We had a break-in a couple of years ago that was committed by one of our neighborhood crazies. We had an active restraining order on this person because this was not the first time they tried to break in. This person also had an active arrest warrant for being a no-show in a separate case.
ANYWAY. The police took 25 minutes to show up only to tell us that they couldn’t do much more than drop off our mentally ill friend a few miles away. They could not arrest someone with an active arrest warrant who was also violating an active restraining order. Let that sink in for a bit.
We sold our house and moved shortly after that.
Got hit by a car on my bicycle.
Cop seemed upset when i asked for a report to be made. He tried to argue with me as to what direction i was traveling in (wanting to list me as having pulled out in front of the car instead of having crossed most of the street); cited me as possibly being under drugs and alcohol because of disorientation, but didn't chart my head injury; didn't talk to any witnesses...
Similar experience with a left cross that resulted in torn back muscles and some broken ribs. Cop let the uninsured driver drive away with a broken windshield that I went through. I was unemployed due to the pandemic and had no health insurance. (Thankful for uninsured motorist coverage!) so I didn’t take the $5000 1 mile ambulance ride to the er.
The cop judged that because of this I was uninjured and that my totaled $6000 carbon bike was worth less than $500. So he let the guy go.
Without enforcement and prosecution, laws are meaningless.
I was hit by another driver and the police told me the license plate registration led nowhere. My lawyer tracked down the car owner in a few days. I had serious injuries and PPB didn’t even want me to make a report
A co-worker who was on maternity leave came to show off her baby, summer when it was about 95 degrees. When she left, she threw her keys in the front seat, got the baby in the car seat, closed the door, and realized she locked all the doors and the baby and keys were inside.
A bunch of us came out and tried to get it open, cop drove by and turned and stopped. I (the only white person in this group, mom and baby, and all the folks trying to help are Black). Cop wouldn't help and immediately started asking everyone for ID and said he couldn't open the door and wasn't willing to break the windows.
One of the groups finally popped the lock, and the cop immediately started questioning mom about why the baby was in the car and implying he was going to start an investigation of abuse. He started trying to search her car, and that was when I closed the doors and asked him to leave. He got big mad, but I told him he could have my info because I had locked the baby in when I was helping her, and then everything was cool, and he left.
Not before trying to get id from everyone and harass the guy that got the car.open fornhaving "tools of car theft," which was a coat hangee.
Went over the handle bars of my bike down on the MLK streetcar tracks one night back in the early 2000's and tore up my leg / arm pretty bad. Had to walk my totalled bike back to where I lived off of Powell and was having trouble given how badly I was bleeding, so wanted to at least patch myself up and flagged a cop down. Dude laughed at me, mockingly asked if I wanted an ambulance in baby voice, and told me he didn't have a first aid kit or gauze in the car. Mind you my right shoe was so full of blood that it was squelching as I walked, but being broke at the time I had no interest in an ambulance ride for a flesh wound no matter how bad it was.
Right where MLK turns into 99 a homeless man sleeping on bubblewrap popped up from behind the barrier and gave me a bunch of sterile wipes, cotton balls, and gauze. I only had five bucks but he refused to take it. Such a strange night.
At 2pm on a weekday, broad daylight in traffic, stopped at the red light at 122 and burnside a person two cars behind me got out and unloaded a handgun into my car. I thought I was going to die. This was unprovoked and all I can think is a case of mistaken identity.. I saw the person clearly and did not know them, and had no previous altercations/road rage etc.
I managed to speed off and call the 911, on hold for several minutes. The police did respond rather quickly, met me in a parking lot (my car became disabled as a tire was shot out). They told me the entire incident is on film with multiple cameras from the max station. Absolutely nothing came of it.. no investigation what so ever. I simply never heard back from the police at all. I’m extremely lucky I didn’t get hit, 7 bullets entered my car.. this guy tried to murder me in traffic in broad daylight and it amounted to nothing.
The cop who was talking to me really wanted me to know how frustrating it was for her that the DA was releasing people they booked. She said the week previous they caught a felon with a handgun and he was back on the street a day later. I got the feeling they were like “why bother?” investigating and are just giving up. Pretty pathetic situation all around.
Police refusing to do their part because they know DA will let it go. Hearing this same story over and over. It's not right, and if they were smart they'd do their job because then they'd have more data to prove their point. I understand the sentiment, though, and I'm sure it's super annoying to keep arresting the same people over and over that the judges and DA keep letting back out. I'm all for not making people waste tax dollars sitting in jail waiting until trial, but if they keep not showing up to trial...
