Also worth noting that MPD engaged in a work stoppage last summer, which may have had an impact on crime. https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/10/20/mpd-cop-says-office...
I occasionally see people in Portland cite 2019’s crime stats as proof that things are fine and that you’re just bigoted against homeless people or whatever.
Portland didn’t get the 2020 numbers from the FBI until late September 2021, which at that point showed an 80% increase.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/portland-2021-homicid...
Now we’re at nearly 80 homicides (if we haven’t crossed that, it will likely be this weekend) so far in 2021, breaking the 90s record.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/portland-2021-homicid...
For a while the narrative as that crime was much less serious than is being portrayed in the news. In major American cities, that trend has reversed.
Robberies are something I do watch because the victims are pretty much random.
Walking distance to two grocery stores, several restaurants, and two malls. Affordable utilities and rent.
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/edina-carjacking-v...
The circumstances are particularly shocking. A violent carjacking in broad daylight at an upscale grocery? The perpetrators must be a special brand of stupid.
Doesn't have the same ring, you know?
"Defund the police" was very easy to interpret as "abolish the police." It was a gift to the other side of the argument, and to that side's candidates in the 2020 election. Overall it looks like it backfired as a slogan politically, and no major police departments have actually been reformed.
If all your slogan achieves is making your own side feel better, while it alienates moderates and gives easy talking points to your opponents, it's a bad slogan and you shouldn't be proud of it.
Look at the marches(if you can, they're rarely shown on any kind of media) every time a 5 year old is murdered from a stray drive by shooting bullet in chicago...thousands of people in the community come out against it, and...nothing happens.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/no-sp...
I don't want to leave but the continuous stream of car jackings, home invasions, petty theft and seemingly random acts of violence have me rethinking this.
Calls to defund the police sound pretty tone deaf when your elderly neighbor is assaulted in their own home and robbed.