Liberals move into Portland, Maine, and you won't believe what happens next!
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deering oaks park, portland maine, then
Adam Smith wrote that “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation”, meaning that countries could survive ill-advised, disastrous policies for a long time before their final collapse. Not so cities; they don’t have the resources, and what has been built up over just a few decades can be gone in a few years. I was reminded of that last Friday when I traveled to Portland, ME, and saw how quickly it is deteriorating. The most obvious signal is seen when exiting I-295’s downtown exit and driving by Deering Oaks Park, a 55-acre (for comparison, Bruce Park is 100 acres, Binney Park, 33) that was just a few years ago an oasis of beauty and tranquility right on the heart of the town. Today, it’s a camping ground for “those experiencing homelessness” as the city puts it — a combination of the lazy, the insane and the ruined, all tanked up on cheap booze and drugs. There might be a mother in Portland still brave enough to bring her child to the park in a stroller, but I didn’t see her.
Here’s a related question: why did George Soros pour $450,000 this year into an obscure little state’s Cumberland County prosecutor’s race to oust an incumbent Democrat, and put his own candidate in place?
Sartoris benefited from a wave of spending from Democratic megadonor George Soros, who has been running a national campaign to elect progressive prosecutors across the country. A group started by Soros’ network spent $440,000 in a bid to oust Sahrbeck, more than all the money spent in every Maine district attorney race from 2012 through 2020.
The candidates’ biggest differences were in how they approached the role. Sahrbeck said the top prosecutors should engage with the community directly about issues that can land people in jail, while Sartoris said the role should be focused on policy and how to prosecute people.
deering oaks park, now
Portland was a very rough, rundown city as recently as the early 80s, and then came the yuppie revival. It was great, at first, with coffee shops, restaurants, bookstores and music venues springing up on nearly every block, and a real nightlife developed. The streets were clean, and safe, and the commercial vacancy rate dropped from 67% to as low as 1.6%. It was an astonishing rebirth, but one that carried the seeds of its own destruction because the very people whose energy and money helped make it possible also brought in the same governing philosophy that caused them to flee their original cities in the first place.
So how’s it going? Well, two people, a man and a woman, were shot in the Old Port section Sunday night, bringing to 7 the number of shootings in the past week-and-a-half, and a total of 42 for the year, compared to 13 last year. Portland’s population is 68,000, close to Greenwich’s 60,000. You may want to imagine the impact 42 shootings in nine months would have in our town. Freddie Camillo would hear about that, I’ll bet you.
PORTLAND, Maine — Portland Police announced new plans Friday to add more officers to the streets after five shootings in the city in less than a week.
Through 2022 so far, police said they have responded to 42 shootings, which was more than double the number they saw in 2021. They also responded to 17 stabbings, which they said was up by 31 percent since last year.
"The behavior we're seeing is really challenging," Interim Chief F. Heath Gorham said during a news conference on Friday afternoon.
Gorham said the department would eliminate the number of outside overtime details for most traffic and construction work, and shift those officers to working on the streets.
Chief Gorham said in some high-violence areas, including the Bayside neighborhood, officers will patrol in teams of two.
"The goal is to show a presence to let the public understand we're out there and we understand the importance we understand that they're concerned about what they're seeing in their community," Gorham said.
Gorham said the department had been operating at a minimum staffing level of officers on the streets, with 25 vacant officer positions.
Compounding the issue is a lack of corrections officers at the Cumberland County Jail.
Sheriff Kevin Joyce told NEWS CENTER Maine on Thursday that nearly 80 positions at the jail are vacant. The jail is no longer taking in people who commit non-violent misdemeanors, and instead, they receive a summons. Earlier this week, U.S. Marshals removed people staying there who are in federal custody.
"There is a point in time that people need to be arrested and taken to jail and when we don't have the ability to do that, it affects public safety in our communities," Gorham said.
Gorham said he and other public safety leaders have asked the state again to help provide more corrections officers and police officers.
"I can't afford to lose any more staff, and there has to be a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel or I will lose them. My fear is if we lose too many more, we have to look at shutting down the jail completely, and I don't want to get to that point," Sheriff Joyce said during Friday's news conference.
This is happening in cities across the country. The tourist and college town of Asheville, NC has seen violent crime surge by 31% in the past five years as the drug addicts have moved in and the police have left the force.
