WHAT BEGAN the night of June 10 as a traffic stop for a missing bike light ended in Tasering—and a cyclist’s screams, heard a block away. As Portland Police Bureau Officers Erin Smith and Ron Hoesly were writing out a missing bike light ticket to Diana Spartis on SE 7th and Alder, the police noticed […]
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The Policy that Wasn’t There
City’s Hazy Drug-Free Zone Replacement Program
AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS researching the city’s $1.3 million per year replacement program for the now defunct Drug-Free Zones (DFZs), the Mercury has been unable to find a clear and consistent written policy on the new program anywhere in Portland. The DFZs sunset last September, after independent statistical analysis showed African Americans were more likely to […]
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Streetwalker Holiday
Neighbors Note Prostitution Spike Along 82nd
RECENTLY, neighbors in the Montavilla neighborhood have noticed a sharp increase in the number of sex workers along 82nd Avenue between SE Powell and NE Sandy. Most residents attribute the influx to one thing: the end of Portland’s Prostitute-Free Zones (PFZs). Together with Drug-Free Zones (DFZs), the “free zones” gave police the authority to “exclude” […]
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Unhappy Campers
Homeless Protest Continues, Politicos Take Notice
OVER THE PAST two weeks, a makeshift homeless encampment has been growing in front of city hall. Kicking off on Friday, April 25, a few men and women who’d been “swept” out from under the Burnside Bridge—where they usually slept—set up camp on the sidewalk, against city hall’s cement balustrade. They gathered there to protest […]
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You Can’t Prove It
Racial Profiling Committee Hits Stalemate
The mayor’s racial profiling committee seems to be reaching a stalemate after the police union hired a statistical consultant who says there’s no proof cops are engaging in the practice. There has been much talk over issues such as whether racial profiling exists, but little action on what to do about it since the committee […]
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Blacklisted
Does City’s “Livability” List Have Racial Imbalance?
The city’s effective replacement for the now-defunct Drug-Free Zones (DFZs) appears to be targeting black people for harsher treatment by the judicial system—just as the DFZs did. Of the 408 people now on the city’s Neighborhood Livability Crime Enforcement Offender List (NLCEOL)—a list used to determine who is diverted into a city program that couples […]
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Behind Closed Doors
Cop Review Group Plots Future in Secret
Last Thursday, April 17, the city auditor’s office held a closed-door meeting with members of the cops’ Citizen Review Committee (CRC) to discuss the group’s future. The CRC is part of the city’s Independent Police Review (IPR) division, which was criticized in a consultant’s report recently for conducting too much of its business behind closed […]
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Pearl District Meth Bust
Cops Arrest Northwest Portland Condo Owner
THE COPS SAY they started hearing from some neighbors at the Pearl District’s Irving Street Lofts several months ago, after an unusually large number of visitors started showing up to unit 408. “We’re talking sometimes 70-80 visitors in a 24-hour period,” says Officer Mark Friedman, whose investigative work, along with the sharp eyes of some […]
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Turning the Tables
Citizen Issues Parking Ticket to Cop
A CITIZEN who watched a cop illegally park, then walk into an Asian restaurant to wait for his food, has issued the officer a series of citizen-initiated parking violations. Eric Bryant says he was sitting in the SanSai Japanese Grill on NW 21st and Hoyt on March 7 when he witnessed Officer Chadd Stensgaard pull […]
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In Other News
OFFENDER LIST GROWS There are now 427 people on City Commissioner Randy Leonard’s “Project 57” list. According to the new head of the program, Bill Sinnott, these people are targeted for felony convictions and enforced drug treatment if they’re arrested downtown for things like having a crack pipe containing drug residue. Sinnott, the former boss […]
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In the Shadows
Gangbusters
“I watched my uncle’s knee get blown off.” Rob Ingram was describing an incident from his West Fresno childhood over a bowl of chicken gumbo at the A.J. Java café, on the corner of N Rosa Parks Way and Albina last Friday morning, March 28. Ingram, who has been the director of the mayor’s Office […]
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In Oher News…
RACIAL PROFILING DIVISION Cop union boss Robert King is frustrated over an apparent reluctance in the mayor’s racial profiling committee to let him present a new report that suggests Portland isn’t collecting enough data to be able to tell whether or not cops are racial profiling. The report, by Brian Withrow, a criminologist at Wichita […]