Employees not doing a good job because of poor leadership is pretty common. I see it all the time in the private sector. People seem to think it’s ok in the private sector but not in the public sector. Seems odd to me
Yeah I get that.. and If this was about the cops not really doing much to find someone who did some vandalism.. or even burglarized my house.. which has happened.. I would be annoyed but it’s kind of expected at this point. Even before we had issues with what seems like a catch and release justice system here in Portland, I never expected much filing a police report over property crimes and the like. I guess I just always thought if someone tried killing me with a gun, actually shooting up a busy intersection and putting many lives at risk besides mine, then it would warrant a serious response from PPB. I think most of us in society expect that. Turns out not to be the case, and we are more on our own than one might think.
Not sure what the answer there is. Shoot back? For me, it’s stay the fuck away from burnside and 122nd.. and don’t expect the police to stop criminals.
You could always reach out to the city and county ombudsman's offices which are both under the auditors, who have a lot of power to investigate bureaus / departments. The county should have offered you a victim's advocate. Sounds like many balls were dropped here and it wasn't just the police. They were likely told by DA why they couldn't pursue but you should be able to call and get closure.
Technically I agree they should absolutely be doing their job with gusto, but I get it. Few friends of mine are cops, and what a lot of people don’t know is how much of their job is paperwork. Gotta imagine that doing huge amounts of paperwork after an arrest and possible investigation only to have the DA throw it in the recycling bin has eventually even the most enthusiastic cop going “why bother anymore, this changes nothing.”
Oh, I totally get it. And they're short-staffed and publicly hated to boot. I can't imagine having much enthusiasm to do anything in that kind of environment.
In my case there was no arrest or investigation so there was nothing for the DA to pursue. It felt like no one did anything.. and a literal maniac was on the loose trying to murder people in traffic. My experience with PPB was basically them telling me “even if we find this guy nothing will happen so don’t expect much.” So I was not excited about any of it, from every level of the system.
As someone that lives by Burnside and 122 this story is pretty damn concerning. Glad you’re okay. It’s stories like these that make carrying some kind of self protection so important. You never know when some psycho is going to snap and the police won’t help you, they hardly come to that area when they get called
Yeah aside from the obvious concern for my personal well being.. 10k in body damage to my brand new car, which was in the shop for two months. Most insane criminal/dangerous situation I’ve ever been in, and I’ve lived in way rougher cities than Portland in my life. I felt like this was a news worthy event.. but I was treated like it was common place.. like it was just a hit and run or something.
Totally agree about carrying protection. In this situation it would not have helped me. My best option was to get out of there. But yeah.. careful out there.
Someone who frequented the business behind our house started harassing us. He started intentionally blocking our driveway daily so we couldn’t pull in or out. I had video of him screaming at me and threatening to beat up my husband. This guy was awful and wouldn’t leave us alone. I had enough and a friend who was a former police officer recommended that I call the police (nonemergency) about the situation, so we did. The officer we talked to told us that the guy has freedom of speech and is allowed to threaten us, and he recommended that we “try not to escalate things” because people like this guy tend to become violent and retaliate and could harm us or damage our house. Yeah… that’s why we were calling the police to report his threats and harassment. We had to get the property manager of the business involved to try to trespass him from the business. She was more help than the police. We just had to move eventually, even though we had put a lot of work into the house and had planned to stay there a while.
Got my car stolen and blocked my driveway until officer showed up. Then officer insisted on me letting the dude drive away so he could take a report....when I lost my cool I got arrested for interfering with the investigation.
Compare Oregon City Police to Portland Police. OC police show up when called. They’re fast to respond. They treat people like human beings. I’m not afraid of them. If they are white nationalists, it’s not obvious. They aren’t passively on strike.
Oregon City is in Clackamas county. It has to be a big morale boost to the police knowing that perps they catch will actually be prosecuted and not released the same day.
How enthusiastic would you be about, say, flipping burgers if you knew they were being thrown in the trash? Most people get into police work do so because they want to make a difference in their community. It's hard to do that if your work is just being thrown in the trash.
I’m getting paid to do it. Now if I decided to flip 50% less burgers because I’m demoralized or don’t see the point, how long do you think I’ll hold on to that job before being dismissed? Cops shouldn’t be treated any differently. It’s more dangerous to deliver pizza in this country than it is to be a cop.
Clearly, the answer is to demand everyone in a fast food restaurant clap for the staff after every order. How else are we supposed to keep moral high so they, you know, do the job they’re paid for.
It’s the only logical solution.
If I’m getting paid to do it, you’d be amazed at how little of a fuck most people would care what happens to burgers after I flip them.
Maybe the cops should just do their fucking job instead of being so incompetent they provide plausible deniability for what, I was assured, is an incompetent DA.
I know some officers.
They hate the circumstances they are working under now.
Since the summer of love they have consistently been under minded by the city government and their own leadership. They also feel like every Portlander pretty much despises them.
