Portland officials need to get the violence in their city under control or step down, a law enforcement expert told The Epoch Times, especially Portland Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler.
“I just look at this with total disbelief. There has to be a certain level of leadership,” said Maria Haberfeld, professor of police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
“Its all about creating a peaceful environment for people who live in your city. And if you cannot come up with a plan, then you have to step down.”
Nightly riots have left a portion of downtown Portland boarded up and have caused an estimated $23 million in damage and lost revenue.
Members of far-left group Antifa and others have used fencing and other items to block exits and entrances to a federal courthouse, a city building that includes a police precinct, and other facilities. Theyve broken into and looted businesses, tried to breach the federal and city facilities, set fires, and assaulted police officers who respond to the mayhem.
The situation was “completely mishandled since day one. Theres absolutely no room for vandalism, devastation, violence, disruption of everyday life. This needs to be handled from the first moment it occurs,” Haberfeld told The Epoch Times.
“The longer its tolerated, the more out of control it becomes, the harder it is to contain it.”
The offices of Wheeler and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, both Democrats, didnt respond to requests for comment.
Both officials want federal forces to withdraw entirely from the city. The Trump administration sent federal assets to Portland on July 4 after rioters began targeting the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse, a federal courthouse.
Wheeler can be opposed to federal intervention but he must show he can contain the problem locally, Haberfeld said.
“He displays zero leadership,” she added. “He has no concrete plan of how to contain it.”
Details on city and state plans to contain the violence have been scant.
Wheeler told reporters in a virtual briefing last week that a combination of appeasement and de-escalation was working before the federal surge.
Ordering police officers to hide inside the Justice Center, instead of engaging the rioters, was working because it removed any opportunities for a back-and-forth between demonstrators and law enforcement, or vice versa, Wheeler claimed.
“What we saw was the numbers were dwindling, the energy in the crowd was decreasing or moving elsewhere to do other things. Then the feds came in,” he said.
“Theres absolutely no question that the protests were calming down, and that the presence of federal troops here … has substantially exacerbated an already challenging situation,” Brown said during a recent appearance on MSNBC.
While the rioters numbers have swelled since the surge in federal agents, there appears to be no independent evidence to support the claims.
A police official told reporters on July 8 that the level of violence seen since May 28 “is really unprecedented in Portlands history.”
“Were always hopeful that were winding down, but were six weeks into this. Weve never seen this intensity of violent, focused criminal activity over this long of a period of time, at least in the time I have been here,” Portland Deputy Police Chief Chris Davis said.
Walking downtown will expose people to a scene of boarded-up windows and extensive damage to public property, he added.
“Quite frankly, this is not sustainable. Violence and damage have displaced the message about systemic change in the wake of the George Floyd murder. Theres a very big difference between protests and the kind of mayhem that weve seen every night,” Davis told reporters.
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