Portland ted wheeler mayor
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer, File)
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With less than two weeks remaining in 2020, Mayor Ted Wheeler, Police Chief Chuck Lovell and Office of Violence Prevention Director Nike Greene announced preliminary plans to try and curb a dramatic increase in shootings and homicides.

The plan, announced Friday evening, calls for more detectives to be assigned to investigate and follow up on shootings, and more outreach and hospital-based trauma responders to be deployed when someone is shot. The mayor has also asked the Police Bureau and Office of Violence Prevention to submit budget requests to better allow those agencies to respond to gun violence.

The announcement comes months after an Aug. 6 press conference when Wheeler promised a plan was imminent to address a problem that was ballooning as early as March, when the city recorded a 150% increase in shooting injuries.

So far this year, there have been 858 shootings in Portland, with 224 people shot and 39 homicides involving a firearm, far outpacing previous years. Now, as a year many hope will be a statistical outlier in nearly every way comes to a close, there is little consensus as to what should be done to address the problem — and concern that the spike in shootings may not be an aberration.

— Jonathan Levinson in Portland announces initial steps to curb skyrocketing shootings and homicides

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86 COMMENTS

    • “Office of Violence Prevention Director Nike Greene”… In Portland? Over the past 5 years? Really earned his/her/its salary… Could’ve just put on a Smokey hat, pointed his finger and said “Only you can prevent violence”. Might have been more effective.

      • I’m just going to leave this here… wikipedia;

        “Edward Tevis “Ted” Wheeler (born August 31, 1962) is an American politician who has served as the mayor of Portland, Oregon since 2017. . Wheeler was elected in the 2016 Portland mayoral election and reelected in 2020. Formerly a registered Republican, he has been described as a moderate Democrat.”

        • It’s all relative. Compared to the antifa harpy who ran against him this year, he is very moderate. That’s the problem with Portland in a nutshell. They go only one direction — from leftist to Lenin.

    • He’s doing what he’s doing to try and stay in office. He’s actually one of the more reasonable members of that city’s government. I realize that’s not saying much, but the council is made up of the kind of ideological nutjobs that say that people wanting to call the police while they’re being home-invaded should ‘check their privilege.’ Compared to them, he’s a moderate!

  1. If all that investigating doesn’t result in arrests and convictions with substantial prison sentences, it’s just a waste of resources.

    Prepretrators must be kept away from society.

    • Remember cashless bail/no bail, and we can’t lock criminals up due to covid.

      Except for those nasty Christians who think they have a right to go to church, or those evil capitalists who dared to open their business.

      • Don’t forget, under order’s from the Mayor, Portland Police had to purge their Gang Task Force Database and they are not allowed to keep record’s on known gang members. This happened a few years back and the uptick in shootings is the natural outcome.

        • So, the secret to freedom in Portland is to join a gang. Just make sure the name Patriot or Freedom isn’t in the gang name. Maybe “Auntie Fah” or “Be Ell-em”

    • Not only that, but what does that have to do with the act that occurred before the investigation begins? His plan to stop violent crimes is to investigate violent crimes…

      These Dems are so full of shit. They say anything to get the vote and do nothing. NOTHING.

      Also, come and take them.

      • Of course we need to investigate violent crime, and spend plenty while we do it. If we get it exactly right, we’ll know exactly who to not arrest or prosecute! Easy, huh?

        • lol they already know. It’s the same ones who forced BLM to trend on internet searches, because it wasn’t…. and never would have…

  2. Hiring more detectives and doctors to prevent gun violence is like hiring more weathermen and meteorologists to prevent tornadoes and hurricanes.

    • If the comments were reduced to just one per day, then the one for today should be the comment made by b72512ga, “Hiring more detectives and doctors to prevent gun violence is like hiring more weathermen and meteorologists to prevent tornadoes and hurricanes.”

    • Those people are not anarchists. They do not want the elimination of the state. They want an all powerful state to use as a weapon against their ideological enemies. Them calling themselves anarchists is as legitimate as them calling everyone else Not Zees.

      • Although the useful idiots/tools surely do include a number of anarchists. They tend to come out to play whenever there is unrest. But the ones who call themselves “anarcho-communists” make me laugh.

