God I wished I lived in Portland

Wow, I love how Fox News has "Fair and Balanced" up in the corner, but the title of the article is judgmental. The article also does not mention the real issue at the heart of the situation.

It's a hot topic locally. Yeah, Portland cops are stereotypically known as mean. It's really strange, because overall, it's a friendly town. But our cops shoot homeless people, and there was a really terrible situation like that in March. I'm pretty outraged about that incident still. Here's an article about it: http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Officer-involved-shooting-at-Hoyt-Arboretu...

So a barista takes it out on one random cop? Stupid.

I can understand you being upset if the cop shot the homeless man for no reason, but according to the article, the bum went at the cop with a knife. I believe that's justifiable in this case. Now, I'm not going to defend the officer in every incident, but in this particular case, it looks like he was within procedure.

What's unforunate is that the subject was not given mental help earlier. I don't mean earlier when the initial contact occured a month earlier with him, but earlier in his life. That is not the fault of the police.

i'm mainly just want to live in a community full of anarchists, artists and freethinkers.

"Community" and "Anarchists" doesn't seem to go together.

Uppity baristas don't sell me on a place to live.

Then dont come to Portland unless you want to deal with a slew of closed minded stereotypical wanks.
Ok well that's not entirely true it really is a great city and i would choose to live any place else but it definitely has its downfalls. Its open minded as long as your mind is opened the right way. Im sure its like this a lot of places but a lot of Portlanders are very closed minded to anything on the right.
but again you do get a lot of great people here who are very open minded. A lot of great art studios, bookstores, vegan bakeries and local music. The red in black cafe throws some decent shows, in fact ti think there's going to be one there on the 9th.

As for the cops the few cops i have had to deal with downtown are generally nice. as long as your not being a blatant dick there not going to mess with you. i have seen cops look the other way at the guys drinking in the parks. But cops are cops. I have seen them try to arrest kids for smoking in a non smoking area and i have seen cops hassle bums for sleeping in the wrong place. We do have far to many police involved shooting that are poorly handled and result in pointless murders. Hence the reason the police cheif just got booted. But all in all its the security guards at the public squares that will give you more shit than imaginable.

But there is no anarchy here. None at all. the only Anarchy you see is the Postcard Punks there there mass produced made in China patches.

Seriously, you'd trade Hellas for Portland?

Aside from the obvious, your anarchists don't work at coffee shops and act superior; they set buildings on fire and Fuck Shit Up.

Having actually been to both Portland and Greece, Greece is the only of the two that I would actually consider moving to.

The coffee's better as well.

You're right.

I am upset at the mental health system and the fact that the cops are, unfortunately, part of the problem. Not individual cops, but their training and what they're given to work with. All of this was happening when an acquaintance of mine was going completely off the deep end, and the cops were called on her at least ten times for punching people (her friends), returning to her regular coffee shop after being kicked out every day for two weeks (where she was violent, etc.), threatening suicide, etc., etc. It was a mess. Time and time again, she was let back out on the streets. When she punched people, they said it was harassment and not assault. She needed help, and no one in Portland seemed to want to help her outside of me and two of my friends. The people who turned her away included the cops. It was very sad, and this probably schizophrenic man was shot during the month that I was dealing with her. Nerve hit hard.

Ditto. Lots of great local shops and products. Generally friendly people. But the thing I agree with most is:

Its open minded as long as your mind is opened the right way.

I thought I'd get along great in Portland. I know some pretty cool people, and PSU was about what I expected. But I wouldn't say that I "fit in." Most open-mindedness is categorized here.

The situation with the homeless man was a mess, i know a few people who witnesses this mess and its not like the guy charged the officers. This article also doenst mention that the man was also suicidal and had been cutting himself. This was an unnecessary death and could have been handled better. Even the local authorities have admitted to this
Portland handle on mentel health is a joke. We have a large number of homeless people with obvious mental health issues. they get arrested jailed and let go. like Random said, the system is ineffective. There is no proper training and no real help. The few organizations that do exist here have little support and are understaffed. With the general public of Portland trying to pretend that these homeless, and most often mentally ill, people dont exist is an even bigger problem. With no community support the problem just grows.

Athens has a lot of anarchists as you probably know. The city is actually crazy. Six millions people here. A lot of story ideas.

