Here’s a glimpse into the future of law enforcement in Portland, Ore.: A hand-scrawled cardboard sign taped outside the wall of the Stevens-Ness Law Publishing Co., “Per Rico and Riot Ribs please don’t vandalize.”
Will Portland’s nationally-recognized protests, which have included vandalism and looting, devolve into a protection racket?
The Stevens-Ness store is a block away from the nightly protests outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse and the Multnomah County Justice Center, and the daily flotsam that collects in the adjacent Chapman and Lownsdale parks.
Riot Ribs are the folks who set up grills in Lownsdale Park and feed everyone for free. Donations, of course, are accepted.
OPB Radio gave Riot Ribs a nice story and allowed “Rico” and “Beans” – as they were identified to protect their identities – a chance to have their say. Feeding the hungry is a laudable cause, but Portland’s street people might be some of the most well-fed homeless in the country.
Walk around downtown and notice the discarded food strewn along the sidewalks – pizza, French fries, sandwiches, Chinese takeout. A few years ago, a state legislator I know offered a panhandler some Sisters of The Road meal coupons. He tossed them down. Some Portland beggars can be choosers.
The city’s street people have joined in the protests. Aside from food, the protest site has become the biggest entertainment venue in the city.
These parks are bereft of grass. They are solid dirt. Earlier this month, city officials attempted (without success) to fence them off to restore them and repair the public restroom.
On one afternoon when the fences were still up, some protesters and tent campers congregated nearby waiting for the evening’s festivities. The sidewalk along Salmon Street was crowded with people eating and socializing, none of them wearing masks. The sour stench of weed hovered in the air.
A confused-looking blonde woman with pink paint or a scar on her left cheek, drifted among the ruck, asking, “Anybody seen nobody?”
Turns out she was looking for someone called Nobody. How perfect. Portland abounds in nobodies.
Here you can take off your clothes and join an annual bike ride of a few thousand naked people riding through city streets, and nobody will complain about public nudity.
Here you can take paint to any building you want – even the federal courthouse – and spray and brush whatever you want, whenever you want, and nobody will do anything about it.
The courthouse now sports an entirely new look. Hundreds of blue, red, black and white swirls and scrawls from one end to the other: “Make Cops Pay in Blood,” “Big Glocks, Small Cocks,” “Oink your last pigs,” “Freedom Groes (sic) Where Cops Are Buried,” “All dead cops go to hell,” “Hate = U.S.A.” “The good cop is a dead cop,” “Alabama Crab Dangle.”
Fun fact: More than a decade ago, Portland passed City Code 14B.85 restricting sales of spray paint and other graffiti materials “to help law enforcement and to slow the incidents of graffiti vandalism.”
Pass all the laws you want. Watch what happens when nobody enforces them.
Portland’s protests are ostensibly about police brutality. George Floyd, a black man with a criminal history and Fentanyl and meth in his blood, encountered a Minneapolis police officer, who pinned him under his knee. It’s not enough to prosecute the officer. We must now embrace everything from defeating President Donald Trump to forcing every white person to take a knee for Black Lives Matter.
The popular narrative, repeated unquestionably in the media, is that Portland’s protests were starting to die down when Trump sent in federal marshals. This ignores Portland’s history of being unwilling to control protesters who loot and run wild. The city takes a perverse pride in its anarchists (provided they exhibit progressive values).
Two years ago, Mayor Ted Wheeler let protesters occupy a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Southwest Portland. He announced that local police would offer no assistance to ICE.
(See Occupy ICE: A Portland Cesspool)
At the courthouse and justice center, when protesters start fires and repeatedly try to break into the buildings, Wheeler and city commissioners have cast police as the aggressors.
When officers do make arrests during protests, which is tricky because they are outnumbered by an unruly mob, the suspects are often quickly released.
The hundreds to thousands of protesters who show up every night seem to be in agreement that the police are the enemy. On the nights I’ve observed the protests, it’s hard to see anyone who is on their side. While most protesters don’t engage in violent acts, their presence emboldens the faction that does.
