‘It feels unsafe’

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - It was lunchtime as a Eugene police officer watched over a group of homeless people lingering in front of Jameson’s Bar at West Broadway and Olive Street. The group eventually moved on.

Sometime later that day and two blocks over, a police sport utility vehicle parked in the middle of the west Park Blocks.

The same or another police SUV later that day parked in front of the east Park Blocks, not far from the covered structure where a group of homeless people were gathered.

About an hour later, a four-month-old team of Eugene police officers and social workers walked over to Broadway Plaza - also known as Kesey Square - to talk with yet another group of homeless people, reported The Register-Guard (https://bit.ly/2ccFmet).

In recent weeks, the Eugene Police Department has significantly ramped up its presence downtown, as Police Chief Pete Kerns, who has worked for the department for more than 30 years, said criminal conduct and aggressive behavior in its core is worse this summer than he can remember.

The offenses are not new, but there are more of them: aggressive panhandling, trespassing, drug sales and use, public drunkenness and urination, and fights.

The police department expanded its downtown patrol in 2010, but the growth in the number of trouble-causing homeless people congregating downtown has outstripped the patrol’s ability to keep order, Kerns said.

“It feels unsafe. It is unsafe in a lot of ways,” Kerns said. “We have a concentration of a problem that occurred in our downtown this summer that we just had to address.”

Some downtown business owners also argue that problems have been the worst they’ve seen in years. Data from the police department shows monthly calls for police service in the area are at least at a three-year high.

“It’s really bad for business,” said Jeff Keim, manager of Thunderbird Market, across the street from Jameson’s. “People are intimidated and scared, and they don’t like it.”

The increased police presence comes as city leaders are under growing pressure to improve safety downtown to help further its ongoing revitalization and also address the homelessness that residents say has become epidemic in some parts of Eugene.

Kerns said the increased police presence has improved conditions downtown. Residents who live, work and shop downtown say it has helped. But opinions are mixed about the degree of success.

This “hot spot” enforcement is temporary, expected to last no later than the end of summer, Kerns said. Such enforcement is not a new practice for the department and is based on its data analysis that identifies areas in Eugene experiencing an uptick in crime.

Another initiative by the department is taking a different tack in dealing with downtown’s worst chronic offenders.

The hope is the work of the fledging police/social worker team, paired with a new court focused on reducing the low-level offenses, will pay long-term dividends.

“We’re looking at the big picture of how we can make downtown safer,” said Sgt. Julie Smith, who supervises the downtown patrol. “We not only have the enforcement, but we have some community outreach.”

But others have raised concerns about police officers harassing a vulnerable population and having a chilling effect on public assembly downtown.

“If you put so many cops in the downtown core, they’re going to compete (for citations and arrests) and a lot of injustice will happen from there,” said Tristan Stephens, 15, who said has been homeless on and off for several years, while sitting at Broadway Plaza.

Increased police presence

The police department began its stepped-up presence on Aug. 1. It temporarily tasked two more police officers to walk downtown and supplement the assigned patrol. It directed that other on-duty patrol officers spend as much time on foot as possible around downtown’s problem areas when they are not responding to calls on their assigned beats in other parts of the city.

The officers have focused on the most problem-riddled areas of downtown: the stretch of West Broadway between Willamette and Olive streets, and the Park Blocks.

The aim, Kerns said, is to combat the drug sales and use that officers regularly see in the area, and the unruly and intimidating behavior visitors observe on the sidewalks.

“There are people who are behaving aggressively,” he said. “It’s not all criminal, but it is aggressive, and it’s frightening and it reduces the sense of safety substantially.”

Smith said in a recent written briefing to Eugene city councilors that people continue to flout the law by smoking marijuana and cigarettes at the Park Blocks. Using marijuana in public is illegal, and the city recently imposed a smoking ban at all its parks.

Smith reported officers are regularly arresting people who hide behind the walls and portable toilets at east Park Blocks to inject methamphetamine. Residents have reported discarded needles in the park and portable toilets, she said.

Dave Hauser, president of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, said the increased presence hasn’t gone unnoticed by his members, and it appears to be making a difference.

“That certainly has had an impact on some of the more off-putting behaviors downtown,” he said.

“It’s a risk that we took”

Downtown has seen a surge in new investment, retailers and employers. Hauser said anecdotally he’s heard of residents giving downtown a try only to have a bad experience on the sidewalks that deters them from revisiting.

