Skip to main content
At the direction of Mayor Ted Wheeler, the Portland Police Bureau this week flooded the zone at Portland’s de facto drug superstore, the square block between Southwest 4th and 5th avenues north of Washington Street.
Dealers and users had mobbed the vacant 1960s-vintage complex in recent weeks, and a young woman died March 31 of a drug overdose, putting pressure on the city and the buildings’ owners—the Menashe real estate family—to do something.
What a difference some cops make. The sidewalks were clear almost immediately. Among the arrests: a man with several bags of pills in “just about every pocket” and “lots and lots of cash,” says Sgt. Susan Billard, who staked out the building earlier this week.
Nothing is free, though, and attention to one hot spot means others go unpatrolled, Billard says. She’s under orders to have two officers at the site at all times. “When we put all these resources into an area, the blocks outside of it start to see the effects as well,” Billard tells WW’s Dive podcast. “Having to staff this location with two officers every hour can be a real challenge.”
Listen to this week’s Dive, where Billard talks with guest hosts Anthony Effinger and Lucas Manfield about what it’s been like to lock down one of Portland’s most troubled blocks.