A Portland jury handed down a ruling last week that should jolt every American who still believes local law enforcement will shield them from street-level disorder. Angella Lynn Davis — the activist known as "Crowtifa" for the black bird costume she wore to conceal her identity — walked free after a six-person jury found reasonable doubt on charges of second-degree disorderly conduct and offensive physical contact. Prosecutors presented video evidence of her chasing independent journalist Nick Sortor, surrounding him, and brandishing a stick outside Portland's federal ICE facility on October 2, 2025. Sortor traveled from Washington, D.C., simply to document unrest tied to immigration enforcement. He did not throw a punch. The jury let Davis walk. When reporters afterward asked if she had anything to say, she replied: "F—ck ICE." One has to admire the philosophical consistency.
The verdict was the warm-up act. Days later in Los Angeles, James O'Keefe and his O'Keefe Media Group team went undercover on Skid Row, posing as homeless individuals. Hidden cameras documented 28 instances of petitioners offering cash, cigarettes, and marijuana for signatures on election initiative petitions — sometimes using fictitious addresses — conduct apparently violating multiple California felony statutes. When the team returned on March 20, 2026, to confront the petitioners, crew members were punched in the neck and face. Some ran ten blocks to safety. U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli confirmed that paying for voter registration forms is a federal crime under 52 U.S.C. § 10307(c) and vowed prosecution. Whether California's institutional infrastructure executes on that vow remains the operative question.
I have spent three decades studying how justice systems function in practice, not in theory — first as a criminal justice graduate with post-graduate work at Penn and Harvard, and more recently as an expert witness reviewing case files in fiduciary litigation. These back-to-back incidents fit a pattern I have watched develop in progressive strongholds for years. Portland police were routinely ordered to stand down during the 2020 riots that turned downtown into a nightly combat zone. During those same protests, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documented over 300 journalist assaults in the first two weeks following George Floyd's death, with law enforcement responsible for roughly 80% of those attacks. Seattle's CHOP zone operated for weeks. San Francisco's policies produced open drug markets so brazen they became a national story. These are not isolated failures. They are the predictable output of a governing philosophy that consistently prioritizes leniency toward certain actors over the uniform application of the law.
Nick Shirley provides a third data point. After releasing undercover footage exposing alleged fraud at government-funded childcare centers in Minnesota and expanding to California hospice programs — documenting what he described as hundreds of millions in misused taxpayer dollars — Shirley faced sustained threats and doxxing campaigns severe enough that he raised funds for private security. Document misconduct in a progressive stronghold, and the response arrives not as a rebuttal but as a physical threat.
Progressive district attorneys have fundamentally reshaped enforcement priorities. The Crime Prevention Research Center documents that concealed carry permit holders commit firearms violations at roughly one-seventh the rate of police officers. Among the 20 states that enacted permitless carry before 2023, 12 saw decreases in violent crime, and those states collectively show a lower average violent crime rate than the national baseline. The academic debate on causation is legitimate and ongoing, RAND has reviewed the literature and found effects "uncertain" — but the claim that arming law-abiding citizens produces chaos is not supported by the evidence.
The practical takeaway is direct. You cannot count on law enforcement to protect you in urban areas where political leadership has redefined public safety downward. Officers want to do their jobs. Many operate under policies that prevent them from doing so. Congress should pass national reciprocity for concealed carry permits. The current state-by-state patchwork exposes law-abiding travelers to legal jeopardy precisely when they may need to exercise a constitutional right. Stand your ground laws reinforce this by removing any duty to retreat from an imminent threat. They recognize something obvious: forcing a law-abiding individual to turn their back on a pursuing mob is not a safety policy, it is a liability policy for those doing the pursuing.
I would rather be tried by twelve than carried by six. That expression is not bravado — it is a recognition of how quickly situations evolve when confrontation meets an unarmed target and institutional response never arrives. Citizens should also demand accountability at the ballot box: candidates who back qualified immunity, broken-windows enforcement, and real consequences for repeat offenders. The Portland verdict and the Skid Row assault reflect a deliberate shift in certain cities away from equal justice toward selective enforcement. Americans retain the tools to change course. The choice is not complicated. Ignore the pattern and absorb more of the same — or act, and ensure that in the next confrontation, the person walking away safely is the one who followed the rules.
Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and wealth management. He has a BS from Northeastern University and has completed postgraduate studies at UCLA, UPENN, and Harvard. He writes about issues in finance, constitutional law, national security, human nature, and public policy.