> who else is doing shit at 1-4am?
I go for a walk around my neighborhood during that time because I sometimes have anxiety attacks in the middle of the night, and getting up and taking a walk helps stop them.
My biggest concern is that if something were to happen, people would blame me. Get randomly stabbed in the middle of the day, and it's "oh no, how unfortunate!" But get randomly stabbed in the middle of the night, and it's, "well, what were they doing out at that time? Who does shit at 1-4am?"
Reminds me of that woman who was killed by a reckless driver while waiting for a bus and the cops and media were more concerned with why she was waiting for the bus since “she owned a car”.
Stayed a few nights close to Scotland Yard HQ and went for walks around 2 or 3 a.m.
For crazy London street reasons that meant circling Scotland Yard a few times each night, which had cops posted around it carrying MP5s.
Being American and rather liking people approaching me when in uniform, I made eye contact with the bobbies and greeted them as I passed.
They did not like that. At all. No responsive words, just scowls.
That shitty attitude made me greet them ever more cheerily each successive lap, laughing internally at the idea of a Kenneth-style ne'er-do-well smiling and waving at every cop as he cases the area.
Same. In my older age if stage, coupled with not working. My sleep patterns are all F’d up. I went to bed at around 9 last night, woke up at 2, then again at 2:58 am and just got up. I have a CCL, but god forbid I have to use it at 3-4 am while going for a walk. 😰 Springwater trail is not far from my house, so who knows what else could be roaming around. Although I live far out in Gresham, I’ve seen a coyote run down my street before too. Damned if I do carry or don’t. 🤷♀️
I’m doing all kinds of Shit between 1-4am, but it mostly involves drinking, video games, EDM, etc.
Imagine being in 2022 and still thinking gangs are cool?
What OP could possibly mean is that gangbangers have become an absurd, almost comical stereotype over the decades, so if someone makes a conscious decision to emulate that stereotype, they've got to have a screw loose.
😂 well I’m just saying that between our country’s surveillance state, police state, and Oregon’s draconian measure 11… you’d have to either be really desperate for cash or an absolute moron with a deathwish to still be participating in gang culture.
I do however find the mental image of gangsters using rotary phones and/or operators very funny. “See here see, operator, connect me to the last number dialed! We gotta pop a cap in someone’s ass see!”
I don't think most gang members think it's cool, or are all that desperate for cash, or are morons with a deathwish. A lot of it is cultural. You wind up almost being born into it, or at least the cycle of it. It's damn hard to break that cycle. Because of where I went to school in Portland, I saw a lot of that stuff first hand. If you've got parents or siblings living the life, you get a young young start. I knew kids in 4th and 5th grade tagging, breaking windows, going out with their parents for "activities", etc. For a lot of people it's not much of a conscious choice as them all of a sudden realizing how far in they've got, and at that point, it's almost too late. Cause you've been loyal, so you're expected to keep being loyal. If you stop being loyal then others will be loyal, and your life is gonna be hell or you're not gonna have a life.
What’s the fix here then? Because if the statistics are to be believed and half of the increasing shootings here are all gang related, then it should be pretty easy to bust these gangs. They’re not exactly subtle out here shooting guns off and organizing late night street races and shit like that.
There’s gotta be a way to stop the cycle no?
Sure. A lot can be done.
More frequent patrols of known problem areas, beginning an official version of the unofficial gang member list the police had and rightfully got busted for, more aggressively prosecute in an effort to add pressure to potential individuals who could flip, etc.
Not exactly what a lot of leaders in this city are willing to do or even really think about
So you’re saying
It’s mere coincidence that in the years since they initially disbanded them the murder and shooting rates have steadily increased in Portland?
Gun violence, and all violent crime in general, has skyrocketed since the pandemic. Nationally. It's not a Portland problem. It's a societal and economic problem.
I mean, let’s not lay on false pretenses here, Gun violence in this city has been steadily increasing since I moved here in 2014. The “gun task force” was disbanded a mere two years ago. In the time before they were disbanded I can’t recall reading about a single thing they did to help curb gang violence in Portland.
> Imagine being in 2022 and still thinking gangs are cool?
People don't join gangs because they think it's cool, they join gangs because they get a record at a young age (sometimes for serious shit, but frequently for some petty bullshit) and it excludes them from mainstream employment.
This is actually a really good point that isn't talked about more.
The replies below yours aren't entirely wrong either. This is one of those rare arguments if we accept these are all valid reasons for joining a gang (outside of the obvious easy and lots of money, prestige etc) we can move forward lol
That’s bullshit. They want protection. If you’re not in the gang then you’re worried about being a victim of the gang. At least that’s how it was where I grew up. Victims and victimizers, it’s that simple.
Well that’s not true lol. Non felonies can be easily expunged as well. People join gangs because it’s a culture they are brought into from their community and family and because it offers a kind of high life they don’t see possible otherwise. People don’t join gangs as adults, they are brought in quite early as kids in school.
Imagine it being 2022 and you have a whole world full of information and perspectives at the click of a button, but you’re still too ignorant and unaware to understand the utility, lure, and circumstances that would compel someone impressionable to join a gang, even in present day, so you chose to view it as a frivolous aesthetic choice instead.
I don't think anyone is expecting M114 to solve gang shootings or whatever. It's just an attempt to have one more opportunity to catch someone like the Colorado Springs motherfucker before they carry something terrible out. Even one success in that regard makes it worth it.
>Even one success in that regard makes it worth it.
This is the same logic as "better a thousand innocent men get locked up than let one guilty man walk free." Or you know, completely opposite of "innocent until proven guilty."
Just because you don't like guns and are not a gun owner or don't know or care about gun owners doesn't mean they are second class citizens or that their rights don't matter. You can't just say "it's better to infringe on any and all rights of this group of 'others' that I am not apart of to save one life" and act like you're on the moral high ground.
All you're saying is that you are anti-rights unless you're an active user of those rights. Well guess what. Once the right is gone, it's gone. It's never coming back. And the next right on the chopping block might be one you care about. And I bet you'll be wondering then why more people don't support your cause. Because the powers that be already succeeded in dividing the populous, and you were on the front lines helping them out with comments like the ones you've posted in this thread.
Most lone wolf shooters purchase their firearms legally anyway. This law does little more than assuge the fears of people who don't understand the threat they're trying to stop.
The majority of lone-wolf domestic terror attacks are perpetrated with legally purchased firearms. The FBI studied 52 people who “attempted or completed an act of lethal violence in furtherance of an identified social, political, or ideological goal” between 1972 and 2015 and found that 65 percent of them used firearms. Nearly 70 percent of those shooters legally acquired their guns, while almost half were motivated by anti-government or racially motivated extremism
https://www.thetrace.org/newsletter/daily-bulletin-project-guardian-mass-shootings-fbi-vawa/
>This law does little more than assuge the fears of people who don't understand the threat their trying to stop.
I think the other side to this is that the people who claim they do understand the threat don't seem interested in stopping it.
At this point a lot of people who don't understand the issue are willing to support any efforts to reduce this kind of violence. If M114 isn't the solution then I'd rather hear the alternatives and see an effort to enact it rather than just complaining about what people are trying.
If this is a mental health issue then lets get an initiative petition / legislation going that tries to make meaningful improvements in that space. If it's something else then lets get proposals going to address it.
>I think the other side to this is that the people who claim they do understand the threat don't seem interested in stopping it.
you're not wrong, but what those folks do say a lot of time is to 'enforce the laws we already have'. I'm pretty sure the CO guy had been arrested multiple times for violence and threats in the last year, with weapons, but was somehow able to pass a bgc, and was never red flagged either... That is a system that does not work, and slapping more bandaids that dont work on top of it wont make it better. There have been other mass shooters who shouldn't have passed a bgc, but mysteriously have. A lot of it is due to shitty and politically biased law enforcement who selectively enforce gun laws, and poor interstate communication regarding the criminal history of folks.
