You Don’t Say: Police Union Exec Blames Portland’s ‘Gun Violence’ Surge On Defunding the Police

[City of Portland] Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty said the rise in shootings is completely unrelated to the disbanding of the Portland Police Bureau’s Gun Violence Reduction Team. Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt has pointed to the pandemic as being a contributing factor but Turner disagrees.

“Our elected leaders can no longer turn a blind eye to this and blame this on the pandemic,” [PPA Executive Director Daryl] Turner said. “It is directly related to the defunding of police, the defunding of our staffing levels, defunding of units such as the Gun Violence Reduction Team, defunding of our staffing levels that have made us anemic, made us to the point where we can’t even respond to calls for service in a timely manner.”

— Lindsay Nadrich in Turner: Gun violence surge ‘directly related to defunding police’

Continue reading You Don’t Say: Police Union Exec Blames Portland’s ‘Gun Violence’ Surge On Defunding the Police at The Truth About Guns.