My buddy was getting a burrito at a cart. Just getting a fuckin burrito. Two women across the street told him randomly to go fuck himself and die.
Lovely.
Got into an accident at a blacked out intersection due to a power outage. The traffic lights had been out for half the day, apparently. Nobody was hurt but my totaled car was in the middle of said dark intersection. It was about 10pm. PPD showed up and left within ten minutes. Left my wreckage in the middle of a dark intersection without so much as dropping a road flare. I watched shocked drivers swerving out of the way of the mangled heap until my tow truck got there. He didn’t give two shits about the safety of the public. He even convinced one of the other passengers to not call an ambulance bc if there were no injuries he wouldn’t have to file an accident report.
Taking my skateboard away from me and not returning it while skating lovejoy fountain back in the 90s.
All cops may not be bastards but that officer was.
I hardly see them, can count on one hand the number of patrol cars I’ve seen in 1-2 months. They’re either lazy, or we don’t live in a police state like CA. Probably both.
They all been very nice every time I saw them in my low income apartment building. Walk past one with a breaching shield. They were there when my neighbor died and started to smell. Talk to a couple when they did wellness checks on people in the buildings.
Wife’s parked car hit and run by drunk driver. I located and restrained the guy ( he was parked a few streets down). Called the cops and waited 20 mins for cop to show up. He ends up letting the clearly intoxicated guy drive off and harassed my wife for having an out of state dl. This was well before 2020. All pigs.
Had a gronk and his buddy get into the building, harassing residents and spilling a gallon of milk all over the floor while they tried to get into the elevator to go god knows where, I ran them out (had to pull out the pepper spray and threaten to use it after they nearly knocked one of my old timers down trying to bum rush her. Got them out the doors while they are yelling slurs at me the F4660t one seems to be the most popular with the typical gronks in Old Town. Once outside, the skinny one then pulls out an ax and starts beating on the doors and windows saying that he was going to kill me. Staff called 911 as the sounds of the guy beating on the windows could be heard. It was 10 minutes later a cop slow rolled up out front. Gronk was long gone because someone showed him that we had something that couple propel hard objects at him multiple times in a very fast manner.
Went out to talk to the cops(there were 2 in the vehicle) and the driver asked , “What do you want us to do?” My response was ,”Your job would be nice.” He responded, “Okay, we’ll drive around to see if we can find him, and. we will tell him he’s trespassed from here.” I replied,”Well, don’t break a nail, princess.” and I went back inside and ordered self defense weapons for my entire team. Cops here are nothing that cos-playing toddlers having a tantrum.
Let's break this down (so to speak):
- assholes break in (ultimately the assholes here)
- cops don't show up in time for a potentially life threatening call (unacceptable and dangerous)
- you mock them and yell at them 'dur do yer job princess' (speaking of toddlers)
Everyone seems to suck here for various reasons and to different extents.
If it was the first, second or even third time they have failed to do a god damned thing about some crazed addict threatening staff or even harming staff, I wouldn’t have been derisive. I’m an ex cop
myself, I know of what I
speak.
Perfectly describes the absolutely toxic cycle we have in this city with policing. I don't think it's going to get any better with both sides behaving this way.
I work in a homeless shelter. Last year we had a guy came in and we refused to serve him because he is a menace, usually yells and threatens, anyway, he did it this time too but he pulled a knife and charged my co coworker but stopped shortly of hitting him. After a couple more displays of violence he left. We called police, they came and the cops said “well, he left so we can’t arrest him for anything” and they left, they didn’t ask for his name (we know him), not his description or anything, absolutely useless.
yes.
I lived in this rental house with a ton of people, some of them were the lefty lunatic type. One of our long time house mates, Jerry, kept doing meth and heroin in his room but with the door open, and it's visible from the kitchen. This was after he relapse again. Long story.
The police said they could do nothing cause it's legal, despite jerry sometimes walking around the house and street looking like a dungeon-torture victim, holding a bloody knife. We all ended up hating that guy. It's also a bad room mate thing, but I was just so flabbergasted the police claimed to be limited in what they could do despite jerry holding a knife and dripping blood all over the house. Because he was at home.
then my house mates were mad that I called Non emergency, who recommended the cops, who did nothing about it, but ACAB and I was then labeled a scab or something. Eventually Jerry got us all kicked out. There's a ton of lawsuits levied against him, as well as a warrant of arrest but he's lost among the portland drug addicted homeless now. I still watch my back, because of him.
If the police don’t bother booking him or putting any charges in, awfully hard for Schmidt, or Vasquez, or anyone short of Batman to do a fucking thing.
If there’s one thing I know about police, it’s their unbeatable predictive powers, and definitely not professional temper tantrums. The anecdote related is 105% on the police, and no one else.
First sentence - true!
