Wow, This Crazy Violent Portland Police Training Slide Is ... Pretty Much What You’d Expect

Guess we’ll keep funding this.

Well before George Floyd’s murder and the "Defund the Police” movement, Portland, Oregon, police were fed up with people exercising their First Amendment Rights. A slide show from apparently 2018, designed to train officers on policing protests, concluded with a fun bonus message celebrating violence against US citizens.

 According to Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office, the offensive slide surfaced during discovery for a lawsuit the nonprofit group Don’t Shoot Portland filed against the city over use of force during the 2020 racial justice protests. Presumably, the plaintiff’s counsel immediately placed the slide in a file marked “pay dirt.”

 The Oregonian reports:  

The last of the 110 slides in the presentation showed the “Prayer of the Alt Knight | Based Stickman” meme. “Based Stickman” refers to Kyle Chapman, the founder of a group called the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights that formed as the “tactical defense arm” of the Proud Boys, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He’s a far-right Trump supporter and street brawler who earned the nickname “Based Stickman” after a video showed him hitting an antifascist activist with a wooden sign post in Berkeley in 2017.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has classified the Proud Boys as a hate group, which is the sort of thing the police should know.

 Here’s the meme that appeared in the training slideshow. It’s as gross as you might expect.

The Oregonian 

The slide depicts a cop in body armor beating the crap out of someone who’s not wearing body armor. This would seem to violate Queensberry rules. The text reads:  

And the Lord said ...

Woe be unto you, dirty hippy;
For thou stinketh of patchouli and BO;
For thou talk of Marx, yet know him not;
For thou has bills, yet have not paid;
For thou has dreadlocks and white skin.

And so I shall send among you,
My humble servants with hat, and with bat;
That they may christen your heads with hickory,
An anoint your faces with pepper spray.

And once thou hast been cuffed and stuffed;
Once thou has been stitched and bandaged;
Perhaps thou shall learn,
I am tired of your shit.

Amen

  If you find this fascist doggerel completely deranged, you apparently don’t have what it takes to serve in law enforcement.

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell released a statement insisting that "the content of this message is not representative of the Portland Police Bureau and it is disappointing to all of us who work so hard to earn the community’s trust.” Lovell is a relatively new sheriff in town. He became police chief in June 2020, but he’s served on the force since 2002.

As to whether that slide is reflective of how Portland cops police protests, well, see for yourself:  

Aggressive arrests, baton jabbing and knocking a photographer to the ground.pic.twitter.com/OXdGhfOs3k

— Mike Baker (@Mike Baker) 1601190049 

Mayor Wheeler said in a statement, “I am disgusted that this offensive content was added to a training presentation for our police officers." It continued: "As soon as I was made aware of the incident, I reached out to Chief Lovell, who shared my deep concern and assured me that a thorough and a complete investigation was underway.”

Wheeler claims he’s shocked and appalled, but has he ever visited a police message board or talked to a cop for an extended period about protesters? They often sound like Grampa Simpson gleefully watching footage of cops beating up hippies set to Glenn Miller music.

The twisted meme reinforces what Portland hippies (even those with questionable hygiene) have been protesting against for years now, but it’s unlikely that cops will appreciate or even see the irony.

Portlanders & the Department of Justice have asked us to transform our public safety system, & this is why. This disturbing image was not just the work of a single individual: it’s also the passive acceptance of those who do nothing.https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/01/14/portland-police-include-prayer-of-the-alt-knight-meme-in-protest-training-presentation/ …

— Commissioner Carmen Rubio (@Commissioner Carmen Rubio) 1642215989 

 Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch tweeted, "The Portland police chief when this happened in 2018 is now the police commissioner of Philadelphia, Danielle Outlaw. She has some explaining to do.” During protests in October 2020, Philadelphia cops viciously tormented Rickia Young and staged a cop-aganda photo op with her traumatized son.

Wheeler said an internal affairs investigation started once the slide was discovered in September, which was several months ago. No one has been fired or disciplined.

Cops usually receive far more due process than they're willing to extend to people they don’t like.

[ Oregonian / Rolling Stone ]

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