swaths of the city. The resulting video evidence of their brutality inspired even more people to come out night after night.
Really? You are justifying the destruction of local owned barely making it food carts?
For what reason? What reason at all? What did these people and all the other small businesses have to do with this?
Why are you (I presume since you spend a lot of time defending these vandals), excusing behavior of lawless people because you think the police are bad?
Does this help or even make a point?
Do you have any proof to support your statement? Appears to be a liberal Trumpian style falsehood.
I’d need a citation for this, because it contradicts most credible reporting I’ve seen.
We all know that many involved see provoking a response as necessary to advance “the cause”. It seems to me that “starting it” is really a question of definition. Did it start when people started throwing bottles and paint? Or when the cops started pushing protesters back?
In some ways it feels like two kids stuck in the backseat on a long drive. Who “started it” may depend on perspective and provocation, but the parents stop caring and just want everyone to be quiet, or, goddammit, I’m stopping the car.
That’s where a lot of folks are right now. They don’t care who started it, they just want it to stop. “Stopping the car” probably means a stronger police response.
And isn’t that ultimately what the “protestors” want?
Youre fulla you know what, you know it and continue the bs.
A paid for group of a holes burnt stuff in your city because ? And you appear to,support that crap. God help you all.
What a false narrative – peaceful protestors.
Is the media just not covering it, or has Hardesty gone completely silent during the recent violent slaughter of Portland residents?
You can thank Tear Gas Ted for replacing Reisch (who was selected with zero input) with a guy who beat up a 14 year old girl for hurting his feelings. Lovell never had a chance to improve the situation
Portland even had a progressive “dream pick” of a black woman for police chief. Good for her she was smart enough to realize what quagmire Portland is and get the hell out.
Shootings, murders are out of control for this small city…The police dept. is terrible with no oversight from Wheeler or our pathetic council. It is not just traffic enforcement, the whole city is seeing a big uptick in crime. Partly Covid, mostly incompetent people in charge…
Lock your house, stop reading NextDoor?
😉
Shootings are way up this year. You might be lucky enough to not have them near your house, but many of us are not.
I thought about responding to FDUP too but they are clearly a troll rather than a person trying to state a position in good faith.
There’s hard data showing the increase in crime we’ve seen this year so it’s not a matter of perception or NextDoor.
In my neighborhood, going from no shootings for 8 years, to at least once a month now it is unreal the step up in shootings has happened.
Our neighborhood park is the biggest attractor of these losers who fire off multiple rounds. Just the other night I heard a bunch more rapid fire gun shots. One house recently was on the receiving end of these punks but fortunately didn’t hit the elderly people who lived there.
I have an elderly couple who’s lived in their house for 30 years. They’ve had 2 house break-ins, 1 work van break-in, and they are next to the park. All these things happened over a month’s time. Their house is now up for sale and they are getting out.
The scary thing is that, even with the dramatic increases, Portland has a long way to go before it approaches true ‘murder capitals’. I don’t know how people in places like St. Louis, Baltimore, etc., even go out on the streets at night.
What I wonder is if once a City slides into lawlessness whether or not it ever comes back up? Can’t say I’ve seen many success stories.
There are many, many examples of cities improving. Almost every city saw greatly reduced crime during the 80s, 90s, and 00s; and historically, cities such as NYC were much more dangerous than they are today.
At some point, things will get to the point where a critical mass finds them intolerable, we’ll elect a law-and-order mayor, and the pendulum will swing the other way. It’s all cyclical.
Yep, that’s why in the early 90’s Rudolph Guiliani was elected NYC mayor on a law and order platform in a very liberal city. He’s of course gone off the deep end recently but that’s not relevant. Mark my words a “civic cleanup” mayoral candidate will win the next election in Portland. The pendulum is swinging.
My gut reaction is to agree with you, but the 80% approval vote for the police oversight measure tells me otherwise. I don’t know what’s in the water in Portland (and I lived there for three years), but the anti-police sentiment is so high, that it overrides common sense. I just had the thought that maybe most of those voting for such measures have not been directly affected by crime recently, and forget those that deal with it on a daily basis (who might not vote in such high numbers).
