4

Dispatch from Portland 2023: Friday Night Check-In (video)

A "drug den" gets cleaned up. For a minute.
4

It’s been crazily busy on the ground here in Portland; pledging to get you a piece tomorrow, a long talk with a police officer who was on the ground during the riots.

Speaking of cops, there was this photo from two days ago, Portland police sent to clear out an “open-air drug market” at the Washington Center Building on 4th and Washington.

The show of force did not last. I went by there today. People we back, screaming, roaming; that’s a small fire where a tree used to be; I have a short video up on Twitter.

As I say above, there was sadness - resolution even, maybe, in seeing Portland Luggage, one of my favorite stores in Portland and directly across the street from Washington Center, unable to conduct business in any normal way. The area has taken so many black eyes in the past few years.

There is also the irony that this is four blocks from where nearly all the violence happened in 2020-2021, and that the press now seems to be of a different attitude in what they want and expect from law enforcement. As a friend said today, “I saved this for you because I thought, there’s one line that’s going to jump out at Nancy.” Yup.

Share

4 Comments
Authors
Nancy Rommelmann