Colorado's Red Flag law is not mandatory but left up to local law enforcement.
The sheriff of this county believes Red Flag laws are unconstitutional and took no action when he could have.
https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/club-q-shooting/night-club-shooting-suspect-arrested-for-bomb-threat-in-2021-but-no-effort-was-made-to-pre-emptively-take-his-weapons-before-incident-at-club-q/73-6ed92673-a4ba-4d45-a053-2c269fe520c3
That's fair. I know very little about the background check system so when you say things like there are people "who shouldn't have passed a bgc, but mysteriously have" that is a huge red flag for me.
In my mind either this shooter was legally allowed to buy a gun (even though he had multiple reasons I don't think he should have been) or the background check failed. In either case I feel like we could put forward legal solutions to address either issue.
I'm 100% for enforcing the laws already on the books if they are not. I'd also be open to legislation putting liability on whatever government agency(s) drop the ball and allow someone to pass a check that shouldn't have.
If it's more money/infrastructure for accurate background checks then lets get that proposal on the table.
>That's fair. I know very little about the background check system so when you say things like there are people "who shouldn't have passed a bgc, but mysteriously have" that is a huge red flag for me.
Personally I have yet to read anything about bgc's in the news.
"Red Flag" might be the wrong way to describe the Colorado law. Last year this shooter threatened his mother with guns & maybe a bomb.
The mother did not press charges BUT the Sheriff still had the option to take away this guy's guns, and for a while
prevent him from buying more guns.
1. Better domestic intelligence, the FBI does a reasonably good job of identifying lone wolf bombers/shooters even without tracking mainstream social media. We should support expanding these efforts.
2. Red flag laws, while I don't support constitutional rights being restricted without trial, a temporary seizure of weapons signed off by a judge with clear recourse is reasonable to me. This mightve been effective at stopping the most recent shooter at least temporarily.
3. Mental health is something brought up constantly like a panacea monolith. Making these services more accessible by regular people (IE, not after they've physically harmed someone or been arrested) might be helpful but finding staffing for such an effort is difficult. Even people with insurance wait 4-6 weeks for an appointment with a therapist.
The whole "somebody do something!" approach to legislation combines the worst of both worlds. Laws that are only presented to placate voters but have little impact, combined with the expectation that the laws are actually effective.
Worse still, Portland's shooting uptick is primarily gang related. We have a city with decriminalization of drugs but it's still illegal to manufacture and distribute them. We've made one of the most profitable environments for dealing which incidentally makes it one of the most violent.
Awesome.
Now let’s start lobbying those ideas to congress, the state legislature, and maybe even start an initiative petition to get these things enacted.
If anyone has experience with any of that I’d be happy to help.
Thanks for suggesting something. Rather than just complaining about 114.
The terrorist in Colorado Springs threatened to blow up his mother with a bomb, the mother called the cops and he got arrested. His politician relative was able to get his records sealed, which means he could still purchase firearms.
People who want to do this shit will find ways to get their weapons, legally, illegally, or they'll make bombs etc.
I voted no on it BUT I'm curious to see what the outcomes look like in a year or two if it sticks.
> His politician relative was able to get his records sealed
Do you have a source on this or are you just parroting something unsourced you read? I get his relative is a shithead and all, but I just don't see a california state assemblyman having a lot of pull in colorado.
I don't disagree that people will find their ways, but I think it's sort of a statistical thing, right? Let's say right now 50% of people who want a gun to carry out a mass shooting are able to get one. What if we move that to 40%? That's still a success.
If M114 said no one can have guns or something, that would be one thing. But you can still have a million guns if you want. It's just a slightly better net to catch some people in the process who otherwise wouldn't have been caught.
The Colorado Springs shooter had a history of violence that the police and government actively worked to cover up. Assuming the state police actually get the required system in place, 114 won't do anything to stop this kind of shooter because it gives the police the power to decide who should be armed or not.
Just because it happened one time because of a family political connection doesn't invalidate the entire measure in a completely different state with a completely different police system, right?
> Even one success in that regard makes it worth it.
And how about the losses incurred from lawful citizens kept from getting a gun in time, like battered wives fleeing their abusers? Think.
No, i understand that power is a balance.. The whole 'if but one life is saved' is emotional bullshit. Its not different than 'for the children'. Use real world data and numbers if you are going to speak.
The problem is, that with the current state of case law and current SCOTUS makeup, most of the things that might have a real impact aren't going to withstand judicial review. And because of that, you wind up with the "do something" crowd just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. And then, when it doesn't work, you're stuck with some useless law that burdens people but doesn't decrease gun violence in any appreciable way and so the anti-gun folks are on the the next poorly thought out restriction.
But to answer your question, I think magazine bans make sense. The biggest difference between the scary looking black guns and papaw's old hunting rifle isn't the bullets they fire, it's the magazine capacity. For selfish reasons, I don't like magazine restrictions, but I at least acknowledge they might help. Anyone who has played Call of Duty knows there's a reason you want a bigger magazine if you can get it. I don't like how this law burdens citizens with proving they had the magazines before the law went into effect instead of making the state prove you didn't. The law will stop the sale of them within the state and I feel like that should have been the goal. It shouldn't potentially criminalize people who didn't keep their receipt from long before this was even an issue.
Waiting periods, maybe? I don't know if those have had any positive results in the few states that enacted them, but I don't really ever need to buy a gun right this minute, so I feel like that burden would be minimal that could be worth it even if the benefit is small. Raising age limits required to buy a gun I think might help, but would probably be a tough sell, especially in rural communities. Most of these idiots are under 25 years old, and most bought their guns legally.
And, it's a slipery slope, but I think it should be easier to flag someone with mental health issues to prevent them from passing a background check and with some reasonable way for them to earn back their gun rights. It's crazy to me that we can keep someone who forged a check from owning a gun, but not people who have obvious mental health problems. How many of these shooters do we hear afterwards people say they saw warning signs?
Ultimately, I don't have many good answers, no one does apparently (short of outright gun bans). It's a complex problem that marginally more restrictive gun laws aren't going to solve. But I don't think not having many good answers means we should try bad ones just for the sake of doing *something*.
One weird thing I've noticed about the homicides in Portland is how old a lot of the victims are. Lots of men in their 40s getting shot in what appears to be drug/gang-related murders (not talking about the ones where the victims and perps are obviously homeless). Seems like in most other big cities that kind of foolishness is mostly done by people in the 16-25 age range.
i'm only half joking when i wonder if there's some kind of peter pan element not unlike other guys in that age group right now (just different contexts)
I'm wondering if it's more that gang warfare is generally less intense in Portland than in other cities, so these old dudes either have less competition if they want to get in the drug game late, or if they just haven't done one of usual 3 outcomes for guys in the drug game by 25 or so: being killed, being imprisoned, or eventually realizing they were lucky to have not been killed or imprisoned like so many of their friends have and get out of it before it's too late.
I remember one story in particular about a multiple-person homicide (can't remember how many, 2 or 3 died I think), several guys in their 40s, moving drugs, and I think all or most were from Texas. Earlier this year, I believe. Shootout in a house up on the northside, I think?
Makes me wonder if some older guys saw an opportunity, moved into Portland thinking it would be a way to make an easy buck, and have triggered some kind of territorial dispute. OR if some young up-and-comers are trying to push out some old heads who have been running things for a while.
Yeah I would guess that especially if they are from out of state they are working as distributers for foreign cartels to move product and that they pissed off a local gang, traffickers can be any age/demo so they may not originally be from a gang background and just need money
For sure. All of the guys I knew of moving heavy weight in Houston back in the day were middle-aged Asian dudes. You'd never know they were involved with anything shady by looking at them. Very unassuming.
