PORTLAND DSA CALLS FOR MAYOR WHEELER TO STEP DOWN AS POLICE COMMISSIONER
Today’s news regarding collaboration between the PPB and a violent right-wing group demonstrates the need for an immediate transfer of leadership to Commissioner Hardesty
February 14, 2019
Portland DSA is dismayed, but not surprised, to read today’s reports of collaboration between Portland Police and the right-wing street gang Patriot Prayer. This latest outrage clearly demonstrates the need for new leadership of the police in Portland. Mayor Wheeler should step down from his position as Police Commissioner and assign that role to Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty. Activists and leftists in Portland have long witnessed our city’s officers protect Vancouver-based Patriot Prayer, all while targeting, assaulting, and arresting Portland citizens who oppose Patriot Prayer’s violent rallies and marches. It is clear that the Portland Police have chosen a side: not the side of Portlanders, who want Patriot Prayer held accountable for their street fighting and harassment, but the side of far-right agitators who seek only to cause chaos and disrupt the lives of Portlanders. That a Portland officer gave Patriot Prayer valuable information on counter protests, and advice on how to avoid an arrest warrant, confirms what we already knew: the police won’t protect us. They’re choosing not to.
This is a failure on multiple levels: from the anti-left culture of the Portland Police Bureau, to the city’s weak systems of accountability whose administrators routinely take the word of officers against citizens. Most grievously, this is a failure of our Police Commissioner and Mayor, Ted Wheeler, who was elected to his office on promises of police reform and has done nothing to fix the corruption and culture of our police. From the first weeks of his term, Mayor Wheeler has defended the Police Bureau as they revoked the free speech of protesters, set off tear-gas in Pioneer Square, and attacked journalists attempting to film their behavior. He has defended police actions at recent Patriot Prayer rallies, where they have fired crowd control explosives directly at counter-protesters; meanwhile, the police covered up Patriot Prayer’s deployment of rifles at a parking garage overlooking large crowds. Mayor Wheeler has even defended the extrajudicial killings of our black citizens. Mayor Wheeler has more sympathy for the “difficult job” of a Police Officer than he does for the marginalized Portlanders — black, Muslim, houseless, mentally ill — whose fear of the cops is matched by the likelihood of them being targeted by the cops.
Nothing substantial or meaningful has changed about the Portland Police Bureau since the election of Ted Wheeler. His tenure as Police Commissioner is a failure by all accounts. We in Portland DSA call on Mayor Wheeler to relinquish his assignment as Police Commissioner immediately and assign that role to Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty. Hardesty has shown that she is capable of making the changes that Mayor Wheeler has only pretended he cares about. On police issues, Commissioner Hardesty is more experienced, knowledgeable, and actually willing to institute change. Her grassroots campaign was fueled by volunteers and small donations from everyday Portlanders who want to see her vision for Portland be realized. Hardesty’s victory delivered a clear people-powered mandate to City Hall: It’s time for comprehensive police reform. Her platform could be enacted, if she was allowed to lead. It is time for Mayor Wheeler to step aside from this role, and give it to someone who is capable of doing what he was not.
Portland will never be able to combat its legacy of violent white supremacy, so long as its Police Bureau is collaborating with violent white supremacists. Portland Police will never gain the trust of the public so long as they employ officers sympathetic with violent white supremacists. It is time to stop allowing our city’s officers to protect those who wish to harm us. It is time that we saw real leadership, and real reform in City Hall. It is time for major change to one of the most broken institutions in our city, our Police Bureau.
We do not have faith in Mayor Wheeler’s willingness, nor ability, to address this systemic blight on our city. We ask him to step aside immediately to allow this much needed work to begin.
