More than 30 Portland police units swarmed an east Portland brawl Thursday afternoon where a repeat offender allegedly beat a man with a firearm — the predictable result of a city that defunded its police and stopped prosecuting its criminals, leaving law-abiding residents to live with the consequences.
Adam Ferris, 46, of Happy Valley, was booked into the Multnomah County jail on a second-degree assault charge after the broad-daylight fight on Southeast Powell Boulevard left one man hospitalized with serious injuries, according to Portland police spokesperson Sgt. Kevin Allen. Ferris struck the victim with a gun but did not fire it. Allen said the investigation is ongoing and additional arrests are possible.
Here is what the system allowed: a man with prior convictions for drug possession, contempt of court, and driving offenses was free to join an armed brawl involving enough people to require over 30 police units to respond. The Oregonian noted Ferris's rap sheet cleanly; what it didn't ask is why a convicted offender with that record was walking the streets in the first place.
That question answers itself. Multnomah County's progressive prosecutors have made a doctrine of declining charges, cutting deals, and treating repeat offenders as rehabilitation projects rather than threats to public safety. Portland's police bureau, meanwhile, has been hollowed out by years of defunding demands and attrition — so when a brawl erupts, the response is massive because the baseline staffing is minimal.
The toll is not abstract. One man is in the hospital with serious injuries because the institutional preference was for leniency over accountability.
Norfolk's Virginian-Pilot reported its own version of accountability failure the same day: a driver in Hampton, Virginia, struck and killed a pedestrian crossing against the signal, fled the scene, crashed into another vehicle 17 minutes later, and tried to run again before officers detained him. Two crashes, one dead pedestrian, two attempts to flee — and the system will now sort through the wreckage.
The through-line is plain. When jurisdictions stop enforcing the law, the cost is paid by people standing on the sidewalk — whether on Powell Boulevard or East Mercury Boulevard. The Oregonian covered the facts of the Portland brawl; it just declined to connect those facts to the policies that produced them.
Portland police say more arrests could follow. The question for ordinary Oregonians isn't whether the bookings will continue. It's whether the charges will.