I might add that Wheeler’s negotiation and apparent capitulation to the domestic terrorists at the “Red House” is not going to help his popularity with tax paying Portlanders.
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/12/portland-black-indigenous-family-red-house-protesters-aura-of-success-could-prompt-more-occupations-over-home-foreclosures-mayor-ted-wheeler-concedes.html
Wheeler didn’t “capitulate”, he negotiated a peaceful resolution. At least that’s what it appears to be at the moment.
Yeah, we will see. I will say though that any solution that allows this Red House guy to declare himself a “sovereign citizen” and therefore not pay his mortgage and keep his house is a capitulation to lawlessness.
Remember the new Portland city motto:
“THE CITY THAT ENABLES”
Anyone is free to declare themselves a “sovereign citizen” or whatever. It doesn’t change whether they need to pay their taxes or bills, and nothing Wheeler has said or done suggests that it does.
The previous owner can keep the house by buying it back from the new owner, who has agreed to sell, and the previous owner seems to have raised the funds to do just that. I don’t see the problem if Wheeler helped foster the conversation between them — I would say it was good if that’s what he did.
There is of course the issue of whether threats were used to convince the new owner to sell (which seems to be the case based on the reporting I’ve read), and until the deal is done, it remains possible for the previous owner to take the money and run. But that could also be a satisfactory resolution.
Sounds like the new owner and his family have been threatened with bodily harm. Not surprising given that these Red House supporters are Trumpians on the left. Most likely some of the same people who intimidated one of our elected officials by going to his personal home and vandalizing it (broke window, tossed burning flares, paint filled balloons, etc). Portland tolerates these violent leftists and they get what they want. Really a sad state of affairs.
That is a family of scammers.
Yep. And now this scammer family will be rewarded for not paying their mortgage by getting a house that they already sucked hundreds of thousands of dollars out of. Thanks to the threats to the new owner and his children and an armed occupation of a neighborhood. The Portland lefties and Ted Wheeler are doing a great job of supporting violence and anarchy. We need to return to the balanced center. Unfortunately, more of this will now follow. Stay tuned.
Um, ‘law n order’ mayors, governors, presidents, etc. are part of the problem, IMO; I believe there are other more effective and humane solutions to what are essentially our social problems. Several examples:
-harsh criminal justice for minor drug offenders
-lax or non-existent enforcement of gun regulations and crimes
-lax or non-existent enforcement of motor vehicle-related crimes
but I agree things weren’t much better in 70s/80s
You may be right. Now is the time to roll out those progressive solutions to criminality and demonstrate they can be effective before people get so fed up with inaction that they swing back toward the right.
Where do we start?
Oregon has decriminalized drugs, and Portland has disbanded it’s gun violence taskforce. So your first item is done, and we’ve surrendered on the second. What’s the progressive solution to car stealing and catalytic converter theft?
Progressive Solution:
More compassion for the criminals. If they feel loved, they won’t steal.
It’s all rainbows and unicorns here in PDX.
Until your are carjacked at gunpoint.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/pps-teacher-carjacked-at-gunpoint-as-gun-violence-in-portland-surges/283-7599e767-b16c-49da-a202-463dd15b4479
Until you are born and raised in SE and choose to move to the flyover because of too many STUPID people in charge. Yes, younare stupid, based on becoming the laughing stock of Chicago and Houston. Good work commies.
You can replace a catalytic convertor for the price of a tiny resistor, capacitor and half an hour work if youre intelligent. DUHHHH. . . . Apparently Portlandia digs 0420 way too much. I see IQ here around 102 max.
If you are a sociopath who enjoys polluting the air that all of your fellow citizens breath, then sure, you can do that.
Some of your fellow human beings are actually concerned about levels of NOX and SO2 in the atmosphere. We don’t like smog and nasty pollutants in the air that cause chronic disease. We don’t want to live under a toxic brown sky.
It is absolutely ridiculous to equate a concern for the environment with a lack of intelligence.
So… slightly above the norm?
Boston, NYC, Camden, Newark, Philly…
Portland is the new Detroit, where will you go ?
I mean, people have to go out and go to work, and go on with their lives. There are less and more safe areas.
