Posted on 11/09/2021 4:25:20 PM PST by NoLibZone
Portland has 1.2 officers per 1000 people. National average in 2020 was 2.4 officers per 1000 people
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The number of Portland Police Bureau sworn officers is the fewest it’s been since 1989.
There are currently 788 sworn members combating record shootings and murders, confronting anarchists breaking windows and property, dealing with far left and far right groups squaring off in the city, crime in homeless camps and a rash of stolen cars.
Portland, which once proudly called itself “The City that Works” is struggling to keep up with crime.
Police staffing numbers in Portland have dwindled since the movement to defund police in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Now, as the union is calling on city officials to double the police force, Mayor Ted Wheeler and city councilors are left to decide what to do to ensure the city “works” for everyone again.
As of Nov. 8, Portland police had recorded 77 homicides so far in 2021. That’s the highest number ever recorded in the city.
‘A dangerous time’: Portland, Oregon, sees record homicides Police also say there have been 1,105 shootings as of Nov. 8 and they’re having a difficult time keeping up with smaller, more common crimes, like a theft Joel Morales reported.
Morales lives near a homeless camp off Interstate 5 in North Portland. He’s looking for his $3,500 electric bicycle that was stolen.
“I still can’t get Portland PD to help me out with this because they’re under-resourced,” he said. Morales said some of the homeless people living near his home told him that a person in the camp stole his bike.
While Portland’s population has continued to grow over the years, its number of sworn members has been – for the most part – declining since 2006.
In 1960, Portland had 654 police officers, when the city had 372,000 people. That’s about 300,000 fewer residents than the city has in 2021.
Over the last 60 years, as the population grew, so did the number of police officers. In 2001, the bureau staff peaked at 1,054 officers, according to data from the FBI. This data varies slightly from information published from the Portland Police Bureau, which said they had 1,049 officers in 2001.
After that, the population continued to climb, but the number of officers started to go down due to retirements and difficulty recruiting. Add in the budget cuts to the bureau in 2020, the chaos of violent protests, police leaving the bureau for other jobs – and the number took a dramatic dive.
As of Nov. 8, Portland was down to 788 officers.
The last time the city had fewer than that was in 1989 with 742 officers. Portland’s population at the time was 65% of what it is now.
Amid staffing shortage, Gresham Police refocuses its efforts KOIN 6 News spoke to other people who live near the homeless camp Morales has been complaining about.
“This is anarchy,” Laurie Sugahbeare said. “The city has decided what rules they will and will not impose.
“I carry a Smith and Wesson baton that extends outward for a good, quick swing,” said Dale Hardt. “Now the city, Jo Ann Hardesty, has asked us to step up and enforce the laws ourselves. And I’m here, Jo Ann. I’m ready to defend the laws.”
Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty has advocated strongly for limiting the number of armed officers in the city.
“The police have a role, but their role is simply to solve crime. Their role is not to prevent crime, their role is not to intervene in other community activities. A response to gun violence should not be a knee-jerk reaction. As you know, we intentionally cut very specific programs in PPB’s budget during the last budget process because those programs had racially disparate outcomes,” she said in May.
She’s been the loudest voice on the commission for cutting the police force. She favors moving money to social services to prevent crime and funding non-police crisis workers to diffuse situations before they become violent.
She’s also denied that many of the shootings in the city are committed by gangs.
However, in late October, she told KOIN 6 News she reached out to Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell about creating a rehire plan.
“I’m open. I think if we’re going to rehire former officers, we need to have some criteria,” she said. “[To ensure] that we don’t bring back officers who’ve, who were part of the 6,000 use-of-force complaints from last year, that we don’t bring back officers who retired in lieu of being investigated.”
She said she thinks the city needs to work on “transforming a very dysfunctional bureau” and said she knows that’s going to take a while.
“We didn’t create a dysfunctional bureau overnight and it’s not going to be fixed overnight,” she said.