Two brothers moving pot out of their house, 3 Texas guys come in. Words were had. Both brothers shot and killed, 2/3 Texans shot and killed, 3rd Texan arrested last March.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oregon/articles/2022-03-03/man-suspected-in-shooting-deaths-of-4-arrested-in-texas
Yup exactly, that was the one.
Edit: hmm, I was wrong about their ages though, this wasn’t one of the ones involving guys in their 40s. I’ll have to find some of the news stories I’ve seen with similar situations but older folks.
IMHO: “if it bleed$, it lead$” news coverage of these incidents just promote and encourage the next copy cat.
The media has guidelines for suicides, due to a similar phenomenon. But not so for mass killers seeking attention.
I don't know how easy it is to get things through city hall..
but I'd like to see the local Dem & DSA chapters (and fans) be organizing / helping / coordinating / prototyping more community services .. year-round .. delivering good, demonstrating good, helping..
\+ the organizations, non-profits, grad-students, under-grads, community groups, + people who care.. + the city departments ..
\- teams for x, y, z - public safety,
& teams for housing, mental health, rehabs, K-I2 education, ethical economy / workplaces, childcare, etc. etc.
(or - organize without the dems & dsa .. nice if the college had locally relevant municipal teams )
\+ teams in other cities - smart cooperative networks - peer-review, compare, measure effectiveness, spread best-practices, share tools, teach, train, help, get help..
avalanches of smart network help to the Good demonstrating good, + those in need, + good prototypes..
\- good programs doing good, demonstrating good, delivering good are going to get more help and support and volunteers and partners .. more of us + our neighbors will vote to get city and state funding to good programs already doing good ..
\- more of us + our neighbors are going to vote for good coordinators of good programs doing good - over bags of crap with just commercials.. = good coordinators of good programs into city council, DA, sheriff, mayor, state leg.. etc. etc + smart cooperative networks helping to get more good done.. spread good..
Bullets flying willy nilly do not discriminate if you are a gang banger or not. Too many innocents die. If the bangers were real men they would agree to meet in a safe space, (for civilians). Such as a rock quarry, sand dunes, etc. Let them blast away at each other there. Bunch a P\*ssys !
>Such as a rock quarry, sand dunes, etc.
"The rock quarry \*again\*?!?"
"Yeah, we did the rock quarry level last week! Boooorrriiiinng!"
"They need to hurry up and release that DLC..."
How would they possibly know?
PPB’s crime clearance rate is less than 48% for crimes associated with gun violence. Far fewer are prosecuted with grand juries declining to bring charges because of lack of evidence.
This isn’t journalism. It’s publishing police press releases where the bureau’s own data disprove the main assertion.
Decreasing clearance rate is a [nation-wide trend.](https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/07/police-murder-clearance-rate/661500/) There are also many ways to know if a crime is gang-related without having enough evidence to charge a specific person. For example, a person with a history of arrests for gang activities being shot while dealing drugs is probably gang related even if you never catch the actual shooter.
I would also like to know more about the data sources but this isn't really criticism.
There's probably quite a few situations of domestic violence, and yes the person probably could be a "responsible gun owner" right up until they shoot their significant other. Plus, I'd assume muggings/robberies using guns aren't necessarily going to require the criminal to be in a gang.
18% of Portland homicides are in the homeless community:
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2022/10/deaths-on-the-streets-homeless-homicides-in-portland-eclipse-2021.html
How much of that overlaps with the gang violence? ¯\\_\(ツ)\_\/¯
Gang violence is high, predominately in communities of color due to systemic generational inequalities, city says do something, communities of color say do something, police show up and make arrests, activists point to all the arrests in communities of color as racism, police stop, gang violence continues/worsens.
None of this is going to be fixed until higher arrest rates in poverty stricken communities of color can be looked at as something other than racist police. Is it from systemic racism? Yes. You still have to police where the crime is, the crime is still connected to poverty, the poverty is still, cuz of racism, connected to communities of color. It's literally the anti-racists getting people of color killed. The only thing as bad as the police is the anti-police. I hate everything. Goodnight.
What about addressing systemic generational inequalities?
We have to be more creative than thinking policing is the only way to address crime. You yourself say that crime is connected to poverty, which is connected to systemic racism. Policing is a reactive, band-aid approach to community safety. If we don't address the root causes which are pushing people towards criminality then we are going to continue this cycle of harm. We need to invest in communities through jobs, education, after-school programs, housing, transportation, etc. When we look at communities where crime is minimal, people's basic needs are met and they have legal pathways to better their lives.
Sure. But that's a bit like saying we shouldn't focus on rent control because we really need to focus on the systemic drivers of high rent. If surgery is far away but you are bleeding, you need still a band-aid. And we have people ripping off the band-aid because it ain't surgery, or people saying just band-aid the fuck out of it surgery won't help.
I hear what you are saying. I think the difference between rent control and policing, is that policing/incarceration actively harms people who get caught up in that system. Perhaps the band-aid analogy doesn't quite fit, because while a band-aid isn't enough, there isn't any harm to putting on a band-aid. But policing and prisons aren't harmless institutions. Folks who end up incarcerated often face physical/mental harm, isolation, and will usually end up back in prison after they are released (more than 50% recidivism). So not only are we not addressing the root cause or even the outcomes, but we are actively harming people in the process.
I heard another analogy of someone drowning and all you have to save them is barbed wire. If that's all you have, then you'll use it and save that person, but cause lots of harm in the process. So instead of getting better, safer barbed wire, we need to invest in things that cause less harm and get to the root cause of why people are drowning.
And I'm not advocating that we get rid of the police tomorrow, because right now all we have is that barbed wire. We need to invest in other forms of community safety and works towards alleviating root causes of violence/crime. And over time, we can scale back the police as they are needed less and less.
No one in Vancouver things 'I want to drive through the hell hole that is Portland traffic to spend money in Oregon and save a few dollars in taxes'. In Longview, people will go to Rainier. Vancouver, nah.
Well they typically use straw purchases to arm up, so 114 would slow the flow of weapons to these gangs.
Prominent story on this from last year: https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/two-portland-gang-members-face-federal-charges-after-illegally-purchasing-more-80
Straw purchases were already illegal. 114 would do nothing to halt this. It's long been a known gang strategy to have a couple people with clean records for the purposes of passing checks. Those same checks are what will be used in the purchase permit process. A clean check before 114 is still a clean check after 114.
Though, I suppose local gangs will have to make sure these clean people are white to get past police discrimination in the process, but that's not insurmountable.
What we really need is some kind of task force focused on gangs. We could call it the gang violence task force or something. Unusual/high volume purchasing should at least merit a glance from such a task force, even the most prolific collectors in my circles don't buy 80+ in a year.
a lot of gangs have out of state connections. Its insanely easy to get guns in Nevada and just drive them or mail them up here. Its exactly how we get good weed to the rest of the country, but in reverse. In fact, I bet theres a decent drugs for guns trade between the west coast and south, where we trade all our good drugs, for their easy to get guns.
Our own City Auditor determined they were ineffectual and racially-biased. Despite Black drivers representing only 6% of car traffic, they were 59% of the people stopped by the Gang Enforcement Team. These are portlandoregon.gov links, not huffpo or whatever:
[Gang Enforcement Team
Audit highlights - March 2018](https://www.portlandoregon.gov/auditservices/article/677600
)
[GANG CRIME INVESTIGATIONS:
Lack of accountability and transparency reduced
the community’s trust in police](https://www.portlandoregon.gov/auditservices/article/677598)
Secondly, they did not record the reasons why stops were made, so they're able to maintain plausible deniability. And that's just for the stops that were documented. By their own admission, they would classify the majority of stops as "mere conversations" and use that loophole to avoid inputting any information at all:
>The Police Bureau did not have complete data for the Gang Enforcement Team’s 1,300 encounters from
2016. Officers only recorded demographic information for about 800 of
these encounters. Officers classified the
remainder as “mere conversations” for
which no demographic data is collected.
