For those of us living here, it’s not a matter of lesser or more serious. Every time they turn one of these yahoos loose without any punishment, they go right back to vandalizing or looting or setting fires. A lot of them have been arrested multiple times. They should at least fine them in ever-increasing amounts to discourage the activity.
OK. I was relating your comment to the OP question of what you’d do if you were the mayor. The mayor has no control over what you mentioned. I also was not saying that I personally don’t consider those crimes serious, although, again, looting is a property crime. I was saying what factors go into why they are being released, by those responsible for those decisions. So, you I guess are posing a new hypothetical of, what would you change about how the protests are being handled, or something like that?
And by the way, I live here too.
Seems to me that a key question might be, what exactly is the state of civil law and order in Portland right now? How unusual is it? It appears that a lot of disagreement over tactics is caused by disagreement over the answer to this basic question.
Looting is a property crime, but IMHO depending on the details it’s one of the more serious ones. There’s a difference between shoplifting some baby formula you can’t afford and stealing a bunch of iPhones from the Apple store to sell on the black market. Someone who does the latter should spend at least a few months in prison, longer if they have a history multiple offenses and even longer if those offenses were violent.
Does no one understand how jails release people, particularly during Covid-19? Do you understand that I’m not trivializing property crimes by pointing out that they are categorized as less serious than person crimes?
I’m guessing the mayor will just back off and wait. For one, winter is coming and I’m guessing snow and cold will calm some people down.
I do.
Make that rain and chilly for Portland. I guess everyone could use some chill…
Fellow PDXer! Yeah, I know the mayor doesn’t control that, but I have to wonder if he’s made a strong case to the DA for some degree of prosecution. Surely, it’s not going to inordinately jam up the courts to levy fines, particularly in the amount of the damage done, or to impose community service hours. I’m really tired of hearing how the city has been taken over by bad elements, and people asking “Wow, are you okay?!” If by that you mean have I wandered into the two-block area at the exact time the idiots are acting out, then yes, I’m fine, because no, I haven’t.
[rant]The inability to communicate with city officials because of the non-representational (and archaic) silo style of government in Portland is my major peeve about living here.[/rant]
Yeah its going to be harder to set buildings on fire when there is 8 straight months of constant drizzle. 
I doubt many, if any, have had a trial yet, so no fines or community service hours or jail time yet. And generally, people don’t get held in jail awaiting trial for most of these kinds of offenses. (Again, that’s not me trivializing the offenses – just stating facts.)
I certainly agree that the police should focus on the looters, arsonists, and assaulters, and I think they need to make sure they do it fairly when right-wing groups show up, instead of backing away when that happens.
I also think these protests have exposed more of a need for PPB to reform than I thought was there. I hope the mayor and police chief are working on that.
There isn’t a case to be made for sending the protesters to prison, because the prisons are a nightmare right now. Shithead law enforcement types refused to mask up and the COs (especially those who live in Idaho and work at the largest penitentiary in the state, which is in Ontario) brought COVID in and infected the inmates who are now the biggest cluster outbreaks in the state. Sending someone into the penitentiary system right now is a huge extrajudiciary punishment and the state is already facing a class action lawsuit brought on the behalf of all the prisoners that has the potential to bankrupt the entire state. Which is as it should be, since wimp ass governer Kate didn’t enforce the mask ordinances amongst law enforcement and now they’ve fucked everyone in the prison system over. Adults in custody are the responsibility of the state to keep safe and they’ve failed abjectly.
I think there’s a lot to be said for taking an extremely hard line approach–to law enforcement. Take away their toys and tell them they can do their jobs the old fashioned way or they can fucking quit and go work for some other city. Tell them they WILL enforce the law violations they’ve been ignoring when it’s Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer doing them–that fucking Trump parade would have turned out very differently if the cops had stopped every one of those vehicles, arrested and fined those who had removed or obscured their license plates and done searches of said vehicles, confiscating the paintball guns, mace and bear spray and requiring the owners show valid registration for their weapons. Then turned the lot around who failed and sent them right the fuck back up to Washington where they came from. Those of us who live here are fucking tired of those shitheads coming here to use our city for their playground–let them try to get a rally going in Esther Short park if they think they can manage that. Let them shit where THEY eat rather than leaving the mess for us.
That’s enough right there. Make no particular statements regarding personal motivations of other posters.
No warning issues, chisquirrel, but let’s not make a habit of this.
All I and the rest of the world is seeing is a nightly scrum of cops vs. people looking for action.
The mayor should rent out a football stadium, sell tickets and tv rights and let them have at it, one night only.
Why should we put up with all that shitty cell phone footage on Twitter when we could have decent production values and the city could make money off it.
The murdered PP guy was from Portland, no?
This, I actually agree with.
There certainly is an element in society that is looking for a fight, not for principles or civic duty, but because they want to fight.
Fight Club resonated as well as it did for this very reason.
I say let them do so, out of the way of others who are there for principles or civic duty.
Keep a bit of lid on it, don’t allow weapons and have some rules for not kicking someone who is down.
But, if people want to have a big 'ol rumble, then we should let them, IMHO.
My house is in Portland. I used to work in Vancouver. Many people do the same thing, reversed. My point is that the majority of PP and PB leadership live in the 'Couve and environs but they specifically go out of their way to drive down to our downtown to hold their shitbird rallies and every fucking time it’s a shitshow. Sooner or later someone’s going to decide they might as well use those cockknockers for target practice but if the shitbirds would stay home we won’t have to deal with it when the bloodbath happens. That truck rally was chock full of fucktardmobiles with WA plates–the ones that kept the plates on anyway, and I’ll wager a fiver the incognito ones were from there too. Vancouver is also a hotbed of anti-vaxxer religious nuts who subjected the rest of us to a measles epidemic last year. A virus that targets the stupid would leave a LOT of vacant real estate in Clark county.
And speaking of that white supremacist dead guy–gotta love the extrajudicial murder of the person who likely shot him. We’ll never know because justice just isn’t part of American life these days. 1312 y’all.