With the general public of Portland trying to pretend that these homeless, and most often mentally ill, people dont exist is an even bigger problem. With no community support the problem just grows.

Yep. It's sad how the homeless get treated. I can't often give them money or even cigarettes, but I recognize and used to know a lot of them. When I worked at Borders, a lot of our regular customers were homeless. I did my best to treat them with respect, because it's obvious that they have mental health issues.

There's a man who's known for screaming randomly at people downtown. I see him every now and then, and one day when it was busy on the sidewalk, he was yelling in full force. It was really sad, because everyone was scared and/or angry. I walked by and smiled at him, and he stopped yelling. That taught me a lot.

I make a point to be nice and treat them equally. If i have spare cash, food or smokes i will spare what i can. And ya people tell me that a lot of them are on drugs or dont need it but obviously they need it more than i do. And if the guys going to buy a beer who cares, if i was homeless and it was cold a beer seems like a good idea. There people all the sameso i will say hello when its appropriate. i have had lot of really good conversations with the local homeless people, even if they are a little off most of them are really decent people.
Its the assholes that give them shit and heckle them that are the problem. Belittling them and treating them like crap isnt going to do anyone help.

Me too. They're my favorite random conversations.

The first scene in my new novella is about this.

Excellent.

The ironic thing is that someone who co-owns a business is telling a cop that he is voluntarily choosing not to serve him.

I wish cops were willing to refuse service...like when people don't want their police services, but they are forced upon them.

I'm sure just about every person ever arrested wishes they could have said "no thank you, your services won't be necessary today officer."

this is all a mental health issue. i know for a fact people here keep getting arrested because its a free trip to the anti-psychotic pill. but, im happy to say its being addressed (if rather slowly) the city is re-opening someplace i cant remember where, and they're going to have beds there just for people who need to get back on their meds.

it still is not the cops fault though, that some of these people go too far in their attempts to get arrested. thats just the way they're trained to respond. you dont ask someone if they're nutty before you shoot them. not if they have a knife.

It's not the cops fault. But again, they should be trained to handle those situations better. Most of the time if there's some guy running around in the woods covered in blood, he's dealing with major mental illness.

They keep saying they're trying to fix the mental health here, but I don't really see it happening. At least there are lots of community organizations that try to help them out. I actually want to see if I can start volunteering for Write Around Portland, who provide writing workshops for various disadvantaged groups, including the mentally ill.

"Keep Portland Weird" is a rally cry for all those that don't fit in. If you do, you probably don't get it. This is the only mecca I have been to that embraces differences as though they are sameness, and sameness like it's just a bit off.

That being said, I really dislike the current anti-police sentiment. Many of the people here have become so complacent that they think they can't be hurt by knife wielding psycho nut jobs. Growing up in the "wrong" part of town, I got to see the massive difference the police moving in can make. And having moved from city to city and returning... I have found the police here to be the most polite, well behaved force in Oregon, and many parts of California.

Ultimately, we Portlanders just don't like to see anyone get hurt. We take the fact that we have very low violent crime rates for granted. That's a real shame, because many of us older folks remember when that wasn't the case.

i didnt know about that program, RT, and i know about a lot more than i used to. im a member of the city's disability services advisory council. we cant actually do much, but people come to us with their budgets and stuff, and ask our opinions. its interesting, but, all in all we only hear about shit like independent living programs, and the people who give out free air conditioning. i would be interested in doing something with the program you mentioned. i dont know if i can, but i would like to.

That would be cool if you could somehow partner with them. I haven't gotten around to contacting them yet, but I understand they're always looking for people to do little volunteer jobs, which I would be happy to do. And I think twice/year they train workshop leaders.

I'm glad I mentioned it. I'm even happier that my classmate told me about it last month. This is their site: http://writearound.org/

RT, thanks for the link. i think i might volunteer for that. i'll show my roommate, too. i also posted a link on facebook, because i have 'friend-ed' many of the local authors.

Awesome. If we both volunteer, maybe we'll have a chance to meet.

its seem prejudice, although there is the subversive part of me that almost respects that kind of anarchist point of view but then again, if something serious where to happened and there was no respect for order , I am just I don't want another Altamont.

How nice, reminds me of that nice Jeffrey Dahmer fellow.

We could do that. I live right downtown. Admittedly, I don't often venture outside of it, but where are you?