Free Republic

Target said Tuesday that it will close nine stores in major cities across the country, citing violence, theft and organized retail crime. The company will close one store in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, two locations in Seattle, three stores in the San Francisco-Oakland area and three more in Portland, Oregon. The discounter said it will shutter the stores for good on Oct. 21. “We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” Target said in a news release. “We know that...

Portland’s flailing Mayor, Ted Wheeler, has a new idea, bring in ex-cons who have served decades in prison after being convicted of serious crimes, which can include murder, to patrol the city’s troubled streets. He wants to contract with a San Francisco-based nonprofit, Urban Alchemy (UA) that hires formerly incarcerated convicts to patrol troubled areas to address street-level issues rooted in addiction, mental illness and homelessness. The plan is for Urban Alchemy to deploy outreach patrols in the city center where Portland police have struggled to maintain patrols.“We want to make sure that that presence, the things we need in...

Earlier this week Jazz Shaw wrote about an unusual request made by Nike directly to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler. Nike’s store in Northeast Portland has been closed for months because of ongoing retail theft and the company wrote to ask if it could either pay to hire additional cops to patrol the area or pay off duty cops to do so. Today, Mayor Wheeler said no.Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has asked Nike to reopen its shuttered community store in Northeast Portland “on a limited basis,” even though he says the city can’t meet the company’s request to detail off-duty police...

Portland residents fear being assaulted or encountering people experiencing a mental health crisis while walking around town, according to a recent survey, but those Fox News spoke with had mixed opinions about safety in the city. “I walk around all the time and during the day I feel fine,” said Amber, who recently moved to Portland from California. “I still keep my wits about me and I’m cautious, but I don’t feel like I’m really in any danger.” But Brenda disagreed. “I’m worried about being physically attacked,” she told Fox News. “It’s not safe. It’s just flat not safe.” Portland...

On March 16, 2022, a Portland city council public meeting was trolled by actors mocking Mayor Ted Wheeler and the city's government.

At least a dozen major U.S. cities have set grim new records for homicides in 2021 — and the year is not over yet. Portland turned over its streets to Black Lives Matter-Antifa rioters last year and allowed the far-left to dictate public policy. Elected officials in the 'City of Roses' condemned the police, defunded law enforcement and coddled violent criminals in the name of 'anti-fascism' and 'anti-racism.' Now it's dealing with yet another year of surging murders, shootings, riots, homeless encampments, mass looting and violent criminality. In early December, the Portland Police Bureau announced that it would only be...

Portland's far-left mayor has admitted that his "hands-off" approach during last summer's civil unrest - that allowed Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters to run wild in the city - was a mistake. On Wednesday, Mayor Ted Wheeler admitted it was "not the right strategy" to allow armed protesters to clash in the Oregon city on August 22, with no intervention from police.

The estate of Aaron "Jay" Danielson, a 39-year-old supporter of former President Donald Trump who was fatally shot by an Antifa backer in Portland, Oregon, last year, filed a $13 million federal lawsuit Friday against the city, its mayor and the county district attorney, according to a report. A lawyer for the estate claims Danielson’s death was "preventable" and the filing blames the city’s and mayor’s "hands off" policing strategy regarding political protests for sparking a "culture of vigilante policing" .... ...On Wednesday, at a Portland City Council meeting, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler backtracked from supporting "hands off" policing after...

The state of Texas could soon feel economic backlash in response to its recently enacted new abortion laws, which are the strictest in the U.S. The city council of Portland, Oregon, is set to vote Wednesday on whether to ban future travel and trading of goods and services with Texas in protest of the legislation, The Hill reports. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said in a statement last week: “The ban will be in effect until the state of Texas withdraws its unconstitutional ban on abortion or until it is overturned in court.”

Following a day of unchecked violence between far-right and far-left demonstrators in both downtown and Northeast Portland, the city’s mayor and police commissioner says the hands-off approach worked in mitigating the violence many expected to take place on the anniversary of one of Portland’s most vicious street brawls. As promised, Portland Police didn’t respond for most of the day. A statement issued Friday said officers wouldn’t intervene in the moment, rather they would monitor violence and property damage in hopes of making arrests afterward. Nearly 22 hours after fighting broke out between the two sides in the Parkrose community and...

