Portland continues to be a source showing everyone in America what is really going on. On Friday, the US Attorney for Oregon announced the arrest of 18 individuals involved in the rioting in downtown. They are charged with a variety of federal offenses ranging from assaulting a federal officer to arson.
In a statement released Friday, Renn Cannon, the Special Agent in Charge at the FBI’s Portland office, said the agency had been helping investigate crimes on federal property in the city.
“Our investigations involve specific violations of federal law, including arson, the use of improvised explosive devices, and interstate transportation of stolen goods.”
Rioters in Portland have targeted the federal courthouse, setting fires outside and vandalizing and attempting to burn down the building. Federal agents have used tear gas, less-than-lethal munitions and other force to disperse the rioters.
Despite rhetoric coming from the Marxist Democratic mayor and his henchmen, those making the arrests have been wearing uniforms that clearly identify them as police and arrestees have been informed of why they are being detained.
Mayor Wheeler, instead of trying to defuse the ongoing situation in Portland, has actually joined the rioters at the courthouse. Wheeler has expressed his outrage that the Feds would try to protect government property. He did this while rioters were trying to tear down a fence around the courthouse. In other words Wheeler has legitimized criminality.
Wheeler has called the protection of federal buildings an occupation of the city by the Trump administration. He has escalated the level of violence by being there and not condemning what the rioters are doing. This is how insane the Democrats have become. Will this be coming to most cities run by Democrats?
All actions have a specific and predictable effect. Allowing mobs to believe that they are justified in burning buildings, looting businesses and committing physical violence against law enforcement officers is lunacy. Yet, that is exactly what Wheeler has done by ordering the police to stand down.
Wheeler needs to be removed from office if Portland is ever going to have a chance to recover as a viable urban center. His ongoing actions continue the economic destruction of the city. The pandemic had been a major blow. However, recovery had been underway when Mayor Wheeler made the nonsensical decision to allow rioting to take place. And contrary to the MSM reports, the rioting has not been limited to the federal courthouse.
People are afraid to go downtown at any time of the day. The flow of people, tourists and residents to downtown has dropped precipitously. TriMet, Portland’s mass transit system, reports that trips to the downtown area have dropped 75% during the summer as compared to last year. Traffic across the main bridge is down over 40%. Hotel occupancy has crashed and has not recovered. Occupancy is hovering in the 20+% range.
Many small businesses will never re-open. Have the economic underpinnings of the city been irreparably damaged? Are the downtown businesses in a death spiral? If so, there is only one person to blame and that is Ted Wheeler.