KOIN 6 News looked at how Portland Police Bureau’s 788 sworn-member force compares to similarly sized cities.
According to data collected from police departments in October, Washington D.C. has 3,578 officers, which is five officers per 1,000 people.
Boston has 2,098 officers, which is three officers per 1,000 people.
Milwaukee has 1,663 officers. The ratio is 2.8 officers per 1,000 people.
In El Paso, the police department has 1,138 officers or 1.7 officers per 1,000 people.
Seattle, which as of Nov. 2 had 40 homicides in 2021, has 1,124 officers, or 1.45 officers per 1,000 people. The city experienced its own exodus of officers in the past year.
Portland’s 788 police officers mean the Rose City has 1.2 officers per 1,000 people.
The national average in 2020 was 2.4 officers per 1,000 people.
I think that some of them actually do that. I had just gotten onto 93 late one night after arriving at Logan, and suddenly out of nowhere a car comes flying up from my right on one of those awesome completely blind on-ramps they have. From the moment he entered the freeway he was pointed directly at the far left lane. Just a straight trajectory from the on-ramp to the left lane, barely missing me in the process. There was no way he could have seen me or even known I was there, but he never looked at all.
I love Boston. Everyone should walk the Freedom Trail at least once in their lives. But driving there is the stuff of nightmares. The best strategy if coming from the suburbs into the city is to drive in as far as your courage and sanity will allow, and then park and take the T the rest of the way. I was there once with a friend who had never been there before. We were going into downtown for dinner in the North End (one of my favorite places in the world). When I told him we were only going to drive part way and then take the T, he thought I was crazy. I told him why, but he just dismissed my concern. So, I decided to go ahead and drive in so that he could see what it’s like. He never questioned me again after that. I think he had PTSD for quite a while after that experience.
What on earth does that mean?
I lived in the Boston area many years ago and I had a friend from out of town visiting me. As we drove around I was discussing how bad the drivers were.
I say “Well, the drivers in Boston are bad, but in my experience the drivers in Brookline (adjacent inner suburb) are worse.”
At that moment we saw the Brookline town line sign, entered Brookline, and five seconds later a car came out of nowhere and side-swiped us!
Your joking, right?
The diversity hiring. Be sure you do not go to a “colored” of any color, doctor, dentist, lawyer, airline pilot or engineer. They are “diversity” picks for school or hiring and are not fit.
Not me, live 3 hours from Portland in a very red county. There are a bunch of us in Oregon, but its vote by mail, so Democrats win, every time.
Yes, I'm always joking because we're living in a tragic comedy.
I just think it's ironic somebody in Portland is complaining about Marxism in action.
Not gonna lie. Grew up there and every time I go back and rent a car at Logan I feel like “ah nowvthis is driving!”
Like driving anywhere else half the battle is having some idea of where you’re going. Sure there is also an aggressive factor butva lot is the locals know where to turn, which lane to ne in etc.
Even though it’s been decades since I’ve lived there between GPS and everything being either a little or a lot familiar it all goes pretty well.
Finding parking though - probably going to end up paying at least in Boston proper.
YOU ALL GOT EXACTLY WHAT YOU VOTED FOR-———
So if 80% of the crimes were committed by Eskimos and 20% were committed by Pygmy’s, it would be racist if 80% of your arrests were Eskimos? You should arrest more Pygmy’s to achieve equity?
This is probably just counting the metropolitan police department. There are about a dozen police agencies in DC, including the Park Police, the Capitol Police, the Metro Transit Police, the FBI Police (yes FBI has its own police department), the Pentagon Police, the Fed Police (yes the Federal Reserve has its own police department) and more. All told, about 7 officers per 1,000 people, making it the most heavily policed city in the U.S., probably the world. And for that, there have been 192 murders this year so far, much more than Seattle's 40 with 1.45 officers per 1,000 people. So anarchy is the result of not enforcing laws, regardless of # of cops.
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