Welcome back. After a year of cutting the budget
to the Police Department. The mayor of Portland Oregon
is now calling for more than five million in investments
towards its cops. The mayor says the money would
go towards hiring more police officers and also buying more
body cams joining us. Now to talk more is
Portland Oregon mayor ted wheeler and there's much more that
this money is going to do. So why don't
you tell us a little bit of where these investments
will be placed? Yeah, Thank you, ken
. Thanks for having me on. For first of
all, the priorities for this fall budgeting process are
improving public safety, addressing the house list situation on
our streets and improving the livability of the city.
So basic things like cleaning up litter and graffiti on
the police front. Its investments towards reducing gun violence
. As you mentioned, it's the body worn cameras
and there's also a significant effort to staff up the
Police Bureau, which I believe is critically understaffed.
Now in the last year we've been cutting money toward
the Police Department. So what, what have you
seen changed where you are and why are you thinking
now is the time for investments? I'm really energized
. 1st. First of all, we cut last
year because we had significant budget shortfalls, but we've
seen the economy improved faster than we anticipated in the
cities or tax revenues are up. There's basically three
areas around safety reforming, refocusing and re staffing.
So the reform process includes things like the body worn
cameras. Refocusing means making sure that we're not always
sending armed certified police officers to situations where they're not
necessary or even where it might be counterproductive. So
we're funding a team called the Portland Street Response,
which is a social worker paired with an E.
M. T. Or a Clinical mental health professional
to go out and work with people who are in
crisis but not necessarily committing any acts of criminal misconduct
. The third area around re staffing is just trying
to live up to our commitment to have 300 more
officers on the streets in three years, one third
of which would be unarmed, so called public safety
support specialists. Now it's obviously a difficult time for
those looking for a career in law enforcement. Some
of this money is also going towards signing bonuses.
You obviously mentioned those 100 or so folks who are
gonna be unarmed community specialist. What are you hoping
to get when it comes to the kind of cops
that apply in the kind of folks that fill in
that other role when it comes community specialists, those
who are already involved in community or those who are
willing to learn. We want officers who understand the
policing is an important responsibility. It's a high calling
, but we also want to Police bureau that's accountable
and responsible to the public it serves. So we're
looking for people who want to serve the community.
We're looking for people who want to live in the
city of Portland and we're looking for people who understand
that the community wants engaged, smart, thoughtful and
responsive police officers that reflect the growing diversity of our
community. And so we're looking at are hiring function
, recruiting the retention aspects of the police bureau as
well as trying to make sure that we're sending the
right responders to the right types of calls through improving
our 911 system or non emergency 311 call system and
diverting calls away from the police bureau where the police
don't need to respond through programs like the Portland Street
response when it comes to crime in Portland and obviously
has increased. What kind of reaction have you gotten
from the community after presenting these investments? And how
are you hoping that these investments will pay off?
And how long do you think it'll take for it
to pay off? Well, particularly around reducing gun
violence. You know, Portland's along with other major
cities across the United States, has seen a surge
in gun violence and homicides. And so we've made
significant new investments around investigative follow up around shootings in
our community. And we're also launching what's called the
focused intervention team, which is the police bureau unit
that intervenes and prevents gun violence situations before they happen
. What's new with this unit has community oversight.
And so the community works hand in glove with the
police bureau on the hiring and retention practices and the
policies. And so we're seeing more public safety as
well as more transparency, accountability and community engagement And
we're expecting to have that unit up or at least
staffed up by the end of this month. Now
we've seen strain on both sides, both on the
community side and for officers who have been saying they've
been struggling with keeping up with crime. What are
you hoping these investments will do for both sides?
Well, I hope that by making sure that the
police aren't the ones who have to respond to every
social situation in our community that really focusing our limited
police resources on high acuity calls by giving our police
officers the tools, the resources, the training in
the personnel. They need to do their jobs effectively
and also respecting the community's calls for transparency and accountability
. I think these new investments helped get us on
the path towards addressing those issues and living up to
those objectives. Now also your Investing about$1 million
. I think it was 850,000 to stand up in
Basic Training Academy in Portland in the area to speed
up training for new officers. Although you're speeding it
up. Are there new procedures that you're also introducing
? Well, one of the major pinch points to
bringing officers online is that it takes about 18-24 months
for them to be certified and going go through the
state required training and there just aren't enough training slots
for the number of people that we want to bring
into the city of Portland's. So we're actually going
to pay for our own training academy to hopefully speed
things up now. If Portland cops and Portland's citizens
are watching this right now and this does pass,
what could you tell them right now? If you
know everything goes smoothly, you get the money,
things are getting pumped. What kind of relief can
you give them? They want to see the results
. They're tired of talk. We all know this
is a political dynamic nationally where people are tired of
pretty speeches. They want to see the results.
So what I would tell them is they're going to
see more officers on the street. They're going to
see more programs that are put into place like ST
response to focus on people in crisis on our streets
. They're going to see more dollars focused on getting
our house, this population off the streets as quickly
and humanely as possible. And ultimately they're going to
see those results with their own eyes. That's what
the people in this city are clamoring for. Portland
Oregon. Mayor ted wheeler sir, thank you so
much for being with us and sharing your vision.
I appreciate your time