http://www.registerguard.com/web/news/28745912-57/fluoride-portland-public-fluoridation-vote.html.csp
A similar article was on the front page of The Oregonian. The overwhelming response from Portland natives? Well duh. (At least the ones I know).
I've always kind of figured the corrupt and violent police officers that roam Portland were old news to rest of the world. We make national headlines about it on a regular basis. The list of people Portland police have murdered for little to no reason only seems to continually grow more. The list of injuries is even longer. I will never forget trying to get to school the day they shut down the Occupy Portland movement. It took my bus over an hour just to drive through downtown. (Normally it takes like ten minutes.) Why? Well mainly this:
The thing is Occupy Portland was a peaceful movement. I know; I covered it for my newspaper. I walked through the protest on a fairly regular basis and never once felt unsafe or threatened. I considered sleeping out in the protest more than once just to experience it first hand. (The reason I never did was due to health concerns as I was preparing for surgery at this time.) When the police came out to shut it down they came out in armored cars and full riot gear. To me this seemed completely unnecessary. Occupiers were not hurting anyone. I wasn't even all that sympathetic to the movement. I agreed with it but I didn't think they were going about it the right way. I felt they recognized the problem but offered no solutions and "occupying" the park didn't seem like it would accomplish anything to me besides burdening tax payers with having to renovate the park once they were gone. Thus I was kind of apathetic on the whole thing being shut down. That is until I saw how they intended to go about cleaning out the park.
Watching them drive by on the bus was both exciting and terrifying. It was hard to believe it was real; it was too much like a movie. I was excited to be caught up in this moment of history but at the same time the police made me feel more unsafe than the Occupiers ever did. Seeing military vehicles with what looked like GI Joes riding on them was scary. I wouldn't even stay in downtown for fear of being mistaken for a protester and getting hurt or arrested.
This image made national headlines last year during the Occupy protests. I feel like it requires little comment. It just speaks for itself, especially the woman standing right next to the girl being pepper sprayed holding up a peace sign. To me the protesters are not the ones who look dangerous in this image.
Portland has a bunch of rent a cops that ride their bikes around the city wearing yellow and black. I call them the bumble bees. They are called the "clean and safe" police but in reality their whole job is to shuffle homeless people around. The only other purpose is to just make sure the police have their presence felt in downtown. I resent this.
I could list endless news stories about police brutality in Portland but I don't think that would make for an interesting blog post. You can easily find that information on your own. Instead I'm going to tell you how this police brutality affects me, the rest of Portland and everyone as a whole.
Two Christmases ago I wasn't homeless. I lived right behind a Kmart in a two bedroom apartment. To get to the Kmart I had to walk through a little back alley in Oregon City. Oregon City is a fairly safe community so it rarely if ever bothered me. That year I had to buy my roommates something for Christmas that I didn't want them to see. I hadn't had an opportunity to sneak away to get it yet so I decided to wait until they had gone to bed one night to walk to Kmart to get it. In the parking lot was a cop car. I didn't think much of it, just noticed it.
On my walk home a man drove up to me in a car then proceeded to get out of his car next to me. In a back alley at two in the morning you better believe it scared me. Clutching my pepper spray I ran to the cop car as fast as my stubby legs would carry me. The police officer said he would just drive me home to make sure I arrived at my door safely. He had to run a background check on me to get the ride. "I have to make sure you're not a serial killer," he told me.
When he started driving I asked, "So I guess I'm not a serial killer?"
"Well if you have you haven't been caught yet."
I personally felt safe in the back of that police car. The security guards at my school would walk me home at night because I lived in an apartment right behind the campus. I trusted the police officers and security guards to keep me safe despite the fact that they were armed and could easily over power me when left alone in a back alley with me.
I wasn't homeless then.
Today I'd rather take that guy getting out of his car in an alley over a police officer. Once you're homeless you aren't even a person to the police anymore. You are trash that needs to be cleaned up and thrown away. Our lives are disposable. And I'm lucky because I'm white. If I were black I'd really be screwed. Portland is one of the most racist liberal places I've seen.
Every time Houdini is arrested the cops beat him. It never fails. One of the times he was arrested they beat him so badly they had to drop their charges against him. That kid is paranoid more than anyone I know so he is actually more complaint and toes the line more than I even do. (Despite of course, the drugs he has been addicted to since he was fourteen but that's a different issue.) Yet, even when I'm the one stealing things and being naughty he's the one that's accused. Why? He's black. And that is honest to God the only reason. We run into this often and it never fails to piss me off. Yes, he does do scandalous shit sometimes but he's not nearly as bad as he gets treated.
My only time running into a campus security guard was on Day 28 when I attempted to go to the financial aid office to see about getting back in school. The campus was closed but as I was trying to get information off the door on when it would be open again a campus security guard came and hassled me in a way I had never been bothered on campus before. I didn't look as neat and tidy as I used to. I wasn't clean cut and making straight A's but I was still the same person and I had every right to be on public property regardless of whether or not I'm homeless.
When Jesus had his fake gun that he made the cops were called on him constantly. It was a legit concern from case managers that if he continued to keep his prop the police officers would shoot him. I personally was actually terrified of such a thing happening. One of the times when the cops got called on us they bullied Vampire Girl. They called her a brat then threw her background check in her face saying, "Well obviously you've had a horrible life." This led me to call the police department and file a complaint immediately.
Police frequently drive by shelter as we are waiting to get in. It's crushing to watch them stop and search street kids just because they can. I'm stopped once a week just to have them run my name through the system, without ever committing a crime. I never even got detention in school but now I run into cops almost daily. All because of where I sleep. This bothers me. Read more about that here.
The purpose of any police force anywhere is to protect and serve the community. Portland Police forgot this a long time ago. They forgot who pays their salary with tax money. They continue to strip people of their rights, their dignity, even their lives.
This has to stop. And maybe Portland residents need to be standing up against this more and more often. Because what happens if the police decide they no longer want to just target the homeless and the mentally ill? What if they want to target you even though you are perfectly stable, living in a house? What if they decide they don't like your political party or your voting record? Or maybe they just don't like your eye color? The more people sit back and allow them to strip the rights of the homeless, mentally ill or marginilized community they are making it all the more easy for the police to continue moving on to the rights and safety of others.
That's why I'm proud of our federal government for finally blowing a whistle to something that has gone on for much too long. The abuses of power must end now. An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
--mm
Want more information about police brutality? Check out the following links:
list of shootings and fatalities
$250k bill to man shot with taser five times
Occupy Portland
Who are you protecting?
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