Stan Pulliam is Republican mayor of Sandy, Oregon a city about 25 miles east of Portland. Pulliam is currently running a campaign for governor on a platform of enlarging the budget of the state police. He recently gave and interview to Oregon Public Broadcasting about his goals. [emphasis added]

The top issue absolutely is the festering culture of criminality and mass homelessness decaying every corner of our state. There has been a massive uptick in crime and riots that we’ve watched on the nightly news, all the while politicians have slowly defunded our police with their words and actions. We used to have 30 state troopers per hundred thousand people. That number today is 8. Meanwhile, in Sandy, we’ve fully funded our police…

As Governor, I would triple the size of state police, restoring their former strength. I will also deploy the Oregon National Guard to the front lines to stop riots and clean up our streets. Finally, I will take a page out of President Trump’s playbook and deputize a small portion of the state police as U.S. marshals, to ensure that rioters go into the federal court system, outside the jurisdiction of the soft-on-crime Multnomah County District Attorney.

Pulliam didn’t mention Antifa by name but they clearly got the message anyway. He’s dubbed his whole campaign the “War on woke” so maybe that got their attention as well. On Saturday, he held a rally in Portland and a small mob of maybe a dozen people dressed in black bloc showed up to disrupt it.

More footage from PDX as Antifa attacked our campaign supporters. No surprise…underfunded police didn't show in time to allow our free speech. #FundThePolice #WarOnWoke #orpol #orgov (2/2) pic.twitter.com/06oblomdbe

— Mayor Stan Pulliam (@StanPulliam) April 30, 2022

As you can see in the 2nd clip, the goal was to do some damage but primarily they wanted to prevent Pulliam from speaking. That’s why they kept blowing the whistles and why they refused to leave the park until everyone associated with the rally had left.

If you’re a regular reader than you already know Portland has a major problem with lack of police staffing to deal with rising crime so it’s not surprising that in this case police showed up after the goon squad had moved on.

Police said one group threw smoke grenades, larger fireworks and paint at the other group near Southwest Third Avenue and Main Street. The sound of “significant explosions” could be heard in the area, police said.

Firework mortars left one man with a hand injury and a woman complained of hearing loss, police said in a statement. Both people said they planned to seek medical treatment on their own and were not taken to a hospital, according to police…

Portland police said officials responded at about noon, with a sergeant monitoring the scene with only a few officers available in the precinct. Once “sufficient resources” were available, police said, they set up a crime scene.

Officers said they found the remains of paint-filled balloons that had been thrown at people and cars. But the group suspected of throwing the fireworks had left the area.

So, as usual, no one will be arrested for this attack. Pulliam reiterated Sunday that he would take a different approach if elected governor.

My statement on how I will lock up #Antifa and end their terrorizing of Portlanders when I’m elected Governor. #orpol #orgov https://t.co/siuodcdymr pic.twitter.com/hp4jS40YpC

— Mayor Stan Pulliam (@StanPulliam) May 1, 2022

Here’s the latter half of his statement. It’s amazing that stopping a mob of thugs from preventing political speech in a public space is considered controversial.