Fuck You Officer Cox

I was so angry as I hammered out these words in the heat of passion, that when I went back to re-read it once it was published, I realized there are some typos in it. That's an oversight of passion, and should not be construed to mean I just didn't care enough to check it over.

Usually, I assume that if I can understand what someone is saying, it does not matter if they spelled everything right or dotted all the i's. It's rude even to suggest that it matters. But I know that someone like officer Cox, who cannot argue with what I have said, would focus sneeringly on such errors to try to distract from what I have said. So that's why I am acknowledging this now.

And just so I can say it one more time. Fuck you, Officer Cox.

Thank you so much for telling your story. This is why I come to indymedia, to hear truth like this written loud and clear.

I'm glad you stood up to the men in blue. It seems that police quite often overreact. Last time I checked, most homeless folks would prefer to not be homeless. Harrassment won't help. And a prison record sure won't. The system is broken and the men in blue fail to comprehend that they're part of the problem.

Is a person violating the law? Do you have to arrest them or lose your job? If you're arresting people for stupid reasons (like being homeless or possession of small quantities of drugs) then MAYBE YOU SHOULD QUIT BEING A COP. If you disagree, and think those are great reasons to arrest people, then at least DO IT RESPECTFULLY. We pay your salaries, and yes, we expect to be treated with respect.

Good for you!!!
It is so great to hear about someone standing up to "authority" when "authority" is nothing more than a big ol' bully with a uniform and a regular paycheck.
Photos of Officer Cox anyone?

How do we find out what the qualifications are to become a police officer? When did they change from the old qualifications?

The police that are being hired now, are not the people that would even come close to being hired 40 years ago.

I can understand your emotion. The park, "paranoia park", formally known as O'Bryant square, is presents an interesting situation. I can't exactly remember the history, but there was a time when the copshop wasn't parked right on the perimeter of the park in the same building as the Portland Business Alliance.

I'm not saying who, because I don't know whose responsible, but over the years, somebody has been responsible for turning that park into an urban wasteland. I think the copshop appeared at some point after this transformation began. But what does that have to do with routinely rousting people in the park?

Good question. People survive. Without nice opportunities accessible to them, or that work for them, they survive by means that aren't so nice. So yeah, there's a pretty good chance, that over the years, people using some of those not so nice ways to survive have been at the park doing their thing. It's not called paranoia for nothing.

Question is, do the cops have to use the particularly demeaning method they use to determine whether such and such a person has an outstanding warrant? Well, now were in "copworld" where lattitude in terms of discretion given in favor of the officer, is the name of the game, and common decency falls to the back.

Yup, so here's this scary young woman...(you never know what they might do), so the cop follows "the procedure", and give her the cuffs, "for his protection", while he goes through her stuff, and runs her name.

It goes on and on. Profiling is a natural thing for the cops. Even if you've been clean and sober for weeks or months, if you're sitting in the park with your backpack by yourself, there's a good chance the cops will give you the third degree, especially if you're sitting there talking with some of your friends who still have some of those problems.

The PBA sits right across the park in their nice office space, probably harrassing the police to do something about the "mess those kids have made in that park". Maybe they should be doing a little more personally to see that this sort of police behavior isn't happening in the park.

Off the top of my head, I'm not aware of what the PBA is doing to help kids avoid being the kind of kid a cop would profile. I think they at least do the PC act of donating to some of the non-profits, though I often wonder if the PBA cares at all about those kids. As business, they hate the problem, as it affects their businesses, but the suggestion is strong, that they'd have no qualms about just getting removing those kids, if there were a socially acceptable way to do it.

Keeping the moral question of police conduct towards citizens, in the consciousness of members of the PBA is important.

The park's soon going to get a multi-million dollar makeover. Maybe that means these kind of cop/kid encounters will move further from the public view. Then what? Even conscientious social workers will be less likely to see this sort of thing go.

I love you for being this passionate & this brave & this honest. Portland has some incredible jerks in uniform, & the city is doing NOTHING to purge them away, like the excrement they are. It appears that O'Bryant needs citizen-activist oversight.

The world needs more people like you to stand up for the defenseless.

To comment on what shedevil said, if history is any judge we'll also be seeing more, not less, of this as former soldiers are integrated into the homeless population. I just finished reading a fascinating book called the "The Bonus Army : An American Epic." [  link to www.amazon.com ] Every activist should be familiar with their story (which began in Portland, BTW), especially in these times when thousands of American soldiers will likely be coming home (many with depleted uranium poisoning) to one of the worst economic disasters in American history.

