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On July 26, officers with the Portland Police Bureau made their first arrest of an unhoused man who allegedly wouldn’t comply with the city’s new camping restrictions. But when the cops took the man to the Multnomah County Jail, the sheriff’s office refused to book him.
The rejection was a stinging failure for the Portland City Council, which, after months of deliberation and a court challenge that stalled its prior camping ordinance last year, passed a suite of camping restrictions May 8. Enforcement began July 1, and penalties included up to seven days in jail.
The ordinance was intended to curb public camping and give the city teeth to enforce the restrictions. But the sheriff’s office only books for misdemeanors and felonies, not for violations of city ordinances, sheriff’s office spokesman Deputy John Plock says.
On Tuesday morning, Mayor Ted Wheeler cast blame on Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell.
“I am disappointed by the sheriff’s decision to refuse to book individuals arrested for violating the law. My office met with the sheriff and her team several times over the last year and a half to receive input on the city’s public camping laws. In August 2023, the sheriff declared ‘open booking’ and in later meetings specifically discussing booking criteria, her representatives explicitly stated publicly that booking restrictions had been lifted,” Wheeler said in a statement to WW. “That is clearly not the case.”
The sheriff’s office tells a different story. “There was no agreement,” Plock says. “The city did not seek an agreement or even communicate their plan to the sheriff’s office.”
In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, Morrisey O’Donnell wrote that she would “not be directing the Sheriff’s Office to book any individual on city ordinance violations.”
“Arresting and booking our way out of the housing crisis is not a constructive solution,” Morrisey O’Donnell wrote. “As the elected official charged with managing the jail, I believe we need to utilize the corrections system as a place for people who pose a genuine danger to the public, and that does not include individuals whose only offense is living unsheltered.”
The disconnect between the sheriff’s and mayor’s offices appears to come down to the definition of the term “open booking.”
Mayoral spokesman Cody Bowman says that, to the mayor’s office, “‘open booking’ implies open booking.”
But the term is not that simple. According to the sheriff’s office in August 2023, the term “open booking” meant county employees would book people for misdemeanors and felonies codified in state law. That doesn’t include city ordinances.
In other words, the sheriff’s staff books people arrested for violating state laws but not city rules. That’s per a directive that Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell issued in August 2023 that clarified policy after her office narrowed the scope of offenses for which it would book people during the pandemic.
Wheeler wrote on Tuesday morning that he was “deeply concerned by this disconnect and what it may mean for future efforts to improve public safety” and urged the sheriff to “reconsider her position.”
Bowman, Wheeler’s spokesman, said there was no written agreement between the sheriff’s office and the city that laid out the expectation that the sheriff would jail violators of the city’s ordinance.
“Cities do not typically need to get agreements in writing confirming that their sheriff will enforce the law,” Bowman said.
All five members of the City Council say they were surprised by the sheriff’s cold shoulder—but avoided placing blame on the mayor.
“I am surprised to hear that the local county-run jail, serving the county and state’s largest city, is not responsible to book those under a Portland city code,” City Commissioner Dan Ryan said. “I was led to believe those details were covered.”
Commissioner Carmen Rubio said the sheriff’s rejection “came as a complete surprise.”
Commissioner Mingus Mapps echoed that. “I have reached out to the City Attorney’s Office for clarification on what this means for city administration and enforcement,” Mapps said. “Ensuring that our laws are effectively implemented and enforced is crucial.”
In a statement, Commissioner Rene Gonzalez called the mishap a “setback” and said he was concerned from the get-go about the City Council rushing the camping ordinance. “Unfortunately, those concerns appear to have been well founded.”