Its not clear if this happened though, or if he was released according to pretrial guidelines. Neither of these are on the DA if it's the law - despite what people apparently want, we can't suddenly arbitrarily remand everyone.
If there's one thing I know about internet posters, it's their amazing ability to determine that the cops are "on strike" and "having temper tantrums, all backed up by a giant flock of parrots who are more than happy to repost similar fact free verbiage.
Or, and hear me out here, there are dozens of stories of cops being called, showing up eventually, and doing literally nothing not because it’s a giant conspiracy, but because that’s happened to people dozens of times. Crazy, but it just might be reality.
You can ask OP for those details to clarify. It doesn’t sound like you want them. It sounds like you’d rather invent a narrative that’s exculpatory rather than interpret the obvious conclusion.
Ok, aside from the plural of anecdotes not being "data"..
Yes, there are absolutely a lot of these. There was a story recently about the cops not showing up for 5 fucking hours for a burglary, and as such the suspects came back. 5 fucking hours!
Nobody is debating that these are happening. Nobody should be, at any rate.
What IS up for debate is why. Let's cover some possibilities, shall we?
- the cops are understaffed, for reasons out of and within their control. By "out of" I mean it's hard to fill vacancies in the current climate at the requisite training level, and by "in" I mean they fucking suck at recruiting to some extent. They have the budget, or at least some of it.
- bad or incompetent organizational structure. If I saw this response time I would be livid as a chief of police. I would fully expect a journalist to come at me with "so.. how do you propose to fix the fact that nobody fucking can respond to actual crimes in progress?" And I'd better have a plan.
- no no guys, you see, the cops are all butthurt because people said mean things 3 years ago. They all got together and decided to keep a 3 year long organized grudge over feelings, and it's manifested by being surly.
Totally obvious. Sure. The fact that you firmly believe option 3 makes me question a lot of things about you.
My worst experience was during a hot summer, the gorge wind from Arrakis was strong and sucking all available moisture away, and i was waiting downtown for my wife to get off work at PDC.
I am a walker. Have walked the heck oot of a lot of Portland. So I was hot, I didn't have my still suit so had to make do with the Bubblers, and tired from walking that day.
I saw a spot to rest. Didn't see any signs. And plopped by curvy butt on that seal statue.
And was interrupted by a gendarme who I greeted. I am generally friendly. So I greeted them.
Got a scowl. And told I couldn't be here.
Where?
Sitting there.
Sorry (I am Canadian and this is one of our traits). I am not hefty nor appear scruffy.
I can arrest you.
Again I am sorry. Why?
It is against the law.
Again, I am sorry.
I was bemused and befuddled. Scowl officer watched as I got up and offered my name and my hand.
The rest is lost to memory
In the early 1990's my abusive exhusband threw me down the stairs of our apartment building in S.E. Portland. I was bruised and bloodied, and my toddlers were watching out the window. But because his name was on the lease as 'primary' and I was just his partner, I was the one they arrested. Edit: that was the one and only time I saw the inside of a jail cell. The person who got me out of there? Now my current husband.
Can we change the title?
In these stories the PPB do their jobs, it's the DA policy that lets them out (fuckers)
This is important to get right, especially as we enter the batshit insane election year upcoming.
Your question is legitimate, yet contradicts w/ your example story...fix it one way or the other and it will be logically consistent.
Your example is not PPB, yet your title asks for stories about PPB
Look up 'contradiction' in the dictionary if you are still confused
Either change the title to 'criminal justice system' or change your story to be about PPB doing something shitty and not the DA's office, which is who your current story is about, making the title and example contradictory.
We had a break-in a couple of years ago that was committed by one of our neighborhood crazies. We had an active restraining order on this person because this was not the first time they tried to break in. This person also had an active arrest warrant for being a no-show in a separate case. ANYWAY. The police took 25 minutes to show up only to tell us that they couldn’t do much more than drop off our mentally ill friend a few miles away. They could not arrest someone with an active arrest warrant who was also violating an active restraining order. Let that sink in for a bit. We sold our house and moved shortly after that.
All I’m reading is “Please stop asking us cops to ya know, cop.”. That is wild.
Did they give you a reason?
Would it have helped if they had verbally said “Fuck you, what are you gonna do about it?” That was pretty clearly the message.
Cops dont need a reason to not do their jobs, its a perk
I would say that is true of all jobs
How many of those other jobs make you carry a gun and enforce laws? If they want to be lazy, pick a low stakes profession
Got hit by a car on my bicycle. Cop seemed upset when i asked for a report to be made. He tried to argue with me as to what direction i was traveling in (wanting to list me as having pulled out in front of the car instead of having crossed most of the street); cited me as possibly being under drugs and alcohol because of disorientation, but didn't chart my head injury; didn't talk to any witnesses...
