This video comes to us from a reader, Vince in Portland, Oregon who writes "Police chief Mike Reese seems [to] accuse the Occupy Movement of preventing a rape victim from receiving help, due to police being understaffed. I cannot tell you offended I am, and shocked that Chief Reese would exploit the case of a rape victim in order to suppress a peaceful movement.
November 18, 2011

This video comes to us from a reader, Vince in Portland, Oregon who writes "Police chief Mike Reese seems [to] accuse the Occupy Movement of preventing a rape victim from receiving help, due to police being understaffed. I cannot tell you offended I am, and shocked that Chief Reese would exploit the case of a rape victim in order to suppress a peaceful movement. And people ought to know what kind of bias they're facing from most of the media, as this video exemplifies."

A reporter with KGW News speaks with Portland Police Chief Mike Reese on Thursday, November 17th:

KGW: "I want to ask you about how much this [Occupy Portland] is distracting the police force from other crimes that are going on in our area?"

Reese: "Well, that's a great question and I appreciate you asking it because we are reducing our patrol response. Many days like today we're taking emergency calls only for service. For example, we had a rape victim stand by for three hours until we could get an officer to take a report, and that makes all of us very sad."

KGW: "For three hours? And that's directly related because there wasn't enough staff because they've been doing other things with Occupy Portland?"

Reese: "Correct."

Well, Vince in Portland, I wish I could say that I'm shocked, but sadly there is a lot of negative spin going on in the media as they try to paint the Occupy movement as a horrible thing that is to blame for all of society's ills. Very convenient that KGW just happened to ask Chief Reese that "great" question.

It's also not surprising that Portland was one of the cities that a Justice Department official says coordinated recent evictions of Occupy movement across the country "with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies."

It is horrible if true that a rape victim had to wait such a long time for a police officer after going through such a trauma. No question about that. However, the belief that the general public needs to be "protected" from people exercising their Constitutional rights, and the calling attention to injustices in our country is nothing more than spin from those who would rather the public remain silent about such things.

Serving an individual community's victims of crime - and especially victims of violent crimes - should certainly come before surveillance of hippies who might serve some hot soup or offer a blanket to a homeless person.

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