Asheville, North Carolina — Multiple local law enforcement sources who spoke to Fox News Digital laid partial blame for the deteriorating condition of a North Carolina tourist town on the city's liberal political leadership and on left-wing activists who undermine police.
"I think what you're seeing in Asheville right now is a culmination of the last several years of pulling police back and not letting them do their jobs like they're able to do," former Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan told Fox News Digital in a phone interview.
Asheville, a city of approximately 90,000 people nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Buncombe County, North Carolina, has seen a 31% surge in violent crime per 100,000 people from 2016 to 2020, according to statistics released in the spring. Asheville's growth in violent crime is nearly double that of the national average and ranks among the highest in North Carolina, where violent crime has increased 13% statewide.
Both the Asheville Police Department (APD) and the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department have been hemorrhaging officers in recent years, with many retiring early or simply quitting. APD made international headlines in June 2021 when they announced they would no longer respond in-person to 911 calls about theft, fraud or trespassing after losing a third of their force.
‘Downhill quickly’
Duncan, who was a longtime registered Democrat, retired as sheriff and became politically unaffiliated in 2018, citing "an anti-law enforcement sentiment in the Democratic Party right now," according to the Asheville Citizen-Times. He told Fox News Digital that police who do wrong must be held accountable, but also said officers both locally and around the country have become hesitant to do their jobs "because they can be right, but it can be the wrong set of facts, and they can still wind up in trouble."
Duncan further noted that when he was serving as county sheriff, "left-wing activists" from outside the community would sweep in to disrupt community meetings. "They would really try to get into it with the police, and a lot of times, they would try to shout down things," he said. "And the first people who quit coming to those meetings were the people within the community. They really didn't get to speak, and they really didn't get anything done."
"Personally, I think that is the agenda of the Left: for law enforcement not to be able to do anything that's effective and makes the community safer," he added.
An officer currently with the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department who spoke to Fox News Digital on condition of anonymity attributed the exodus of officers to policy changes that hamstring them. The officer also cited an overall lack of leadership and the "liberal agenda" of some county commissioners and members of city council. Neither the Asheville City Council nor the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners responded to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
HOMICIDES DOWN BUT VIOLENT CRIME UP IN MAJOR US CITIES AS MIDTERMS APPROACH
The officer laid particular blame on Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams, a Democrat whose office did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. The officer claimed Williams' office often doesn't charge criminals at all or reduces felony charges to misdemeanors.
"Crime will continue to rise when there is no accountability for subjects of a crime," the officer said. "Officers overlook so many things because they know that it will go nowhere in court." The officer predicted the situation in the Asheville area is headed "downhill quickly" without a change in leadership.
‘Evil is real’
APD Chief David Zack told Fox News Digital that the reasons behind the steady flood of resignations in his department are complicated and multi-faceted. Zack said the APD has lost more than 100 sworn officers since May 2020, which he noted is roughly equivalent to 600 years of experience walking out the door.
He pinpointed family pressures, a lack of community support and low pay in the expensive city as major factors pushing police to throw in the towel, but explained that APD has been working with the city to make salaries more competitive. He also said that "officers are very, very frustrated" with low bail.
Writing how he had come to believe that police were tasked beyond their capacity with "stopping societal issues and disorder," Wilson concluded that law enforcement solutions are merely "a Band-Aid" on such profound problems and that "strong communities are the real remedy."
"After 10 years at APD, I can say confidently that APD officers are good people with good hearts," he wrote. "Evil is real. Evil exists in Asheville, officers are surrounded by it, and they do their best with what they have. Please remember that."
‘Hub of Antifa’
Chad Nesbitt, the former chair of the Buncombe County GOP who now works as a local investigative journalist, attributed some of the city's problems to Antifa's presence in Asheville, which he described as "the hub of Antifa" in the region.
"It's devastating what they've done here in town and the Asheville area," Nesbitt said of Antifa, whose activity he has followed closely ever since he was nearly killed during protests downtown following the verdict in the Breonna Taylor case in 2020. Activists also dropped off a coffin filled with dirt and animal manure in front of APD headquarters at the time.
Nesbitt said local Antifa have used Floyd's death "as an excuse to bring anarchy to this city," and pinpointed Firestorm Bookstore Co-op in West Asheville as the nexus of their activity. The bookstore did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