        • Anyone with who identifies as “anarcho” anything is a fucking idiot. Especially anarcho commies and capitalist’s. It’s and oxymoron.

      • Technologically they are Radical Syndicalists, the mirror age of anarcho-capitalists. However, anarchy is the absence of the rule of law. It doesn’t matter if they call themselves anarcho-communists, anarcho-capitalists or radical syndicalists. The result is the same.

  3. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that criminals should be put in jail.
    More enforcement on the criminal element is what’s called for.

    • Docdurcoat,

      Make no mistake: Democrats have every intention of imprisoning “criminals”. The key to understanding what they are actually doing is understanding who Democrats consider to be “criminals”. Answer: anyone and everyone who opposes their political platform, e.g. people who do not vote and support Democrats.

      Democrats are implementing a new era in our nation where Democrats declare whether something is right or wrong based on who does it. To emphasize my point, consider these two examples:

      1) Person A walks up to and punches Person B who is holding a political sign.

      2) Person A stuffs 10,000 fraudulent ballots into a voting machine and Person B inserts one authentic legal ballot into a voting machine.

      According to Democrats, both actions are good and should be legal if “Person A” is a Democrat and “Person B” is a Republican — and both actions are bad and should be illegal if those identities are reversed.

      • This is a key realization that people who try to embarrass leftists by pointing out their inconsistencies haven’t yet had. The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution (i.e., more power for leftists).

        • And what happens to the revolutionaries after the revolution. That part should be exposed to the “useful idiots”.

  4. Shootings were up in March, two months before the Summer of Brotherly Terrorist Attacks even got started?

    Glad I don’t live in Portland or Seattle.

    • Question, what day did PPB first notice shootings were going up, and what day did they start releasing criminals from jail/prison due to Chinese Flu?

  5. I don’t live in Portland so this is none of my business. It is my responsibility to not set foot in that city just as it is my responsibility to not step into a rattlesnake den. Just don’t tax me to provide Federal financial support to Portland

    • Dem sponsored House virus relief bills have contained a lot of ‘welfare for overspending states and cities’.
      That stuff may well become law in 2021.

      Imagine for a moment the State of Illinois mismanaging itself into a $3B hole.
      Then imagine a viral epidemic turning that into a $3.5B hole.
      Now imagine your federal government giving Illinois $5B because virus.

      • Yes, then multiply by exponential factors for the west coast and upper east coast states. Our kids will be working in Chinese sweatshops (to be located where the kids are living today in the U.S.) to repay the money.

        • The Chinese have enough poor and political “criminals” to do that labor. They will just let the Americans starve, while taking everything they need to feed their subjects. We are not even subjects, to them. They might put some lucky Americans to work, mining and otherwise raping our natural resources.

    • A lot of people said this when California instituted its AWB, mag restrictions, ammo registration and one gun a month policy. Guess what Biden is now trying to implement nationwide. Until we stop this NIMBY mentality, the cancer will spread. Maybe at a snail’s pace but it will spread.

  6. I read the entire article. The activists are blaming poverty, not the shooter(S).

    No problem, give them all a job that pays well, even if they don’t work or do anything and ALL WILL BE WELL.

    In Charlotte, NC in 2019, 19 people who were arrested for illegally carrying a firearm, then released and were later arrested for murder with a firearm. (This is per the Charlotte Observer) .They were released the first time, who knows if they were released the second time.

    No complaints about the judges errors in judgement, I guess if you’re a judge you are not held accountable. The vast majority were black victims and aggressors. Perhaps some of them needed to be put in JAIL the first time.
    But I know that’s racist, if only they weren’t poor.

    It’s my fault as a firearm owner because………

    • In Seattle, drug addiction and being poor are becoming a valid defense against prosecution. This is going to get so much worse before the liberals run out of other people’s money trying to prove they can outsmart millions of years of civil evolution.

    • This is what was going on before and the result was the evil crime bill that some are crying about now for political reasons. After the crime bill started taking effect, crime plummeted. Imagine that.

    • got to love that new “poverty defense”….someone throws a rock through your window?…don’t bother calling us…we won’t prosecute….