“We’ve made such a huge investment in downtown Eugene,” he said. “We’re on such a positive, forward trajectory. It’s important to get a handle on the safety side of things.”

Melissa Achtien, whose boutique, gilt+gossamer, backs the west Park Blocks, said she’s noticed improvement, as well.

“I’ve seen people using the Park Blocks having lunch and taking kids there since the police have been there,” she said.

Achtien, who opened her store in January 2015, said her broker had tried to steer her away from opening at the location but she went ahead because she wanted to be part of downtown’s revitalization.

“It’s a risk that we took,” she said.

At Broadway Plaza, Rodolfo Reyes, co-owner of Morelos Taqueria, said he and his workers often had to pick up trash behind their food cart that homeless people left behind after digging in garbage cans for food.

“With the police here, they’re not doing that,” he said. “It’s clean here.”

Keim, the Thunderbird Market manager, said the police presence has been inconsistent, although officers are now responding to calls to the area that drew no police response in the past. The police presence has prompted homeless people to move, but they only go a short distance, he said.

Keim said he’s constantly having to shoo away people sleeping or using drugs in front of his store. Keim said he’s received death threats and observed people stopping traffic and having a hand on their knife while asking for money.

“We don’t hate the homeless,” he said. “We just want them to obey the law.”

Across the street, Tom Kamis, owner of The Davis Restaurant and Bar, said problems downtown have been the worst he’s seen in years.

He’s observed the increased police presence but said there’s “no teeth behind it” because people who are cited throw away citations, and those who are arrested aren’t held long in the Lane County Jail. Kamis said he counted three crumpled up citations in his back alley on one recent day.

“None of these people care,” he said.

He also criticized the increased police presence as coming too late, as many homeless people from out of state will leave the area before the rain arrives.

“It’s going to have zero impact because everyone is going to come back next spring,” he said.

Panhandling outside Voodoo Donuts, Robert Wilson said while he’s noticed fewer problems during the day due to the increased police presence, the scene at night has not changed.

Wilson said he was chronically homeless for 25 years before landing an apartment in December through a program that assists homeless veterans.

“They’re not liking it at all,” he said of the homeless people who hang out in downtown. “They’re very upset.”

Kiosk is a deterrence

The Eugene Police Department’s blue-bordered pop-up tent in Broadway Plaza also has created a stir.

Underneath, the department’s community service officers answer questions and provide pamphlets on crime prevention and other department services for six hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The tent will be up through the end of September.

The location is no coincidence, as Broadway Plaza is another high generator for police calls.

“Our first level of deterrence is this, is appearance,” said Paul Bishop, a crime prevention specialist and former Eugene police officer.

Bishop said the vast majority of people appreciate the presence of the police officers. But there are some people who have complained law enforcement is infringing on the public square.

Bishop recalled one individual saying, “’This is the free speech plaza, and the police shouldn’t be setting up in the free speech plaza,’ which never made any sense to me.”

One man who stopped by with a reporter present thanked Bishop for his department’s work.

“It makes a huge difference,” the man said.

The man walked away and ignored efforts by a reporter to interview him.

Another man, a downtown resident, who stopped by and later spoke to a reporter, said he witnessed an incident involving two police officers that troubled him.

The man, who declined to give his name, was among several people listening to a street musician near Broadway Plaza when he said two police officers bullied their way through the group and gruffly ordered the sidewalk be kept clear.

The man said he’s appreciated the work by the department, but he noted that the officers could have handled the situation better.

“Why is the kiosk set up if they’re going to act like that?” he asked.

The police presence at Broadway Plaza prompted the Eugene-based nonprofit Civil Liberties Defense Center to hold an event at the public square on Aug. 18 to inform people of their constitutional rights.

The center’s executive director, Lauren Regan, said the police actions have made many in the community feel less welcome and more afraid to be downtown and that officers have been observed “hassling” homeless people.

“Our community must deal with the lack of services and support for poor and disabled individuals instead of using cops to push these individuals out of sight,” Regan said in a news release. “Placing a booth full of cops in the midst of a highly used public forum is chilling to those who wish to exercise their right to free speech and assembly.

Regan couldn’t be reached for further comment.

Kerns said his department has instructed officers and it is his expectation that “we treat every person we contact with respect and compassion.”

