Street roots., February 18, 2011, Page 3, Image 3

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Feb 18, 2011
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Old Town wants drug free zone restored
BY JOANNE ZUHL
laws and pushing undesirables out of the
county that doesn’t prosecute, jails that are
neighborhood.
full. We’re are dealing with a system that is
rug Free Zones, left to sunset three
“It’s just terrible policy,” says O’Connor.
so broken and people, even if they are
years ago, could be making a return if “Clearly, they’re self-selecting for geography
amenable to treatment, can’t g et into
a request by the businesses and
and the audience, and that ends up having a
treatment. If this discussion of the Drug
residents of Old Town Chinatown
disparate impact on people who are
Free Zone brings all of those questions to
Neighborhood get the mayor’s nod.
homeless^ people of color, people who are
bear, then at least for me personally, I’ve
After many neighborhood meetings where
otherwise exposed to more scrutiny by the
done my job.” ¿
the issue of street-level drug dealing
police.”
Jarm er said he would like to have enough
dominated discussion, membéfs of the
Residents and business owners in the
officers to have additional walking beats in
neighborhood association, the Old Town
neighborhood have reported at meetings
Old Town. “I would put two sets of people
business community and the Chinese
that the problem is escalated at night, and
down there just to walk around,” Jarmer
community have all sent a request to Mayor
that some calls to police to report the
said. “That just has a feel to it that is a
Sam Adam’s office saying it supports the
problems of dealing have gone completely
detractor to crime. It’s a wonderful tool.” v
reinstitution of the drug free and
unanswered.
Real-time treatment for people in
prostitution free zones. It was soon followed
“If they see somebody committing a drug
addiction, would hélp as well, he said.
by a similar request by the neighborhood
crime, they could arrest them for a drug
Antoinette Edwards, Director of Public
Pearl District Neighborhood Association and
crime. If they see someone engaged in
Safety and Peacekeeping with Mayor Sam
business association.
disorderly conduct,
Adams’ office, says
The city ordinances establishing the
they should arrest
the office is taking
zones, or DFZ and PFZ, were allowed to
them for disorderly
the neighborhoods’
sunset in 2007 after legal and critical
conduct,” O’Connor
concerns seriously
"Clearly, they're sell-selecting lor
challenges to their process and use by
said. “Other than
geography and the andlence, and that and will work with
police. The zones allowed police to exclude
that; they’re just
them to address the
ends np having a disparate impact on
people from the zone if they had prior
saying I don’t want a
situation.
The
people
who
are
homeless,
people
of
arrests, allowing them to stop individuals,
particular person
outpouring of
color, people who are otherwise
ask questions and even search property
standing there.
concern from the
exposed to more scrutiny by the
based on a “preponderance of evidence” (a
Clearly there is a
neighborhood has '
police."
step up from the previous incarnation that
racial component to
imparted a sense of
allowed police to do so based merely on
CHRIS O'CONNOR
it”
urgency to the
M ETR O PO LITAN DEFENDERS; OFFICE
suspicion, which was ruled illegal in Circuit
Central Precinct
situation.
Court).
Commander Vince
“The question is,
Announcing the sunset of the ordinances,
Jarmer said the police
how do we really
then-mayor Tom Potter, a former police
are looking now at
strategically deal
chief, said they were no longer serving their
whether the situation is a matter of
with it in a way that’s respectful and with
intended purpose and were actually
perception, with a larger number of eyes in
equity,” Edwards said. “It’s not a small order.
suppressing “a serious community problem
the community, or if there is really a bigger
But there’s something we can do.”
rather than solving i t ”
problem going on. In the past decade, the
The ACLU of Oregon has opposed the
; The DFZ, in particular,was highly
Old Town Chinatown neighborhood has been
civil exclusion orders because they “did not
criticized by an independent study in 2007
have sufficient due process protections
transformed from empty warehouses to
that found that racial disparity in the
before individuals ’a re denied the right to
condominiums.
administration of exclusions, with African
travel and associate freely.” The ACLU said
“I ’ve b e e n h e re 26 y ears and w e’ve always
Americans receiving exclusions at a much
that P o rtla n d e n fo rc ed e x clu sio n -o rd ers
h ad d ru g dealing in O ld Town,” J a rm e r said.