The good ladies who make up the “Wall of Moms” toss off insults like “goon squads” when referring to the federal officers. Would they have sided with Timothy McVeigh when he brought down the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building?
The frenzy over Floyd’s death has been compared to a new religion for shallow, white people seeking meaning and for eager, black people seeking reparations.
For me, when I see Portland’s Apple Store – once a striking glass cube in Pioneer Place filled with customers and employees engaged in urban commerce – now reduced to a boarded-up shrine of murals to George Floyd, I get the urge to grab a can of paint thinner and splash some in his face. Would it have killed you, Mr. Floyd, had you cooperated with the police?
Even before COVID-19 and the lockdown, Portland was in trouble. The city’s downtown deterioration has been steady, led by drug-addled vagrants, who know they can do pretty much as they please. Who’s going to stop them? Nobody.
Our famous Powell’s City of Books remains closed. Is it just because of social distancing limits? Or has it been worn down by the same kind of social disorder that has turned the Central Library into a place where staff is trained in how to treat drug overdoses?
A friend of mine told me the last time she was in Powell’s shortly before the lock-down, she went in to use the restroom and found a woman washing her hair. The store’s entrances were popular (and apparently lucrative) spots for panhandlers.
Just four blocks from Powell’s books is one of Portland’s many social service nonprofits with a sign in its front window, “Gotta Pee?” and listing nearby places where folks can relieve themselves (including Lownsdale Park).
Next door to that nonprofit is the vacant Bushong building, purchased by the county (courtesy of the taxpayers) to be rehabbed into a “no-barrier” homeless shelter, meaning that it will be OK to be under the influence of illegal drugs. That should add to the vibrant street scene in the neighborhood.
In a city of nobodies, who gets to be somebody? As is often the case, money can be a good indicator.
“We’ve raised over $300,000 within 21 days and, frankly, this is too much money to reasonably spend,” Beans of Riot Ribs told The Portland Mercury.
So she and Rico have turned over Riot Ribs leadership – and money – to Don’t Shoot Portland, a police accountability group founded by Teressa Raiford, an unsuccessful candidate for City Council and mayor and an unsuccessful litigant in a lawsuit against police.
Another prominent member of Don’t Shoot Portland, who is frequently quoted by the media, is Gregory McKelvey, once hailed by Willamette Week as Portland’s great black hope. However, his leadership skills faltered after Trump was elected, and a protest march McKelvey was leading got out of hand and ended in vandalism, graffiti and looting of several businesses, including an auto dealership.
According to The Portland Mercury, Don’t Shoot Portland’s Demetria Hester will act as the point person for Riot Ribs’ transition.
“(A) mobile Riot Ribs spin-off, dubbed Revolution Ribs, will be hitting the road with in a pair of newly purchased vans stocked with food, grills, and coolers.”
Hester is a curious choice to put in charge of handling $300,000 and future fund-raising. She has prior felony convictions for theft and forgery. She more recently made the news as a victim of Jeremy Christian, convicted of killing two white men on a MAX train. The two victims intervened when another white male passenger confronted Christian after he objected to two young women, one of whom was wearing a hijab.
The day before that deadly assault, Christian insulted Hester, and she Maced him. He, in turn, threw a full Gatorade bottle at her. She was upset that the police didn’t arrest him and complained that had they done so, he might not have been able to kill anyone the next day.
True. But for the past several years, criminal justice reformers – especially those who now want to defund police – have lobbied for officers not to be so quick to arrest.
The ACLU has actively campaigned for progressive District Attorneys who will be less inclined to prosecute. On Aug. 1, one of them – Mike Schmidt – will become the District Attorney handling any charges filed on behalf of protest subjects arrested by Portland police.
Schmidt will not have jurisdiction over cases related to arrests by federal officers.
The voters who put him in office, just like the protesters who gather in front of the courthouse and justice center, probably think they are walking in the shoes of the late Congressman John Lewis and other civil rights heroes.
While the Living Room Theater in downtown Portland is still closed, it has a movie poster in its window advertising the documentary “John Lewis: Good Trouble.” He led protests back when the possibility of black billionaires and a black president would have been inconceivable.
