Mar 15, 2021 Back in June of last year, as the mayors of liberal cities tried to “out-woke” each other during the George Floyd/BLM riots Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced that he was defunding the police department by $12 million. He said that the money taken from the police budget would be diverted to other city departments to support communities of color. Some of the money defunded a police unit that focused on gun violence reduction. “My privilege as a white man, my privilege as the mayor and the leader of the institutions of power in this community I believe shielded me from time to time from the many difficult and uncomfortable truths about our history and about our society.”