Eric Adams promises that if elected, he’ll bring back a better version of the NYPD’s anti-crime unit, which focused on getting guns off the streets. Yet if Portland is any example, he might not be able to bring back any such unit.
As The Wall Street Journal reported last week, the West Coast city’s police force is trying to resurrect its own Gun Violence Reduction Team, which was scrapped last year amid the anti-police protests, but can’t find enough officers: Since May, when it announced 14 openings, it’s gotten only four applications. No one’s yet been assigned.
“They’re demonizing and vilifying you, and then they want to put you in a unit where you’re under an even bigger microscope,” scoffs Portland police-union president Daryl Turner.
Portland isn’t alone in having trouble finding cops. Indeed, many cities are discovering the fierce anti-police climate the left created has sparked a severe cop shortage.
The Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald raised the alarm last month when she noted that departments nationwide are struggling to grow their ranks “not because they lack funding, but because they face a recruitment crisis” — the result of a negative “narrative about policing promulgated by Democrats.” She cited police-manpower issues in Portland; Seattle; Asheville, NC; and Riverside, Ill.
San Francisco Police Officers Association chief Tony Montoya also laments that patrol strength dropped due to early retirements and resignations. Officers “don’t feel supported” by officials, he explained. In New York, Rensselaer County’s sheriff’s office recently saw a drop in applications for its civil-service exam, meaning fewer qualified cops down the road. Even in Gotham, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea tells The Post events “continue to present challenges to recruitment efforts.”
Meanwhile, violent crime has soared in urban America. Anyone see a connection?