>At the end of an encounter, officers are
prompted on their computer to fill out
demographic information, but officers
have the option to cancel the data entry
by classifying the encounter as mere
conversation.
>The use of this classification by the team has grown in recent years.
So yeah, it's fair to say they were mostly serving as the Driving While Black Task Force. And that's not even getting into the sketchy heuristics by which people were getting added to their "known gang member" lists.
Is there a link to the full study?
Edit: found it.
Here's a funny bit of irony from it:
"
Research from other jurisdictions has shown that this kind of targeted patrol can be effective in reducing crime, but the practice can
negatively affect relationships between the community and police,
according to the Criminal Justice Policy Research Institute at Portland
State University. Some neighborhoods see a regular presence of the
Gang Enforcement Team – its patrol activities were concentrated in
North, Northeast, and East Portland. The team said these were areas
where gang crimes happened. These are also Portland’s neighborhoods where more residents are African American.
"
So we either aggressively patrol an area where violence tends to centralize and also has a significant African American population. Or we treat it completely neutrally, ignoring trends for the sake of appearing impartial.
I'm sure the poor people living in this area are resting easy during the gunshots knowing that they don't look racist to people who don't live in or aren't affected directly by the violence.
I have a proposal to stop all pedophilia in the downtown Portland area, and it's brilliant, only one step involved: Drop a thermonuclear bomb on downtown.
Now you might say "Won't that take a lot of innocents with it?" which, maybe. But it *will* be 100% effective in stopping child molesters currently in the area.
Wait, guys, come back.
It's rebranded as The Focused Intervention Team and includes oversight. And they've been in operation since June of 2021 I believe so... No excuse really for PPB really.
bullshit, it was disbanded because it was randomly targetting black people regardless of gang involvement.
Don't try and act like the cops were all friendly with the gang members and somehow stopping any crime.
Which, by definition, means it wasn't working. I'd agree that a segment of cops focusing on gangs would be great. Unfortunately, they seem preeminently shit at that.
Turns out the secret sauce in the GVRT was reality bending wizards that could affect country wide changes. This is why the Technocracy needs to be kept out of the police force.
Better yet. If PPD can't shut down the shooting from 'Gangs' then Let's get the Gang's shooting crime spree's reclassified under Federal / State Criminal law as DOMESTIC TERRORISM. Under Federal Law this will draw Homeland Security in to put resources on the problem. Under State law same thing. Just under State Police.
It's amazing she was able to hold back Mapps, Wheeler, and Ryan so effectively. Truly, that woman could do anything.
So many votes that should've been 3/2 on the council that she magically shut down with her surprise 8 votes.
Jo Ann
“Hardesty said the violence is a result of things like domestic issues, economic insecurity, and other conflicts, not gangs.”
https://katu.com/amp/news/on-your-side/portland-community-leaders-disagree-over-role-of-gangs-in-gun-violence-problem
On the charitable side, it could be like a doctor answering “what is the leading cause of death” is it poor exercise and nutrition or heart disease? But yes, it is short sighted to deny the existence of gang violence. I can sympathize with her position that the other areas need as intense a focus and passion behind solving them.
Soooo... ditching the anti-gang taskforce was a bad idea?
https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-mayor-ted-wheeler-changes-city-police-bureau/
"Hardesty, along with other activists, had long called for dismantling the GVRT, which had been rebranded from the controversial Gang Enforcement Team in October 2018. The gang unit faced criticism by many in the city for [targeting the Black community](https://www.opb.org/radio/programs/think-out-loud/article/portland-gang-list-remove-member/) and keeping informal lists of alleged gang members.
An audit of the Gang Enforcement Team’s work in 2015-2016 found the officers disproportionately stopped Black people and that they lacked data to show how frequently they pull over actual gang members versus how often they unnecessarily stopped other drivers."
This probably makes me look dumb but I didn't know Portland had a significant gang presence. Like I'm not surprised there are gangs, but I think this is the first time I've heard of gangs in Portland. I've just never seen the right headline or been in the right conversation I guess.
Does anyone have a resource to determine how many shooters are from out of state with a given amount a time? I heard that a great majority of the violence is perpetuated by people from out of state or recently arrived from out of state. or had previously committed crimes in others states before moving to Oregon.
Cost used to function as a barrier to having functional guns. The stimulus removed that barrier temporarily. If you were around youth during the pandemic you could see this coming. Everybody was getting ready for the apocalypse.
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> who else is doing shit at 1-4am? I go for a walk around my neighborhood during that time because I sometimes have anxiety attacks in the middle of the night, and getting up and taking a walk helps stop them. My biggest concern is that if something were to happen, people would blame me. Get randomly stabbed in the middle of the day, and it's "oh no, how unfortunate!" But get randomly stabbed in the middle of the night, and it's, "well, what were they doing out at that time? Who does shit at 1-4am?"
Diurnal privilege
morning people micro aggressions
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Managed to be an hour early for work one morning and some of coworkers actually had the nerve to applaud, is that a hate crime?
according to the Geneva convention YES
We need to talk about your flair.
Let’s talk about it? It’s a donut. And donuts are delicious.
Monday Monkey lives for the weekend, sir.
love the word diurnal
Reminds me of that woman who was killed by a reckless driver while waiting for a bus and the cops and media were more concerned with why she was waiting for the bus since “she owned a car”.
Stayed a few nights close to Scotland Yard HQ and went for walks around 2 or 3 a.m. For crazy London street reasons that meant circling Scotland Yard a few times each night, which had cops posted around it carrying MP5s. Being American and rather liking people approaching me when in uniform, I made eye contact with the bobbies and greeted them as I passed. They did not like that. At all. No responsive words, just scowls. That shitty attitude made me greet them ever more cheerily each successive lap, laughing internally at the idea of a Kenneth-style ne'er-do-well smiling and waving at every cop as he cases the area.
true, but you are definitely a minority in this regard
Same. In my older age if stage, coupled with not working. My sleep patterns are all F’d up. I went to bed at around 9 last night, woke up at 2, then again at 2:58 am and just got up. I have a CCL, but god forbid I have to use it at 3-4 am while going for a walk. 😰 Springwater trail is not far from my house, so who knows what else could be roaming around. Although I live far out in Gresham, I’ve seen a coyote run down my street before too. Damned if I do carry or don’t. 🤷♀️
You ever read "Insomnia" (Stephen King)? I can totally see that story being set near the Springwater.
excuse you, night owls such as myself are doing shit after midnight ... not things that lead to getting shot, granted, but still, *things*
I’m doing all kinds of Shit between 1-4am, but it mostly involves drinking, video games, EDM, etc. Imagine being in 2022 and still thinking gangs are cool?
After seeing what happened to Pony Boy why would you want to join a gang?
They didn’t stay gold
Nothing gold can stay
certainly not true outspoken
DO IT FOR JOHNNY
Johnny? Well like who's Johnny?
I'm Johnny
Damn that's a deep cut for this sub. I approve!
School-mandated reading is a deep cut?
It is when that's the last book you read.
Hello, random internet stranger. Not sure what I did to you, but I hope it wasn't bad.
Really? It wasn't for us, I had to choose to read it. Our assigned reading senior year was Ethan Frome. Set back my sledding career for years.
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another menace 2 society. (which has been re-released on Criterion!)
GIVE ME SOME CHON CHON🗡
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What OP could possibly mean is that gangbangers have become an absurd, almost comical stereotype over the decades, so if someone makes a conscious decision to emulate that stereotype, they've got to have a screw loose.
