Just one year after the rioting started in Portland, Oregon, two factions behind the movement are bickering over purposes and methods.
Just as the murder rate and the amount of gun violence has risen incredibly, with most of the victims being Black, residents of color are blaming antifa and to a lesser extent BLM for the city’s woes.
Violence always begets violence.
According to the Washington Post, the movement is now in disarray. They are torn apart by what their goals and methods are.
Black residents want to keep the police and the radicals want them defunded. That has become a major sticking point as the two sides argue over defunding police as crime is skyrocketing thanks to the city’s Democratic leadership.
The WaPo reported:
“After months of social-justice activism that made Portland a vivid, sometimes violent focal point for a nation debating the same issues around police accountability and reform, the movement here has splintered into bickering groups, at odds over tactics, goals, and an overall direction for how to make the city safer, with the police force still at the debate’s bitter center.”
Portland’s downtown section of town is almost a ghost town after a year of rioting cheered on by the Democrats who run the city, particularly mayor Ted Wheeler.
The businesses in the downtown area will probably never recover from the riots and a mass exodus from the city could well be on it’s way.
The Washington Post noted on Tuesday:
“Portland’s once-vibrant downtown, the heart of a world-class food scene, is still marred by boarded-up windows and closed businesses, the aftermath of a year of pandemic and fear of random assault and vandalism often committed under the name of the police reform movement.”
“The rising gun violence, and for a time the downtown demonstrations, have stressed the police department and put it largely on its back foot, as a response unit rather than a force with resources to prevent crime. As one measure, police response time to emergency calls has more than doubled over the past eight years, to more than 40 minutes of wait-time before a call is even fielded by emergency dispatchers.”