I know Officer Cox, and I can assure you that unless someone a little more litterate points the typos out to him, he will be unaware. Good on you for challenging him. We should all take a lesson from you, and challenge injustice whenever, and wherever we see it. These cocks (pun intended) are only the outward and most visible symptom of the corporation run society that we have the misfortune to be living in. Save your fellow human beings, one park at a time.

Where is this park?

Lenord: location is SW Park Ave, between Washington and Stark. One block west of the Bank of California building. 3 blocks south of Burnside. Check out Sunday when they have Potluck in the Park. Go there other days. Its a quiet park because it's out of the main flow of pedestrian traffic. Maybe also because of its proximity to Stark with tellys(flophouses. City hopes to change that.

It's just south of the former Greenhouse that offered a wide variety of services to kids. Different org still does.

The presence of more well balanced, stable people at the park would hopefully be a good thing...would ideally be a good thing, as positive examples..... people who could aid and encourage kids and people in general that struggle. That seems awfully optimistic when I think about it though. Well balanced, stable (well dressed, well fed, etc) doesn't as a matter of course, readily equate to understanding or tolerance of those who aren't doing so well. It's more common for those folks to want to distance themselves as much as possible from people on the edge.

But go there. I'm almost 100% sure the average person would be safe there most hours of the day. Unless you're an ex-junkie or alcoholic, of course. Mere association with scenes of addiction can hook some people.

Despite that kind of hazard, part of the answer to escaping abuse by the police, is for the people at large to shoulder more of the burden of caring for people drowning in the sea of societal apathy on their own accord, rather than contracting it all out to cops.

ST said, "I'm almost 100% sure the average person would be safe there most hours of the day. Unless you're an ex-junkie or alcoholic, of course. Mere association with scenes of addiction can hook some people. "

The description you have given for this park makes it sound like some scary, darkly adventurous dystopia. Perhaps, but if so then so is the rest of the city. Leonard, Paranoia Park is also called O'Bryant Square, and is pretty much in the place where st says...at least in concrete space. But it's not some scary place that will suck demons out of your flesh, as seems to be implied. I am a downtown businessperson, and I eat my lunch there on occasion. I also wait for the bus on the outskirts. Sometimes, I even park my car in the lot beneath the park.

When you go there, though, notice that the fountain and the drinking faucet are both dry. Have been for years. Guess why? Probably for the same reason that some dumbass cop bulldozed the children's garden to prevent homeless people from congregating there. Stupid "solutions" for very complex problems, offered up by people who don't give a damn.

Anyway, the reason I am taken aback by ST's description of the park is that it sounds very like the way white people often used to describe black neighborhoods. "Just be careful, man. They congregate all over the place there. You'll probably be safe there, but who knows." And then they walk them through it like it's some sort of deep , scary jungle or something. Please. I also do not like the tone of comments like this one: "The presence of more well balanced, stable people at the park would hopefully be a good thing...would ideally be a good thing, as positive examples....."

Please stop this liberal rambling. Yes, some of the people at Paranoia Park have problems. Just like some of the people at any other park, restaurant, or neighborhood in the city. Homeless people are not more likely to be criminals, assholes, or dangerous than any other population. They are just more easily scapegoated, and less able to defend themselves from sanctimonious shitheads like officer Cox. (Officer Cox who, by the way, seems to hang out there a lot. I have seen him there rolling teenagers too. And then offering -- threatening? -- to give "ride alongs" to anyone who criticizes him for his heavy hand.) What I'm trying to say, ST, is that maybe they don't need your "positive example." Maybe, what they need is an even break.

bck: Well, I'm glad that a downtown businessperson such as yourself was prompted to read and comment in regards to O'Bryant Square, and my comments related to it. You're free to describe the character of my comments any way you feel is accurate. I like this sentence you wrote:

"The description you have given for this park makes it sound like some scary, darkly adventurous dystopia".....because that accurately describes the park in an even more alarming sense than I would have described it. Do you think its a coincidence that the copshop came to be located directly across the street from the park?

The park was allowed to deteriorate, deplorably over the years. One reason was probably because the city stopped doing the work neccessary to maintain it. The fountain is one example. Another was the trees, and landscaping, that over the years, were allowed to become grossly overgrown. Then, I think last fall, rather than properly pruning and shaping them back as they should have been, the just hacked a lot of it down.