“Good trouble!” was how Lewis used to describe his run-ins with white authorities during the civil rights movement.
Today’s protesters aren’t causing good trouble. They are just causing trouble. It might be particularly bad trouble for the black people they think they’re helping.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
Related:
Occupy ICE: A Portland Cesspool
Portland in a Daze Over Protests
From the Archives:
It has been several decades since the deceased Mr. Lewis was good trouble. Like many of the activists on that long past but very brave era, his focus had changed.
Perhaps to a small degree he can be compared to Congressman Cunningham, once a valiant and skilled warrior for his nation who also shifted his focus with the passage of years. It is not uncommon.
I do not know if Soro’s money was really involved in the ascendancy of so many of these progressive D.A.’s. Certainly something financed this welter of powerful local legal creatures that has come forth to combat us dumbheads (ie racists, homophones, cis-genderists, and etc.).
Anyhow, the popular sympathy that these culture destroyers generate as they nightly war on the city was born in our educational system. So also the insane cover the local media and the national media provide these crazy and hostile “protesters.” The way media portray this debacle would not pass the briefest inspection by an honest journalist. As the saying goes, the narrative is right but the facts are wrong.
How can local politicos permit this? A functioning downtown is a rare and hard won thing. Hell, so is constitutional law, but nonetheless here we are.
The whole mess is cowardly beyond explanation.
I can state unequivocally that George Soros, through the Open Society Institute and various “cut-outs” has been systematically targeting and funding candidates for the offices of DA for over 15 years.
In Oregon alson, it was very rare for DA elections to ever cost even $50,000 – even in big counties, but in 2018, when long-time Washington County DA Bob Hermann retired, the Soros group actively (and desperately it turned out) searched for a “woke” candidate and came up with a pathetic one. He had a brief, and badly-evaluated, term as a Deputy DA in a small county, yet he received almost $1 million from Soros. Local rallied for his challenger, Kevin Barton, who eviscerated his opponent at the ballot box.
But in other places – Chicago, San Francisco (where the new DA is the child of two convicted murderers, one still in prison),Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Houston (where the candidate originally was opposed by Soros, but sold out to get his financial support).
The new Portland DA, is a 39-year old who has never tried a major felony and clearly intends to dismantle law enforcement. He received some financial support from Soros, but not huge amounts.
Violent crime is already skyrocketing in Chicago and Philadelphia and beware of crime stats. If police do not think anyone will be prosecuted for say a strong arm robbery, they do not enter it, and as a result it becomes a tree in the forest no one hears fall.
2nd city cop blog.
http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/
They’ve blown it in The Windy.
Where black lives really matter.
Thanks. I had forgotten about that blog. Great advice to cops: Don’t volunteer to serve at the Democratic convention in Milwaukee.
I had not heard that 100 law enforcement agencies withdrew their support after Milwaukee’s city council banned the use of tear gas and pepper spray as a crowd control tool, even in the event of a riot. What does that leave cops?
And I didn’t know that the state of Wisconsin forbids outside law enforcement agencies from using force of any sort.
Why should any cop stick his/her neck out if somebody decides to express their freedom of speech in a violent way at the Democratic convention?
I’ve been following Oregon legislature’s Joint Committee on Transparent Policing and Use of Force Reform. The group had its 8th meeting today. Some members are hoping to ban outright tear gas and choke-holds.
I understand there are “bad actors” among police. There are far more bad actors in the criminal community. Anything goes for them.
A few years ago, during a Senate Judiciary Committee (I think that’s where it was), I heard a simple question posed by Sen. Kim Thatcher (R-Salem): When did criminals start having lobbyists?
It would not have killed George Floyd to cooperate with the cops. Police mark thousands of contacts with people every week. Most arrests are routine. There’s a reason the cops were called on Floyd. His behavior led to lost lives and livelihoods. I don’t hear the wall of moms calling out his bad behavior. Worse than tear gas.
Neither George Floyd nor Derek Chauvin were honorable men. Yet one of them has been elevated to hero-worship status. What are young black men supposed to think when they see men like Floyd and Rodney King exulted?