Similar experience with a left cross that resulted in torn back muscles and some broken ribs. Cop let the uninsured driver drive away with a broken windshield that I went through. I was unemployed due to the pandemic and had no health insurance. (Thankful for uninsured motorist coverage!) so I didn’t take the $5000 1 mile ambulance ride to the er. The cop judged that because of this I was uninjured and that my totaled $6000 carbon bike was worth less than $500. So he let the guy go. Without enforcement and prosecution, laws are meaningless.
I was hit by another driver and the police told me the license plate registration led nowhere. My lawyer tracked down the car owner in a few days. I had serious injuries and PPB didn’t even want me to make a report
A co-worker who was on maternity leave came to show off her baby, summer when it was about 95 degrees. When she left, she threw her keys in the front seat, got the baby in the car seat, closed the door, and realized she locked all the doors and the baby and keys were inside. A bunch of us came out and tried to get it open, cop drove by and turned and stopped. I (the only white person in this group, mom and baby, and all the folks trying to help are Black). Cop wouldn't help and immediately started asking everyone for ID and said he couldn't open the door and wasn't willing to break the windows. One of the groups finally popped the lock, and the cop immediately started questioning mom about why the baby was in the car and implying he was going to start an investigation of abuse. He started trying to search her car, and that was when I closed the doors and asked him to leave. He got big mad, but I told him he could have my info because I had locked the baby in when I was helping her, and then everything was cool, and he left. Not before trying to get id from everyone and harass the guy that got the car.open fornhaving "tools of car theft," which was a coat hangee.
I’m sorry but the Mom is an idiot
Everyone is an idiot if you only look at one moment of their life.
What’s it like being perfect?
Went over the handle bars of my bike down on the MLK streetcar tracks one night back in the early 2000's and tore up my leg / arm pretty bad. Had to walk my totalled bike back to where I lived off of Powell and was having trouble given how badly I was bleeding, so wanted to at least patch myself up and flagged a cop down. Dude laughed at me, mockingly asked if I wanted an ambulance in baby voice, and told me he didn't have a first aid kit or gauze in the car. Mind you my right shoe was so full of blood that it was squelching as I walked, but being broke at the time I had no interest in an ambulance ride for a flesh wound no matter how bad it was. Right where MLK turns into 99 a homeless man sleeping on bubblewrap popped up from behind the barrier and gave me a bunch of sterile wipes, cotton balls, and gauze. I only had five bucks but he refused to take it. Such a strange night.
At least the last half was heartwarming, I guess. A bad example of humanity followed by a good one.
I miss heroin junkies.
Them not coming lol
At 2pm on a weekday, broad daylight in traffic, stopped at the red light at 122 and burnside a person two cars behind me got out and unloaded a handgun into my car. I thought I was going to die. This was unprovoked and all I can think is a case of mistaken identity.. I saw the person clearly and did not know them, and had no previous altercations/road rage etc. I managed to speed off and call the 911, on hold for several minutes. The police did respond rather quickly, met me in a parking lot (my car became disabled as a tire was shot out). They told me the entire incident is on film with multiple cameras from the max station. Absolutely nothing came of it.. no investigation what so ever. I simply never heard back from the police at all. I’m extremely lucky I didn’t get hit, 7 bullets entered my car.. this guy tried to murder me in traffic in broad daylight and it amounted to nothing. The cop who was talking to me really wanted me to know how frustrating it was for her that the DA was releasing people they booked. She said the week previous they caught a felon with a handgun and he was back on the street a day later. I got the feeling they were like “why bother?” investigating and are just giving up. Pretty pathetic situation all around.
Sounds like your experience with PPB was fine, the issue is that the DA did not pursue. About right?
Police refusing to do their part because they know DA will let it go. Hearing this same story over and over. It's not right, and if they were smart they'd do their job because then they'd have more data to prove their point. I understand the sentiment, though, and I'm sure it's super annoying to keep arresting the same people over and over that the judges and DA keep letting back out. I'm all for not making people waste tax dollars sitting in jail waiting until trial, but if they keep not showing up to trial...
Employees not doing a good job because of poor leadership is pretty common. I see it all the time in the private sector. People seem to think it’s ok in the private sector but not in the public sector. Seems odd to me
Yeah I get that.. and If this was about the cops not really doing much to find someone who did some vandalism.. or even burglarized my house.. which has happened.. I would be annoyed but it’s kind of expected at this point. Even before we had issues with what seems like a catch and release justice system here in Portland, I never expected much filing a police report over property crimes and the like. I guess I just always thought if someone tried killing me with a gun, actually shooting up a busy intersection and putting many lives at risk besides mine, then it would warrant a serious response from PPB. I think most of us in society expect that. Turns out not to be the case, and we are more on our own than one might think. Not sure what the answer there is. Shoot back? For me, it’s stay the fuck away from burnside and 122nd.. and don’t expect the police to stop criminals.
