Wheeler didn't do it

I see the British newspaper The Guardian has cast its spotlight on the Normandale Park murder of last weekend. Portland is in the news of the world again, and looking bad.

It's an awfully one-sided article, thoroughly airing the left-wing narrative that the mayor, Dud Wheeler, is responsible for the gunfire because he once said that the penalties aganst violent protest should "hurt."

If you think the crazy gun nut who shot up the protest was influenced one whit by the sayings of Dud Wheeler, you have had too much kombucha. To find someone to blame, switch on an AM radio sometime and turn the dial a few times.

The mayor was angry when he said what he said. The demonstrators had gone after him relentlessly, and personally. He chose his words poorly, but he shared the sentiments of a lot of Portlanders, then and now.

If The Guardian wants to balance out its story, it should send someone to drive around town and look at all the boarded-up businesses, and the cage around the Apple store downtown. That blight is there for one reason only, and it ain't to keep the coronavirus out. It's there because of the property damage caused by "protests" that start at places like Normandale Park. They're "peaceful" at 8:00, but not at 11.

The other thing the black-bloc people keep harping on is the fact that the cops initially called the shooter a "homeowner," when in fact he lived in an apartment. I have been trying for a week now to figure out how that is relevant, at all. If it does matter, then given the fondness the protesters have for the whole "class war" thing, I would think calling the guy a property owner would help their spiel, not hurt it.

Don't get me wrong. The killing of June Knightly was a vicious, heinous hate crime that should be punished with severity. And I have no use for Wheeler or the Portland cops. But blaming the mayor for the murder is too much of a stretch for me. The Guardian did a lazy job.