Tag Archives: Portland

Remember when they decriminalized drugs? Oregon Governor declares state of emergency

Legal-Crack-Portland

Important Takeaways:

  • Dem-led Portland declares state of emergency over fentanyl crisis: Oregon Governor wades into turmoil three years after woke city decriminalized drugs that has caused ‘economic and reputational harm’
  • Oregon leaders have declared a 90-day state of emergency in Portland to battle the city’s debilitating fentanyl crisis three years after decriminalizing possession of all drugs.
  • Governor Tina Kotek, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson made the declaration and are directing their agencies to work with first responders in connecting people addicted to the synthetic opioid with resources including drug treatment programs and to crack down on drug sales.
  • Fentanyl addicts who interact with first responders in Portland’s downtown in the next 90 days will be triaged by this new command center. Staff can connect people with various resources from a bed in a drug treatment center to meeting with a behavioral health clinician to help with registering for food stamps.
  • ‘Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,’ Kotek said.
  • Oregon became the first state in the country to decriminalize the possession of all drugs including heroin and cocaine in 2020.
  • But residents have since demanded for politicians to take action on the open-air drug markets that surfaced and fueled a homelessness crisis.
  • Opioid deaths in Oregon more than tripled from 280, before the de-criminalization of drugs was voted in, to 955 in 2022.

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Portland’s situation continues to worsen; Even drug addicts say there needs to be change

Drug-users-Portland

Important Takeaways:

  • The liberal US city where even the addicts are begging for drugs to be made illegal again: TOM LEONARD on how Portland led the way relaxing narcotics laws in a tide that swept America – then quickly bitterly regretted it
  • Donna and Utah make no attempt to hide their drug abuse, but, then, why should they? For this is Portland, a bastion of progressive values.
  • It’s also the biggest city in a state where voters decided by a comfortable majority in November 2020 to become the first in the U.S. to decriminalize the possession of personal amounts of all hard drugs, including heroin, methamphetamine and even fentanyl. (It remains a criminal offence to sell the substances).
  • Three years on, the policy, known as Measure 110, has proved to be disastrous. Even Utah, a 33-year-old former forklift truck driver who prefers to give the Mail only his ‘street’ name, freely admits he cannot understand what possessed his fellow Oregonians to support the move.
  • Speaking of the policy’s effect on drug use in the city, he says: ‘It’s made it worse. Don’t get me wrong, it makes it better for me, but getting the police off our backs and giving us free pipes and foil to do our drugs is not going to get us off the streets.’
  • He estimates that 20 per cent of the city’s more than 5,000 homeless people want to tackle their addiction. But it’s hard when they live in a city that Measure 110 has turned into what even the Left-wing New York Times recently called a ‘drug-user’s paradise’.
  • And it appears that after nearly three years in which Portland’s once attractive and vibrant downtown area has been turned into a tent-covered hellscape of soaring crime, endemic drug abuse and maniacal behavior, the rest of the city has finally accepted that the decriminalization experiment has spectacularly failed.
  • Locals complain of having to step over used needles, shattered glass pipes and human feces on the way to work, and say they’ve become inured even to blood- curdling screaming fits from disturbed addicts.
  • Ted Wheeler, Portland’s Democrat mayor, has conceded that his city’s substance abuse problems ‘have exploded to deadly and disastrous proportions’.
  • Measure 110 was also heavily influenced by the anti-police hysteria that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the subsequent country-wide ‘Defund the Police’ protests as part of the Black Lives Matter movement.
  • Under the new law, instead of arresting hard drug users and pushing them through a court system that often makes them get treatment, police hand addicts a ticket imposing a $100 fine that is cancelled if they phone a treatment referral hotline and agree to participate in a health assessment.
  • Under Measure 110, that treatment was to be funded by tax revenue from legal marijuana sales.
  • Meanwhile, fire crews have to spend much of their time dealing with overdose cases, and there’s a shortage of ambulances to answer non-drug-related medical emergencies.
  • The average police response time to emergency calls is now nearly an hour.