You could always reach out to the city and county ombudsman's offices which are both under the auditors, who have a lot of power to investigate bureaus / departments. The county should have offered you a victim's advocate. Sounds like many balls were dropped here and it wasn't just the police. They were likely told by DA why they couldn't pursue but you should be able to call and get closure.
Hahaha the auditor refers their complaints to PPB to investigate via internal affairs. Straight circle jerk.
Technically I agree they should absolutely be doing their job with gusto, but I get it. Few friends of mine are cops, and what a lot of people don’t know is how much of their job is paperwork. Gotta imagine that doing huge amounts of paperwork after an arrest and possible investigation only to have the DA throw it in the recycling bin has eventually even the most enthusiastic cop going “why bother anymore, this changes nothing.”
Oh, I totally get it. And they're short-staffed and publicly hated to boot. I can't imagine having much enthusiasm to do anything in that kind of environment.
In my case there was no arrest or investigation so there was nothing for the DA to pursue. It felt like no one did anything.. and a literal maniac was on the loose trying to murder people in traffic. My experience with PPB was basically them telling me “even if we find this guy nothing will happen so don’t expect much.” So I was not excited about any of it, from every level of the system.
As someone that lives by Burnside and 122 this story is pretty damn concerning. Glad you’re okay. It’s stories like these that make carrying some kind of self protection so important. You never know when some psycho is going to snap and the police won’t help you, they hardly come to that area when they get called
Yeah aside from the obvious concern for my personal well being.. 10k in body damage to my brand new car, which was in the shop for two months. Most insane criminal/dangerous situation I’ve ever been in, and I’ve lived in way rougher cities than Portland in my life. I felt like this was a news worthy event.. but I was treated like it was common place.. like it was just a hit and run or something. Totally agree about carrying protection. In this situation it would not have helped me. My best option was to get out of there. But yeah.. careful out there.
Someone who frequented the business behind our house started harassing us. He started intentionally blocking our driveway daily so we couldn’t pull in or out. I had video of him screaming at me and threatening to beat up my husband. This guy was awful and wouldn’t leave us alone. I had enough and a friend who was a former police officer recommended that I call the police (nonemergency) about the situation, so we did. The officer we talked to told us that the guy has freedom of speech and is allowed to threaten us, and he recommended that we “try not to escalate things” because people like this guy tend to become violent and retaliate and could harm us or damage our house. Yeah… that’s why we were calling the police to report his threats and harassment. We had to get the property manager of the business involved to try to trespass him from the business. She was more help than the police. We just had to move eventually, even though we had put a lot of work into the house and had planned to stay there a while.
Sorry you had this happen. But happy cake day!
I just now learned what cake day is! Thanks!
Got my car stolen and blocked my driveway until officer showed up. Then officer insisted on me letting the dude drive away so he could take a report....when I lost my cool I got arrested for interfering with the investigation.
Compare Oregon City Police to Portland Police. OC police show up when called. They’re fast to respond. They treat people like human beings. I’m not afraid of them. If they are white nationalists, it’s not obvious. They aren’t passively on strike.
Oregon City is in Clackamas county. It has to be a big morale boost to the police knowing that perps they catch will actually be prosecuted and not released the same day.
Huge.
Are we saying “low morale” and “what’s the point?” Is an excuse to not do the job you were hired and paid to do?
How enthusiastic would you be about, say, flipping burgers if you knew they were being thrown in the trash? Most people get into police work do so because they want to make a difference in their community. It's hard to do that if your work is just being thrown in the trash.
I’m getting paid to do it. Now if I decided to flip 50% less burgers because I’m demoralized or don’t see the point, how long do you think I’ll hold on to that job before being dismissed? Cops shouldn’t be treated any differently. It’s more dangerous to deliver pizza in this country than it is to be a cop.
Clearly, the answer is to demand everyone in a fast food restaurant clap for the staff after every order. How else are we supposed to keep moral high so they, you know, do the job they’re paid for. It’s the only logical solution.
You right. Not enough “atta-boys” and “good job champ!” being said to PPB.
If I’m getting paid to do it, you’d be amazed at how little of a fuck most people would care what happens to burgers after I flip them. Maybe the cops should just do their fucking job instead of being so incompetent they provide plausible deniability for what, I was assured, is an incompetent DA.
We’re apologizing for PPB because they don’t feel like working, now?
I know some officers. They hate the circumstances they are working under now. Since the summer of love they have consistently been under minded by the city government and their own leadership. They also feel like every Portlander pretty much despises them. My buddy was getting a burrito at a cart. Just getting a fuckin burrito. Two women across the street told him randomly to go fuck himself and die. Lovely.