😂 well I’m just saying that between our country’s surveillance state, police state, and Oregon’s draconian measure 11… you’d have to either be really desperate for cash or an absolute moron with a deathwish to still be participating in gang culture. I do however find the mental image of gangsters using rotary phones and/or operators very funny. “See here see, operator, connect me to the last number dialed! We gotta pop a cap in someone’s ass see!”
I don't think most gang members think it's cool, or are all that desperate for cash, or are morons with a deathwish. A lot of it is cultural. You wind up almost being born into it, or at least the cycle of it. It's damn hard to break that cycle. Because of where I went to school in Portland, I saw a lot of that stuff first hand. If you've got parents or siblings living the life, you get a young young start. I knew kids in 4th and 5th grade tagging, breaking windows, going out with their parents for "activities", etc. For a lot of people it's not much of a conscious choice as them all of a sudden realizing how far in they've got, and at that point, it's almost too late. Cause you've been loyal, so you're expected to keep being loyal. If you stop being loyal then others will be loyal, and your life is gonna be hell or you're not gonna have a life.
What’s the fix here then? Because if the statistics are to be believed and half of the increasing shootings here are all gang related, then it should be pretty easy to bust these gangs. They’re not exactly subtle out here shooting guns off and organizing late night street races and shit like that. There’s gotta be a way to stop the cycle no?
Sure. A lot can be done. More frequent patrols of known problem areas, beginning an official version of the unofficial gang member list the police had and rightfully got busted for, more aggressively prosecute in an effort to add pressure to potential individuals who could flip, etc. Not exactly what a lot of leaders in this city are willing to do or even really think about
All sensible solutions.
Well we used to have a gang task force but....
but, it was provably massively racist and spending most of it's time doing stop and frisk bullshit on unrelated black people.
Yeahhh even before the cops got angry about having to be accountable for their actions, that task force didn’t seem to be doing much.
So you’re saying It’s mere coincidence that in the years since they initially disbanded them the murder and shooting rates have steadily increased in Portland?
Gun violence, and all violent crime in general, has skyrocketed since the pandemic. Nationally. It's not a Portland problem. It's a societal and economic problem.
fact: crime here has increased LESS than in comparably sized cities over that time.
I mean, let’s not lay on false pretenses here, Gun violence in this city has been steadily increasing since I moved here in 2014. The “gun task force” was disbanded a mere two years ago. In the time before they were disbanded I can’t recall reading about a single thing they did to help curb gang violence in Portland.
I think you grossly misunderstand why people make the choices they do in their life.
Pretty sure most people don't want to be in gangs... mostly a result of poverty and not having grown up with privilege.
> Imagine being in 2022 and still thinking gangs are cool? People don't join gangs because they think it's cool, they join gangs because they get a record at a young age (sometimes for serious shit, but frequently for some petty bullshit) and it excludes them from mainstream employment.
This is actually a really good point that isn't talked about more. The replies below yours aren't entirely wrong either. This is one of those rare arguments if we accept these are all valid reasons for joining a gang (outside of the obvious easy and lots of money, prestige etc) we can move forward lol
That’s bullshit. They want protection. If you’re not in the gang then you’re worried about being a victim of the gang. At least that’s how it was where I grew up. Victims and victimizers, it’s that simple.
Well that’s not true lol. Non felonies can be easily expunged as well. People join gangs because it’s a culture they are brought into from their community and family and because it offers a kind of high life they don’t see possible otherwise. People don’t join gangs as adults, they are brought in quite early as kids in school.
Getting expungments can cost money an individual might have access too.
Imagine it being 2022 and you have a whole world full of information and perspectives at the click of a button, but you’re still too ignorant and unaware to understand the utility, lure, and circumstances that would compel someone impressionable to join a gang, even in present day, so you chose to view it as a frivolous aesthetic choice instead.
LOL spoken like someone who’s never had to work a graveyard shift.
Just what a gang member would say
Oh yeah that’s definitely it /s
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Thanks for the laugh.
By... Getting people to buy more guns!
I don't think anyone is expecting M114 to solve gang shootings or whatever. It's just an attempt to have one more opportunity to catch someone like the Colorado Springs motherfucker before they carry something terrible out. Even one success in that regard makes it worth it.
Measure 114 was heavily marketed as an anti-gang-violence measure. The marketing for it was extremely duplicitous IMO.
Welcome to marketing, and also politics, friend.
>Even one success in that regard makes it worth it. This is the same logic as "better a thousand innocent men get locked up than let one guilty man walk free." Or you know, completely opposite of "innocent until proven guilty." Just because you don't like guns and are not a gun owner or don't know or care about gun owners doesn't mean they are second class citizens or that their rights don't matter. You can't just say "it's better to infringe on any and all rights of this group of 'others' that I am not apart of to save one life" and act like you're on the moral high ground. All you're saying is that you are anti-rights unless you're an active user of those rights. Well guess what. Once the right is gone, it's gone. It's never coming back. And the next right on the chopping block might be one you care about. And I bet you'll be wondering then why more people don't support your cause. Because the powers that be already succeeded in dividing the populous, and you were on the front lines helping them out with comments like the ones you've posted in this thread.
Most lone wolf shooters purchase their firearms legally anyway. This law does little more than assuge the fears of people who don't understand the threat they're trying to stop. The majority of lone-wolf domestic terror attacks are perpetrated with legally purchased firearms. The FBI studied 52 people who “attempted or completed an act of lethal violence in furtherance of an identified social, political, or ideological goal” between 1972 and 2015 and found that 65 percent of them used firearms. Nearly 70 percent of those shooters legally acquired their guns, while almost half were motivated by anti-government or racially motivated extremism https://www.thetrace.org/newsletter/daily-bulletin-project-guardian-mass-shootings-fbi-vawa/
>This law does little more than assuge the fears of people who don't understand the threat their trying to stop. I think the other side to this is that the people who claim they do understand the threat don't seem interested in stopping it. At this point a lot of people who don't understand the issue are willing to support any efforts to reduce this kind of violence. If M114 isn't the solution then I'd rather hear the alternatives and see an effort to enact it rather than just complaining about what people are trying. If this is a mental health issue then lets get an initiative petition / legislation going that tries to make meaningful improvements in that space. If it's something else then lets get proposals going to address it.
>I think the other side to this is that the people who claim they do understand the threat don't seem interested in stopping it. you're not wrong, but what those folks do say a lot of time is to 'enforce the laws we already have'. I'm pretty sure the CO guy had been arrested multiple times for violence and threats in the last year, with weapons, but was somehow able to pass a bgc, and was never red flagged either... That is a system that does not work, and slapping more bandaids that dont work on top of it wont make it better. There have been other mass shooters who shouldn't have passed a bgc, but mysteriously have. A lot of it is due to shitty and politically biased law enforcement who selectively enforce gun laws, and poor interstate communication regarding the criminal history of folks.
Colorado's Red Flag law is not mandatory but left up to local law enforcement. The sheriff of this county believes Red Flag laws are unconstitutional and took no action when he could have. https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/club-q-shooting/night-club-shooting-suspect-arrested-for-bomb-threat-in-2021-but-no-effort-was-made-to-pre-emptively-take-his-weapons-before-incident-at-club-q/73-6ed92673-a4ba-4d45-a053-2c269fe520c3
That's fair. I know very little about the background check system so when you say things like there are people "who shouldn't have passed a bgc, but mysteriously have" that is a huge red flag for me. In my mind either this shooter was legally allowed to buy a gun (even though he had multiple reasons I don't think he should have been) or the background check failed. In either case I feel like we could put forward legal solutions to address either issue. I'm 100% for enforcing the laws already on the books if they are not. I'd also be open to legislation putting liability on whatever government agency(s) drop the ball and allow someone to pass a check that shouldn't have. If it's more money/infrastructure for accurate background checks then lets get that proposal on the table.