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Portland lawmakers push to decriminalize homeless camps; Residents tired of tents on their lawns, drug deals on every corner

Portland Homeless

Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Important Takeaways:

  • Broken Portland: New images of city’s homeless show encampments taking over – as fed-up residents wake up to tents on their lawns, drug dealers on every corner – and woke lawmakers pushing to DECRIMINALIZE the camps
  • Shocking new images show Portland’s mounting homeless crisis as encampments take over streets and sidewalks – and fed-up residents want the city to take action.
  • Local authorities in Oregon are also considering calling in the National Guard to help with Portland’s homeless issue – while residents reveal they now no longer walk in certain areas because of the drug and encampment problem.
  • This follows news that Democrat lawmakers in Oregon want to decriminalize homeless camps with a law that would allow the people who live in them to sue for $1,000 if they’re harassed or told to leave.
  • Portland also made headlines recently after numbers that showed in 2022 there were more than 5,000 homeless people throughout the city.
  • Residents of one Portland neighborhood say they are fed up with the growing homeless crisis after their area was cleared just to see encampments pop back up hours later.

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Business owners exiting Portland over rising crime and failure of public officials

Portland Drug Zombies

Mark 13:12 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.

Important Takeaways:

  • ‘It’s a hollowed out shell’: Portland business owners say they’re fleeing crime-ridden Dem-led city en masse after it turned from the ‘crown jewel of the West Coast’ into criminal-run city
  • Business owners are fleeing Portland in droves amid a pronounced rise in crime and homelessness, officials in the Democratic stronghold have revealed.
  • Public data shows that since the pandemic, more than 2,600 downtown businesses have filed changes of address with the U.S. Postal Service to leave their downtown ZIP codes.
  • Several big-name employers, such Umpqua Bank, have been among the mass exodus, carried out by owners who have taken issue with the rising crime levels and homelessness – and the city’s failure to address it.

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After decriminalizing hard drugs Portland becomes an open air market for drugs

Romans 1:21-22,24 “Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him or give thanks to Him as God, but became futile in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools.  24 Therefore God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves.

Important Takeaways:

  • Portland resembles an ‘open air drug market’ after decriminalizing hard drugs: Overdose deaths skyrocket by 41% in the Democrat-led city as homeless addicts collapse on sidewalks
  • Law enforcement agents say that the streets of Portland are full of homeless addicts openly buying and selling drugs
  • Photos show the desperate situation in the Pacific Northwest city, where people can be seen shooting up drugs or passed out in broad daylight
  • The dreadful scene comes 16 months after Ballot Measure 110 went into effect in February 2021
  • Oregon was the first state in the United States to decriminalize possession of personal-use amounts of heroin, methamphetamine, LSD, oxycodone
  • But since the measure was passed overdose deaths in the state hit an all-time high in 2021 with 1069, a 41 percent increase from 2020

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In Portland Oregon Antifa targets Crisis Pregnancy Center

Deuteronomy 27:25 “‘Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Important Takeaways:

  • Antifa Attacks a Crisis Pregnancy Center in Portland: ‘F*ck CPC’
  • “Antifa pro-abort men are attacking and putting out hits on pregnancy centers in Portland, OR,” Lila Rose reported.
  • The reported attack comes a few days after the Supreme Court leaked a document that revealed Roe v. Wade may be overturned.
  • On the east coast, leftist activists are directing protesters to confront conservative Supreme Court Justices at their homes in Maryland and Virginia.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Pacific Northwest cities grind to a halt in record heat

By Sergio Olmos

PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) – Temperatures were expected to shatter records in the Pacific Northwest again on Monday, bringing the city of Portland to a standstill as residents hunkered down in air conditioned homes or cooling centers.

One day after Portland saw temperatures reach 112 degrees F (44.5 degrees Celsius) on Sunday, the hottest recorded there since daily record-keeping began in 1940, the National Weather Service predicted more of the same for Monday.

“To put it in perspective, today will likely go down in history as the hottest day ever recorded for places such as Seattle, WA and Portland, OR,” the weather service said in its forecast for the region.

The heat has been attributed to a dome of atmospheric high pressure over the upper U.S. Northwest and Canada, similar to conditions that punished California and southwestern states earlier this month.

The Canadian city of Vancouver also set an all-time heat record on Sunday and was not expected to cool off until Tuesday.

Portland, known for rainy weather and sparse sunshine, was especially ill-prepared to handle the high temperatures. Stores sold out of air conditioning units and ice was hard to find.

Bars and restaurants closed because kitchen vents could not keep up with the rising temperatures, creating dangerous conditions for cooks.

Multnomah County, which includes Portland, has opened 11 emergency “cooling shelters,” most of them in public libraries, where residents without air conditioning could escape the sweltering heat.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, eased COVID-19 restrictions for theaters, swimming pools and shopping malls and residents flocked to public pools and even fountains to cool off.

Some companies with AC stayed open as informal cooling shelters for employees, said Sarah Shaoul, co-founder of Bricks Need Mortar, a business advocacy and consulting group.