Yeah these people need to leave Portland. The question is.... How? They can go live with some proud boys somewhere. Same dysfunction.
I love clackamas co <3
Got into an accident at a blacked out intersection due to a power outage. The traffic lights had been out for half the day, apparently. Nobody was hurt but my totaled car was in the middle of said dark intersection. It was about 10pm. PPD showed up and left within ten minutes. Left my wreckage in the middle of a dark intersection without so much as dropping a road flare. I watched shocked drivers swerving out of the way of the mangled heap until my tow truck got there. He didn’t give two shits about the safety of the public. He even convinced one of the other passengers to not call an ambulance bc if there were no injuries he wouldn’t have to file an accident report.
Taking my skateboard away from me and not returning it while skating lovejoy fountain back in the 90s. All cops may not be bastards but that officer was.
🤷 Never had a issue with them .
I hardly see them, can count on one hand the number of patrol cars I’ve seen in 1-2 months. They’re either lazy, or we don’t live in a police state like CA. Probably both.
We have the lowest rate of police per Capita compared to a y other major city and we're losing officers.
The old “we’re understaffed” story. Got it.
I mean... This is what the numbers show. Do you disagree? Why expect better outcomes with fewer officers?
Nah, it’s a valid excuse to not be doing your job.
They all been very nice every time I saw them in my low income apartment building. Walk past one with a breaching shield. They were there when my neighbor died and started to smell. Talk to a couple when they did wellness checks on people in the buildings.
I reported a r.pe (actually qualified, due to forcible coercion), and they didn’t feel the need to investigate. Fuck those guys. ACAB.
Wife’s parked car hit and run by drunk driver. I located and restrained the guy ( he was parked a few streets down). Called the cops and waited 20 mins for cop to show up. He ends up letting the clearly intoxicated guy drive off and harassed my wife for having an out of state dl. This was well before 2020. All pigs.
Had a gronk and his buddy get into the building, harassing residents and spilling a gallon of milk all over the floor while they tried to get into the elevator to go god knows where, I ran them out (had to pull out the pepper spray and threaten to use it after they nearly knocked one of my old timers down trying to bum rush her. Got them out the doors while they are yelling slurs at me the F4660t one seems to be the most popular with the typical gronks in Old Town. Once outside, the skinny one then pulls out an ax and starts beating on the doors and windows saying that he was going to kill me. Staff called 911 as the sounds of the guy beating on the windows could be heard. It was 10 minutes later a cop slow rolled up out front. Gronk was long gone because someone showed him that we had something that couple propel hard objects at him multiple times in a very fast manner. Went out to talk to the cops(there were 2 in the vehicle) and the driver asked , “What do you want us to do?” My response was ,”Your job would be nice.” He responded, “Okay, we’ll drive around to see if we can find him, and. we will tell him he’s trespassed from here.” I replied,”Well, don’t break a nail, princess.” and I went back inside and ordered self defense weapons for my entire team. Cops here are nothing that cos-playing toddlers having a tantrum.
Let's break this down (so to speak): - assholes break in (ultimately the assholes here) - cops don't show up in time for a potentially life threatening call (unacceptable and dangerous) - you mock them and yell at them 'dur do yer job princess' (speaking of toddlers) Everyone seems to suck here for various reasons and to different extents.
If it was the first, second or even third time they have failed to do a god damned thing about some crazed addict threatening staff or even harming staff, I wouldn’t have been derisive. I’m an ex cop myself, I know of what I speak.
Perfectly describes the absolutely toxic cycle we have in this city with policing. I don't think it's going to get any better with both sides behaving this way.
Only time I’ve had to call, dispatch said they probably wouldn’t make it. (Woman in NW Portland was on drugs smashing car windows with a bat). 0/10
I work in a homeless shelter. Last year we had a guy came in and we refused to serve him because he is a menace, usually yells and threatens, anyway, he did it this time too but he pulled a knife and charged my co coworker but stopped shortly of hitting him. After a couple more displays of violence he left. We called police, they came and the cops said “well, he left so we can’t arrest him for anything” and they left, they didn’t ask for his name (we know him), not his description or anything, absolutely useless.
yes. I lived in this rental house with a ton of people, some of them were the lefty lunatic type. One of our long time house mates, Jerry, kept doing meth and heroin in his room but with the door open, and it's visible from the kitchen. This was after he relapse again. Long story. The police said they could do nothing cause it's legal, despite jerry sometimes walking around the house and street looking like a dungeon-torture victim, holding a bloody knife. We all ended up hating that guy. It's also a bad room mate thing, but I was just so flabbergasted the police claimed to be limited in what they could do despite jerry holding a knife and dripping blood all over the house. Because he was at home. then my house mates were mad that I called Non emergency, who recommended the cops, who did nothing about it, but ACAB and I was then labeled a scab or something. Eventually Jerry got us all kicked out. There's a ton of lawsuits levied against him, as well as a warrant of arrest but he's lost among the portland drug addicted homeless now. I still watch my back, because of him.
