East Portland News

Portland far east side
Map shows Hazelwood (where IAman lives) in upper right, Lents, which seems to be a 'hot' spot, is at lower left. Highway 213 is 82nd Avenue. I-84 comes in at the top left and connects with I-205 that runs north to the airport and south to Clackamas.

IAman's pursuit of cheap rent prompted him to move to Portland's far east side and it's been an adventure ever since. He sent me a link to East Portland News and the stories they tell do not portray a happy place. Poking around there I found this:

How we got here: Hundreds of Weeks of Shootings

Why, and when, did the East Portland News ‘Week Shooting Reports’ begin? Here’s a brief history:

GVRT unit disbanded, shootings spike

It started back on June 9, 2020, the fateful date that Portland’s Police Commissioner – Mayor Ted Wheeler – announced the disbanding of the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) Gun Violence Reduction Team (GVRT). The number of shooting incidents in outer East Portland spiked the next day and nearly tripled in a month – and continued to steadily increase, racking up an astounding 892 incidents that year, with more than half of them in outer East Portland.

I don't particularly care for Portland, it is predominately a bunch of deep blue old ladies who don't mind paying outrageous taxes as long as they are 'saving the children' or some similar bullshit. All my kids live there, and it's where my wife would prefer to live. I guess it's where all the social excitement is. I used to gravitate to that but then I got old. We go there sometimes to visit.