Blogtown, PDX

Monday, March 19, 2007

Politics Sten Proposes Further DFZ Limits and Oversight

Posted by Scott Moore on Mon, Mar 19 at 5:14 PM

As the debate over Drug Free Zones heats up and moves to the state legislature, Commissioner Erik Sten has proposed several “proactive changes that more effectively protect the rights of community members while preserving our officers’ ability to focus on repeat offenders.”

His draft resolution comes in the wake of Mayor Tom Potter’s efforts to oppose Rep. Chip Shields’ Senate Bill 642, which would require that all exclusions be based on convictions, not arrests. In a letter accompanying the resolution, Sten says he “cannot support opposing [SB 642] until the Council fixes its own problems.”

The resolution—which is still a work in progress—wouldn’t go as far as Shields’ bill, but it would require that anyone being excluded from a zone have prior convictions. It would also require, as part of the DFZ policy, that an oversight committee be a “condition of ongoing implementation” of the ordinance—meaning “no oversight, no exclusion zone.” The committee would be charged with examining the racial makeup of Drug Free Zone exclusions and arrests within 90 days, and report to council every six months.

For the record, there is, in fact, now an oversight committee looking at the DFZs, although it got started much later—almost a year later—than was originally promised. When the exclusion zones were renewed last year, a separate resolution created the committee, but wasn’t made a condition of enforcing the zones.

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Comments

until they start really cracking down on drug dealers and addicts using tri-met as their own personal drug courrier system, the DFZs are a joke to me.

anybody who rides tri-met regularly, particularly on the main lines in and out of downtown from northeast and east country knows what's going on.

i have been on the max so many times where people are so obviously dealing and buying drugs, and nobody in the police department seems to want to look at it as a real problem.

if you didn't know better, you'd think PPD is giving the drug dealers tri-met because it allows them to pop in and out of downtown without walking the streets and making the impression that any area is drug infested.

Posted by lyle | March 19, 2007 5:52 PM

I think the cops have prioritized street dealing but now that it's cleaned up, there might be more focus on different strategies.

Having said that, you might want to blame fareless square!

Posted by Matt Davis | March 19, 2007 6:01 PM

Just give the police whatever they want. Watching the city defend the police over and over is almost as bad as listening to George Bush claim success in Iraq. Just a bit more patience and we will get it right next time. I'm all for Chip's proposed legislation.

When is the last time the Portland Police has a major bust in Portland? Why are we punishing addicts anyway? Somebody is getting the bling, bling. How come we never hear of people going down for major shipments coming to town?

Posted by NNW | March 19, 2007 6:13 PM

On a related tip, over at LoadedO we talked about the Shields bill, among several others of his including HJM 9, the Iraq anti-escalation bill that will be debated tommorow. Chip's a good guy, definitely on the ball. Let's hope Potter loses this fight.

PLEASE don't use fareless square as the fall guy for any drug transactions that take place. The cops want to get rid of it so they can fare-check people as a way of detaining someone briefly if they want to. Fareless Square is a touch of brilliance, one of the little things that makes the city great.

Posted by torridjoe | March 19, 2007 7:15 PM

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