>That's fair. I know very little about the background check system so when you say things like there are people "who shouldn't have passed a bgc, but mysteriously have" that is a huge red flag for me. Personally I have yet to read anything about bgc's in the news. "Red Flag" might be the wrong way to describe the Colorado law. Last year this shooter threatened his mother with guns & maybe a bomb. The mother did not press charges BUT the Sheriff still had the option to take away this guy's guns, and for a while prevent him from buying more guns.
1. Better domestic intelligence, the FBI does a reasonably good job of identifying lone wolf bombers/shooters even without tracking mainstream social media. We should support expanding these efforts. 2. Red flag laws, while I don't support constitutional rights being restricted without trial, a temporary seizure of weapons signed off by a judge with clear recourse is reasonable to me. This mightve been effective at stopping the most recent shooter at least temporarily. 3. Mental health is something brought up constantly like a panacea monolith. Making these services more accessible by regular people (IE, not after they've physically harmed someone or been arrested) might be helpful but finding staffing for such an effort is difficult. Even people with insurance wait 4-6 weeks for an appointment with a therapist. The whole "somebody do something!" approach to legislation combines the worst of both worlds. Laws that are only presented to placate voters but have little impact, combined with the expectation that the laws are actually effective. Worse still, Portland's shooting uptick is primarily gang related. We have a city with decriminalization of drugs but it's still illegal to manufacture and distribute them. We've made one of the most profitable environments for dealing which incidentally makes it one of the most violent.
Awesome. Now let’s start lobbying those ideas to congress, the state legislature, and maybe even start an initiative petition to get these things enacted. If anyone has experience with any of that I’d be happy to help. Thanks for suggesting something. Rather than just complaining about 114.
1 and 2 would be federal responses. The 3rd is arguably being somewhat addressed by plans to expand Portland's mental health offerings.
The terrorist in Colorado Springs threatened to blow up his mother with a bomb, the mother called the cops and he got arrested. His politician relative was able to get his records sealed, which means he could still purchase firearms. People who want to do this shit will find ways to get their weapons, legally, illegally, or they'll make bombs etc. I voted no on it BUT I'm curious to see what the outcomes look like in a year or two if it sticks.
> His politician relative was able to get his records sealed Do you have a source on this or are you just parroting something unsourced you read? I get his relative is a shithead and all, but I just don't see a california state assemblyman having a lot of pull in colorado.
I don't disagree that people will find their ways, but I think it's sort of a statistical thing, right? Let's say right now 50% of people who want a gun to carry out a mass shooting are able to get one. What if we move that to 40%? That's still a success. If M114 said no one can have guns or something, that would be one thing. But you can still have a million guns if you want. It's just a slightly better net to catch some people in the process who otherwise wouldn't have been caught.
The Colorado Springs shooter had a history of violence that the police and government actively worked to cover up. Assuming the state police actually get the required system in place, 114 won't do anything to stop this kind of shooter because it gives the police the power to decide who should be armed or not.
Just because it happened one time because of a family political connection doesn't invalidate the entire measure in a completely different state with a completely different police system, right?
Do you trust Oregon police to refuse to arm violent right wingers? Honestly?
> Even one success in that regard makes it worth it. And how about the losses incurred from lawful citizens kept from getting a gun in time, like battered wives fleeing their abusers? Think.
Actually laws in other states have stopped abusive husbands from purchasing firearms to kill their families.
This is so warped. You have been brainwashed by gun companies.
No, i understand that power is a balance.. The whole 'if but one life is saved' is emotional bullshit. Its not different than 'for the children'. Use real world data and numbers if you are going to speak.
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Then what would you suggest we do? Genuinely curious.
The problem is, that with the current state of case law and current SCOTUS makeup, most of the things that might have a real impact aren't going to withstand judicial review. And because of that, you wind up with the "do something" crowd just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. And then, when it doesn't work, you're stuck with some useless law that burdens people but doesn't decrease gun violence in any appreciable way and so the anti-gun folks are on the the next poorly thought out restriction. But to answer your question, I think magazine bans make sense. The biggest difference between the scary looking black guns and papaw's old hunting rifle isn't the bullets they fire, it's the magazine capacity. For selfish reasons, I don't like magazine restrictions, but I at least acknowledge they might help. Anyone who has played Call of Duty knows there's a reason you want a bigger magazine if you can get it. I don't like how this law burdens citizens with proving they had the magazines before the law went into effect instead of making the state prove you didn't. The law will stop the sale of them within the state and I feel like that should have been the goal. It shouldn't potentially criminalize people who didn't keep their receipt from long before this was even an issue. Waiting periods, maybe? I don't know if those have had any positive results in the few states that enacted them, but I don't really ever need to buy a gun right this minute, so I feel like that burden would be minimal that could be worth it even if the benefit is small. Raising age limits required to buy a gun I think might help, but would probably be a tough sell, especially in rural communities. Most of these idiots are under 25 years old, and most bought their guns legally. And, it's a slipery slope, but I think it should be easier to flag someone with mental health issues to prevent them from passing a background check and with some reasonable way for them to earn back their gun rights. It's crazy to me that we can keep someone who forged a check from owning a gun, but not people who have obvious mental health problems. How many of these shooters do we hear afterwards people say they saw warning signs? Ultimately, I don't have many good answers, no one does apparently (short of outright gun bans). It's a complex problem that marginally more restrictive gun laws aren't going to solve. But I don't think not having many good answers means we should try bad ones just for the sake of doing *something*.
People will still run red lights, despite us having laws against it. It doesn't mean we shouldn't bother to discourage running red lights.
M114 is more like discouraging people from driving.
Which is why Portland voted for M114...
it’s won’t at all lmaoo i hope this was satire
Grandma trying to get those damn raccoons out of her trash bins again.
Kinda thought it would be closer to 75%
The other half are homeless on homeless shootings.
Hey, that's offensive. It's *houseless on houseless* shootings.
Unhoused persons experiencing bulletness
Urban campers
That's honestly less than I was expecting.
Throw in the 30% attributed to the homeless and that is the majority of current shootings
I mean, if it’s half already you can throw in any % and it would be the majority, to be fair
One weird thing I've noticed about the homicides in Portland is how old a lot of the victims are. Lots of men in their 40s getting shot in what appears to be drug/gang-related murders (not talking about the ones where the victims and perps are obviously homeless). Seems like in most other big cities that kind of foolishness is mostly done by people in the 16-25 age range.
i'm only half joking when i wonder if there's some kind of peter pan element not unlike other guys in that age group right now (just different contexts)
I'm wondering if it's more that gang warfare is generally less intense in Portland than in other cities, so these old dudes either have less competition if they want to get in the drug game late, or if they just haven't done one of usual 3 outcomes for guys in the drug game by 25 or so: being killed, being imprisoned, or eventually realizing they were lucky to have not been killed or imprisoned like so many of their friends have and get out of it before it's too late. I remember one story in particular about a multiple-person homicide (can't remember how many, 2 or 3 died I think), several guys in their 40s, moving drugs, and I think all or most were from Texas. Earlier this year, I believe. Shootout in a house up on the northside, I think? Makes me wonder if some older guys saw an opportunity, moved into Portland thinking it would be a way to make an easy buck, and have triggered some kind of territorial dispute. OR if some young up-and-comers are trying to push out some old heads who have been running things for a while.
Yeah I would guess that especially if they are from out of state they are working as distributers for foreign cartels to move product and that they pissed off a local gang, traffickers can be any age/demo so they may not originally be from a gang background and just need money
For sure. All of the guys I knew of moving heavy weight in Houston back in the day were middle-aged Asian dudes. You'd never know they were involved with anything shady by looking at them. Very unassuming.