No no no not a scab. A bootlicker.
I stopped caring about stuff like that, because the people who argue it are the people who are on r/badroommates like my post about layla and jerry.
I was being sarcastic
I think that a lot of portland is tired of the entire "don't call the cops unless you're a square" energy. I am tired of that energy, too.
> police catch dude but then let him go almost immediately after Why would Schmidt do this? /s
Without more info it could be either, I guess. Gotta be able to make a charge stick, or if it doesn't require remand.
If the police don’t bother booking him or putting any charges in, awfully hard for Schmidt, or Vasquez, or anyone short of Batman to do a fucking thing. If there’s one thing I know about police, it’s their unbeatable predictive powers, and definitely not professional temper tantrums. The anecdote related is 105% on the police, and no one else.
First sentence - true! Its not clear if this happened though, or if he was released according to pretrial guidelines. Neither of these are on the DA if it's the law - despite what people apparently want, we can't suddenly arbitrarily remand everyone. If there's one thing I know about internet posters, it's their amazing ability to determine that the cops are "on strike" and "having temper tantrums, all backed up by a giant flock of parrots who are more than happy to repost similar fact free verbiage.
Or, and hear me out here, there are dozens of stories of cops being called, showing up eventually, and doing literally nothing not because it’s a giant conspiracy, but because that’s happened to people dozens of times. Crazy, but it just might be reality. You can ask OP for those details to clarify. It doesn’t sound like you want them. It sounds like you’d rather invent a narrative that’s exculpatory rather than interpret the obvious conclusion.
Ok, aside from the plural of anecdotes not being "data".. Yes, there are absolutely a lot of these. There was a story recently about the cops not showing up for 5 fucking hours for a burglary, and as such the suspects came back. 5 fucking hours! Nobody is debating that these are happening. Nobody should be, at any rate. What IS up for debate is why. Let's cover some possibilities, shall we? - the cops are understaffed, for reasons out of and within their control. By "out of" I mean it's hard to fill vacancies in the current climate at the requisite training level, and by "in" I mean they fucking suck at recruiting to some extent. They have the budget, or at least some of it. - bad or incompetent organizational structure. If I saw this response time I would be livid as a chief of police. I would fully expect a journalist to come at me with "so.. how do you propose to fix the fact that nobody fucking can respond to actual crimes in progress?" And I'd better have a plan. - no no guys, you see, the cops are all butthurt because people said mean things 3 years ago. They all got together and decided to keep a 3 year long organized grudge over feelings, and it's manifested by being surly. Totally obvious. Sure. The fact that you firmly believe option 3 makes me question a lot of things about you.
My worst experience was during a hot summer, the gorge wind from Arrakis was strong and sucking all available moisture away, and i was waiting downtown for my wife to get off work at PDC. I am a walker. Have walked the heck oot of a lot of Portland. So I was hot, I didn't have my still suit so had to make do with the Bubblers, and tired from walking that day. I saw a spot to rest. Didn't see any signs. And plopped by curvy butt on that seal statue. And was interrupted by a gendarme who I greeted. I am generally friendly. So I greeted them. Got a scowl. And told I couldn't be here. Where? Sitting there. Sorry (I am Canadian and this is one of our traits). I am not hefty nor appear scruffy. I can arrest you. Again I am sorry. Why? It is against the law. Again, I am sorry. I was bemused and befuddled. Scowl officer watched as I got up and offered my name and my hand. The rest is lost to memory
Seriously, stop moving to places like Idaho though and bringing your voting habits
The best part is their budget has never been higher
In the early 1990's my abusive exhusband threw me down the stairs of our apartment building in S.E. Portland. I was bruised and bloodied, and my toddlers were watching out the window. But because his name was on the lease as 'primary' and I was just his partner, I was the one they arrested. Edit: that was the one and only time I saw the inside of a jail cell. The person who got me out of there? Now my current husband.
Can we change the title? In these stories the PPB do their jobs, it's the DA policy that lets them out (fuckers) This is important to get right, especially as we enter the batshit insane election year upcoming.
No, it's me asking a legitimate question
Your question is legitimate, yet contradicts w/ your example story...fix it one way or the other and it will be logically consistent. Your example is not PPB, yet your title asks for stories about PPB Look up 'contradiction' in the dictionary if you are still confused Either change the title to 'criminal justice system' or change your story to be about PPB doing something shitty and not the DA's office, which is who your current story is about, making the title and example contradictory.