Portland Got a New Police Chief Over the Holidays

Image: Courtesy Jami Resch
In case you blinked and missed it over the holidays: Portland has a new police chief.
After just two years in the city, Ex-Chief Danielle Outlaw was sworn in as the city of Philadelphia’s new police commissioner on the last day of 2019.
Outlaw was picked as the head of the Portland Police Bureau in 2017 after a months-long search; in contrast, her successor, former Deputy Chief Jami Resch, was announced as the police bureau’s new head in the same press release that relayed Outlaw’s departure.
Unlike Outlaw, who came to Portland after a long career at the Oakland Police Department, Resch has long-term roots in the city. She graduated from the University of Portland with a degree in Allied Health Sciences, and has served in the police bureau for 20 years.
She inherits a police department that faces pervasive questions over its use of public force and handling of alt-right protests, as well as its interactions with Portland’s unsheltered population.
Resch is off to a quick start: She’s got a brand new Twitter feed, where so far she’s posted a video of her hasty swearing in and a link to the press release announcing Outlaw’s departure and her appointment. She’s only following @PortlandPolice, but is already up to 153 of her own followers, including most of the city’s TV reporters and conservative-leaning journalist Andy Ngo, who has turned his reportedly orchestrated brush with Antifa at a Portland protest into a cause celeb for the right.