When it comes to crime, Portland is special

Every once in a while I come across somebody writing that the crime situation in Portland isn't so bad. It's like this everywhere, they say, just part of living in a big city, suck it up.

My blood starts boiling when I read that. It's crap. Portland has become a more dangerous city than most. I was in Los Angeles recently, and not the particularly nice part, and it was a heck of a lot safer than what I see and encounter on a regular basis in Portland. Yes, there were some homeless, and some mentally ill people roaming around, but it's nothing like what you see here. Not even close.

And the nearly complete lack of police presence in Portland is truly frightening. Did you see last week that when the vice principal at Franklin High School called 911 to report guns being brandished outside the school, the cops didn't show up for nearly an hour and a half? Then there are the homicides, a couple a week at least. Over a four-day stretch last weekend there was a fatal shooting in Old Town, a fatal stabbing a block or two from City Hall, another dead body out in the hobo zone where I-5 meets Marine Drive... It's so routine now, you probably didn't even see the stories.

Car theft is out of control. The police can't be bothered; vigilantes will go looking for your stolen vehicle for you. One reader reports that when a friend's car was stolen, they were told they would have to wait 14 months to get a hard copy of their police report.

Here's a guy whose business has been the victim of hate crimes, multiple times. He called the cops the first couple of times, and was still waiting for them to call him back when he got hit again. Dude, you'll be waiting forever. No dead body, no bullet casings to photograph, no cops.

The police force is such a non-entity in Portland that the City Council is spending millions on private security now. Apparently even the sewer repair crews have to have private bodyguards above ground when they go down into the manholes downtown.

We need more cops in Portland, preferably good ones. We need the City Council to say to the police chief, "How much do you need? We will give it to you, but then you have a year to show results." Let the kids at the Merc and the ACLU squawk, it's their jobs. Let the black-bloc-heads march around protesting it. But just shut up and do it. Lay off the park rangers. Lay off the people putting up traffic barrels and planning more bicycle foolishness. Get us some cops. And shelter beds. And mental health treatment beds. And rehab beds. And yes, jail beds.

Of course, we also need a different police chief, and a different mayor. The two guys we have in those jobs now are complete failures who need to move on to the next thing.

It is not this bad everywhere. It simply isn't.