A special weekend ahead in Portlandia

For a year now, I've been keeping tally in the ongoing jackass contest between the Portland police and the people marching in the streets. Early last summer, the protest scene was about George Floyd and Orange Caligula, and during that phase, the cops in Portland, especially the Trump jackboot federales, were the clear villains. 

But as summer waned and autumn fell, the "protests" devolved into the "Land Back/End Civ/Abolish the Police" thing, and the black bloc-heads racked up so many jackass points that it became a neck-and-neck race. In recent months, I'd put the "demonstrators" way ahead in the asshattery statistics.

But the cops scored big time yesterday, when it was revealed that pretty much the whole riot control squad has quit that volunteer duty in a huff. They're outraged because one of their members was actually charged with a misdemeanor for bruatlizing a young woman for all of the internet to see.

That's the calm, even-handed, principled police force that we've come to know and love in this town. Rules are for everybody else.

Meanwhile, you can imagine the glee in the anarchist ranks. And of course, City Commissioner Jo Ann-With-the-Bullhorn Hardesty is beside herself with joy. This is our moment! The revolution is at hand! And so on.

Between all that drama and the return of the warm weather, the odds are unfortunately good for a riot in town tonight and tomorrow night. You just know that the avengers of all societal wrongs are going to test what's left of the police force. The quitter cops have basically invited it. Now there is no "rapid response team" to show up in riot gear when the storefront windows start breaking and the public buildings start burning. How will the police react when the destruction starts? Who will show up, the "leisurely response team"? 

And wouldn't you know it? Once again Police Chief Chuck Lovell is out of town in a moment of grave crisis. He's off on "training." What timing that guy has. You wonder what he's being trained in. 

Anyway, if you are thinking about checking out the "budding vibrancy" of downtown this weekend, particularly in the evening, you might want to be prepared for some extra adventure. The cheerleaders are announcing the Renaissance, but I think the Dark Ages may still have a ways to go.