  7. There is a simple explanation for what we see happening when the Far Left controls government. The Ruling Class of such areas have one primary objective:

    Increase their wealth and power — which by definition includes suppressing and/or eliminating their political enemies.

    The overwhelming majority of common criminals are NOT political enemies — and may actually be political allies — of the Far Left Ruling Class. Furthermore, the Far Left Ruling Class uses common criminals to justify the apparatus they use to observe and suppress their political enemies. (For reference that “apparatus” consists of law enforcement plus the technology and laws which enable them to surveille their political enemies.)

    Given those facts, it should be no surprise that Far Left governments increasingly go out of their way to garner favor with common criminals.

  8. Col. Jeff Cooper had this to say about this special kind of stupid:

    “If violent crime is to be curbed, it is only the intended victim who can do it. The felon does not fear the police, and he fears neither judge nor jury. Therefore what he must be taught to fear is his victim.”

  9. “So far this year, there have been 858 shootings in Portland, with 224 people shot and 39 homicides involving a firearm, far outpacing previous years.”

    lol. This tells me that the biggest problem is more about training and the lack there of. Not to mention that these number are more inline with gang activity.

    But seriously, what is the point in more detectives when they want to defund the police? A detective is every bit the cop that a uniformed patrol officer beating the street is.

    • Prndll,

      See my comment above where Democrats’ only/primary concern is increasing their wealth and power.

      Democrats suggested increasing the number of hospital personnel and detectives because it increases their wealth and power.

      How? First of all, their “solution” sends more money to hospital staff and detectives who will return the favor with their loyalty to Democrats. Second, all the local voters will see that their local government is “doing something” (even though it is totally ineffective) and “protecting poor people” — and pledge their loyalty to Democrats. Third, all the “poor people” and common criminals will appreciate the latitude and pledge their loyalty to Democrats.

  10. As long as they’re breath’n they’ll be a threat. As to whom I am speak’n. I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Keep Your Powder Dry…

  11. First thing to do is mount a sign at the city limits: Now Leaving the United States. Abandon all Hope Yee Who Enter Here.

    That way normal people won’t be victimized.

  12. I honestly think they are counting bullet holes in gang banger houses and/or shell casings found at a scene.
    I read 4 local news sources daily. There has not been that many “shootings”.
    There truly likely has been that many “shots fired” though.

    Glad I’m 40 miles away from that sh!thole.

    • Tom in Oregon,

      I read 4 local news sources daily. There has not been that many “shootings”.

      And you are confident that local news sources faithfully report all aggravated assaults and homicides with a firearm because … ???

      I am going to throw out an idea for consideration:

      1) The overwhelming majority of so-called authors, reporters, and journalists subscribe to, embrace, and champion Far Left political philosophy.

      2) Far Left authors, reporters, and journalists readily promote events which advance their political philosophy and readily suppress/quash events which jeopardize advancing their political philosophy.

      3) Far Left authors, reporters, and journalists refuse to report daily on aggravated assaults and homicides because that highlights the failure of their political philosophy.

      As a result, authors, reporters, and journalists in Portland refuse to to report most daily aggravated assaults and homicides.

      I saw (first hand) something that was somewhat similar happen more than 20 years ago. An announcer for a radio station died of complications from cocaine use in the parking lot of the small-town radio station where she worked. I expected to see it in the small-town news how employees unexpectedly found her dead in the parking lot. And I was perplexed when there was no mention of it anywhere. I happened to know the station’s engineer and inquired with him. He pulled me aside and discretely explained how that would be bad press for the radio station and how the radio station coordinated with the local news to ensure that the public never heard about it.

      The event that I saw first hand did not involve firearms of course. Regardless, it showed me that the Ruling Class has a far more cozy and collaborative relationship with the Press than I ever imagined. I don’t think it is a stretch to say that the Ruling Class and the Press are partners.

    • 40 miles isn’t that far. I’m close to urban areas too and we are starting to see criminals visit from the burned out cities. I was concerned about the distance when I bought the house but for a few decades it wasn’t a problem. Now I’m thinking about making a move.

