"Respect my authoritah"

One of the many things the Portland police don't do any more is stop or punish illegal street racing and illegal street takeovers. In a city that's now essentially lawless, the cops have long since stopped breaking these events up. They just send their fancy Airplane of Mystery™ up so that cops on board can take aerial videos of the activity. No one is ever arrested or prosecuted.

So it's with a high degree of skepticism that I note that the police bureau has a new video up touting a new city ordinance on the subject. In the video, the police chief says street racing and street takeovers won't be tolerated.

I'm sure there were already plenty of laws on the books that the cops could have enforced. So why should the  situation be any different now that the City Council has passed some new rule?

If you want to stop street takeovers, Chief, you have to break them up. More than once. It involves actual police work. And it requires personnel, which you don't have because a lot of the officers you do have behave like jerks and alienate everyone.

The people who take over streets – and the interstate freeways – to race cars and put on their auto shows probably aren't going to see the chief's video. Which is too bad, because they're missing out on what for them would be a good hard laugh.