Portland, Oregon, appears to have a serial killer on its hands, and the murderer’s biggest accomplice may be the governor who let him out of prison early.
Before she left office, Governor Kate Brown commuted the sentences of people in prison who behaved well while under lock and key. She released others who she were near the end of their sentences, and chose to shorten the “sentences of 912 nonviolent inmates at risk of contracting COVID, granted 130 pardons, cleared death row, and wiped away cannabis possession convictions of nearly 50,000 people,” Willamette Week reported.
In December 2022 I wrote in PJ Media that when she was on her way out office, Brown abolished the death penalty.
Though Kate Brown has spent her years in office winnowing down the number of death row inmates from 34 to 17 and releasing violent murderers and rapists from prison, she chose this week to abolish the death penalty entirely in Oregon and “dismantle” a death chamber in Oregon that hasn’t been used in decades. And here’s why: she’s bugging out of office in mere days and handing over this time bomb to the newest woke governor to deal with. She did all of it without the consent of Oregon voters.
[…]She stood mute as local prosecutors refused to punish [criminals] and let out killers, rapists, and other violent felons to prey upon a new set of Oregonians. She made it easier for the cycle of violence to fester by doing nothing to fight against a measure to decriminalize hard drugs and did nothing to root out drug dens throughout her state’s most populous cities. In other words, she made things far worse, not better
[…] Reasonable people can disagree on the death penalty. Brown said it was immoral for the government to take a life, and there’s a case to be made for that, but sometimes it’s wise to have the specter of the death penalty to keep some bad actors more in line. Indeed, like it or not, the death-penalty-as-bargaining-chip makes prosecutors’ jobs easier when negotiating plea deals. Ask them.
In getting rid of the death penalty, she failed to consult or seek the consent of the governed even though Oregonians endorsed the death penalty in the 1980s in a state-wide vote.
Justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people— even if a terrible crime placed them in prison. Today I am commuting all death sentences in Oregon to life without parole, so we no longer have anyone facing execution here. pic.twitter.com/S60LG2mRgJ
— Governor Kate Brown (@OregonGovBrown) December 14, 2022
But as Willamette Week reports, Brown’s act of generosity to killers and other criminals appears to have backfired on law-abiding Oregonians.
— NW_Conservative (@fishing_nw) July 17, 2023
Investigators believe that at least four, and possibly as many as six, people died at the hands of a man let out of prison by Brown.
Nearly two years later, on June 1, 2023, The Oregonian reported the discovery of the bodies of six young women: Kristin Smith, found Feb. 19 in Southeast Portland; Joanna Speaks, found April 11 in Ridgefield, Wash.; Charity Perry, found April 24 at Ainsworth State Park in east Multnomah County; an unidentified woman, also found April 24, in Lents, although the Portland Police Bureau said it did not suspect foul play; Bridget Webster, found April 30 in Polk County; and Ashley Real, found May 7 in Clackamas County.
The publication reported that Brown’s successor, Tina Kotek, revoked the commutation of Jesse Lee Calhoun, a man believed to be a “person of interest” in the deaths of the four women. Police are still investigating whether two other murders may be linked to the first four.
Related: West Coast, Messed Coast™ — Portland Invests in Crack Pipe Futures and SF Loses an ‘Anchor’
Online sleuths are the ones who put together the string of murders, according to the publication. PDXReal said they’d put out the information weeks ago.
Do you suppose Kate Brown could be considered an accomplice? pic.twitter.com/hw19jBsyPy
— Victoria Taft, The Adult in the Room, FITF Squad (@VictoriaTaft) July 18, 2023
Calhoun was a lifelong criminal with a “long record of felony convictions dating to 2004” including domestic violence. In 2018 he was arrested with meth, guns, and ammo and in 2019 he was arrested for burglary, auto theft, and injuring a police officer. His longest sentence was for 50 months. All told he was due for release in June 2022, but he was let out of prison early in July 2021.
Portland is struggling with many self-inflicted problems: drug dens on the streets, open air drug dealing, and an indulgent attitude about law breakers, including Antifa. Now this.
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