I don’t see mobs of white people taking to the streets to defend Chauvin.
The Oregon Legislature has been holding hearings by the Joint Committee on Transparent Policing and Use of Force Reform. It is looking at major reforms that could impact public safety in the state — because of Floyd and Chauvin. This could be a classic example of an over-correction that leads to more serious consequences than the original wrong.
I’m providing 3 interrelated links concerning Minneapolis. The climax of which suggests or implies that the woes there are the work of white supremacists. Go figure.
http://americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/minneapolis_surrenders_to_the_criminals.html
https://alphanewsmn.com/minneapolis-police-tell-residents-to-obey-criminals-and-be-prepared-to-be-robbed/
https://alphanewsmn.com/blame-riots-on-racist-biker/
Then, the televised or filmed interview below
Meanwhile,in Portland:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/07/oregons-u-s-attorney-tells-media-their-distorted-portland-riots-coverage-is-part-of-the-problem/
Guns and fists…..all that is left for cops to use.
If the Oregon legislature’s Joint Committee on Transparent Policing and Use of Force Reform have their way, the cops may not even have that. The public testimony being offered at their meetings (tomorrow will be their 10th) has been stacked heavily against police.
Year before last I used my fists to ward of interlopers. I drove them off, but for a minute, minute and half of scrap I received 8 to 9 months of painful and limited use of my hands.
I’m sorry that happened to you, Larry. It adds to the pain when you’re surrounded by people who seem to think you should never fight back — unless you’re taking a swing at Donald Trump.
Thanks for the links, especially the interview with Billy Williams. I don’t watch much TV news. He showed real grace. I’m not so nice. The female reporter, who thought she was being so clever in her word choices, deserves to be the victim of a violent crime. A crime that is never prosecuted, because, well … hurt people hurt people, and we need reconciliation more than we need justice.
Williams’ quote about the courthouse not having a front door since July 3 really summed it up. Why no outrage? Because in the progressive mind, it’s just property.
Imagine if protesters vented their anger on the OPB building (or the equipment outside) on Macadam Avenue. Or at the building downtown that houses The Oregonian. Or the building that houses Willamette Week. It’s just property.
“Obey criminals and be prepared to be robbed?”
I can’t see Chief Lovell caving in like the Minneapolis Chief. His boss Wheeler could.
You know, alot of those folks who serve on police oversight groups have no idea what Larry’s talking about. They’ve never slugged someone in self-defense or been in any kind of scrap.
Breathtaking difference between the mainstream narrative and what really happened to this guy and his pickup.
It’s frightening. I’ll post an introductory quote that is apt:
“We have been living, he said, in a condition “like the eight minutes twenty seconds between when the sun dies and we experience it.” He’s talking about the time it takes for light from the sun to reach earth. If the sun suddenly went out, it would take eight minutes and twenty seconds for people on earth to realize it, because that’s how long it will take for the sun’s final rays to arrive here.”
So, are we existing in the 8 minutes and 20 seconds between the time rational society died and when we finally understand that that is the case?
https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/08/05/portland-blm-surrounds-another-car-it-doesnt-end-well/
Perhaps that period of eight minutes and 20 seconds has arrived at The New York Times. This story ran yesterday about how Seattle businesses wanted police protection and couldn’t get it:
nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/defund-police-seattle-protests.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20200808&instance_id=21107&nl=todaysheadlines®i_id=53933422&segment_id=35593&user_id=3935050faf1050700a55769119623f9c
If you look at the comments under reader picks, you’ll find the top comment is from someone taking the Times and other media to task for their false narratives.
The story mentions problems in Portland and quotes the owner of Stevens-Ness legal publishing. The homemade sign I mentioned — “Per Rico and Riot Ribs please don’t vandalize” — didn’t work. I walked by there on Thursday, and the business was encased in boards.
Reading today’s print and TV media is again crazy. The discrepancy between the nature of the invasion and attack on the Penumbra Kelly building and the news reports is unbridgeable.
