Portland cops are already retiring in record numbers, but now cops are fleeing mid-career to go to places for lower pay and a fiscal hit to their retirement accounts. The Democrats’ embrace of the antifa and BLM defund-the-police stance is working—leaving Portlanders even more defenseless against rioters, looters, arsonists, squatters, and terrorists. In essence, the exodus is “a win by those that would want the police to be defunded,” according to the Portland Police Bureau’s human resources officer.
Finding replacements may take some time because the diversity recruiting officer for Portland police is gone too.
The Portland Tribune characterizes the exodus as an “unprecedented situation for Portland” in which “a racially diverse and experienced group of police officers is taking pay cuts to get away from the city, while citing poor working conditions here.”
Leftists keep the pressure on cops by complaining about what they wear, what they do, and the “munitions” they use against rioters, as if quelling violence is wrong.
In the first six months of this year, Portland police purchased more than $170,000 in riot control munitions. And on top of that, their suppliers received federal payroll protection loans. Meanwhile, small businesses continue to struggle in Portland. https://t.co/SSsZrVie5c
— pdx law grrrl (@pdxlawgrrrl) December 19, 2020
Portland’s political class tolerates and encourages riots, sides with rioters, relentlessly criticize cops, and then doesn’t prosecute criminals for rioting.
Chief Chuck Lovell recently announced that the Portland Police Bureau would be moving the vast majority of traffic cops and all its K-9 officers to respond to 911 calls. The goal: to deal with a wave of retirements and resignations and combat historically low response times this past year.
What Lovell didn’t say is that for the first time that anyone can remember, the number of people resigning has outstripped retirements.
While 14 officers have filed papers to retire by the end of January, nine officers have resigned since November, and seven more have filed to resign shortly.
The police bureau has been paying overtime to cover the BLM and antifa riots by using budget money from unfilled jobs, but they’ve had to cut those vacancies because of the Leftist groups’ demand for defunding the cops. Portland has gone back and forth about defunding the police budget by at least $15 million, but has plans for $10 million in cuts for 2021, according to The Tribune.
The cutbacks have had a ripple effect. Hiring has been put on hold and the vacant jobs are staying unfilled. The assistant chief in charge of the bureau’s human resources, Michael Frome, told the Tribune that they’re not at a crisis point. Yet.
“We didn’t have the money to hire, so we laid off basically half of our background investigators. We laid off our [diversity] recruiter, because we just did not see a position in the near future where we were going to be able to use them to capacity.”
Last week, Frome said the bureau planned to post an advertisement on Monday to begin building a list of potential hires. But it doesn’t foresee being able to hire anyone for a very long time. The bureau has been instructed to prepare for a 5% cut in the next budget, or about $10 million.
The police union president says the cuts have put staffing at “dangerously low” levels.
Where are the Portland Police Bureau officers being welcomed? In neighborhood communities and different states.
In Boise, for instance, Chief Ryan Lee — a former assistant chief in Portland — has hired four Portland officers away from his old bureau so far. They’ll lose not only pay, but service time towards their eventual retirement.
“Salaries in Boise are lower than salaries in Portland and the officers coming to Boise will be taking a cut in pay,” Boise Police Department spokesman Haley Williams said in an email.
One long-time cop told the Portland Tribune, “Good people are leaving. Really good cops. And a lot of them have very racially diverse backgrounds.”
Frome agrees and says he’d hire every one of them back if he could. It takes 18 months of training to get a cop to the point where he can ride alone. That expense is another department’s gain, of course.
Though there are a variety of reasons cops are leaving, most of them come down to the abject hostility to the police by city leaders and protesters in what used to be a tolerant town.
Other ones say ‘I just don’t like working in Portland anymore, because the job just doesn’t make me happy,’ Frome said. “You get some (who) throw shade and say, ‘the City Council has created this horrible place for us.’ But you don’t see that from everybody.”
A guillotine was put on top of the Portland Police Association building, which has been set on fire and attacked consistently by the Jacobins on the Left.
Guillotine still present: pic.twitter.com/Mz1SejBULW
— Portland Rising Tide ☀️Transparency Bloc☀️ (@pdxrisingtide) December 15, 2020
Frome says many officers from diverse backgrounds just don’t enjoy working here anymore.
Can’t imagine why. It’s so bad that minority cops made a video about it several months ago.
Victoria Taft is the host of “The Adult in the Room Podcast With Victoria Taft” where you can hear her series on “Antifa Versus Mike Strickland.” Find it here. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, MeWe, Minds @VictoriaTaft
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