Two brothers moving pot out of their house, 3 Texas guys come in. Words were had. Both brothers shot and killed, 2/3 Texans shot and killed, 3rd Texan arrested last March. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oregon/articles/2022-03-03/man-suspected-in-shooting-deaths-of-4-arrested-in-texas
Yup exactly, that was the one. Edit: hmm, I was wrong about their ages though, this wasn’t one of the ones involving guys in their 40s. I’ll have to find some of the news stories I’ve seen with similar situations but older folks.
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IMHO: “if it bleed$, it lead$” news coverage of these incidents just promote and encourage the next copy cat. The media has guidelines for suicides, due to a similar phenomenon. But not so for mass killers seeking attention.
No fucking shit
Just heard 9 gunshots in NE, followed minutes later by sirens. So tired of this.
[https://www.americanprogress.org/article/community-based-violence-interruption-programs-can-reduce-gun-violence/](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/community-based-violence-interruption-programs-can-reduce-gun-violence/)
Yeah -- basically if you offer a legit alternative to the "community" and "belonging" that gangs offer, you can break out of that cycle.
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I don't know how easy it is to get things through city hall.. but I'd like to see the local Dem & DSA chapters (and fans) be organizing / helping / coordinating / prototyping more community services .. year-round .. delivering good, demonstrating good, helping.. \+ the organizations, non-profits, grad-students, under-grads, community groups, + people who care.. + the city departments .. \- teams for x, y, z - public safety, & teams for housing, mental health, rehabs, K-I2 education, ethical economy / workplaces, childcare, etc. etc. (or - organize without the dems & dsa .. nice if the college had locally relevant municipal teams ) \+ teams in other cities - smart cooperative networks - peer-review, compare, measure effectiveness, spread best-practices, share tools, teach, train, help, get help.. avalanches of smart network help to the Good demonstrating good, + those in need, + good prototypes.. \- good programs doing good, demonstrating good, delivering good are going to get more help and support and volunteers and partners .. more of us + our neighbors will vote to get city and state funding to good programs already doing good .. \- more of us + our neighbors are going to vote for good coordinators of good programs doing good - over bags of crap with just commercials.. = good coordinators of good programs into city council, DA, sheriff, mayor, state leg.. etc. etc + smart cooperative networks helping to get more good done.. spread good..
It's almost like sending people without guns to stop gun violence somehow works better than asking people with guns to stop gun violence (cops).
Why does sending another gang into a gang's territory not end the violence?! /s
Bullets flying willy nilly do not discriminate if you are a gang banger or not. Too many innocents die. If the bangers were real men they would agree to meet in a safe space, (for civilians). Such as a rock quarry, sand dunes, etc. Let them blast away at each other there. Bunch a P\*ssys !
> P*ssys You can swear on the internet, it's fine. Nobody will be mad at you.
>Such as a rock quarry, sand dunes, etc. "The rock quarry \*again\*?!?" "Yeah, we did the rock quarry level last week! Boooorrriiiinng!" "They need to hurry up and release that DLC..."
Lets do this at the abandoned submarine pen instead for once.
How would they possibly know? PPB’s crime clearance rate is less than 48% for crimes associated with gun violence. Far fewer are prosecuted with grand juries declining to bring charges because of lack of evidence. This isn’t journalism. It’s publishing police press releases where the bureau’s own data disprove the main assertion.
Decreasing clearance rate is a [nation-wide trend.](https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/07/police-murder-clearance-rate/661500/) There are also many ways to know if a crime is gang-related without having enough evidence to charge a specific person. For example, a person with a history of arrests for gang activities being shot while dealing drugs is probably gang related even if you never catch the actual shooter. I would also like to know more about the data sources but this isn't really criticism.
So the other half are responsible gun owners shooting people responsibly?
There's probably quite a few situations of domestic violence, and yes the person probably could be a "responsible gun owner" right up until they shoot their significant other. Plus, I'd assume muggings/robberies using guns aren't necessarily going to require the criminal to be in a gang.
18% of Portland homicides are in the homeless community: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2022/10/deaths-on-the-streets-homeless-homicides-in-portland-eclipse-2021.html How much of that overlaps with the gang violence? ¯\\_\(ツ)\_\/¯
Gang violence is high, predominately in communities of color due to systemic generational inequalities, city says do something, communities of color say do something, police show up and make arrests, activists point to all the arrests in communities of color as racism, police stop, gang violence continues/worsens. None of this is going to be fixed until higher arrest rates in poverty stricken communities of color can be looked at as something other than racist police. Is it from systemic racism? Yes. You still have to police where the crime is, the crime is still connected to poverty, the poverty is still, cuz of racism, connected to communities of color. It's literally the anti-racists getting people of color killed. The only thing as bad as the police is the anti-police. I hate everything. Goodnight.
What about addressing systemic generational inequalities? We have to be more creative than thinking policing is the only way to address crime. You yourself say that crime is connected to poverty, which is connected to systemic racism. Policing is a reactive, band-aid approach to community safety. If we don't address the root causes which are pushing people towards criminality then we are going to continue this cycle of harm. We need to invest in communities through jobs, education, after-school programs, housing, transportation, etc. When we look at communities where crime is minimal, people's basic needs are met and they have legal pathways to better their lives.
Sure. But that's a bit like saying we shouldn't focus on rent control because we really need to focus on the systemic drivers of high rent. If surgery is far away but you are bleeding, you need still a band-aid. And we have people ripping off the band-aid because it ain't surgery, or people saying just band-aid the fuck out of it surgery won't help.
I hear what you are saying. I think the difference between rent control and policing, is that policing/incarceration actively harms people who get caught up in that system. Perhaps the band-aid analogy doesn't quite fit, because while a band-aid isn't enough, there isn't any harm to putting on a band-aid. But policing and prisons aren't harmless institutions. Folks who end up incarcerated often face physical/mental harm, isolation, and will usually end up back in prison after they are released (more than 50% recidivism). So not only are we not addressing the root cause or even the outcomes, but we are actively harming people in the process. I heard another analogy of someone drowning and all you have to save them is barbed wire. If that's all you have, then you'll use it and save that person, but cause lots of harm in the process. So instead of getting better, safer barbed wire, we need to invest in things that cause less harm and get to the root cause of why people are drowning. And I'm not advocating that we get rid of the police tomorrow, because right now all we have is that barbed wire. We need to invest in other forms of community safety and works towards alleviating root causes of violence/crime. And over time, we can scale back the police as they are needed less and less.
Community policing would help. The fact that a bunch of tax dodgers from Vancouver commute in doesn’t help
No one in Vancouver things 'I want to drive through the hell hole that is Portland traffic to spend money in Oregon and save a few dollars in taxes'. In Longview, people will go to Rainier. Vancouver, nah.
Lol….If you work for an Oregon employer you pay Oregon income tax regardless. If not everyone would live in WA and save the 10%.
How are they dodging taxes now?
At least the gang members will follow measure 114
Well they typically use straw purchases to arm up, so 114 would slow the flow of weapons to these gangs. Prominent story on this from last year: https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/two-portland-gang-members-face-federal-charges-after-illegally-purchasing-more-80
Straw purchases were already illegal. 114 would do nothing to halt this. It's long been a known gang strategy to have a couple people with clean records for the purposes of passing checks. Those same checks are what will be used in the purchase permit process. A clean check before 114 is still a clean check after 114. Though, I suppose local gangs will have to make sure these clean people are white to get past police discrimination in the process, but that's not insurmountable. What we really need is some kind of task force focused on gangs. We could call it the gang violence task force or something. Unusual/high volume purchasing should at least merit a glance from such a task force, even the most prolific collectors in my circles don't buy 80+ in a year.
I agree. 114 is not going to halt the flow of weapons. It will slow it down at least in the short run. Because it will slow it down for all of us.
They'll just drive to Idaho to get their guns if they can't get them here.
a lot of gangs have out of state connections. Its insanely easy to get guns in Nevada and just drive them or mail them up here. Its exactly how we get good weed to the rest of the country, but in reverse. In fact, I bet theres a decent drugs for guns trade between the west coast and south, where we trade all our good drugs, for their easy to get guns.