A different approach

Smith said she recognized it was time for a different approach to downtown policing when she took over as supervisor of the downtown patrol in January.

That recognition led to the creation of the department’s Community Outreach Resource Team.

The recent “hot spot” enforcement and the outreach team, which started in April and was only publicly announced recently, are separate initiatives of the police department.

For about five hours every Thursday, the team looks for and talks with downtown’s most chronic offenders, those individuals whom the police department makes the most contacts with.

The team consists of two downtown police officers as well as social workers with the White Bird Clinic, its mobile intervention unit known as CAHOOTs, and Lane County Behavioral Health.

Their aim is to assess what issues the individual is dealing with, such as drug or alcohol abuse and mental illness, and connect them with social services that may help end their chronic criminal or nuisance behavior.

The department used data analysis to identify the individuals.

“Is it really making a difference if every time we have an encounter with them that we just put them in the jail or we cite them into municipal court for nuisance type crimes, or is there something else?” Smith said. “A person can only try the same thing over and over so many times before you realize it’s not really helping the situation.”

The department’s command staff gave Smith six months, or until late October, for the team to work with the individuals before it evaluates the results.

The initial aim of the program is to help two to three people a month, the sergeant said.

Smith said an individual’s participation is voluntary and a lot of the groundwork is establishing “the rapport and trust because they don’t necessarily know what to think of it.”

The team is working to connect individuals with housing or treatment, sign them up for the Oregon Health Plan - or something as simple as helping them secure identification so they can get the prescription drugs they need to stay stable.

Smith said so far the team has gotten four people off the street by reuniting them with families. Another individual whom officers have arrested or contacted between 200 and 300 times in 20 years is discussing going into in-patient treatment, she said.

“Before they may have seen us walking up and they were trying to leave or calling us names,” she said. “Now they’re crossing the street to come over to us … and giving us an update on what positive things are happening in their life.”

New court created

The team’s initial work is reaching the homestretch as Eugene’s municipal court launches a similar initiative.

The community court will be a separate docket that will handle individuals cited for minor offenses downtown, including petty theft, trespass and disorderly conduct. The U.S. Department of Justice gave the city $200,000 to set up the court.

To start, police have begun citing into the court just offenses occurring at Lane Transit District’s Eugene Station. The new court was set to hear its first cases Sept. 2 at the library.

Starting Aug. 31, they were set to begin citing into the court offenses at the Lane Community College downtown campus and Eugene Public Library, said Cheryl Stone, municipal court administrator. The court will later expand to include Park Blocks.

The court will try to help people avoid repeat offenses by assessing them and linking them to service providers in an adjacent room who can help them get drug and alcohol treatment, housing and jobs. Offenders will need to complete community service, such as painting over graffiti or picking up litter.

The cases of cited individuals who opt out of the new court will return to municipal court, Stone said.

Officer Brandon Rathje, who’s spent five years on the downtown patrol, said there will be “huge overlap” between the team and community court. “It’s a lot of the same folks,” he said.

“It makes me feel safer”

The team walked to Broadway Plaza to talk with a group of homeless people.

Rathje said the team had already visited several individuals they were working with. Earlier, they helped a woman who been evicted from her apartment get a tire for her minivan so she could get to housing out-of-state, he said.

Rathje acknowledged the team’s work is a “slow process,” but it is making progress.

At Broadway Plaza, the team spoke with Charmaine Booth, 39, who had surgery in early August to amputate a little toe infected with gangrene.

Booth, whose foot was still wrapped, said she’s been homeless on and off for more than a decade and returned to Eugene from Aberdeen, Washington, in June to be closer to family. She is camping along the Willamette River.

Booth said the team provided the location for White Bird Clinic so she can get help obtaining an identification card that she needs to secure housing.

Booth praised their work. “It makes me feel safer to be out here,” she said.

She questioned why people are so fearful of the homeless, and added that the “psychotic ones” that she’s afraid of are the ones causing the problems and aren’t representative of the entire population.

“We’re not hurting anybody,” she said. “We’re just trying to survive.”

Kerns said one resident earlier shared his concern that the temporary focus downtown will result in neglect of his neighborhood, Whiteaker, as it also deals with street crime and illegal camping.

“I recognize that because we have all invested a great deal in the downtown that spending even more police time there could be controversial,” Kern wrote to city councilors as the increased police presence was starting. “The need there is real.”

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Information from: The Register-Guard, https://www.registerguard.com