THREE RETIRED WOMEN meet under the gazebo in McCoy Park at the heart of New Columbia, a North Portland housing project, on the evening of Friday, June 25. It has been 10 days since a gang-related shooting in the park injured a 17-year-old boy.
Caren Cox, Janis Khorsi, and Jane Lancaster are homeowners at New Columbia, an idyllic-looking community the Portland Housing Bureau built in 2005 to replace the infamously crime-ridden Columbia Villa projects. The three meet regularly to stroll around the sprawling development on a foot patrol. They pick up trash along the way, report maintenance problems, and keep an eye out for crime.
“Summers have been rough here since the get-go,” says Cox, a resident since 2005. Across from the Boys and Girls Club at the entrance to the development, candles and flowers line the front porch of the house where another 17-year-old, Billy Moore, was killed on Monday, June 21. Marsel Upton, 16, is in custody for that shooting. Police say he flashed a gang sign at Moore before shooting him.
The women are used to finding evidence of gang activity. “We see tagging from people in gangs, and we’ve found chains and other things in the bushes,” says Cox. “You’re not just looking for trash sometimes.”
Mayor Sam Adams and Police Chief Mike Reese held a press conference on Tuesday, June 22, to address four gang-related shootings that happened so far this June. In those 22 days, the police’s Gang Violence Response Team (GVRT) had responded to 10 gang incidents—more than double the four incidents that flared up in June 2008 and 2009.
“There’s been an increase in gang activity due to warm summertime temperatures and unemployment,” said Adams. While unemployment is high, it’s tough to blame temperatures for the violence: This year saw one of the coldest Junes on record.
Police are targeting New Columbia with the GVRT as well as HEAT, a unit that roams the city patrolling gang hotspots.
“There are no clear guidelines for determining what’s gang-related,” says Chief Reese. “We use our best judgment, and rely on what people are telling us on the street.”
The police bureau has two officers on permanent duty at New Columbia.
The ladies on foot patrol are happy to have the officers nearby, but residents still worry.
“I come home, drive into the garage, and I’m in for the night,” says Khorsi.
In an empty lot nearby, officers stand around a mobile precinct (a large RV used for special-incident staging). They’re part of a police effort to deter crime through visibility, and they aren’t doing anything except passing out stickers to the occasional kid.
“I don’t speak for the police bureau, but I think it’s all just for show,” says one of the officers. “They have to make it look like we’re doing something.”
Who’s Hunting?
What does that even mean? This should have been a positive human interest story about unity and cooperation in direct response to recent tragedies in our neighborhood. Instead, we learn of fearful residents, relating hot weather to violent crime and the writer’s anti=police bias on police outreach. I live across the street from the Mobile precinct and I think those stickers do a great deal more than litter our lawns. Kids love them and they get to know the police, for starters. ALso quoting the unknown officer ends the article on a unnecessary cynical note. A very bad article, or editing or both.
yeah, I want to hear more about the women. And what are the chains for…weapons? What other things did they find? Did you not ask a follow up question? And what can I do to help? If the police rely on what people on the street tell them, what should we be looking for? This could have been a really awesome article, but it’s was badly researched and poorly written. Come on, Stefan, you can do better…
You both raise good questions, and frankly I wish I could have learned more details and had more space to write about them. I was pointing out the mayor’s mention of hot weather because it’s an often-heard reason, but in this case really didn’t make sense, and pointed to the fact that what’s happening in neighborhoods is hard for a politician to explain away at a press conference.
Talking to the officers at the mobile precinct, we all agreed that establishing visibility was about all they COULD do in the circumstances, and I didn’t mean to devalue their presence. But there was definitely some cynicism among the officers, a sort of “this happens every year, they have to do something” kind of feeling. I thought that was worth reporting.
As for the ladies, I tried to tell a little more of their story in a followup blog post, http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/Blogto… .
The feeling I got was that what these ladies are doing is pretty much the best thing anyone can do to combat a “don’t-snitch” culture and a see-no-evil attitude among certain neighbors.
However to say that this “should have been a positive human-interest story” is pretty irrelevant to me. In a situation like this you have people doing positive things, people doing bad and cruel things, and some people who just don’t know what the hell they’re doing. I felt it was pretty important to get glimpses of all three, however brief, into a regrettably short overview of the situation.
Thanks for the feedback.
“pretty irrelevant to me..” no kidding!
maybe a tattoo or beer fest will generate a desire for more “learning and details”…..tsk tsk tsk…
a New Columbia homeowner