“We need to talk about the elephant in the room: gun violence. We are on the precipice of a gang war,” Daryl Turner, head of the Portland Police Association, said.
Turner said city commissioners aren’t telling it like it is. He says the steep rise in shooting calls and homicides in the city are directly tied to the disbandment of the Gun Violence Reduction Team and staffing shortages on the Portland Police Bureau.
Data shows that as of May 9, 2021, Portland Police have responded to 357 shooting incidents in 2021 which serve as a 100% increase during that same time period in 2020. “We need to talk about the elephant in the room: gun violence. We are on the precipice of a gang war,” Turner referred to the situation around gun violence in Portland.
“We need to talk about the elephant in the room: gun violence. We are on the precipice of a gang war,” said Daryl Turner.
The president of #Portland’s #Police union said in a blistering new statement that the city is on the brink of war. https://t.co/VmqmCQ6zn3
— The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) May 15, 2021
During the summer of 2020, Portland saw an increase in murder and other violent crimes that went in tandem with the near-nightly riots that plagued the city – which reasonably tied up police resources when dealing with said riots.
Turner’s May 13th statement addressed the disbanding of the Gun Violence Reduction Team noting: “For a City Council that claims to be data-driven, they only use data when it serves their political agendas. The increase in gun violence is directly related to the loss of the Gun Violence Reduction Team. To ignore this data and continue to shift blame is unacceptable.”
[adrotate banner=”3″]“It’s obvious to everyone except for City Council that more guns and increased gang activity mean more violence.”
Turner said that the council’s effort to cut the police budget will make the city less safe, saying that the solution is to properly fund police and social services.
“Forcing us to choose one over the other is short-sighted. Social services and alternatives resources are not a replacement for police officers and common-sense public safety infrastructure,” he wrote.