Street medics attacked? Independent press attacked? Tear gas in the drains? Good god, get The Hague on the line.
Yesterday that pickup came to a slow and controlled stop.A fellow lays his motorcycle in front of the truck to preempt his get-away. Punks smash the rig fore and aft and he floors it out of there. The media reports it as though the man were a reckless would be murderer.
This is insane. It doesn’t make sense. Why are these people in the media not telling the truth? why are our elected officials not protecting the citizens. What is going on?
http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2020/08/san-francisco-last-chapter.html
John Mulaney joked about the amendment before a Saturday Night Live audience, saying he was in his apartment the other day when the buzzer rang. “It was the 101st Airborne. And they said, ‘Permission to land in your house!’ And I went, ‘Third Amendment.’ He said, ‘Gentlemen, he’s invoked the Third. Let’s fall out and find another house to live in.’ ’’
https://www.legalexaminer.news/2020/08/the-constitutions-ignored-stepchild-the-third-amendment/
Backstory. (That Portland media doesn’t want to tell.)
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/portland-protests-far-left-anarchists-invade-pacific-northwest/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-08-11&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
https://www.gopusa.com/portlands-peaceful-protesters-beat-driver-bloody/
Looking at KGW news this morning. Here’s a headline: Boat sinks on Willamette River during ‘Trump boat parade.’
I clicked expecting to read of the ramshackle boat of a Trump supporter sinking. I could not guess why the quotation marks around the “Trump boat parade.”
However, rather than a clown story about Trump supporters it is the tale of people not associated with the parade who could not manage their craft on the Willamette. One also suspects the “other boaters” who rescued the people may well be the awful clown supporters of the Donald.
At this time I do not see any mention of the pickup driver and girlfriend assault story.
KOIN does have the story but it does not receive the preeminence that it merits. It also notes that the mother of a black gangster shot to death by the police as he charged them with a firearm gave a speech opening the evening’s festivities. She, of course, wants change.
The Oregonian covers the story with some details but without vigor or real curiosity or intelligence.
A couple weeks back a friend of Middle-eastern origin made reference to his unhappiness over the Beirut explosion. Bad business no doubt, but no one ever mentions the insanity of ongoing arson, violence, intimidation, and etc. we in Portland daily experience.
Why do we pretend this isn’t happening or that it is about Black Lives? A couple of men I know get very upset about racial injustice should any criticism be stated or implied. The majority of our fellow citizens are silent as if the prolonged violent seizure of their city is not their business.
This catastrophic new Soros District Attorney Schmidt is a waking nightmare as is Joann Hardesty’s election and that of Chloe Eudaly.
What’s to do? I vote, but the will of the people seems contrary to my will and my thinking. The left is exactly guilty of that which it accuses the right of perpetrating. I recognize our side is not made of angels, just fallible adults.
I am not going to lead a political insurrection or organize a reaction to combat this ongoing debacle. Are you?
I am going to do what everyone else is doing that opposes this stuff: I am going to hide in books and film and pretend my community and nation are not dying.
I think of a putative Hemingway quotation about bankruptcy: How do you go bankrupt? Slowly at first and then all at once.
How does a great nation die? Look outside your window.
The battle-space prep that is the post office hysteria sickens one. Do I correctly remember that we used to go to a local voting place manned by volunteers, show our id, and then vote?
The left frets Trump will not accept the results of the next election when they haven’t accepted the results of the last one. It is not going to quit, the violence, as we approach election day nor will it cease after no matter who wins.
I can’t exist in anger and outrage. Where I work near Delta Park Hayden Meadows the dopers, thieves, mentals have established a huge and dynamic encampment. No city should allow this. Oh, why go on?
Why go on? To see what happens next.
Not only are we suffering from our over-reaction to COVID-19, which most likely originated in a wet market in China (as did previous pandemics), but we are living under that famous Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.
The politics of Portland progressives are finally bearing fruit. Let’s see who likes it. Tonight the protesters were at the ICE building on Macadam (the same place they seized a couple of years ago). I’m not fond of Twitter, but it can be an outlet if you feel like saying something immediately. I posted a response to one of the protesters and suggested they move the festivities south to OPB headquarters on Macadam. Can you imagine? That’s progressive holy ground.