That was a shame, as some of the trees were fine, mature black pines that could have been beautiful assets to the park. At any rate, this overgrown foilage truly contributed to making the park a dark and scary place, at least at night.

Ironic, at least to me, is that the work of maintaing these plants and other landscaping could have been made available to unemployed and homeless people of Portland, as a way of allowing them some means to provide for themselves. So through this misjudgement by the city, the neighborhood took a double hit.

So, the park was dark at night. This made it an inviting area for bad things to take place, more so than say, Pioneer Square, as if that place doesn't have enough of its own problems going on. Also contributing to a decline at O'Bryant, is the fact that it's out of the main flow of pedestrian traffic.

I Pioneer Square is Portland's living room, O'Bryant is...let's see...like its' woodshed?

It may be fine for lunch during the day during the 9-5, but in the evening, all those people go home, and whose left to use the park? Diners, or people going to the movie, or any other nightime entertainment do not go to O'Bryant for in between lounging. Correct me if I'm wrong.

O'Bryant, over the years, came to be a great place, at least at night, for all kinds of bad goings on, more so, I would say, than other places, at least in downtown. In a way, it was nice for homeless and street people, because it had a canopy in one corner of the park to protect those just in need of shelter from the rain and other elements. Of course in their wisdom, what does the city do last fall (I think it was)? Rip off the roof of the shelter.

By the way. Black neighborhoods in Portland I've walked through seem like friendlier places than this park. They have houses with people in them. People you see there actually have some place to live, unlike many of those you see at night at O'Bryant.

I made that comment about the presence of well balanced people at the park being a good thing, in an uncertain sense. I'm not sure it is a good thing, given the nature of many of them. I think I implied that in what I wrote. What I do believe, is that not enough people are shouldering the need to look out for those who are not having success at making a go of it against the terrific odds our "survival by competition" culture requires.

And in that sense, yes, I feel like the presence in the park, of people who have jobs, homes, are not addicted, are not disposed to committing crimes, who have the ability to listen patiently and supportively to people who are distressed, anxiety ridden, homeless and addicted, could be a good thing. Could be, if more of these kinds of stable people were to wake up to the call. More people who are stable, need to be there to listen, and work to ensure that there are more even breaks out there for those that need them.

St, I live in downtown pdx, and have for many years. I think you mischaracterize things in the way that people who sit on couches and theorize often do. No offense, but O'Bryant Square is no more "urban dystopia" than anywhere else in the city. True, it's more often frequented by street kids than some places (but not more often than the sidewalk outside meir and frank, or pioneer square).

No, it's no coincidence at all that the "cop shop," as you put it, came to be located where it is. It is there because there are homeless youth centers and Cascadia Mental Health nearby, and because the PBA ordered them there. That is, after all, who they work for. That is the most obvious example I could have chosen -- they're in the same fucking building, for crying out loud, with their shared logos on the front fucking door. The PBA thinks that poor people are bad for business. So they demanded the police do something to "clean up the city" -- meaning get rid of the unsightly homeless people. THAT is why the "cop shop" is there. Not because homeless people are more troublesome than anyone else, but just because their brand of "troublesomeness" is more likely to bother the affluent than the troublesomeness of wealthier classes of people.

No, the fountain is not shut off because the city has not been maintaining it, as you suggest. It was shut off for the one simple reason that it provided water for homeless people. The police/business interests of pdx try to drive out poor people in the same way that occupying armies try to drive out resistance fighters: They attempt to starve them out. They shut off the infrastructure required to sustain life. They turn off the water supplies and choke off food supplies and harass them endlessly. If it were legal, they would probably be shooting them. (Oh, wait. They are shooting them. I forgot about Vernon Allen.)

You said, "It may be fine for lunch during the day during the 9-5, but in the evening, all those people go home, and whose left to use the park? Diners, or people going to the movie, or any other nightime entertainment do not go to O'Bryant for in between lounging. Correct me if I'm wrong." Allow me to correct you. As I said, I have lived here for a long time, and I have no problems walking through O'Bryant Square in the middle of the night. It's a matter of not being afraid (or making stupid assumptions about) people who are different from you. Let me add, I do not walk anywhere without carefully assessing my surroundings. Not here, and not down Broadway. There are people who would take advantage of you everywhere. But just being homeless or poor does not mean they are out to get you.

