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Last week’s cover story took a close look at the crime and violence that plague one of Portland’s most beloved parks (“The Trouble at Dawson Park,” WW, Sept. 14). Portlanders living in the neighborhoods surrounding Dawson Park say they’ve complained to city officials for years that an open-air drug market and gunfire make the park unsafe. But city officials are reluctant to act decisively—in part because of fears they will redouble racial harms. Here’s what our readers had to say:
Kurts, via wweek.com: “Thanks, WW, for a thoughtful article. So much contradiction! Cops who can’t imagine anything between total saturation and doing nothing. A Black city commissioner who practices a staunch anti-police posture to keep up the virtue signal to her white liberal voters, while ignoring requests for adequate policing from Black constituents. And former gang members being given $200,000 to host a few BBQs and ‘keep out known shooters.’ And you didn’t even get to the city of Portland employees who have barricaded themselves in their basements and are refusing to come to work (yet are still being paid)!”
Keith Humphreys, via Twitter: “Vivid account of how an open-air drug market is harming a historic Black neighborhood. Shutting these markets down is essential for community harm reduction.”
mark sneedley, via wweek.com: “Why wouldn’t this exact outcome be expected and welcomed by the social justice advocates who worked so hard to defund and demoralize police? Just wow.”
Kodak6lack, via Reddit: “I volunteer at a food pantry right outside of Dawson Park. Crime has been here for a minute! People actively selling and using drugs in front of Portland’s most diverse Catholic church, sleeping in the park, homeless being prostituted in the park for drug money, etc. A few months ago, a man was shot in a drive-by and I was the first to the scene. Obviously was put on hold with cops, so I tried to do CPR on this guy but he was gone.
“The killer ended up being caught a few days later. Turns out he was living in a group home, paid for by the taxpayers, and committed three murders prior to this one! He was originally supposed to be in an inpatient psychiatric facility in North Carolina for the rest of his life, but was released and moved to the group home in Portland.”
MG, via wweek.com: “Here is the thing: This basic scenario has played out in many dozens of parks in this city in the last five years. One by me had essentially a permanent bike chop shop with literally 100-plus bikes at any time. It was there for like three years, bringing all the additional underground economy ‘extras’ with it, before anyone from the city did a damn thing about it. It ruined a community space for years, impacting thousands of people in my neighborhood. I am very sorry for the folks of Dawson Park. But WW could run this story about a different park every issue for a whole year and not run out of examples of the massive abdication of duty by city officials and the Portland Police Bureau.”
Iain MacCoinnich, via Twitter: “There’s a lot going on in this article, but a consistent theme seems to be government that’s incapable of making choices, as though that isn’t a choice in and of itself.”
Aesir_Auditor, via Reddit: “This article seems to only confirm [City Commissioner Jo Ann] Hardesty’s true point that this is only really being cared about now that the area is gentrified/gentrifying. However, Willamette Week largely caters to the crowd moving in and displacing old POC neighborhoods, so no surprise that the article confirms this. Especially given the tone of this article that talks with such surprise and shock that crime could happen around the area. Next we’re gonna be hearing WW preach to us about the dangerous atmosphere outside of Lloyd Center, and the potpourri of racial identity east of 82nd where the Trader Joe’s are few, and the bullet holes are many.”
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