Back in June of last year, as the mayors of liberal cities tried to “out-woke” each other during the George Floyd/BLM riots Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced that he was defunding the police department by $12 million.
He said that the money taken from the police budget would be diverted to other city departments to support communities of color. Some of the money defunded a police unit that focused on gun violence reduction.
Mayor Wheeler said back in June about why he supported defund the police:
“My privilege as a white man, my privilege as the mayor and the leader of the institutions of power in this community I believe shielded me from time to time from the many difficult and uncomfortable truths about our history and about our society.”
How is that defunding working out?
Portland already has seen 20 homicides which is the same number of murders in all of 2016.
Police Spokesman Lt. Greg Pashley says “we’ve had an unprecedented number of shootings in this city, especially since June, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.”
So the shootings went up in June which is the same month Mayor Wheeler decided to defund the police.
So Wheeler is calling for nearly $2 million in additional funding for the city’s police, saying “I think as far as homicides and violence go, we’re already in a state of emergency.”
The money would go toward hiring more detectives and formed a patrol team focused on gun violence.
One man who volunteers with the Portland Police Department says city leaders’ decision to defund police ultimately cost the life of his nephew.
Elmer Yarborough says his two nephews were leaving a bar when they were both shot. One of them, Tyrell Penney, didn’t make it.
Yarborough says “Without a doubt, I think it is a possibility that my nephew could still be alive if (the Gun Violence Reduction Team) was not dissolved… I cannot say for sure if he would, but what I will tell you is had it not been my nephew that was saved, it probably could have saved the life of someone else”.