Yes Portland Mercury, we understand... all police are evil and exist for no other reason than to hurt us and make life easy for the rich and privileged. Obviously Portland would be much better off without police. There are hardly any transients in this city and those that are here are just peace loving intellectuals that would otherwise be gainfully employed if not for this repressive American system. Keep up the non-biased reporting, its top notch!

Yes Venzetti, we understand... all police are good and exist for no other reason than to help us and make life hard for the poor and disadvantaged. Obviously Portland would be much better off not reporting any incidents involving potential abuses of police power.

Keep up listening to AM talk radio, its top notch!

Yes "The Portland Merkur," I love it when suspended drivers with no insurance hit my car and I am stuck paying the bill.

I see one quote paraphrasing the towing company.
Methinks there is much more to this latest chapter in the police-is-bad--give-us-a-welfare-state series.

I must've missed that part of the constitution that guarantees housing to everyone.

Nonetheless -
'It's really a shame there aren't more cops that would take an extra minute to follow through with the welfare check and give her a phone call or some means of seeking housing for the night'

We don't know if they did or didn't, being my original point of holes in the story. And a brass knuckle keychain would probably snap your key off the transmission.

But mmm ... Vienna sausages and Ritz ...

$4700 for an '88 Caddy is the less happy story.

do the right wing no nothings have nothing better to do than write asinine comments to Merc news stories. Oh sorry there are so many people down on their luck polluting your fucked up view of the world.

I actually KNOW this lady. She is one of the laziest whiniest people I have ever encountered. Her head is filled with Gillette Shaving Gel. Though, I might assume that the cause of this is that she is totally addicted to pain pills. Many of the times I encountered her she could barely open her mouth wide enough to speak. She had a storage unit at the facility I worked at and she never paid her rent, half the reason is because she just didn't want to come in. She would call with all these excuses before the rent was even due. "Oh Alex, hey it's Contia, how you doin?" I say "fine" but of course I am pissed because she calls me every month. "Oh Alex, my back be hurtin' me so bad, you mind if I come in and drop this off tomorrow?" Then I would tell her, that would be fine because it wasn't due until three days from now. Than she would ask over and over if I was sure. Which I was. "Oh Alex God Bless you, thank you so much." Then she wouldn't come in for a week and half. I guarantee this woman has done nothing to better herself in the last five years, besides finding local suckers to mooch off of. For instance my good-natured aunt and apparently her church.

Just another shining example of someone who has chosen to opt out of society and expects everyone else to pick up the tab.

Jesus what's wrong with you people. Like someone chooses to blow their back out so they can walk away from a 20 year career. I've so often thought, screw-it. My soft dry bed is so boring, and I'm tired of cooking, I'm gonna live in my car for a few months. Maybe I can get the state to pay for my showers cause I'm tired of paying my water bill, I'm a communist and I wanna stick it to the rest of society for awhile.

As a matter of fact I had decided that this was the week, except my conscience got the better of me. In the end I decided to keep my job if for no other reason than it will allow me to pay my share of the $700 Billion dollars I owe Wallstreet now that our good president has found yet another way to bankrupt our country before he leaves.

D et al want a return to Cave Man morals, where women who've literally broken their backs taking care of sick people for 23 years sleep on the street because of some bad luck. i hope D et al don't bitch when they get hit with the next clubs that cross their paths, 'cause they're assholes, and Cave Man justice requires that assholes get hit with clubs a lot.

i'd love to see ms. orsby get some training for a job she'd like to do that won't hurt her back. but no, anything short of her "getting it together" (magic! the cave men are so rational) and working in a mine for ten cents an hour is a "welfare state" to the cave men, and the republicans won't allow it.

Doesn't anyone find it odd that this woman had brass knuckles for a "key ring"? Give me a break! It's not like they sell brass knuckles in the knick knack section at Longs...

It is also a right for a person to live in that which they have obtained themselves. People have a right to live in their cars if that is what they have. So she had no licence and no insurance. But it was where she lived. What should have happened is she should have been given a ticket for driving, and told to park the vehicle somewhere.

If you committed a traffic infraction, would you want to have your home sold out from under you?

To read an example of what would happen should the middle class be treated like the homeless, read this:
http://jointheclasswar.blogspot.com/2008/1…