Portland mayor Ted Wheeler tear-gassed by federal officers

In Portland the Mayor is traditionally the Police Commissioner, though I believe that duty can be assigned to another City Commissioner.

That position is one of oversight, not operation. So going out and seeing what the police are up to falls well inside that purview. On the other hand, grandstanding it and then leaving is more of a Mayor kind of thing. I think that’s the hat he was wearing.

It’s important to remember that Portland Police were gassing crowds until a court told them to stop. Then things got quieter. Based on Tuck’s reporting, they may be back at it…

That said, a Mayor getting tear-gassed on TV might have some national benefit. We’ll see.

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Well Putin is his manager.

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Well, in Portland the mayor is also the police commissioner. It’s unclear if he does nothing in this role because of a lack of power or a lack of backbone. One of the city commissioners tried to take over his role as police commissioner this past weekend, so I think it is the latter. (https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/portland-protests-mayor-wheeler-police-commissioner-hardesty/283-85e3ff1b-5972-4421-9b35-4d41680c1abd)

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im pretty sure that’s in part because austin is also the capital. so the very conservative state legislature has imposed restrictions on the relatively very liberal austin.

portland should be a little different because it’s s blue city in a blue state. i think the mayor is also the police commissioner in portland.

i think people have been unhappy with his response from the start. i guess he was out of state or something at the beginning with his dying mother, and imposed a multi day curfew from afar which didn’t go over well.

my read from my friends is that he’s in over his head, and not quite sure what to do. so basically he’s done very little.

he’s probably a nice white guy who’s never thought much about race and racial justice before, and would rather this all just go away so he can focus on getting elected mayor again. that’s my guess.

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You are very correct. My first duty assignment in South Korea had a chemical unit… they gassed us every other week. But that’s how you learn protocols and safe procedures and all that jazz.
So, when I see the feds unleashing absolute hell on peaceful protestors, I can tell they’re an untrained force whose only objective is to punish people. I saw people calmly, yet briskly, walking away from the clouds of tear gas, only to see feds shoot tear gas canisters into these crowds who are walking away.

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Why doesn’t the Portland mayor, who is also the police commissioner, direct the PPD to place fences around the federal buildings? Keep the violent perps inside so that they can’t assault the demonstrators.

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Wow. “The Fiery Devil: A President puts his country to the torch.” Der Spiegel doesn’t mince words much, does it?

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Yeesh! I only got it twice, both in boot camp.

The next time I experienced it was in Kansas City a few years later. There was a comedy club that occasionally had “urban nights” (code for black comics). It also turned into a club after the show. One summer the young, mostly black kids in the area would congregate out on the street in front. I’m sure there were fights and such, but certainly no more than the drunk, mostly white adults (bunch of savages, they were). I worked in a brewery half a block away. After we closed and were hanging out I suddenly saw huge groups of kids come running by. I stepped out onto the patio and immediately knew… they fucking gassed them. Fucking kids just hanging out later than made the white folks from Raytown comfortable. KCPD are fucking fascists.

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I was thinking he should send squad cars out to tail every vehicle the feds are using. Keep their lights on the whole time and use the PA to warn protestors that Feds were in the lead vehicle. It would sure take the fun out of their fascist adventuring.

ETA, it would also finally be a good use of the license plate scanning tech they’re using.

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Definitely the latter. Teargas Ted is a manager who’s coasted on a building boom not of his doing. He has had no solutions to the very serious problems Portland experiences with the (federally monitored) PPB, the housing crisis, and he was late holding the ball on covid (likely to see what others did first, of course.) I could go on, but the point is, Ted is not a leader. And…

He’s a “nice white guy” from one of the richest, older timber-money families in Oregon. Which explains a lot.

Teargas Ted deserves nothing less than crushing defeat. For nearly two months, he has sat back and refused to do anything besides hold press conferences while his police thugs assault Portlanders every night. Fuck him, he sucks.

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I mean, it’s fairly literally true, so… Even more true now that Trump is engaging in performative authoritarianism.

In Portland the feds are all using rental cars. Assuming every rental van is being used by the feds would have some… interesting repercussions. One way or another, I suspect the ultimate impact would be that car rental company would either stop renting to feds, or wish they had.

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Thread:

As before:

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This kind of “training” desensitizes people to the physical and moral implications of what they’re doing.

Our various government-funded toxic-masculinity clubs were inspired to start waterboarding prisoners 19 years ago because they had already been doing it to each other as a training exercise. They shouldn’t be waterboarding or teargassing anybody, including each other.

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Unfortunately, the third place candidate from the primary (Teressa Raiford) has supporters mounting a write in campaign that will only serve to take votes away from his challenger (Sarah Iannarone), and if we can’t convince him to step down before the election, we’re likely to end up with another four years of Teddy Boy.

Also, it’s becoming increasingly clear that War Crime Wheeler is either absolutely on board with the over the top police brutality, or he has absolutely no control over the PPB, and that Daryl Gates, head of the police union is the de facto Police Commissioner. The PPB has been committing the same war crimes as the feds for the seven weeks before the feds stepped in, and Teargas Ted did less than nothing about it. He’s doesn’t seem mad that peaceful protesters are being brutalized, he’s only mad that it’s not his boys doing it.

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there shouldn’t even be a write-in line in a runoff :confused:

or glad that he can blame somebody far away

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I voted for Raiford. I’d prefer her by a long shot… but fuck me running. PDX is too godsdamned big for a successful write in campaign, unless the GOAL is to play spoiler.

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Note that after Wheeler left, Portland Police declared a riot and threatened tear gas themselves:

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