The leader of Portland’s police union has slammed the mayor for his response to the homelessness crisis, claiming Oregon’s largest city has “become a cesspool”.
Officer Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association and a police officer for 27 years, posted a lengthy statement on Facebook on Monday, where he listed the various issues the city is facing, ranging from aggressive panhandlers and garbage-filled RV’s to used needles and human feces blocking entrances to businesses.
“Our city has become a cesspool,” he wrote on Facebook. “Livability that once made Portland a unique and vibrant city is now replaced with human feces in businesses doorways, in our parks, and on our streets.
“Aggressive panhandlers block the sidewalks, storefronts, and landmarks like Pioneer Square, discouraging people from enjoying our City. Garbage-filled RVs and vehicles are strewn throughout our neighborhoods. Used needles, drug paraphernalia, and trash are common sights lining the streets and sidewalks of the downtown core area, under our bridges, and freeway overpasses. That’s not what our families, business owners, and tourists deserve.”
He added that Mayor Ted Wheeler’s had implemented “failed policies” and that he had “thrown Portland Police Officers under the bus”.
Turner’s comments came after Wheeler said in an interview with The Oregonian that he wanted to review arrest data after an analysis by the newspaper found more than half of the arrests that police made in Portland last year were of homeless people. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]In an interview with the local San Fran NBC affiliate, Mayor London Breed addressed the city’s disastrous homeless situation head on, admitting that her city is “drowning” in human waste.
“I will say there is more feces on the sidewalks than I’ve ever seen growing up here,” Breed said, who grew up in San Francisco. “That is a huge problem and we are not just talking about from dogs — we’re talking about from humans.”
But Breed laid the blame not at the feet of city policies, or at the feet of the homeless themselves, but with homeless advocacy organizations whom she believes aren’t doing enough to educate their clients when it comes to picking up poop.
“I work hard to make sure your programs are funded for the purposes of trying to get these individuals help, and what I am asking you to do is work with your clients and ask them to at least have respect for the community — at least, clean up after themselves and show respect to one another and people in the neighborhood,” Breed told NBC.
To that end, Breed is proposing an increase in funding, targeted at homeless education programs that will instruct San Fran’s transient population on how to handle their own feces, including (we surmise) instruction on how not to fill a bag with 20 pounds of their own waste and leave it on a street corner. – READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″] [contentcards url=”http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/07/17/portland-police-union-president-says-city-cesspool-amid-failed-policies-on-homelessness.html” target=”_blank”]