Insurers balk at covering Portland businesses; brokers say downtown upheaval has made carriers wary
Eric Murfitt watched helplessly from a live security feed as looters trashed his downtown clothing store, Mercantile, during a riot on May 30. Murfitt said the business suffered $1 million in losses due to the break-in and had to file an insurance claim to stay afloat.
But in November, Murfitt was informed that his insurance carrier would not be renewing the store’s policy. Nearly a dozen other insurance companies declined to even offer Mercantile a quote.
The riots, protests, vandalism, looting, lack of policing, and general Leftist utopia disarray have made many business uninsurable and has left others with unaffordable premiums.
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office has declined to file charges in 70% of the protest-related cases that have been referred to them since May, although District Attorney Mike Schmidt has said he would pursue cases that involve “deliberate” property damage, theft or force against another person or threats of force.
He hasn’t.
The city government has made this happen. Their utter mismanagement has cost these businesses everything.
This is where qualified immunity needs to die. Every person in the city government needs to personally pay for making this happen.
This is beyond bad policy, this is malfeasance.
Politicians should be held personally accountable when their policies lead to the destruction of communities. More than losing an election and getting a cushy job at a lobbying agency or think tank. These politicians need to be rendered permanently destitute.
Private business does not exist in communism.
“oh but they have insurance so it’s fine if we loot, rob, and steal”.
“The stores aren’t re-opening/charging higher prices? Those greedy rich people. Let’s riot and demand they pay more in taxes. “
VOTE IN SOME MORE DEMOCRATS, morons. Ya reap what ya sow.
“Politicians should be held personally accountable when their policies lead to the destruction of communities.”
This I fully agree with.
Removing qualified immunity from every city employee, I do not agree with.
In the case of politicians, the issue isn’t necessarily “qualified immunity” but rather blanket immunity. I can’t find anything in the NH Constitution, somewhat to my surprise, that would give legislators immunity. But US politicians have it, Article 1 Section 6 (“the speech & debates clause”). If OR has something analogous it would take a Constitutional amendment to fix the problem.
As for not removing the immunity from all city employees — why not? People who don’t work for governments don’t have any immunity, why should working for the “servant of the people” make you privileged?
If I were one of the affected businesses or residents I would personally decline to pay any taxes as a non violent protest.
The absolute state of things is though that im sure their send armed people to apprehend me for my failure to do so most expediently I doubt I would escape prosecution.
I suspect a number of these (former) business owners will let “jingle mail” tell the tale, and they will unass that AO.