Black councilman nudges Portland center on post-protest path

PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon’s largest city was at the center of the movement to defund the police amid outrage that swept the nation after the murder of George Floyd, but more than a year later the sustained protests in Portland have largely faded away. More recently, he called those who took part in a violent demonstration after the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse “villains in the story of Portland’s recovery.” “If you’re breaking windows downtown in order to somehow improve the lives of Black people, I can tell you as a Black person that doesn’t improve my life one bit,” Mapps said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. Moderate Black politicians like Adams, Harrell and Mapps are finding success in liberal enclaves now because they “are not saying a lot of the things that white progressives do that alienate the rest of the country,” Smith said, adding that when they advocate for more centrist policies ”that message coming from people of color is more likely to be accepted.” Shortly after his election, Mapps voted against expanding a pilot program called Portland Street Response that dispatches unarmed mental health specialists, community health workers and paramedics to non-violent calls related to drug use and mental illness. That approach, Mapps said, reflects his commitment to both “building the police department and reforming the police department.” The city urgently needs to boost the ranks of its officers amid record homicides and to fix a dysfunctional 911 system that has one of the worst response rates in the country, Mapps said, while at the same time investing in public safety alternatives like Portland Street Response. “Attempting to mitigate crime through adding police is among the most expensive, least effective, and least urgent responses we can have as a Council.” Bobbin Singh, founder and executive director of the Oregon Justice Resource Center, said attempting to find a middle ground on policing as Mapps is doing ignores the racism that’s baked into the justice system and the Police Bureau.