On a broader sense, why should we care more about the needs and fears of "diners" and people out to seek mindless entertainment than about the real needs of people who have to sleep in the parks? Why frame this around how scary this place is for vapid seekers of self indulgence, rather than how men these streets can be to people who have nowhere else to go?

Finally, you said, "I feel like the presence in the park, of people who have jobs, homes, are not addicted, are not disposed to committing crimes, who have the ability to listen patiently and supportively to people who are distressed, anxiety ridden, homeless and addicted, could be a good thing." Indeed, that is liberal armchair theorizing at it's height of self congratulation. Why do you lump together the things that you have? Do you know how many people with "jobs and homes" there are out there who are also "disposed to committing crimes"? And, I might add, the police are never there to straighten them out when they do. Instead, they are busy harassing homeless people downtown, because the business community told them to. Do you know how many people with "jobs and homes" are "distressed and anxiety ridden"? Ask the pharmaceutical corporations that are making a killing doling out hits of xanax, valium, clonazepine, etc. ad naseum. (And then ask yourself why these drugs are legal to ruin yourself on, whereas "street drugs" with which poor people self medicate are not. Both drug classes are equally addictive, harmful, and cause tremendous social problems. But that's another issue.)

No, I reiterate the point made above. Maybe poor people do not need your fine example. Maybe they need an even break.

I was homelessfor two years. I worked out and stayed clean and the barbur blvd YMCA...until FIVE cops showed up to escort me out. I had complained to YMCA management that one of their full time staff was harassing me for being homeless. Even though another staff member backed me up...I was escorted out by management and threatened to never return under "tresspass".The employee who harassed me(he even poisoned my pet rabbit: cut my bike lock; and stole two sleeping bags)kept his job.

I was sleeping cleamly and well hidden in the woods behind the "Y". to avoid what I already knew of cops and the homeless. I had a full time job and never wore dirty clothes or clothes with holes. Even though my bed sleeping position was always the same; on the ground; to weave 'just so' between big rocks. I had my intelligence and my price. I walked among many (homeless and not)who had niether...or little of. You would not have known I was homeless, unless you found me...or I told you. I was 40 pounds underweight. I ate 'when I could'. I had sad nights...and also a few that I felt god right next to me.

I will NEVER forget what I saw cops do to others downtown. I was smarter than them in that i knew how to avoid them...for awhile. I wish homelessnss on EVERYBODY...and every cop...if that is what it will take to create respect and humility among them.

thank you for your work. I have a home and a business and a 9 yera old son. Homeless people are my brothers and sisters and may I die the day I stop thinking so!!!!

People don't understand what it is to be homeless or without a place to live , hell I don't even understand it And I'v been homeless for three years now and that's HARD TO SAY . I to worked full time and I mean full time , kept clean and had nice coths on , you would never know unless I told you . I would lie to evey one about having no place to live - you see being homeless means only one thing her in America - that you are a target . This is the only country that homelessness is the way it is and where homless is so looked down upon . And the worst thing about living on the streets is not having food of shelter but is crime and the "COPS" , boy and I do mean boy , What is the hell up the the "COPS" man..man..man . Well I'm out , out of this shit there nothing more I can do , nothing more I can fell . SO what ever so whats the point , nothing I can see . If there is one bit of advice I can offer .. it would be - don't be a target .

Fed up Social Worker, et al
We should do a story about what's going on in O'Bryant Square. It seems like a microcosm of the larger abuses and discrimination taking place in this town. Can we talk some time soon? Anonymity not a problem.
I'm at Street Roots at 503-228-5657.
Thanks.

Thank you for this newstory. I wanted to add that not only was Officer Cock being a mean bully, but he was committing a serious CRIME: the violation of an individual's Constitutional rights to equal protection under the law and, if the cop was waking a sleeping homeless person or ticketing a homeless person for sleeping, then he was violating that person's right to be free from "cruel and unusual punishment (8th Amendment)" - you don't have to take my word for it, see the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision (Jones v Los Angeles):  link to www.ca9.uscourts.gov

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is a higher authority than the Portland cops and therefor the cops should have to obey the rulings of the judges who made the decision (Jones v Los Angeles), in which the judges stated quite clearly that by harassing homeless people for being homeless or ticketing them for sleeping in public places when there is no legal place for them to sleep is "cruel and unusual punishment" and is "prohibited by the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution." When they continue to punish homeless people for being homeless, they are flagrantly disrespecting both the Court and the Constution and are committing Human Rughts Abuse.

Cops who break the law should be held accountable.