It's a jungle out there

In the old days, you would call it a gang war. Nowadays, that's probably offensive to someone. A "cycle of gun violence," I guess it is now. Okay. By whatever name, it sure is the current reality making the entire east side of Portland a very unsafe place to be out and about.

Mayor Ted Wheeler and the city’s four commissioners claimed they had recently learned “three alarming things” from law enforcement indicating the potential for “imminent gun violence.”

Those included gang members from California and Washington traveling to Portland with violent intent and an order issued locally “to shoot someone in the next 30 days or be shot for not showing loyalty”...  

Both actions could lead to “a retaliatory cycle,” the officials said, noting that several vigils and funerals for previous shooting victims planned for the coming days “are credible targets for further violence.”

Portland police have responded to four shooting homicides and 14 gunshot injuries in May alone. The agency has also recovered 231 shell casings throughout the city and received 40 reports of shootings since the beginning of the month.

So far this year, the bureau has recorded nearly 400 shootings, not including suicide attempts, with more than 100 involving injuries, according to preliminary data shared with The Oregonian/OregonLive.

The bureau also reported two shootings so far this weekend: one that left bullets in the side of an occupied car on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at Ivy Street on Friday night, and another that left a woman seriously injured near Southeast Portland’s Ventura Park on Saturday morning. The woman was shot once in the shoulder as she was driving. The shots came from another car near Southeast Stark Street and 119th Avenue, police said.

The cops, and the politicians, have failed Portland in so many ways.  I used to think Vera Katz was a terrible mayor. Compared to the current crew, she was FDR.

I was amused to see the police union head the other day, blaming it all on lack of money. He may be correct on some level, but the reason the Portland cops don't have adequate resources is because they don't have public support. And they don't have public support because they're mostly jerks. Bad cops are resulting in an unsafe city.

And the union covers for the worst of them. The last union prez lasted only a few months before he was forced out of office for misconduct. Misconduct that is still being deliberately concealed two months later.

It's hard to see a way out of Portland's public safety problems. So be careful where you're driving.