If you haven’t already read this, here’s a link that’s making the rounds of certain members of the Oregon District Attorneys Association:
https://thepostmillennial.com/new-portland-da-admits-he-is-old-buddies-with-an-antifa-militant
There is a small pro-Schmidt faction among DAs, but a larger faction is concerned about the lawlessness he has endorsed. If Schmidt can’t live his politics, he will face the wrath of his most faithful supporters. Perhaps a small fire will be started at his house and a window broken.
Schmidt doesn’t understand that those dopers, thieves and mentals you deal with would like some law and order themselves.
“I am going to hide in books and film and pretend my community and nation are not dying.”
That’s not a bad alternative. It does help to turn off the news and spend time outside. Systemic racism? Tell it to Mother Nature where birds of a feather flock together.
Suffering from an over-reaction to Covid 19? Is that what you call 170,000 US deaths in less than 6 months? US lost something like 400,000 American soldiers in WWII and that took almost 4 years. Sorry Pamela. I am even beginning to agree with Larry about Portland but Jesus Christ we are facing some serious shit. Still haven’t seen ‘Last Night’ but I did find a copy of Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe. A book I could not find on Amazon. Again love your column.
No. Tom. What I consider the over-reaction is the extent of the lock-down. In particular, it feels like some public agencies are using the lock-down as an excuse to wall off the public. To a degree, it’s understandable. Some members of the public can be very unpleasant.
But life is full of germs and deadly disease and always has been. There are teachers now who are deathly afraid of catching something from one of their students. Perhaps they should find another career.
Of those 170,000 U.S. deaths, how many were elderly and suffering from underlying conditions? Death, per se, is not an unusual occurrence.
What is unusual is how fervently some people embraced the lock-down and the related economic catastrophe. If Trump loses the White House, and this embrace of the lock-down lifts (even as COVID-19 deaths continue), that could be indication that the issue wasn’t entirely the pandemic.
As Larry puts it, no ailment can be worth the destruction of a nation.
Enjoy Tom Wolfe. He was ahead of his time. Lots of mau-mauing going on with Black Lives Matter, especially in the media.
I do believe Pamela to be more in the right. If these “authorities” believed what they say would they allow these mass orgies of street hate and celebration?
Oh, this is up my way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO-aQr7eFkY
I’ll believe that there is a medical crisis when these ‘authorities’ behave as if if there were.
Remember the Gore global warmists that drove in limousine cavalcades 3 blocks from the hotel to the Anti-warmest speech?
Lancet, JAMA and just about every other goddam medical journal lied for political reasons about the terrible loss of life and injury during the Bush Iraq War. Terrible and wasteful as was that conflict venerable journals sacrificed their value and integrity to push up the numbers of dead, injured, and etc. for ideological reasons
Of course we have all read of the car accident victims the, cancers sufferers that have Covid listed as the cause of death out of either political or financial pressure.
The left has been successful in discrediting every societal institution on which we used to rely. The Russian conceit pushed by our Federal investigation agencies is beyond my ken.
It took some work to get me to this point but the vast mendacity of journalists covering Obama’s Chicago past and ripping around for anything on Trump and all of the rest, including Black Lies Matter. Christ, the library recommends Angela Davis as a must read. That is institutional rot.
The covid response is a corrupt pigsty. I’m guessing that many more have died from the economic and emotional debacle that has been brought on by this ‘health measure’ than have ever persihed from the ailment.
My first real public health scare was the largely fraudulent AIDS crisis which was to empty Africa and ravage the population of N America and Europe. Of course it was immeadiately nearly illegal and certainly immoral to even wonder how it was contracted. The point being political sympathies far outstripped medical realities.
Finally, no ailment can be worth the destruction of a nation.
George Flloyd Forever.
I’ve been reading you for awhile and clicked on one of of the archives about Portland in a Daze of Protests. There’s a comment from matt that says, “wait until Hardesty is elected and there is a three vote anti-police block in place. The People will have spoken, and it will have been against police.”