Jonathan,
I don’t think it was a “negotiation tactic” to eliminate the Traffic Division. It was simple reality. With the budget cuts the PPB has sustained ($15 million) and the incredible amount of overtime costs (due to violent protests and widespread vandalism) cuts must be made. We lost the Bike Theft Task Force. Now we have lost the Traffic Division. Narcotics/Organized Crime Team is being cut. K9 team is being cut. This is because the PPB barely has enough staff to respond to 911 calls so they must curtail these other vital activities. It’s a shame. I’m fine with unloading some of their work to unarmed community service individuals (like the CAHOOTS program in Eugene) but we need to fully restore funding to the PPB until that type of program is up and running. We need to support our officers so they can support the community.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/news/read.cfm?id=271391
Correction: Hardesty wanted to cut $18 million from the police budget not $8 million as you stated in your article.
The violence and vandalism has largely been a response to harassment from police. Some of it has been perpetrated by right-wingers trying to slander BLM. Info about this is ubiquitous even in mainstream media, here’s a tiny percentage of it:
What You Need To Know About The Battle of Portland
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/07/20/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-battle-of-portland
– by Robert Evans, timeline with pictures and videos
– lots of details about the lies by authoritatians: the pipe bomb that wasn’t, supposed “Antifa” violence, etc.
Portland sees peaceful night of protests following withdrawal of federal agents
Thursday night’s protest passed off without major incident or intervention by the police in the absence of federal officers
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/31/portland-protests-latest-peaceful-night-federal-troops-withdrawal
– “On Wednesday, Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, agreed with the White House that the state police would take over responsibility for guarding the courthouse after weeks of escalating protests. She said that ‘Trump’s troops’ were behaving like an occupying army in Portland and provoking unrest with heavy-handed tactics.”
Patriot Coalition: Leaked Messages Show Far-Right Group’s Plans for Portland Violence
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/09/23/patriot-coalition-far-right-chat-logs-violence/
– this one has link to the actual chat log:
https://eugeneantifa.noblogs.org/files/2020/09/Patriot-Coalition-PNW-Daily-Chatter-Scrapes.txt
Police: Richmond riots instigated by white supremacists disguised as Black Lives Matter
https://www.wsls.com/news/virginia/2020/07/27/police-richmond-riots-instigated-by-white-supremacists-disguised-as-black-lives-matter/
Corporate Media Reverse Reality by Blaming BLM Protesters for Everything
https://fair.org/home/corporate-media-reverse-reality-by-blaming-blm-protesters-for-everything/
– “As it happens, a study by the US Crisis Monitor (9/3/20), a joint effort by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and the Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) at Princeton University, found that 93% of all racial justice protests since Floyd’s death have been peaceful and non-destructive. These findings contradict the misleading impressions corporate media coverage have given about the BLM uprisings spawning a massive wave of violence and property damage.”
– wage theft by employers is greater than all other forms of theft
– US has stolen and sold masks bound for Europe, and oil traveling from Iran to VZ
– the 3% of protests featuring violence would include some that right-wing provocateurs were the instigators/perpetrators
From your first link:
“At a little before 11 p.m., several dozen protesters began to shatter the windows of the Justice Center. They entered the building, trashing the interior and lighting random fires inside.”
They did this before any police presence. This was the spark that set the tone for the rest of the summer. I listen to Evans, and I respect him, but he has a huge blind spot here. His summary conveniently ignores the other destruction that happened that night:
https://www.opb.org/news/article/george-floyd-protest-portland-fire-justice-center/
Ugh, OPB, such Corporate Media garbage, right?
After this night, the police had to enforce the law downtown. Very few residents in this city are okay with destruction of local businesses, even if they are corporate. This is why your side lost the election, and will continue to lack mainstream support.
Like it or not, you have to control your side if you want mainstream support. You can’t advocate for the elimination of the police while you stand by and let people in your ranks loot and commit arson. No one is going to support your cause.
I think you got the wrong “side”.
Some people view Ted Wheeler losing the popular vote by a lot but winning the election because progressives split the vote as some kind of mandate…
Losing the popular vote? What?
He won the election. He won the most votes of any candidate, on or off the ballot. If you want to self-reflect on the moronic write-in campaign for Raiford, that is something you can do. Doesn’t really change the fact that Wheeler won by 5+ points.
