Write your own statement to Portland City Council about what YOU think!
HERE IS MY statement down below… slightly different now from my recorded version…
“My name is Theresa Griffin Kennedy, and I am a lifelong resident of Portland, Oregon. Living in nearly every quadrant of this city, I have seen how defunding the police, which has happened over decades, and at various times in our cities history, destroys public safety. It also creates tragic and avoidable outcomes. Many of these outcomes go back to before some of our city ‘leaders’ were even born. I remember the violent 1980s, when the LA gangs came to Portland and chaos ensued. I remember the young black youths who were dying weekly in drive-by shootings. I was in my 20s then. I remember it well.
With 60 years of life experience to look back on, all lived here in Portland, I have seen crime and violence destroy Portland communities, including our precious communities of color. I have seen lawlessness create criminogenic families from otherwise good folks, who often end up feeling that consequences for crime and predation simply do not apply to them. They end up learning the hard way that consequences apply to all of us.
Defunding PPB of 1.9 million dollars will have a thoroughly destructive impact on the city of Portland. We as the tax paying citizens need to be HEARD, as citizens of this great city with perspectives that matter! And as such, we DEMAND that blatantly anti-police 'leaders' like Avalos, Dunphy, Kanal, Morillo, Lane and Novick wake up and LISTEN to us.
WE are the people paying their salaries. The food they eat was bought with OUR tax money! They owe us their attention and their consideration, NOT their contempt. They also each demonstrate their incredible naivety when they presume a city as large as Portland, (despite still being a small town) and at least 90 officers short will fare well with a close to two million dollar cut to PPB funding.
Restoring the 1.9 million dollars in funding matters, because it would allow PPB to go forward with much needed recruiting, and training for the new officers our city so desperately needs! Important issues like direly slow response times would be addressed and would improve with more officers working the streets. These issues are simple. They are common sense issues of supply and demand and a city's obligation to make sure its citizens are safe and protected.
When a city does not have enough police officers, response times suffer and good people DIE. Key initiatives like dealing with the heartbreaking tragedy of sex trafficking of women and minor children will be addressed more effectively with the 1.9 million restored to the PPB budget. Stolen vehicle investigations can go forward more regularly, along with the very important issue of anti-street racing enforcement, which literally saves young lives!
In 2025 Portland has a population of 622, 882 persons, with the Portland Metropolitan area at a staggering 2,265,000 persons. Cities our size, at well over two million residents in the metropolitan area need far more than only a few hundred police officers. The FBI’s current recommendation for a city our size would be a police force of approximately 4,000 officers and WE have less than 1,000. These statistics are easy to get from trusted government websites and are reliable. I suggest more people look into it.
Right now, however, the city of Portland has only 877 sworn, authorized police officers, down from 881 in 2023.
For perspective, consider that in 1960, PPB had between 650-740 sworn police officers. This is consistent with what my husband Don DuPay, a former PPB homicide detective remembers from the early 1960s. He signed on with PPB in April of 1961 and was a street cop and dedicated police detective for almost 20 years. He remembers that by the middle 1960s, there were approximately 800 police officers in Portland. But what has changed since the middle 1960s?
THE POPULATION OF PORTLAND has changed!
In 1960 the population of Portland was only 372,676 persons, with an overall population in surrounding areas of 822,000 persons. In 1965, when the Portland Police Bureau had 800 police officers the population of Portland was significantly smaller. And here we are in 2025 with only a few more than 800 police officers—a number that existed in 1965?!
Does this concern you? It should! What should also concern you are the city leaders who demonstrate they are ignorant of the facts and ignorant of the bigger picture. The city council members who voted to cut 1.9 million from the PPB budget are uninformed, inexperienced and ignorant of the bigger picture.
Recently a family member of mine was being threatened by a deranged, mentally ill man who attempted to break down his apartment door. It took me five calls to 911 and a two HOUR wait before police finally arrived. This is because Portland does not have ENOUGH police officers.
Does that make sense?
In 1965 Portland had approximately 800 police officers. In 2025, we have 877 sworn police officers. Do you see a problem there? I certainly do.
YOU and your families are NOT safe if you live in Portland, Oregon. Perhaps if the anti-police city ‘leaders’ experience a traumatic situation, in which they lose a loved one to violence, or a loved one is harmed, perhaps then they will see how important having a solid police department benefits a city of our size.
We need better more balanced leaders, who are grounded in reality and maturity and NOT merely their biased grudges against Portland police officers or police officers in general, based on what they think they know about a profession they have absolutely no background in.
And I encourage everyone in Portland to be extremely suspicious of a city leader who attempts to vilify or demonize a Portland police officer. They are members of the Portland community and we do have enough of them!”
Feel free to email these “leaders” with your thoughts on why public safety is important and how the Portland Police Bureau play an integral role in that concrete reality.
Portland needs MORE than 1,000 police officers…
councilor.avalos@portlandoregon.gov
councilor.dunphy@portlandoregon.gov
councilor.novick@portlandoregon.gov
councilor.kanal@portlandoregon.gov
councilor.morillo@portlandoregon.gov
councilor.koyamalane@portlandoregon.gov
~Theresa Griffin Kennedy
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