That’s exactly it. What’s wrong with Portland? A few years back there was a guy who wanted to blow up Pioneer Square. Could be that’s what some Portlanders want.
I got nieghbors with BLM signs all over the place. One of them told me what if protesters
come marching on our street. I told him I’d get on the roof with a AR 14 and aim for their legs. Mow them down. Later he said, those guns are expensive. He’d priced them online. He thought I was serious!
These Portlanders are stupid. They want to abolish police. They don’t know how bad it can get.
I think what you probably meant was AR-15, but I get your point. Biden made the same slip when he referred to an AR-14, and there were plenty of gun owners pointing out that the AR-14 was a sports rifle. I admit I’ve never shot either.
My hairdresser lives near one of those neighborhoods that Tom referred to. I asked her if she was concerned. She shocked me by saying, “If they come into my neighborhood and start looting, I’m going up on my roof and take the gun (my boyfriend) bought me.” Her boyfriend, it should be noted, is someone who knows his way around firearms and probably gave her lessons, too.
Still, if you could see this woman — very attractive, demure, stylish — talking about getting up on the roof of her home with a gun. And then you read Tom’s comment about his tax statement. I don’t think these mostly white, BLM protesters understand what they have done. Even the Trump-haters are fed up with them.
I have lived here pretty much my entire life over 60 years. This is as bad as I have ever seen it and each day it gets worse. Before BLM plans a demonstration they post flyers warning that “This neighborhood is a tear gas hot zone”. They tell you how to protect yourself. I give up. I’ll get my property tax statement in another couple of months. Like to just send them a I O FUCK YOU.
I don’t blame you for being angry. When they tell you how to protect yourself, do they suggest wrapping a wet handkerchief around your face and closing windows? They have no respect for property rights. They don’t understand how closely intertwined property rights and human rights are. Neither do most of our local political leaders.
Another well written and on point essay Pamela. Thank you and keep up the good work .
I’d like to see the these little bastards Zoom their protests and set themselves on fire. Now that would take commitment.
That could be a well-deserved ending. It might bring some Portland journalists to tears, though.
BLM stopped me again tonight. On Lombard. At Denver. These little monsters. I hate them.
If the Police see no point in charging them because of our new DA they could at least sideline them for the rest of the season if you get my drift.
Oh, I do get your drift. I was furious enough last night to behave like a fool. I circled the block and came back through the intersection.
Anger making me a horse’s ass, I slowed/stopped a couple of times to ask if the group gathered in the dark were Antifa/BLM. When they said yes I cursed them, they cursed me and I drove away. Nothing good came of my name calling and I drove to a mini-market to pick up some sodas.
In the doorway I got into a loud dispute with a bum coming in to buy a couple 16 ouncers and finally got myself yelled at by the clerk.
I got home having been a moron in public and still furious at the whole damn thing – the punks allowed to take over sections of town, the pervasiveness of bums, street people – whatever, the impotence of the police.
What held me back from being a violent fool was the prospect of punishment.
This shit is always easiest to bear when it doesn’t stand in front of your face. Or on you throat.
https://twitter.com/rawsmedia/status/1298055028213678082?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1298282395272085508%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Falthouse.blogspot.com%2F
Larry, I’m glad you made it home safely. Next time just tell them you’re BIPOC, and they’re standing on stolen land.
It’s revealing that the protesters complain about police brutality — yet keep coming back night after night. It must not hurt too much. As Tom puts it, sideline them. Otherwise they face no other punishment.
Fear of punishment can be a powerful influence, as you point out.
I juxtapose:
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-fascistic-taste-for-coercion.html
and
https://twitter.com/AsraNomani/status/1298299676710580224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1298338764608212992%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Falthouse.blogspot.com%2F
with this:
https://nypost.com/2020/08/24/young-people-dont-trust-anyone-who-use-this-punctuation-mark/
So it’s all right to get in someone’s face and threaten them because they refuse to raise a fist in support of Black Lives Matter, but using a period at the end of a sentence is threatening.
