Distract, divert, dissemble. Welcome to Antifastan, Oregon, batting lead-off in this week’s West Coast, Messed Coast™ report. And hoo boy, what a line-up.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who has skillfully managed the Rose City into lawless, drug-soaked decline now can boast of another new low under his mayorship: his city becoming the murder capital of the West Coast, Messed Coast™—and other similarly-sized towns across the U.S. as well.
Take a bow, Ted.
Fortunately for Wheeler, he has a ready foil on which to blame the city’s 207-percent increase in the city’s murder rate since 2017 (in comparably sized cities) and 144-percent increase since 2017: guns.
KOMO News reports that Wheeler “declared the State of Emergency to help enact the city’s new plan, called ‘Safer Summer PDX 2022,’ which coordinates city, community, and public safety efforts toward ‘the small percentage of individuals who are most likely to commit or become victims of gun violence.’”
Portland’s recent decline began in earnest in 2011 when the protest culture became the tail that wagged the dog. The Portland city fathers and mothers—if we’re still allowed to use those words—allowed their union buddies to take over two parks in front of City Hall for their “Occupy” movement. The decline accelerated as Antifa and BLM Jacobins were unleashed to begin their 2016 election reign of terror on the peaceful liberals of Portland and “punch Nazis” with impunity. Indulging these people wasn’t hard. City and institutional leaders supported their pet protesters’ politics and their lawlessness.
Related: Judge Cracks Facade of Portland’s ‘Just-Us’ System With Acquittal of Two Right-Wing Antifa Hecklers
That meant that cops had to be defunded. Obviously.
Cops left in droves, the riot squad simply up and quit, and Covid mandates drove even more out. The gang program was disbanded because, duh, racist, and the police gun crime group was abandoned, then reconstituted under a new name.
And now, Portland solves fewer than half its homicides while people are dropping like flies from unfettered gang warfare.
When compared relative to five “peer comparison cities” — Minneapolis, Atlanta, San Francisco, Denver, and Nashville — the report found that Portland had the largest increase in its homicide rate, at 207%. Minneapolis was next highest at 104%, and the third highest was Atlanta at 54%.
By the report’s data, 2019 marked a clear dividing line for when this spike began. Before that year, Portland continually remained below a 20-year average of 28 homicides per year — 2004 marking the only prior exception, when there were 29 homicides. But Portland shot up to 36 homicides in 2019, 57 in 2020 and 88 in 2021.
…70% of known victims and suspects in homicides and shootings had “prior criminal justice system involvement,” and this metric seems to have involved criminal offenses of any kind.
Victims and suspects between 2019 and 2021 were about 61% more likely to have been on probation or another kind of post-prison supervision before than those between 2015 and 2019 — but they were actually somewhat less likely to be on active post-prison supervision.
Indeed, because police gang details are “racist”—though unchecked gang/drug warfare is certainly behind the homicide increase—the city will now consider using a surveillance tool in the high-shooting crime areas. Surveillance isn’t racist. It spies equally.
The “ShotSpotter” technology “uses a system of audio sensors to send alerts to police that show when and where gunshots are fired.” Several cities use this technology.
So, cops are bad, surveillance is… good?
Leftists always revert to their authoritarian roots. Always.
Going easy on gang members is apparently working out just “great” for Portland’s innocent “collateral damage.”
As Portland’s gangland killings fill the night, in downtown Antifastan, people are afraid to go to work.
Independent journalist Andy Ngo notes that people who work at Buffalo Wild Wings in downtown Portland were pepper-sprayed and threatened by Antifa during a “mostly peaceful” riot over the issue of abortion.
One worker said that they’re “collateral damage… it’s just terrifying that people have to live this way.” Another woman who worked at the restaurant, and was too afraid to go on camera, said the violent Antifa crowd “maced her in the face last night.”
Downtown Portland residents & employees impacted by violence from #Antifa violent extremists said they do not feel safe to even go to work. One woman who works at a Buffalo Wild Wings that was attacked was also assaulted. She's too afraid to go on camera. https://t.co/vHLsRQVBV1 pic.twitter.com/JCPifRgcYW
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) July 7, 2022
Oddly, the only ones seemingly prosecuted on the West Coast, Messed Coast™ these days are those who oppose Antifa, as you’ve probably noticed. But, as I reported this week, something shocking happened in a Portland courtroom: Justice. A judge ruled an acquittal in the case of anti-Antifa protester Joey Gibson and one of his “Patriot Prayer” group members. The judge said the two did not commit an act of riot for not starting a riot on the radical Left’s high-holy day, May Day of 2019. Of course, as we know, charges against 70 percent of actual Antifa rioters during the “summer of love” were tossed out. As Gibson’s attorney told me, “it’s a start” of something resembling justice in Portland.
It looks like PJ Media’s story on the Antifa summer camp has gotten so much attention from Fox News, The New York Post, and other outlets—without attribution, naturally—that the group that inspired the children’s camp in the first place is attempting to distance itself from it. I’ll give more details later, but suffice it to say it’s somewhat gratifying to see these anarchists squirm.
Elsewhere on the West Coast, Messed Coast™, things aren’t looking good for LA County District Attorney George Gascon. And what’s bad for Gascon is good for the law-abiding citizens of LA. Gascon is sweating after more than 700,000 signatures were turned in to recall him. But he also battles on another front. Gascon has hired hisself a fancy law-yur-type to battle a lawsuit that his own prosecutors brought against him.
In fact, Gascon hired the most expensive lawyer in the United States of America to defend him against the lawsuit brought by two prosecutors who claim he retaliated against them with pay cuts and demotions for speaking out on what a colossally awful prosecutor he is.
Capitol Review says Gascon’s lawyer is “Neal K. Katyal, a former Acting U.S. Solicitor General who represented Al Gore in the 2000 election dispute and has appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court dozens of times, is also reportedly one of the country’s highest-paid attorneys,” charging $2,465 an hour.
And taxpayers get to pay the tab.
Speaking of taxpayer-paid attorneys fees, Governor Gavin Newsom is begging to be sued after “approving a law allowing people to sue anyone who distributes [what he calls] illegal assault weapons, parts that can be used to build weapons, guns without serial numbers, or .50 caliber rifles. They would be awarded at least $10,000 in civil damages for each weapon, plus attorneys fees.” It’s Newsom’s way of sticking it to the Supreme Court after the Bruen and Dobbs decisions. And the lawsuits are likely already being drafted. Nothing like wasting taxpayer dollars for free advertising on a vanity run for president.
Until next time, West Coast, Messed Coast™ readers.
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