{"id":178127,"date":"2020-07-10T16:55:59","date_gmt":"2020-07-10T23:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eugeneweekly.com\/?p=178127"},"modified":"2020-08-04T23:26:09","modified_gmt":"2020-08-04T23:26:09","slug":"talk-of-homeless-encampment-sweeps-at-police-commission-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/10\/talk-of-homeless-encampment-sweeps-at-police-commission-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Talk of Homeless Encampment Sweeps at Police Commission Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner weighed whether his department should continue crackdowns on Eugene homeless encampments at the July 9 Eugene Police Commission <\/a>meeting, while a police lieutenant defended the department against citizen complaints that cops ignore frat boy behavior that\u2019s as bad as anything homeless campers do.<\/p>\n

The commission discussion, held on Zoom, centered on the Eugene Police Department\u2019s involvement in recent homeless camp sweeps, particularly at Washington Jefferson Park on July 1, when a large campsite was forced to disperse. Some members of the commission and the police said that they were interested in looking at alternatives to the current police relationship with Eugene\u2019s unhoused population.<\/span><\/p>\n

After a few people phoned in for public comment with their concerns about these crackdowns on homeless encampments \u2014\u00a0especially about how coronavirus cases are continuing to rise in Lane County and some people have nowhere to go where they can keep safe \u2014 the commission heard from Skinner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal would be that the police department wouldn\u2019t be involved in camping enforcement at all,\u201d Skinner said. He said that he hopes to form other groups to help mitigate illegal camping and deal with the problem at its root, though he didn\u2019t specify what that would look like.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Police Lt. Doug Mozan spoke about his experience doing these homeless camp sweeps, echoing Skinner\u2019s comments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not looking for campers to displace,\u201d Mozan said. \u201cThat\u2019s not what EPD is about. We don\u2019t have time for that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mozan said that when Eugene\u2019s Parks and Open Space Division needs to enforce camping bans or the police receive a complaint about someone illegally camping, the police department is the only group with the authority and jurisdiction to enforce these bans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to see continued enforcement of park rules where there is a problem, I\u2019ll tell you that,\u201d Mozan said. He said that encampments on 1st Avenue and Jefferson Street were on his radar. \u201cIt\u2019s probably the least glamorous thing the police do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Silver Mogart, a citizen on the commission, asked Mozan why, if the police don\u2019t want to continue forcing unhoused people to disperse from their encampments, do they continue to do it?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf this isn\u2019t what we want to be doing, why don\u2019t we just stop?\u201d Mogart asked. He said that the people who complain about homelessness and call the police on unhoused people are the ones who have their voices heard, where homeless people themselves have been silenced.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When Mozan described some of the scenes that he has witnessed at recent homeless encampments around town, Mogart laughed. \u201cI live in the university area, and that sounds pretty much exactly like you\u2019d see at a frat kegger,\u201d he said, implying that the EPD leaves rowdy college kids alone and picks on homeless people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI see what you\u2019re saying, but a bunch of red cups looks different than broken bicycles and poop on people\u2019s doorsteps,\u201d Mozan said, comparing a college party to some of what he\u2019s seen at these encampments, which he said could be like the \u201cwild, wild West.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Councilor Alan Zelenka, a City Council liaison to the Police Commission, said that he frequently hears people asking the council to \u201csolve the homelessness problem,\u201d which is something that cannot be done without first solving the systemic issues that created a homelessness problem, like access to mental health resources and affordable housing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The police commission, which acts as an advising body to the City Council, chief of police and city manager on policing issues, didn\u2019t come to a conclusion on a temporary way forward for unhoused people during the pandemic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The July 9 meeting was the end of service for four commissioners: Bill Whalen, Will Davie, Edward Goehring and Terry Robertson. Applications<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>to replace these members closed July 10.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner weighed whether his department should continue crackdowns on Eugene homeless encampments at the July 9 Eugene Police Commission meeting, while a police lieutenant defended the department against citizen complaints that cops ignore frat boy behavior that\u2019s as bad as anything homeless campers do. The commission discussion, held on Zoom, centered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":178529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[27,17],"class_list":["post-178127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-news","tag-eugene-police-department","tag-ew-extra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}