Maybe we’ll see more of those personal protests in Portland when the rains come, and the protesters move indoors.
Here is a link to the poster that is put up before a demonstration to the surrounding neighborhood.
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk00ChuOKRZfbU3GDH-YZK_SsyzdqxQ:1598461295942&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=tear+gas+in+your+neighborhood+poster+portland+oregon&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiKhe2trLnrAhXJ3J4KHbRyAqYQsAR6BAgKEAE&biw=1670&bih=819#imgrc=kSw17i1HxyFPpM
Thanks. Clever how they couch it. They make it sound like you will be subjected to tear gas simply because you live within a mile of a Portland Police Bureau building, as if protesters’ actions have nothing to do with it.
My first spotting of an HtA referenced term in outside writing, BIPOC:
https://www.thefire.org/the-case-of-carlin-romano-gets-a-perfect-score-on-the-cancel-culture-checklist-and-thats-not-a-good-thing/
Is it a neologism like NASA or Scuba or is it something else other than pathetic?
The first time I saw the acronym BIPOC was earlier this year. I can’t remember where — maybe The New York Times in one of their routine progressive op-eds. I thought it was stupid. Just what we need — another acronym, another tribe.
But then a group of Oregon state legislators formed the BIPOC Caucus — Black, Indigenous and People of Color Caucus and started sending out press releases. Now that is dangerous. They are STATE legislators, and they represent DISTRICTS. Where does skin color fit in? We are becoming obsessed with race and ethnicity. But it’s a proven moneymaker. In July the BIPOC Caucus pushed for and received $62 million “for Black Relief and Resiliency from the Coronavirus Relief Fund.”
That’s only the beginning. Reimagine Oregon, a collection of black nonprofits, is in line for even more money for black Oregonians.
There is a new race war brewing in America.
Was Brown thinking? She didn’t have her people co-coordinating with the other agencies?
She made a declaration of international and national interest as well as statewide, county, and metropolitan importance without . . . I dunno…checking to see if anyone she called upon was willing to co-operate?
It would not take too much moxie and experience on Kate’s part to suspect that outside law enforcement would decline to handcuff themselves before entering someone else’s fight and laying their personnel open vengeful attack litigation from Portland legal creatures.
In the aftermath of this debacle, should it ever end, All local political decision makers will win re-election by wide margins.
There is some satisfaction in watching Oregon progressives being forced to live the results of their politics. Unfortunately, the rest of use are also forced to live with the results.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3xpnPeUSsM
at the 1:20 mark see a police officer give a protester a real workover in NW during the protest outside the Mayors condo. A couple of months ago I would probably be appalled, now not so much.
Three punches after the rioter –
– geared up,
– participated in a riot,
– disobeyed police commands,
– knocked off cop’s helmet,
– Fled the scene of a crime,
– terrorised the citizenry,
– participated in arson
and the laundry list goes on. city form of remonstrance suitable for framing (but probably not).
Little fucker was wearing a helmet wasdn’t he?
Gets popped three times… a workover?
Not to denigrate your POV, but admittedly mine is different.
It gave me a great deal of satisfaction to see the cop clobber the little bastard. Only hit him 3 times I’d call that reasonable
restraint.
Today, the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Transparent Policing and Use of Force Reform met for, I believe, the 12th time this summer. It is led by two black co-chairs, Sen. James Manning and Rep. Janelle Bynum (don’t dare call her Ms. Bynum; that’s Rep. Bynum to you). This committee has succeeded in securing some police reforms in one of the special sessions, and they are pushing to secure more — things like banning tear gas, changing police uniforms, eliminating qualified immunity for officers (makes it easier to sue the cops).
But the most important thing to know is that the public hearing portion of these day-time meetings overwhelmingly attract Portland residents sympathetic to the protesters. Some of them are undoubtedly antifa. You would think that hardly anybody in the city of Portland supports the police. Most of the people testifying would condemn the cop in that video without knowing what led up to the exchange.
I’ve heard estimates that 51 to 57 Portland police have retired so far this summer.
I’ve been to some of these protests to observe. The cops are outnumbered, and it’s chaotic.
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