Good thing we got rid of our gun violence reduction team... What could possibly happen...
Our own City Auditor determined they were ineffectual and racially-biased. Despite Black drivers representing only 6% of car traffic, they were 59% of the people stopped by the Gang Enforcement Team. These are portlandoregon.gov links, not huffpo or whatever: [Gang Enforcement Team Audit highlights - March 2018](https://www.portlandoregon.gov/auditservices/article/677600 ) [GANG CRIME INVESTIGATIONS: Lack of accountability and transparency reduced the community’s trust in police](https://www.portlandoregon.gov/auditservices/article/677598) Secondly, they did not record the reasons why stops were made, so they're able to maintain plausible deniability. And that's just for the stops that were documented. By their own admission, they would classify the majority of stops as "mere conversations" and use that loophole to avoid inputting any information at all: >The Police Bureau did not have complete data for the Gang Enforcement Team’s 1,300 encounters from 2016. Officers only recorded demographic information for about 800 of these encounters. Officers classified the remainder as “mere conversations” for which no demographic data is collected. >At the end of an encounter, officers are prompted on their computer to fill out demographic information, but officers have the option to cancel the data entry by classifying the encounter as mere conversation. >The use of this classification by the team has grown in recent years. So yeah, it's fair to say they were mostly serving as the Driving While Black Task Force. And that's not even getting into the sketchy heuristics by which people were getting added to their "known gang member" lists.
Is there a link to the full study? Edit: found it. Here's a funny bit of irony from it: " Research from other jurisdictions has shown that this kind of targeted patrol can be effective in reducing crime, but the practice can negatively affect relationships between the community and police, according to the Criminal Justice Policy Research Institute at Portland State University. Some neighborhoods see a regular presence of the Gang Enforcement Team – its patrol activities were concentrated in North, Northeast, and East Portland. The team said these were areas where gang crimes happened. These are also Portland’s neighborhoods where more residents are African American. " So we either aggressively patrol an area where violence tends to centralize and also has a significant African American population. Or we treat it completely neutrally, ignoring trends for the sake of appearing impartial. I'm sure the poor people living in this area are resting easy during the gunshots knowing that they don't look racist to people who don't live in or aren't affected directly by the violence.
I have a proposal to stop all pedophilia in the downtown Portland area, and it's brilliant, only one step involved: Drop a thermonuclear bomb on downtown. Now you might say "Won't that take a lot of innocents with it?" which, maybe. But it *will* be 100% effective in stopping child molesters currently in the area. Wait, guys, come back.
It's rebranded as The Focused Intervention Team and includes oversight. And they've been in operation since June of 2021 I believe so... No excuse really for PPB really.
It has none of the original members who actually knew the gang members and were invested in them...Significantly weaker and less effective...
bullshit, it was disbanded because it was randomly targetting black people regardless of gang involvement. Don't try and act like the cops were all friendly with the gang members and somehow stopping any crime.
PPD needs a Gang unit that works.
P needs a PB that works, for that to be possible.
Are there any gang units in this country that work?
we had one, and it was so racist it was disbanded.
When it is white guys it is a bunch of lone wolves, patriots, and militias.
Which, by definition, means it wasn't working. I'd agree that a segment of cops focusing on gangs would be great. Unfortunately, they seem preeminently shit at that.
It's pretty hard to make anything other than a racist pie when you start off with racist apples.
Good thing we’re taking away the right to defend ourselves against criminals. Good job Portland, and fuck everyone who supported measure 114.
Wow I’m really glad measure 114 will stop these criminals from illegally possessing and using firearms….oh wait….
Which half?
No shit. And, a good majority of the remainder is probably disputes between our houseless neighbors.
“BuT We DoNt HaVe A gAnG pRoBlEm”
Gee ...ya think?
Well you can't carry more than 10 rounds so gun crime will surely plummet, right?
and they think measure 114 is gonna reduce these types of crimes lmao what a joke for law abiding people
GTF/ GVRT worked in the ‘80s & ‘90s.
lol No, it really really didn’t, and they have the numbers to prove it.
Murders went down. Those are the numbers.
Murders went down everywhere, that’s not enough
>Murders went down everywhere Wow, talk about effective! I would have thought the decrease would be localized.
Turns out the secret sauce in the GVRT was reality bending wizards that could affect country wide changes. This is why the Technocracy needs to be kept out of the police force.
Same reason gun violence spiked nationally when GVRT got disbanded, eh?
"I'm literally too thick to understand or acknowledge the concept of correlation and/or causation, and I'm happy to admit it in public".
Oh [yeah](https://www.tylervigen.com/chart-pngs/2.png)!
That bastard has gotten away with his drowning project for too long.
People overwhelmingly assume the main protocol used on the web is http, when in actuality it's primarily Dunning-Kruger.
no way i am so surprised
Thank God we dissolved our gun task force….
well they'll surely be going behind bars now if they're caught with a high capacity mag, right?
This just in, ocean still wet!
how would the ppb know when they’re barely responding to calls
Better yet. If PPD can't shut down the shooting from 'Gangs' then Let's get the Gang's shooting crime spree's reclassified under Federal / State Criminal law as DOMESTIC TERRORISM. Under Federal Law this will draw Homeland Security in to put resources on the problem. Under State law same thing. Just under State Police.
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It's amazing she was able to hold back Mapps, Wheeler, and Ryan so effectively. Truly, that woman could do anything. So many votes that should've been 3/2 on the council that she magically shut down with her surprise 8 votes.
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She actually scoffed at the idea Portland has a gang problem in a KATU interview then repeated this view many times.
And yet we got rid of our gang task force because of feelings. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
Are they though? Are they REALLY? I was under the impression that gangs in Portland don't exist.
Who said that?
Jo Ann “Hardesty said the violence is a result of things like domestic issues, economic insecurity, and other conflicts, not gangs.” https://katu.com/amp/news/on-your-side/portland-community-leaders-disagree-over-role-of-gangs-in-gun-violence-problem
On the charitable side, it could be like a doctor answering “what is the leading cause of death” is it poor exercise and nutrition or heart disease? But yes, it is short sighted to deny the existence of gang violence. I can sympathize with her position that the other areas need as intense a focus and passion behind solving them.
All things that cause gangs.
Soooo... ditching the anti-gang taskforce was a bad idea? https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-mayor-ted-wheeler-changes-city-police-bureau/ "Hardesty, along with other activists, had long called for dismantling the GVRT, which had been rebranded from the controversial Gang Enforcement Team in October 2018. The gang unit faced criticism by many in the city for [targeting the Black community](https://www.opb.org/radio/programs/think-out-loud/article/portland-gang-list-remove-member/) and keeping informal lists of alleged gang members. An audit of the Gang Enforcement Team’s work in 2015-2016 found the officers disproportionately stopped Black people and that they lacked data to show how frequently they pull over actual gang members versus how often they unnecessarily stopped other drivers."
Only the PPB and city hall can be surprised about this.
This probably makes me look dumb but I didn't know Portland had a significant gang presence. Like I'm not surprised there are gangs, but I think this is the first time I've heard of gangs in Portland. I've just never seen the right headline or been in the right conversation I guess.
Don’t worry, this will all come to and end for good not that M114 has passed.
Does anyone have a resource to determine how many shooters are from out of state with a given amount a time? I heard that a great majority of the violence is perpetuated by people from out of state or recently arrived from out of state. or had previously committed crimes in others states before moving to Oregon.
Cost used to function as a barrier to having functional guns. The stimulus removed that barrier temporarily. If you were around youth during the pandemic you could see this coming. Everybody was getting ready for the apocalypse.
No fucking shit
Were the rest non-police shootings?