Yes, I’m actually aware how elections work. Losing the popular vote means the majority of Portlanders wanted someone not named Ted Wheeler. Not to mention he had to loan himself because hundreds of thousands of dollars and broke campaign finance laws every single reporting period.
In the 2020 election, there were 239,247,182 registered voters nationwide, out of a total population of 328 million. The guy who won as president got 81,283,098 votes or 34% of those registered to vote, his main opponent got 74,222,957 votes or 31%. According to your logic, 66% of registered voters in the US wanted someone other than the winner for president, and 35% or 84 million residents, a plurality, wanted someone other than the two main candidates. Another 89 million residents were unable to vote. So over half of the US residents didn’t vote for either major candidate, and just under 25% voted for the winner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections
So, is Portland gonna host the million mammon inauguration rally celebration for ol Traitor Joe on that glorious day he replaces orange man bad ?
I hear Jimi will reincarnate to wow the mass with crosstown traffic. What a gala cause for celebration.
I think you’re confusing “plurality” with “popular vote”. You can win the popular vote without achieving plurality.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/popular-vote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin
Ah you’re right, while I obviously meant plurality I said popular. Good boy.
Now, any evidence these communist – er, I mean lefitst bias in Robert Evans reporting?
An even bigger majority wanted someone not named Sarah Iannarone, both of which were dwarfed by those who wanted someone not named Teressa Raiford.
Not according to the Auditor. Your complaint was evaluated and discarded. You may disagree, but the matter was settled.
https://www.opb.org/article/2020/11/04/city-finds-portland-mayor-ted-wheeler-did-not-violate-campaign-finance-limits/
Technically you are correct. He did not break the law, partly because the law is in legal flux right now. But, I think just about everybody agrees that he broke the spirit of the law. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Wait, so you’re saying that the protesters support Ted Wheeler, the winner of the 2020 Portland mayoral election?
So it’s not their fault? These educated adults can’t restrain their feelings?
In the interest of fairness, perhaps you can post some left-sided citations that call out for violence and vandalism?
I think he was not so subtly giving his view of the Chief and the Union. This trajectory will take a decade to reverse, if ever. Very view qualified young people would even consider applying for PPB. We know all the reasons, but it projects an unsettling view of the future of personal safety in Portland.
Hi Javier,
I referred to this move by the Chief and PPA leader as a “threat” in the past and a reader said it was more of a negotiation. I felt that was just as reasonable an assumption as “threat”. Neither of us know until we can get inside their heads and understand their true motivations and intentions. As for this being a “reality”, I disagree with that assessment because these are all choices being made. There are many possible realities. And thanks for pointing out my mistake on the $8/$18 stat. I’ve fixed the post.
I just don’t see a lot of people lining up to deal with often violent mentally ill people.
MORG – So sending in the PPB/gestapo is the default solution? Come on, you can do better than that!
..And, as much as I love them, the Three Stooges avatar doesn’t help!!!
😉
The trouble is that “possible mentally ill person” can turn into “man with knife/gun/[insert weapon here]” in under a second. No one knows a priori which cases will take such a turn. How many social workers have a desire to end up defenseless in those situations?
Maybe part of the reason the new ‘Cahoots’ program is moving forward at a snail’s pace. I have heard the new Director give all the so-called reasons, but hiring social workers (who are used to working in climate-controlled offices) who want to go out and get down and dirty is a tough ask.
Which is another reason why this is a negotiating tactic and not pragmatic policy. Why cut a division that actually generates revenue? The police always throw this kind of tantrum when their out of control budget is at risk. Wonder how many military toys they still have slated for purchase though, you know, for “public safety”.
The police do not generate revenue for themselves with traffic enforcement. Nor should they. It is a terrible idea to have a law enforcement agency profit from their enforcement activity.
Don’t know why not. The little town of Jordan Valley had one cop whose salary came exclusively from traffic fines. He was one of the wealthiest guys in town. Truckers and Californians paid most of the bill.
Bottom Line: Handing out traffic fines can be quite lucrative.
Do you really not see the obvious problem there, or are you being sarcastic?
