“There aren’t enough police officers,” says Jessie Burke, co-owner of the Society Hotel and president of the Old Town Chinatown Community Association. “We’re having to do what the government used to do. We’re kind of running an underground government to keep things safe.”
The decreased police presence created what business owners describe as a public safety vacuum. Private security companies arrived with rifles, metal detector wands and Kevlar vests.
The strategy alarms a police captain who once oversaw the Entertainment Detail.
“We’re there just to make sure that people are safe,” says Central Precinct Capt. Robert Simon. “And introducing an AR-15 into a group of drunks—it’s not the right tool for the application. We never did that.”
9 thoughts on “From Willamette Week: Old Town Clubs Reopen Amid Gunfire—and Ex-Soldiers Stationed in the Street”
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In the absence of Public Security, private security.Report
Sounds like the latest version of CHAZ/CHOP,.Report
Fewer dead children.
So far, anyway.Report
Yes, that. The state provides security or private entities will provide it themselves.
Right after that you have war lords or something real similar. The guy who is paying the local police controls them.
Plenty of old west movies about the big man in town controlling it.Report
It’s not all beer and skittles there in Portland’s night club district. Not all bar owners are exactly thrilled with a bunch of ex-GIs waving rifles around at closing time.Report
The story kinda gets into that.
A lot of times when I post a story, it’s easy to pick 2 or 3 paragraphs to excerpt (and a lot of times it’s with shaking my head as it’s 2 or 3 out of a grand total of 6 or 7 paragraphs).
This story, however, was a long story full of interviews and discussions of the various dynamics in the district.Report
Portland used to be such a nice town back when I was a kid. I could even get over the stupid no self serve gas pumping that Oregon had, but now, it’s a shame.Report
Still is a nice town, as the trouble is isolated to specific places.Report
If you have to focus X cops on a very specific area, then the rest of the city has Total-X cops for everything else. Same logic applies to money.Report