Portland Moves to Refund Police Force After Defunding Them Last Year
Jordan Epperson
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After over a year of near nightly perpetual rioting in the city of Portland, Oregon, the city council unanimously voted to increase to local police budget by $5.2 million. The new budget bump allocates a total of $7 million toward public safety. This comes as a surprise to many as in 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd riots by Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA groups, the city voted to slash the police budget by $15 million as part of the ‘Defund the Police’ movement across the United States.
Big League Politics has previously reported numerous times on the destruction and carnage that has been inflicted upon Portland by rioters and Marxist insurgents over the past year and a half. This includes a single riot which inflicted $500,000 in damages where police refused to intervene along with significant and dangerous increases in Portland’s 911 wait time.
“Many Portlanders no longer feel safe,” Mayor Ted Wheeler urged, “And it is our duty, as leaders of this city, to take action and deliver better results within our crisis response system.”
“Portlanders have a right to feel safe. I am committed to investing in programs that improve public safety in an urgent and strategic way, while also supporting reformed policies and practices to rebuild trust and accountability.”assured Wheeler.
It is worth noting that Portland’s police department is 128 officers short of their authorized strength in order to operate. The new budget will focus on signing bonuses for new officers and various other programs in order to keep current officers that are considering retirement to stay on board. The Associated Press has reported that in the year 2020, homicides increased dramatically by 83%.
Only time will tell if the increased funding will help Portland’s police shortage in any noticeable way. It is worth noting that even with the increased budget, the police department is still operating with roughly $10 million less than they had before their original defunding and it may take further refunding if they want to operate as a serious police force in the future.
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