Cities charge fines for building and planning code violations, including and especially in Portland, so why not make money on speeding violations? What is the moral or ethical difference here? In both cases local laws are being enforced and penalized through fines rather than jail time, whipping or cutting off hands. Would you prefer to see the latter?
I’m guessing that Portland’s income from building and zoning code violations doesn’t make much, if any, money for the City after subtracting expenses. By the time the City can issue a fine, it’s already had to spend quite a bit of resources on a case.
But even if I’m right about that, then that could be an argument in favor of the rest of what you said. The Building Dept. enforcing codes with fines does seem similar to the police doing it, and the police can generate revenue without nearly as much effort per case.
Enforcing codes is even typically referred to as “policing” in most cities, and sometimes police accompany the code enforcer or housing inspector at house calls, in case the owner gets violent. Code and regulatory enforcement actually generates quite a lot of revenue, enough to pay for many of the staff at BDS (Bureau of Development Services) during boom years (plus a few staff at planning and PBOT), but the lack of generated revenue is also the cause of mass-layoffs during recessions.
As you are no doubt aware, the main case against allowing police to generate funding through rigorous enforcement, aside from the very real bias issues, is that it encourages bribery and corruption of police by the rich. But it also can cause mass police layoffs if city residents and visitors should suddenly become overly honest and law-abiding and bravely report corrupt police. The errant police won’t be charged or convicted of course, but they will be the first to be laid off during budget cuts.
Obama charged me $750 multiple times for not supporting the medical industrial rackets insurance scam. Trump stopped that theft immediately. I have no desire to breed unhealthy rats or their filthy criminal keepers. Period.
I guess the rest of us can all look forward to helping to cover the cost of some future operation that you won’t be able to pay for because you choose to not purchase health insurance.
“The rest of us”
Tens of thousands die horrible but preventable deaths in the USA because their medical condition is not covered by EMTALA.
The USA is a fantastically wealthy s****ole society.
Same for the medical industrial racket. Look at the result.
most of the ‘revenue’ goes to overhead (e.g. judge’s salaries, bonds for new courthouse, other operating expenses) and what’s left over goes to the county and not the city; the city gets a wee tiny bit at the end.
They’ve already cut back on traffic patrol because they profile BIPOC drivers, not to mention cyclists; you can’t have it both ways!
OTOH, the PPB need to do the job we pay them for, and not spend all their time indulging their inner right-wing ideologues beating down ‘leftist’ protesters.
rioters
Yeah, police riots, TYVM.
🙂
PPB is top-heavy with management and administrative positions. According to this video, the bureau has 882 “sworn officers” and 259 professional staff — but only 310 officers on patrol. That’s less than half of the sworn officers and a little more than one quarter of the total count. There are many reasons including officers in training, ill, injured, assigned to traffic, investigations, community engagement, telephone reporting. Despite that, the numbers seem out of whack.
International guidelines call for a number of 60% of sworn officers to be on patrol, so, either your analysis is way off, or there is something amiss in Portland.
The numbers that I gave come directly from the video I cited. I do think something is amiss.
Can you give a reference to the international guideline? That might be useful for any further discussion.
https://icma.org/sites/default/files/305747_Analysis%20of%20Police%20Department%20Staffing%20_%20McCabe.pdf
You made an error in your numbers. There are only 516 fully active sworn employees. Look at the link you posted again.
Here is the pertinent section from the link:
The 882 sworn positions include all ranks: officers, sergeants, criminalists, detectives, lieutenants, captains, commanders, assistant chiefs, deputy chief and chief. Of those positions, the Bureau currently has 616 officers of which more than 100 either have not been trained or are still on probation.
Thanks. That somewhat explains the actual number of sworn officers on patrol, still below international standards as I mentioned above.
The top ranks are, essentially, bureaucrats. Bureaucrats are motivated to increase the size of their organization. If citizens are discontent with the product they aren’t likely to ask for more. “Defund the police” speaks to that.
Budget cuts are a language that bureaucrats understand. Citizen review panels, not so much.
Glad I moved out of portland to LO. LO has issues but at least it still police’s its streets, funds its schools, and cleans the bike lanes on a regular basis.
Eh… it’s not like they policed traffic on a regular basis anyway.
