To be clear, he’s not saying there’s insufficient evidence or some other legal impediment to prosecution. He’s just saying that he won’t do his job.
Schmidt isn’t trying to hide his dereliction of duty; he’s proud of it. In fact, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office has published a data dashboard of Portland’s “protest” cases. The data are meant to show the district attorney’s resolve to reform the supposedly systemically racist justice system of greater Portland. The website states:
Our dashboards are part of a larger movement within our local criminal justice system and community to use data, technology, and research as tools to reduce incarceration and racial disparities and to improve outcomes for justice involved individuals and crime victims. Tools like our dashboards help us create safer communities and advance the dialogue on best practices for local justice systems.
It boggles the mind to think that the daily release of arrested rioters and refusal to prosecute them creates safer communities—especially when those rioters have committed nightly violence and destruction to those communities for over four months.
Still, the data in the dashboard are informative. From May 29 to Oct. 5, law enforcement referred 974 cases to the District Attorney’s Office. Many of the cases are of repeat offenders, but, curiously, the dashboard does not indicate how many.
The district attorney rejected 666 cases, or nearly 70%. Of the rejected cases, 543 (over 81%) were dismissed in the “interest of justice.” The District Attorney’s Office does not define this vague term. Other listed reasons for rejection are: follow-up necessary (67 cases), insufficient evidence (44 cases), and legal impediment (12 cases).
The demographic data show that young, white males make up the majority of the tossed cases. The race in 77% of the cases is white; 10% are black, and 6% Hispanic. Forty-five percent of the cases are 26- to 35-year-olds and 38% are 18- to 25-year-olds. Two-thirds are male; only 32% are female.