The city of Portland continues to establish itself as a safe haven in which Antifa is free to riot and destroy at will and police are legally restrained from putting a stop to it. Rioting last week resulted in $500,000 worth of property damage as police watched passively. The near constant rioting which has plagued Portland for well over a year is being addressed by the state legislature with laws which will enable the rioters to operate even more freely.
Antifa roams freely in Portland
Antifa rioters rampaged through the city last week in memory of a comrade who died after being struck by an SUV in 2019 following a bar fight.
There were roughly 100 leftist rioters present. This is about average for the miniature riots which crop up almost nightly in Portland nowadays.
While things calmed down in most American cities following the riots of 2020, a small core of “activists” in Portland never stopped and the city has continued to tolerate them as other cities briefly tolerated their rampaging mobs.
These events are very small for riots; Portland police would be fully capable of rounding up all of the Antifa vandals in one night if they had permission to do so.
Unfortunately, their hands have been permanently tied by obedience to city and state government decisions to allow Antifa free reign within Portland.
The rioters are allowed to smash windows and light dumpster fires and then head home at the end of the night to plan their next appearance.
Police not allowed to use force
Oregon has now decided that even pepper spray is too aggressive for use on these rioters. Nearly every possible means for dispersing rioters has been taken away from the Portland Police Department.
The cumulative effect of this riot spree is that Portland has been converted from a city with a reputation for being a quaint and quirky center for bourgeois liberals to a city in which the rule of law is in a state of slow decay.
The former state of Portland led inevitably to the current state of Portland. The city may have wanted to attract wealthy hipsters to enjoy its progressive policies. Instead it has attracted a small but ungovernable herd of destructive communists and anarchists.
A Republican even co-sponsored the bill in the state legislature which prohibited the use of any force at all against rioters in Oregon. No help from that quarter for the beleaguered residents of Portland.
Unsurprisingly, police officers in Portland are quitting in large numbers in response to the extreme restrictions which have been placed on their ability to do their job.
The FBI has rounded up hundreds of people and held them in the harshest possible conditions for taking a stroll around the Capitol. In Portland Antifa leftists are allowed to riot whenever they feel like it without facing any consequences at all. Very functional country.
