PORTLAND, Ore. — On Monday morning, Leo sat on a sidewalk in Old Town, surrounded by his homeless friends — with one eye out for Portland police officers. It's a side of street life that he knows all too well.
"The first time I got arrested here, I lost everything that I could've used to get somewhere, like my ID, birth certificate. … I don’t get arrested anymore, but I used to get arrested like every day," he said.
Three weeks ago, the Portland police bike squad — widely known for their response to the city’s fentanyl crisis — increased their patrols and added more officers to cover nights and weekends. The effort "keeps that pressure" on drug dealers, according to Officer David Baer with the Portland Police Bureau.
"They might think they are, but they are really not, because every time they arrest one, there's like 10 more to replace that one person," Leo said, sounding skeptical about the bike squad's efforts to target dealers.
Police video from last week shows officers and state troopers arresting several drug dealers at gunpoint in areas they call "hotspots" downtown, including the South Park Blocks, the Safeway at Southwest Jefferson Street and 10th Avenue and the neighboring Plaid Pantry, along with the streets of Old Town.
Baer said on Monday that it's too soon for the bike squad to have data on how many people they've arrested since expanding hours or the amount of drugs confiscated.
"It's still early. This is week three, so the data isn’t fully back yet, but they’re busy," he said.
Mark Lion and his wife live in one of those hotspots, and he said they have yet to see much of a change.
"Not in the area where we live, specifically in the Park Blocks," Lion said, adding that he and his wife still see people sleeping on benches and using drugs, but he has never felt threatened by it.
"We've kind of spread out. We're essentially all over downtown now, and we hope to continue these efforts as the summer gets going," Baer said.
Others who spoke to KGW said they doubted that the police crackdown would stop people who are addicted and living on the streets from using or buying their drugs.
"There’s always going to be drugs and people will always find them," said Angel, who’s homeless in Old Town.
While the bike squad is focused on arresting drug dealers, soon there will be changes to how they respond to people using and possessing hard drugs. In September, simple possession will once again be a crime in Oregon per House Bill 4002. In some cases people will have the option to go to treatment or behavioral health services instead of jail. On Monday, Portland police said they're still figuring out how that will work.