Portland, Oregon, residents surveyed about the city’s downtown said they plan to visit less frequently, mainly citing the homelessness and rioting that has plagued the area in the last year, according to a new poll. Respondents to the poll commissioned by The Oregonian newspaper used words like "dirty," "trash," "riots" and "unsafe" to describe the heart of the city, which appears to have deteriorated during the coronavirus pandemic and social unrest of the past year. Downtown Portland, once a cultural and tourist center, is now rife with homeless tents, smashed windows, graffiti, trash and boarded-up businesses, the newspaper reported. And...

David Bouchard admitted he put a Customs and Border Protection officer in a chokehold. Charles Comfort was indicted by a grand jury of civil disorder for twice charging at Portland Police Bureau officers and hitting them with a makeshift shield then kicking a third officer while being arrested. Both men faced federal charges stemming from their actions during a summer of more than 100 straight nights of often violent protests in Portland. But Bouchard and Comfort are among dozens of Portland federal arrestees whose cases were dismissed or are being deferred without so much as a day behind bars.

Welcome to the Weekend. Your currently sober drunk host coming off 15 hours in bed sleeping but with a busy schedule ahead which will include posting when I can. I am not feeling well but I have worked myself in part to this exhausted state I find myself in. Vaxxers Or Anti-Vaxxers We Are All God's Children The media making much of Joe Rogan saying he is not an "anti-vaxxer" an indication that the Establishment's march in lockstep media wants to demonize and marginalize opponents of vaccination. This world filled with many accusations about people who don't support the Insider...

The Portland Police Bureau with assistance from the FBI are investigating a video death threat made against Mayor Ted Wheeler by a self-described Antifa collective. The Post Millennial can report exclusively that a left-wing journalist is linked to the video. The disturbing two-minute video was posted Wednesday night on Twitter by a newly created account named, “@knotathreat.” It was quickly shared and promoted among Portland’s Antifa and extremist far-left accounts. TPM is not posting the video because it includes a home address associated with Wheeler. The video shows a masked person standing in front of a MAX Light Rail train...

“Ted, we are asking for the last time that you resign. If you ignore this message outright, the destruction to your precious way of life is going to escalate. Blood is already on your hands, Ted. The next time, it may just be your own.” knotathreat Twitter (2 min video)

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler on Friday asked residents to help "unmask" the people behind violence at protests in recent weeks, which grew in fervor after police fatally shot a white man at Lents Park. What he's saying: “They want to burn, they want to bash, they want to intimidate, they want to assault,” Wheeler said in a Friday video statement, referring to violent protestors. "Our community needs to resume their lives. People need to go back to work. Employers need to be able to reopen." "I support our police using all legal strategies, including kettling, when the appropriate circumstances and...

There’s often a misperception among those on the left that Black Lives Matter is made up mainly of black people. At least as we see in places like Portland, a lot of the folks coming out and then staying afterward for the Antifa destruction are white leftists, who are about the radical ideology. They don’t really care about black lives or who they might hurt with their continued destruction as long as they move us further to the left. Some black folks in Portland are telling Antifa and the other radical leftist protesters to stop causing trouble because it’s ultimately...

Two officers fired a 40mm device that shoots non-lethal projectiles, and one officer — an eight-year veteran — fired a gun, police said in a statement. Police identified the officer who fired his gun as Zachary Delong. He is on paid administrative leave, authorities said.

Many Portland, Oregon Police officers and supervisors left the state’s largest police force over the last year by taking early retirement or by quitting, according to The Oregonian. City employees who turned in their badges or retired were brutally honest about their reasons for getting out. "The community shows zero support. The city council are raging idiots, in addition to being stupid. Additionally, the mayor and council ignore facts on crime and policing in favor of radical leftist and anarchists’ fantasy. What’s worse is ppb command (Lt. and above) is arrogantly incompetent and cowardly," one retiring detective wrote, reports the...

Paul Cassell, a former U.S. District Court and law professor at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law, dubbed this the “Minneapolis Effect,” in research that he conducted on the phenomenon. “Specifically, law enforcement agencies have been forced to divert resources from normal policing to patrolling demonstrations,” Cassell wrote. “And even as the anti-police protests have abated, police officers have scaled back on proactive or officer-initiated law enforcement, such as street stops and other forms of policing designed to prevent firearms crimes.” In his research, Cassell estimated that due to this shift in policy and in the effort...