The Portland Police Association’s executive director, Daryl Turner, blasted Portland city officials in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, accusing the mayor and others of standing by while “anti-fascist” demonstrators set fire to buildings, threatened police officers, and engaged in protests that often turned into violent riots over the course of a year.
Turner told the network that Portland officials “encouraged and enabled some of the violence” that led to a record number of police resignations and retirements, and that an incident, like the one that happened earlier this week, where the city’s full Rapid Response Team resigned following the indictment of a fellow Portland police officer.
Asked whether he believed Portland officials had police officers’ backs, Turner responded, “no, they do not.”
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The Rapid Response Team’s decision to resign en masse, he added, was “not just about our officer being indicted” but was the result of months of “unprecedented sustained violence in the city of Portland.”
In a separate statement, Turner again blasted city officials over the riots he said “consistently ensued, night-after-night, under the cover of darkness” and for their lack of appreciation for law enforcement.
Instead, he said, the officials’ “political venom demonized these public servants for doing exactly what they were tasked to do—restore peace and order in our City.”
“They put themselves in harm’s way to restore order and peace when destruction and mayhem struck. Rather than acknowledging and thanking those officers, rather than prioritizing public safety and peace, politicians criticized the RRT, further fueling the fires in our City,” Turner added.
Portland’s officers, he said, “did not volunteer to have Molotov cocktails, fireworks, explosives, rocks, bottles, urine, feces, and other dangerous objects thrown at them.”
“The reality is our dedicated RRT members have had enough and were left with no other alternative but to resign from their voluntary positions. If the Rapid Response Team members’ resignation has highlighted anything, it’s that the priorities of our elected officials have failed,” he finished.
Fox News reported, separately, that Turner laid the blame for Portland’s rampant violence at the feet of the “Defund the Police” movement and Portland city legislators who supported protesters’ calls to disband the city’s law enforcement agencies.
“These rioters, bent on destruction, hijacked social and racial justice movements,” Turner said, referring to city council member Jo Ann Hardesty who “spearheaded the local defund police movement.” “These rioters burned and looted our city. Yet local politicians supported them.”
“Instead of recognizing the value of public safety, peace, and order, Commissioner Hardesty has used the occasion to promote a self-serving, anti-police, anti-public safety agenda,” Turner said. “Instead of defending our communities and the business owners whose livelihoods were destroyed by the riots, she continues to endorse violence. Plain and simple: Portlanders want our city back.”
Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler recently pledged to crack down on violent protests — nearly a year after they began — asking for help from Portland residents in identifying black-clad “anti-Fascists.”
“For nearly nine months protesters have called for police reform and an end to systemic racism in Portland, which has become a key city in the country’s racial reckoning,” The Associated Press reported. “While officials say many events have been peaceful, there continues to be small groups smashing windows of businesses, threatening community members, and assaulting police.”
“The community is sick and tired of people engaging in criminal destruction and violence and doing it under the guise of some noble cause,” Wheeler said.
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