      Which is expensive and difficult. But may be necessary.

    • Maybe 800+ REPORTS of a shooting?
      My idea of a shooting is when someone is actually injured during the act…but I suppose if you are arrested for discharging a weapon within the city it was a shooting but perhaps nobody got injured in the act.
      That would raise the number of gun incidents considerably.

      • I got that same feeling. 850 “shootings” with 235 people “shot”? What were the rest of the shootings? Were they at a rifle or pistol range?

  13. ” 858 shootings in Portland, with 224 people shot and 39 homicides involving a firearm, ” The city needs to provide free range day cards to the shooters because they are wasting a lot of ammo. That is like 3.8 shootings to every person that actually got shot and 22 shootings to every homicide.

  14. “Mayor of Antifatown Has a Plan to Do Something About ‘Gun Violence’”

    A “plan”, don’t they all have a “plan”…??? Just another attempt to fail miserably…
    It use to be said that being a weatherman is about the only job you could have, be 99% wrong and still keep your job, well, add democrat to that short list…

    • Made clear by b72512ga, “Hiring more detectives and doctors to prevent gun violence is like hiring more weathermen and meteorologists to prevent tornadoes and hurricanes.”

  15. in 50 years college professors and political science majors will refer to this decade as the end stage of the blue city/blue state governance model

  16. It sounds like Mayor Wheeler is just trying to undo the damage he did when he virtue signaled by disbanding the Portland Police Bureau’s gun violence prevention unit which was actually effective and successful. Something proven by the increase in shootings post virtue signal.
    While I used to live in the Portland suburbs I moved to Central Oregon several years ago and avoid Portland.

  17. Are they firing warning shots?
    What is being called a shooting? Simple discharge of a weapon?
    Are they including negligent discharges at homes?
    Some details would be appreciated.

  18. Don’t just blame all this crap on that puss Wheeler, don’t forget that the bimbo Kate Brown has a bigger hammer than Wheeler & does absolutely nothing but hide like SLO Joe, & then you got Mike Schmitt the newly elected district attorney for the tri county area that refuses to prosecute almost ALL crime done by so called peaceful protesters & anyone who’s not white, & the city council whose demanding the defunding of police, I could go on , but I’m sure everyone has better things to do but read about the SHITHOLE city of Portland Oregone…💩

  19. How about locking up people that use guns in crimes? And keep them locked up.
    Oops…that would be racist…right?
    Unless they are white Republicans, of course…then it is fine…right?

  20. Portland has the worst possible governance — and I’m thrilled. Hey, if it burns, it burns. Who really gives a sh!t? People get the government they deserve, and the people of Portland have it coming.

    • The idiot Ted Wheeler narrowly defeated an actual out-loud “I am an antifa supporter” opponent in this year’s election. The antifa bitch won her primary contests in a landslide.

      So yes, Portland is getting exactly what its voters wanted, good and hard. I wonder how many neighboring areas that *didn’t* vote for that stupidity are being dragged down with it.

  21. The Portland Police have not yet been defunded and disbanded, they have been totally demoralized. The BLM ANTIFA thugs have absolutely no respect for them. In the most recent confrontations at the “Red House” which was being repossessed, Portland cops were compelled to bravely run away after they were assaulted with their own batons. They will be needing to wear Kevlar chastity belts in the future.

    • If I were Portland police, I would be earning my paycheck somewhere quiet, with internet access, searching for employment opportunities in other states. If called to respond to a crime or whatever, I’d respond “be right there!”, and continue what I was doing.

  22. I have a good FB friend who lives across the way in Washington. I get a running commentary quite often. It’s hopeless. There I said it. Wall it off and leave…

  23. Because TTAG has problems with posting web addresses: ” CVG DOT ORG ”

    Cure Violence has an impressive history reducing violence within inner cities. Youth gangs, revenge cycles, they do it with a behavioral approach and “Violence Interrupters”. It works in places where they are allowed to do their thing. Where they were allowed into a Chicago neighborhood that area saw a 72% drop in killings.

    And it ain’t about the guns it’s about the violent humans!

