Portland Dealing with Serial Murders After Defunding the Police
Nature abhors a vacuum—Aristotle
In June 2020, the Portland City Council decided to defund the police by reducing its budget by $15 million annually. They completely disbanded a gun violence reduction unit and dramatically reduced the size of the Special Emergency Reaction Team (a SWAT team) because both were accused of targeting African-Americans. As an alternative, the City Council funded programs that route 911 calls to mental health workers and emergency medical technicians instead of the police.
Portland, like other woke municipalities, was just waiting for a Floyd-like moment to unleash their lunacy on the residents of what was once a great city. Naturally, the results were predictable to an extent, but with bizarro world woke policies, there are usually unintended negative consequences that are even worse than anyone could have imagined.
Crime Rates in Portland Jump Dramatically
Despite the endless attempts to distort the data to fit their silly narrative that a diminished and ineffectual police force leads to a lower crime rate, the numbers are clear. The most accurate measurement is homicide rates, since those crimes must be reported. Misdemeanor and soft felony crimes are more difficult to measure because the absence of a police presence and lack of prosecution often means these types of crimes now go unreported.
Simply put, the homicide rate in Portland has skyrocketed since the City Council defunded the police. Between 2019 and 2020, the city averaged 21 homicides a year. However, in 2022, the homicide count reached 101. That’s an astounding 380% increase. The situation was so bad, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a proponent of the defund movement, requested $7 million to hire 200 new officers just a year after the defund measure passed.
Guess those mental health workers just didn’t work out.
Portland Invites a Serial Killer Back into the Community
As if the defund disaster wasn’t bad enough, Portland is now in the unintended consequences phase of their bizarro world sanctimony.
It looks like they have a serial killer in their midst.
Sometime in late May, online rumors began to circulate regarding the deaths of six women who were all under the age of 40 and found within a 100-mile stretch in the Portland metro area. The police were quick to shut down the idea that the murders were connected, and they issued a press release in early June that said in part:
“The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) has been hearing widespread questions and concerns about the death investigations of six women throughout the region, especially after widely distributed social media posts and news media articles appeared to suggest a connection between them. These discussions have led to some anxiety and fear in our community, and we want to provide reassurance that the speculation is not supported by the facts available at this point.”
Yet, on July 18th, the police arrested Jesse Lee Calhoun as a person of interest in the murder of four of the female victims the police are now admitting are probably related. Calhoun’s current girlfriend has confirmed he had contact with at least two of the victims.
Besides the tragic and senseless loss of life, the most maddening aspect of the story is that former woke Oregon Governor Kate Brown granted Calhoun a conditional commutation in 2021 for three previous convictions of assault (twice) and burglary. The commutation centered on Calhoun’s aid in fighting wildfires, and her concern Covid would spread in prison.
Nature Abhors a Vacuum
Aristotle was correct in his pronouncement that nature abhors a vacuum. Remove the police, and criminals will fill the void. It’s just that simple. For woke leftists, the foundation of every crazy idea and misguided policy is self-righteous virtue signaling and enhancing their control. Regardless of how devastating their policies might be to the hard-working, law-abiding citizens in the community, defunding the police is righteous to a leftist. Fortunately, we are now accumulating evidence in real time, and Portland is a bell weather example we should all watch closely.
What we know for certain is that homicide rates increased nearly 400% one year after defunding the police, and a probable serial killer was invited back into the community. Could a more robust police force have apprehended the perpetrator of these horrific crimes much sooner? Probably. Still, one can’t help but wonder if the tragedy could have been avoided completely if he hadn’t been released by a woke, sanctimonious leftist governor.
Kristin Smith, 22; Charity Lynn Perry, 24; Bridget Leann Ramsey Webster, 31; and Ashley Real, 22, were young people with families that are grieving and futures that have been snuffed out by the callous insanity of woke zealots looking for the spotlight and praise from their peers and a complicit media.
Trust me, if Calhoun gets charged with these murders, the woke City Council and ex-governor will get all the attention they deserve.
