Police in Portland spent the past week clearing a vacant shopping center in a deserted downtown in what was described as a scene from the dystopian HBO show The Last of Us.
The building has been converted into an open air drug market.
Dozens of local police moved into the vacant retail development Wednesday at about 7:30 a.m. by sealing off the surrounding area and extending crime scene tape down the block.
An officer said that while they had not found squatters, there had been people holed up there in the previous days. Police have been patrolling the building around the clock since last Friday.
The city’s central cycling squad showed officers using battering rams to break down doors and access locked rooms in the building, which city officials called “in crisis mode.”
Mayor Ted Wheeler said later that evening: “The city is confident the construction site is clear of intruders. There were no immediate threats during this operation.”
Police in Portland spent the past week clearing the center of Washington in what was described as a scene from the dystopian HBO show The Last of Us, clearing up what many saw as an open-air drug market.
Building owner Barry Menashe is working with contractors and the police to board it all up and try to get rid of it Oregonian It is called rampant drug trafficking.
Medina had been working on a plan to secure the building with Menashe and his daughter, Lorraine, the manager of his real estate company.
Menashe has, in the past, offered simply to let the city use it as a homeless shelter, but they have yet to formally specify a purpose. It “will likely require significant retooling before future use,” Wheeler said.
Eric Zimmerman, the city’s central policy advisor, would prefer the property to be impounded rather than continue to operate as a drug house.
“We gave them the go-ahead and said, ‘If you want to line up the corners at 90 degrees and take everything out, we’re going to be very supportive of that,’” Zimmerman said. “It even requires us to give up the sidewalks—whatever it takes to secure them.”
People passing by the property told Zimmerman “Good” and finally! In response to hearing what happened. Many assumed there had been a murder.
Conservative journalist Andy Ngo He explicitly suggested that the building looked like a scene from the HBO video game adaptation The Last of Us.
It is not clear where the building will be used in the future as people are waiting to see what happens now that the police have secured it completely.
Dozens of local police moved into the vacant retail development Wednesday at about 7:30 a.m. by sealing off the surrounding area and extending crime scene tape down the block.
An officer said that while they had not found squatters, there had been people holed up there in the previous days. Police have been patrolling the building around the clock since last Friday
People passing by the property told Zimmerman “Good” and finally! In response to hearing what happened. Many assumed there had been a murder
The city’s central cycling squad showed officers using battering rams to break down doors and access locked rooms in the building, which city officials called “in crisis mode.”
Mayor Ted Wheeler said later that evening: “The city is confident the construction site is clear of intruders. There were no immediate threats during this operation.”
“The desire to be a visionary or try new ideas is a bit subdued so we can stop the bleeding,” Zimmerman said of the building’s potential future owners. “We’re just trying to measure up, not to put too many carts before the horse.”
Democratic City has one of the most deserted downtown areas in the United States, with high crime and homelessness scaring away locals and tourists alike.
In 2021, there were 90 murders amid a surge in gun violence, which shattered the city’s previous record of 66 more than three decades ago.
There were 101 murders recorded in 2022 – a new record for the city.
Portland currently has more than 700 homeless camps across the city within less than 150 square miles.
Some of the Pacific Northwest’s most glamorous, trendy, and expensive neighborhoods are now packed with sidewalk-strewn, trash-strewn tent cities.
Portland currently has more than 700 homeless camps across the city within less than 150 square miles, and the plight has also led to high crime rates in the area.
Some of the Pacific Northwest’s most glamorous, trendy and expensive neighborhoods are now crammed with sidewalk-strewn, trash-strewn tent cities – a problem that worries locals and tourists alike.
The Portland City Council scrambled to return the money to the police in November 2021 after defunding it by more than $15 million in 2020. Officials voted instead to add $5.4 million to the force’s budget.
When the police were defunded in 2020, the Portland Police Bureau experienced a rush of retirements and resignations.
Portland has seen a significant increase in shootings and killings following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The city saw a 250 percent increase in homicides during the first six months after Floyd’s death, and shootings were up nearly 175 percent.