    It’s not a single solution thing, it’s just one angle but its a big one. Gangs are the major source of shootings in some cities and CVG has done good work on that part of the violence and killing problem.

    Another is repeat violent offenders. Instead of filling prisons up with the non-violent, focus on the career violent criminals. Identify, create teams to look for and arrest them. Needs the corruption of prosecutors to do the tough work in court, not settling for easy plea bargains.

    There’s nothing perfect, everything has weaknesses in it. But if all they do is talk about the guns being violent then all they will ever do is lose.

  24. I’ seen a lot of hitchhikers, all of them going to Oregon. I said to myself, “Wow a state full of people that dont wanna work, that’ll fck things up.”

    • Yep, all the sanctuary cities & states get to host the dirtbags that want nothing but free stuff, it’s real name is socialism but they have cute little names for it now. Like disadvantaged , displaced, gentrification, stuff like that. You give away free food, housing, food stamps, blankets, meds, etc, of course their going to come, all at the taxpayers expense, churches & charities are supposed to do this , not politicians looking for votes.

  25. Here once again is a short and helpful video, specifically for explaining a lot of things happening today.to the young and others with short attention spans. 10 minutes 35 seconds. Watch it and use it to teach others. 🙂
    The American form of government.
    https://www.wimp.com/the-american-form-of-government/

    Here is the same video again, but over at heavily ChiCom influenced Google owned YouTube:
    https://youtu.be/VogzExP3qhI

    Note the general repeating history of socialist “revolutionary” violence being escalated until the people go begging the only ones who can stop it – the ones causing it in the first place – to put an end to it, so they can be “safe” in their new tragically impoverished socialist utopia, where starvation is the norm, and the concept of individual rights is forgotten. Same crap, different day, as the predictable left repeats a history they know nothing of. Even Venezuela crashing and burning under socialism right before our eyes, holds no lessons to be learned for those determined not to see them. Human nature’s lust for power tends to blind unwitting people that way.

    Declaration of Independence, U.S Constitution. Federalist papers. Get and give a good basic understanding of those and you’ll soon have people understanding exactly what it is they are fighting for, and why they have to be willing to fight to the death if that is what it takes to secure something so vital and for something so much larger than us – the freedom and liberty of all future generations – just as previous generations of patriots had to do for us.. God Bless America.

  26. So many bandaids on a complex problem. Ultimately the solution to violence (in whatever form you look at it) doesn’t come from the police or local/state governments. It comes from federal policies that address the root causes of violence and no one in Washington is willing to address that. Democrats want to punish gun owners and Republicans are so scared of the specter of communism so we’re left at an impasse.

  27. There is a fundamental disconnect between reality and politics in Portland. And part of that disconnect is the ideological stance that policing is an evil system that helps no one. They really believe that cops are simply the KKK in blue instead of white and serve no other purpose.

    The fact is, ‘proactive’ policing matters. It suppresses crime, even if it doesn’t solve it all. But when nobody is afraid of the courts, and nobody is afraid of the cops (i.e. “you can beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride), there is nothing stopping criminals. And in that situation you’re not going to find a lot of people happy to cooperate with investigations. Train all the detectives you want, it’s not going to unmurder those people.

    Wheeler is in a no-win situation. His political enemies- the ones that can actually derail his policies- are not on the right, they’re on the far left. I’d feel sorry for him but anyone who chooses to be the mayor of such a city should know what they’re getting into.

  28. I go through Portland a couple times every summer on motorcycle rides. I stop and frequent a great barbeque place in the black section of town, not really concerned as I am always armed. It is weird but whenever going through Portland I get an uneasy felling, like being in a foreign country. Seattle is kind of the same feeling. This is why I try not to frequent both. Hippie / homeless type creatures everywhere. 20 years ago, humans actually lived there. I view Seattle and Portland like eastern Europe or south America, failed states, just scraping by. Residents there who have any sense and dignity have started to wise up and are moving away. A mass exodus is currently occurring with businesses as well. This is occurring nationwide with any larger metro areas that have been under rule by the Dems for decades resulting in failing schools, poverty, political corruption, High taxes and crime. Please don’t believe me and research it yourself. That’s the thing about facts, they are a bitch..

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