They did to a small extent, and pre-COVID, at least when I drove, in the back of my mind I thought I had better mind my Ps & Qs while driving otherwise I’ll get caught.
Now I know that since the City has loudly announced they are no longer enforcing laws (this was months ago) I now know I don’t have to any more. Though, I still mind my Ps & Qs, because the last thing I want to do is be the cause of injury to anyone. I find that anymore I’m the exception not the rule.
Just a little bit ago I went out I-84 (past I-205), followed the speed limit, and had several people fly past me, I’m presuming 75-80 mph. Pre-COVID I rarely saw that. Now, pretty much anytime I go out on the freeway I see someone(s) driving crazily and I firmly believe because they know that there’s zero chance of enforcement.
Anecdotally, I’ve only ever seen one traffic stop in Portland. I’ve only lived here for 10 years. Contrast that with Eugene, where I grew up. I had received an estimated 5 tickets between the age of 16-19. For running red lights and stop signs. On my bicycle. I don’t think PPS ever showed that level of vigilance.
Big surprise. The PoPo are ineffectual at their best, and dangerous the rest of the time. We all suffer from a city council that refuses to take accountability for the PoPo and other policy areas that seem to be leading to crime, like allowing tent villages throughout the city.
We suffer even worse when Portland residents keep electing the same awful people to office, those who appoint the bureau chiefs who then hire the staff. Who do we blame for those voters’ decisions? Or for those who steadfastly refuse to vote or participate in their local government?
If the current elected officials keep allowing criminals (this includes protestor/rioters, vandals, car thieves, bike thieves, trespassers, catalytic converter thieves, sovereign citizen scams (aka the red house family) and violent gun criminals to continue their spree unabated voters will vote “law and order” and work to restore some semblance of civility to this once safe town. Mayor Wheeler and the other Commissioners need to restore funding to the PPB and bring back the gun violence reduction team. If not, they will be shown the door. Yep, even liberals don’t like to be crime victims.
Sorry, but upfunding PPB is not a solution, at least until they change their priorities.
The City throwing their hands up in the air and saying “no enforcement” isn’t a solution either.
Why hasn’t the City announce their over priced Salem lobbyist is working with State legislatures to change the laws to make Police more accountable?
Why aren’t Police who know of the illegal actions of other Police made complicit for the actions (after all if I know of a bank robbery and it happens and I do nothing, I could be complicit, Police should be too)?
Why hasn’t the Police department announced no more profiling? Announced better training?
Etc. Etc. Etc.
Just taking money away obviously hasn’t fixed anything it’s just making it worse.
Maybe that’s the intent, make it bad enough that the electorate will vote in a DA who will actually prosecute criminals and a Mayor who will actually instruct the Police to enforce all laws irrespective of housing status or skin color. Is that the real end goal?
I’d much rather see actual Police reform, not what is happening now.
Wait a minute… If you witness somebody robbing a bank and you don’t turn them in, you are culpable?
No, if I’m aware of the planning of the crime and do nothing to stop it, it is possible to be help culpable and an accessory. Sorry I wasn’t clear in my initial post.
So you are saying that if one cop is aware that another is planning illegal activity, they have a duty to intervene? That sounds reasonable. But I’d be surprised if that wasn’t already how it works.
I can’t fathom being so dug into a concept as vacant of actual thought as “defund the police” that I am not willing to acknowledge that to make actual positive changes within police forces all across the country it might cost more money, not less.
PS,
You think “defund the police” is “vacant of actual thought”? I really disagree with you. I’ve thought a lot about this and have sympathies on many sides of this issue (just had a PPB officer/friend at my house a few weeks ago to talk through some of this!), and I feel like “defund the police” is a very sensible and necessary slogan/campaign/idea. Just because a lot of people are twisting it around for their own reasons, doesn’t mean I personally have to disown the slogan. To me it says we need to stop writing blank checks to the police and we need to re-assess the entire foundation on which our toxic and heavily-suspect police culture is built upon. I don’t trust the PPB to be good stewards of public funds. I want a new type of public safety to happen and that can’t happen if we ask the PPB pretty-please to cooperate and to pretty-please share their massive war chest. We must start to dismantle the way the PPB and their union operate and “Defund the police” feels like as good a slogan as any to make that happen. Sorry if it hurts people’s feelings. This stuff is hard and requires hard choices and hurt feelings.
