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News
Street Roots • Dec. 7-13, 2018
THE STREET BEAT
BY EMILY GREEN
AND JOHN EMSHWILLER
Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw tells
Street Roots staff and vendors that police
anielle Outlaw has been thrust into
the spotlight The first African-
are chasing the radio while getting blamed
American woman to serve as chief of
the Portland Police Bureau, she’s been faced
for problems they cannot solve
with multiple high-profile challenges since
S T A F F W R IT E R S
■
taking oyer in 2017.
Her bureau’s handling of the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
office’s occupation, clashes between Patriot
Prayer and Antifa and officer-involved
shootings have grabbed headlines while
Outlaw’s public statements and her
representation in the press have become
news items of their own. It’s been quite a
quagmire the 42-year-old former Oakland,
Calif., deputy police chief has, contended
with during her first 14 months on the job.
Beneath the surface, however, Portland
police are drowning in endless calls for
service involving the city’s homeless
population as the Police Bureau continues
to grapple with the longer-term issue of how
to respond to those incidents.
While the bureau faced widespread
criticism following The Oregonian’s report
that the majority of arrests in 2017 were of
people experiencing homelessness, police
union President Daryl Turner argued police
had become a scapegoat for what are really
the city’s failed policies.
At last count, there were 4,177 people
experiencing homelessness in Multnomah
County, up 10 percent from 2015. About 60
percent of those counted self-identified as
having a disability, including mental health
and substance abuse disorders, further
complicating the bureau’s role as the city’s
main point of contact with its houseless
residents.
The bureau is still working to fulfill a
settlement it reached with the U.S.
Department of Justice over how the police
treat people with mental illness. The Justice
Department in 2012 found the bureau
“engages in a pattern or practice of
unnecessary or unreasonable force during
interactions with people who have or are
perceived to have mental illness.”
At Street Roots, police interactions are a
regular topic of conversation in the vendor
office, so we sat down with seven Street
Roots vendors who have had recent
interactions with Portland police while they
were experiencing homelessness.
While the nature of their interactions and
opinions of the bureau ran the gamut,
severalpattems emerged. Most sitting at
our roundtable said they did not feel as
though the bureau was there to serve them
and that they did not feel comfortable
calling the police for help. They also said
they felt the bureau over-responds to
incidents involving homeless folks, sending
more officers to the scene than are needed,
often overwhelming the person they’re
contacting, who in some cases appears to be
in a mental-health crisis.
We questioned Outlaw about these
concerns during a recent interview at our
office in Old Town. Our editorial staff was
joined by Street Roots vendor Sean Sheffield
for a wide-ranging interview about her first
year on the job and her plans moving
forward, particularly regarding how the
Police Bureau deals with individuals
experiencing homelessness and mental-
health issues.
Street Roots reporter Emily Green:
Reporters at The Oregonian found 52 percent
o f arrests in 2017 were o f people experiencing
homelessness. Many o f the arrests were for
nonviolent, livability-type crimes. While we
understand the bureau may dispute that
percentage, it's harder to dispute that these
findings do show that there is a significant
amount o f police resources going to the
policing o f people experiencing homelessness.
When you read that article, what went through
your mind?
Portland Police Chief Danielle
Outlaw: The biggest takeaway for me is
that we have to find a way to address the
root cause of the issue. Because the calls for
service aren’t going to stop on our end. We
don’t have the luxury, when someone calls
the police for service, to say, “We’re not
coming.” And a lot of times, we don’t know
what we’re responding to.
I’ve heard a lot of criticism, and
constructive feedback also, when the article
came out, saying, “Look, we understand that
people call the police, you have to show up,
and there might be crimes evident there,
but it’s the low-hanging fruit, and does that
create a disproportionality with how you
police and provide service to the
See OUTLAW, page 5