In Seattle, Washington state’s largest city, the mercury climbed on Sunday to an all-time high of 104 degrees F, surpassing a 2009 record of 103 degrees.

The state capital of Olympia likewise set a new benchmark high of 105 degrees, exceeding its 2009 record by 1 degree, according to the Weather Service.

The heat wave was expected to ease somewhat west of the Cascade range by Tuesday but persist through the week to the east of those mountains, it added.

Experts say extreme weather events such as the heatwaves that have descended on parts of the United States this year cannot be linked directly to climate change.

But more unusual weather patterns could become more common amid rising global temperatures, NWS meteorologist Eric Schoening told Reuters in an interview this month.

(Reporting by Sergio Olmos in Portland; Writing and additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Anti-fascist protesters vandalize buildings in Portland and Seattle

(Reuters) – Anti-government and anti-fascist protesters in Portland and Seattle vandalized a Democratic Party office and other buildings and scuffled with police on Wednesday, protesting against President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

People dressed in black and with their faces covered broke windows and the glass door at the Democratic Party of Oregon business office in Portland, spray-painting an anarchist symbol over the party sign, video posted on social media showed.

“We don’t want Biden. We want revenge for police murders, imperialist wars, and fascist massacres,” read a banner they marched under.

Portland has been the scene of unrest for months, with civil rights, anarchist and anti-fascist protesters scuffling with police and occasionally with right-wing militias and Trump supporters.

The protests began in the summer as part of nationwide demonstrations against racism and police brutality following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis in May after police pinned his neck to the ground for nearly nine minutes.

Eight people were arrested in Portland on suspicion of offenses including rioting and reckless burning, while two people were arrested in Seattle, one for assault and another for property damage, police said.

Before descending on the Democratic Party office, some protesters from a group of about 150 scuffled with police on bicycles, police said in a statement.

In Seattle, police said multiple sites had been vandalized and posted pictures of the damage, including what appeared to be of an Amazon Go store.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Frances Kerry)

Portland police declare riot during protests after Breonna Taylor ruling

(Reuters) – Police in Portland, Oregon declared a riot late on Wednesday after protesters damaged a police building in unrest that followed the grand jury decision in the Breonna Taylor case.

“To those who have gathered outside of Central Precinct on Southwest 2nd Avenue. This gathering has been declared a riot,” the police force said in a tweet. The crowd was told to vacate or face tear gas, other crowd control agents or arrest.

One of the protesters hurled a homemade firebomb or Molotov cocktail towards police officers outside of the precinct, a video shared by Portland police on Twitter showed.

Upper windows appeared to be damaged and part of an awning outside the building was on fire, according to a photograph shared by the police, which said the building had suffered “substantial damage”.

Two police officers were shot and wounded late on Wednesday in Louisville, Kentucky, during protests over a grand jury ruling on the fatal police shooting of Taylor, a Black woman who was killed in her home during a raid in March.

Earlier in the day, the grand jury decided that none of the three white officers involved in the police raid on Taylor’s apartment would be charged for causing her death. One officer was indicted on charges of endangering her neighbors.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair and Rama Venkat in Bengaluru)

U.S. Justice Dept. weighs stripping federal funds from cities allowing ‘anarchy’

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Monday threatened to revoke federal funding for New York City, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, saying the three liberal cities were allowing anarchy and violence on their streets.

“We cannot allow federal tax dollars to be wasted when the safety of the citizenry hangs in the balance,” Attorney General William Barr said in a statement.

Spokespeople for the mayors’ offices in all three cities could not be immediately reached for comment.

Many cities across the United States have experienced unrest since the May death of George Floyd. In some cases the protests have escalated into violence and looting.

The federal government has mounted a campaign to disperse the racial justice protests, including by sending federal agents into Portland and Seattle and encouraging federal prosecutors to bring charges.

Last week, the Justice Department urged federal prosecutors to consider sedition charges against protesters who have burned buildings and engaged in other violent activity.

Monday’s threat to revoke federal funds was the government’s latest escalation in its quest to curb the protests.

It comes after President Donald Trump earlier this month issued a memo laying out criteria to consider when reviewing funding for states and cities that are “permitting anarchy, violence, and destruction in American cities.”

The criteria to make the president’s list include things such as whether a city forbids the police from intervening or if it defunds its police force.

In all three cities, the Justice Department said the leadership has rejected efforts to allow federal law enforcement officials to intervene and restore order, among other things.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)