What aspect of “defund the police” has been twisted around? It seems to me that people who support that slogan are the ones twisting its meaning, saying it means something other than what it says, which is “stop funding the police”.
If you want to build alternate models for dealing with people in crisis (which I think everyone, including the police themselves, wants to do), that will take increased funding, especially at first, and will require answering a lot of very hard questions. This difficulty is probably why no one, not even Hardesty, has developed a coherent and clear plan for comprehensive reform (and why Portland’s meager efforts in this area have so far been so slow to advance).
If that’s the goal, it probably demands a different slogan, such as “Rethink public safety!” — something that actually conveys its meaning without having to be twisted around.
But with no real opponents, maybe we don’t need a slogan at all, but rather people who can roll up their sleeves and figure out how to make it happen.
Anytime you identify yourself by a either/or slogan, you are, by very definition ‘vacant of thought’. If you truly have a meaningful goal, you would state it with positivity or, at least, enough welcoming verbiage so as to not alienate your potential supporters. Black Lives Matter garnered lots of support because, at least initially, it had positive intent, e.g. the uplifting of Black People. It has since devolved into negative actions or chaos, and has inevitably lost mass support.
I frequently make stupid public statements because I do not have accurate definition of terms of those that I am debating. So, I decided to consult Mr. Webster. Defund: prevent from continuing to receive funds. That means zero, no funding. Smart slogan?
We are going to disagree about this. And that’s OK. I respect your perspective.
I personally don’t believe in criticizing other people’s forms of protest. Activism is very personal and I let folks say what they want. If I believe something different, I’ll put it on my own sign and I’ll share my views, but I won’t target their specific methods. My point is that “Defund the police” is a good and necessary phrase and as slogans go I think it’s pretty good. That’s just my opinion.
I respect what you are saying, but the consequences of staying silent is that those with other opinions might well suck up all the oxygen (and media attention) on that issue, and your viewpoint never gets aired.
Barack Obama, James Clyburn and a lot of thoughtful people think this dumb slogan cost Democrats 25 seats in congress….
So your perspective just helps the people you oppose..
If defunding the police is a “vacant thought” then I guess my thought process must be a quantum vacuum state because I support abolishing the Sus scrofa occisor entirely (and always have.)
I’m curious how would you provide security absent a centralized security force? Armed neighborhood militias defending their catalytic converters with assault rifles?
I’ll be interested to see how busy the “Major Crash” team becomes. This feels like Portland is forgoing the ounce of prevention in favor of the pound of cure. Not that we have any data to show whether traffic enforcement prevented anything, but I guess now we can get some of that data.
More affirmation of my giving up bike commuting, at least for the winter. After nearly ten years of year round commuting, only being stopped by ice and snow I’ll no longer be commuting in the dark anymore. Fortunately I have a choice and can afford to drive, rode simplify for the love of riding. Safety in this city has plummeted, both in driving behavior and general lawlessness. Witness reckless driving daily, and now there is officially no more threat of enforcement, add to that camps everywhere with the associated lawlessness without intervention and I am out of my comfort zone. Have experienced an attempted attack by a street person while riding, fortunately I escaped maybe not next time.
My compute takes me past a large homeless camp and on high speed roads. Perhaps when I can commute in the day light again when even reckless drivers can better see me and I can see who maybe lingering on the side of the road I’ll change my mind. Dislike being one more car on the road, but until things improve by bike will remain locked in the garage.
You must not drive much….kidding. But, I swear, regular drivers, especially commuters have a form of mass telepathy that lets them know about new neighborhood shortcuts, lack of speed enforcement, etc. The speed at which they adapt to changing enforcement standards is astonishing. Makes me think there is an app for that.
Good opportunity to install wall to wall AI cameras every 3 feet to keep you sheep locked in your matrix tubes.
Get out of that crap hole folks. Im serious. I come here once a week and read the same thing : Portland is broke beyond economical repair.
It’s not like the police did a whole lot of traffic enforcement to begin with. But this is a huge step in the wrong direction.
Who needs the old Oregon Live comment section when you can just get the same thing here instead?