With one of the highest crime rates in America, it seems that Portland’s Democrat politicians have finally come to their senses. The Daily Mail reports that they are planning to refund the police after cutting $15 million from the department’s budget three years ago during the BLM’s Defund the Police hysteria.

The result was a massive spike in the city’s crime rates and now the politicians are vowing to restore funding and hire more investigators and DAs to stem the flood of criminal behavior.

But the problems in Portland wasn’t solely due to police funding cuts.

It was compounded with the 2020 election of a new woke DA, Mike Schmidt, who decided a soft-on-crime approach was the best way to stop criminal behavior.

This included scrapping minimum sentences, stopping the sentencing of juveniles in adult courts and using specialty courts to provide alternative sentencing arrangements. He also refused to prosecute criminals including dozens of BLM protestors who ransacked the city in 2020.

The result of these decisions was an explosion in crime with over 63,000 property thefts reported in 2022, including a record 11,000 car thefts (nearly doubled in two years). According to Neighborhood Scout a Portland resident is three times more likely to be a victim of property crime than the national average.

With businesses fleeing the city because of rampant shoplifting and citizens outraged by increased crime and the growing homelessness problem, Democrat politicians are now pretending they are suddenly crime fighters.

Which begs the question: Can a leopard change its spots?

READ: Refund the police! Portland FINALLY launches crackdown on crime after defunding the police by $15m – as it hires more DAs and investigators to tackle spiraling car and retail theft