Can we pass this test?

Editorial

An ideology fails when, in order to preserve it, one must stoop to the indefensible. Such a point has been reached at a corner in Northwest Portland, where a woman walking to her home was taunted by a band of masked men cackling at her vulnerability and braying, “Have a good night, Michelle,” “Where are all your friends now?” and “You better run.”

She retreated into the relative safety of her home, where she repeatedly receives phone calls threatening bodily harm or worse.

This is the test for Portlanders of all persuasions. Who in this scenario is entitled to the support of civil society: the woman or the thugs? A citizen sticking her neck out to be a good neighbor and speak up against depravity, or a band of anonymous men commandeering her street for drug trafficking?

I don’t know the names of the people behind the masks, obviously, and cannot ask them to explain themselves, but their behavior has defined them. For months people who look and act like them have swooped in after the Friday night drug paraphernalia handouts at Northwest 19th and Couch that draw addicts into one convenient marketplace for fentanyl fixes.

This should not be a difficult question, yet for months city and county officials, prominent religious leaders and the news media have come to the wrong conclusion. They have taken the side of individual liberty, the right to put any substance into one’s own body and remain free of all judgment, and an organization preaching these as paramount values. They call it “harm reduction.” But what if reducing harm to one harms another, or perhaps a whole neighborhood?

The head of a local congregation told me the neighbors were overreacting to the unaesthetic appearance of tents on the sidewalks, and they should marshal up more forbearance.

Politicians have said nothing can be done; possession of illegal drugs was (note the verb tense) not a crime, and homelessness should not be criminalized.

Who knows what reporters and editors were thinking. Perhaps they saw nothing out of the ordinary going on here.

(It must be said that homelessness is a side issue. When homelessness and addiction intertwine, defenders of the current disorder choose the more sympathetic label.)

By choice or default, most Portland institutions have failed the test on this issue.

Two institutions did not fail us.

KPTV Fox 12 news has been reporting on the consequences of the Portland People’s Outreach Project giveaways since last summer, collecting shocking videos of drug deals, open drug use, general chaos and the intimidating scene at Michelle Milla’s front gate. A recent three-part series opened eyes at the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office.

“Neighbors are facing a problem they say defies common sense; the distribution of pipes and needles to drug users in a Northwest Portland school zone,” reported KPTV’s Pete Ferryman, “But nothing has changed.”

Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez saw the report and reacted with clear eyes.

“Quite frankly, I was outraged,” Vasquez told KPTV, “We saw people who just simply want some very basic courtesies and basic answers. What I saw in that recording is something that deeply concerns me in our community right now.”

The scene at the front gate went over the top.

“That particular piece, that upset me,” he said. “No person should be harassed or threatened in any manner. If we can identify people who are engaged in threatening behavior against neighbors, we will proceed with criminal charges on those people.”

I am not usually a law-and-order guy, but where there is no order, force, destruction and cruelty flourish. And without the ability to protect civic values or even our homes, we cannot make our city what we want it to be.

If that message comes from unexpected sources, it still needs to be heard. Truth spoken by the “wrong” messenger is still the truth. We will not be saved by fealty to threadbare ideologies that do not reflect the reality in front of us.