higher rate than whites in the Downtown
“We’reg o m g to try to get a better handle o n
against people who were never* prosecuted
STAFF W R IT E R
The General
by Johnna Gurgel
He’s coming,
You know
The General,
He’ll save us
He told His
Lieutenant
What to do,
How to shoot
He was distant
Before
He came
We kept marching
Marching, stomping,
Sliding, writhing,
Looting, shooting
The enemy red attacks
Our hands bound to
Loyalty
Hold no guns but
Vorpal true swords
The enemy
Doesn’t play fair
Man-made bullets
Fly through the air
In a valley
Where the hills
Have eyes
We are standing as one
We are hit
We are dying
Our blood is flying
Across snow crucifying
But He’ll save us
You know,
The General,
He’s coming
CENTRAL CITY
C hanging Lives
Building Communities
Creating Opportunities
w w w .centr01cityconcern.org
■
z o n e . In o n e six-m on th p e r io d in 2 0 0 6 , half
of the people arrested in DFZs were African
American. All of them were excluded, while
only 60 percent of the whiter arrested were
excluded.
Residents and business owners have said
? that Soon after the ordinance was gone, the
the crack dealers came back.
“Iw an t tp open the discussion,” said
Howard Weiner, owner of Cal Skate on
Northwest Sixth Avenue in Old Town and
chairman of the neighborhood association’s
Livability Committee. “And whether or not,
it’s a Drug Free Zone or some other tool,
the reality is it is continuing to get worse
and worse down here and we need some
help.”
The neighborhood association on Monday
agreed to send a letter to the mayor
requesting the reinstatement with two
provisions: That only those convicted of the
dealing of drugs will pe excluded, and
anyone excluded may come into the area for
health care, social services or educational
purposes. The neighborhood is calling for
the creation of a working group and an
oversight committee to monitor the impact
and efficacy of such a zone.
: Chris O’Connor, with the Metropolitan
Public Defenders office, has fought the Drug
Free Zones in court and in principle. The
ultimate goal, he said, is less about
addressing the illegal drug market, which
laws already exist to do, and more about
circumventing the state’s ban on vagrancy
w h at h a p p e n s in Old Town from th e police
p e rsp e c tiv e . W e’re going to ta k e so m e
^ORRECTIOMB
anson
T
homas
and
ATTORNEYS A T
actions to look at it ourselves and try to get
a baseline on what’s going on.”
The DFZ worked, according to Jarmer, at
least on the front end. It provided more bite
than b arkon drug-dealing convictions. “It
effectivelytook some people and made it
harder from them to deal drugs and buy
drugs in that area.”
Saying that, however, Jarmer added that
the DFZ is no panacea to the larger
problem.
“It is a tool, and it could help, but we’re J
not going to cure drug dealing with this,
because we’ve already done this and here we
are today. We’re in a different time and
different place, right now, and there are
different constituents and different concerns.
I’m not going to say Mayor Potter was wrong
in letting it sunset There are legitimate
concerns out there about civil liberties and
public sidewalks.... You’re essentially taking
private citizens and telling them they can’t
be in a public area, on a public sidewalk, and
in our city there’s a lot of concern for that,”
Jarmer said.
Jarm er said this issue is not so much
about police, as about priorities for social
services, mental health services, recovery
programs and the courts to quell the drug
problem.
“Part of it is we don’t have walking
patrols. We don’t have the same
enforcement,” Wiener said. “We have a
C a l l . U S t o d a y A T S O 3 *321 ¡2» 13« 5 22 52 22 j
s t r a u s h t a n s w e r » , n o g o n s u s t a t io n f e e .
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IN T E R N A T IO N A L *
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or w h o w e r e fou n d n o t g u ilty o f th e
underlying crime that was the original
reason the police gave for issuing the
exclusion order. And because the orders
were civil, not criminal, a person served with
an exclusion order was not entitled to a
lawyer to assist in challenging the order. But
with the exclusion in place, a violation could
result With a criminal charge of trespassing.
“I’m a pretty tolerant guy, but there are
certain things that are just intolerable,” said
Jack Hammer, owner of Everett Street
AutoworkS at Fifth Avenue and Everett
S treet “So when I hear people say the goal
is to get drug dealers off the street, I say
that sounds good to m e .... I believe in the
mission of Central- City Concern and what
Sisters Of The Road does, but when I see
that there’s dealers blatantly dealing in front
of these people where there are people
struggling to get passed their dependency, it
just doesn’t make any sense.”
Dave Davis is the owner of Pearl District
Properties and president of the Pearl
District Neighborhood Association. He said
his neighborhood was part of the old DFZ,
and is in solidarity with Old Town Chinatown
in addressing the problem. The situation in
the Pearl, he said, is nothing like what’s
happening in Old Town.
“We just think it’s a good move,” said
Davis. “We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,
and the poor business down there. It’s not a
pretty thing that’s going on down there.”
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