Street Kids ~ Portland (Oregon)

Paul J. Berg wrote:
From The (Portland) Oregonian newspaper

Attacks by homeless youths grow more violent and often go unreported,
frustrating police

One minute, Joshua Pettit, 18, was playing games on a computer in
Multnomah County's main library branch downtown.

Then next, a homeless teenager summoned him outside. Four others
surrounded him, stole his backpack and ordered him to empty his pockets.
They dragged him by his pants several blocks north, punched him in the
eye and dropped him over the side of an Interstate 405 overpass."Get out
of town" his assailants yelled at the Yakima teen, "or we'll kill ya."

The confrontation, over a stolen dog collar, led to kidnapping
convictions against five homeless people, ages 17 to 21. Similar cases,
detailed in dozens of police and court reports and in interviews with
victims and suspects, shine light on the largely clandestine and violent
life of homeless teen-agers and young adults on Portland's streets.

Using street names like Satan, Diablo, Rage, and Roadkill, and group
affiliations such as Nihilistic Gutter Punks, Sick Boys and 420s,
homeless teens and young adults live in a subculture that resembles
Fagan's gang in the classic tale of Oliver Twist.

A practice called "taxing," which some say began as a way to equally
distribute possessions among the homeless, now has Portland street kids
preying on one another in a violent brand of street justice that has
spawned beatings, kidnappings, robberies and at least one killing.

Taxing, they say, is a form of intimidation or punishment for violating
a street rule. Generally, it's a robbery, or assault, or combination of
the two by one homeless person against another in exchange for a certain
privilege or a sense of belonging. In some cases, the violence has
spread to innocent witnesses or others who try to intervene.

For several years, Portland police have struggled to stop these crimes,
but they are unsure how prevalent the problem is because many go
unreported.
"It's hard to make an impact," Portland Detective Mark Georgioff said.

Yet from the cases stacking up on their desks, detectives have noticed
the suspects getting younger and the injuries more seve broken jaws,
loss of eyesight, even death.

"They are gangs. The difference is they don't have a roof over their
heads," Detective Ron Alexander said. "They make up a lot of lore to
justify their actions. But they're just street thugs."
A violent pecking order

A hierarchy has evolved among the homeless, with veterans taking
leadership roles and setting rules for so-called "newbies."

If a person being "taxed" does not stand up and challenge the assault,
he or she is then put on a so-called "leash," meaning they must follow
the directions of their assailant, or newfound "street dad" or "street
mom."

Sam Condron, 24, lived on Portland's streets for four years until he
landed in prison for a beating.

Known on the street as Satan, Condron said taxing began as a way to
"even out" who had what possessions. But even Condron believes it's
gotten out of hand.

"I think taxing now is beyond what it should be," he said. "It's turned
into 'I don't like you, so I rob you.' "

Their weapons include fists, knives, brass knuckles, and metal chains
with padlocks on the end they call "smileys" for the imprint they leave.

Witnesses who intervene become victims themselves.

Two years ago, 42-year-old Richard Clayton Crosby died from a brain
hemorrhage after more than a dozen street youths beat him at Southwest
Second Avenue and Ankeny Street once he stumbled into the middle of a
fight between two young women. Nine were charged with manslaughter;
three pleaded guilty to lesser charges.

This summer, when two armed Portland arson investigators tried to break
up an assault on the edge of Tom McCall Waterfront Park, at least 15
street youths jumped them. They punched and kicked the investigators,
and one smacked a fire official in the head with a skateboard.

"We were armed, but you just don't pull out a firearm unless you're
going to use it," said Rick McGraw, one of the investigators attacked.
"Here I think I'm chasing a bad guy into a pack of potentially good
kids. But everybody was hitting me from behind. We were getting our
butts kicked."

In mid-March, two 14-year-old school girls riding TriMet were maced and
robbed of their backpacks because of a look or remark that their female
attackers found condescending. In April 2005, a blind man waiting for a
Max train on Southwest Morrison Street was robbed of his cane, glasses
and hat.

Two years ago, two teen-agers were lured to Waterfront Park, where a
group of street youths stripped them of their clothes, down to their
boxer shorts, and left them shivering on a street corner.

"I was just appalled this could happen in broad daylight," said Donna
Alexander, a mother of one of the teenagers targeted, "and nobody did
anything about it."

Attacked in the park

Condron said he used to "squat" in a tent in Washington Park or in
abandoned houses but often hung out with his buddies at O'Bryant Square.
They call it "Paranoia Park" because a police satellite office sits on
its perimeter.

There, late in the afternoon of Sept. 30, 2005, Condron and his street
friends turned on Jeremiah Hager and his girlfriend, police and court
papers show. Hager thinks he was attacked and robbed because he was
dating Condron's ex-girlfriend; Condron said it was because Hager had
taken some of his clothes.

Condron and several of his supporters circled Hager, ordered him to drop
his backpack and remove his black steel-toed boots. Benjamin Smythe, a
21-year-old called "Youngster," ran toward Hager and kicked him in the
jaw, knocking him out.

Another, Nathan Hayes, a 20-year-old who goes by "Diablo," stole Hager's
backpack and boots, leaving his own beat-up leather boots behind.

"If I fought back," Hager said recently, "they'd kill me."

They broke Hager's nose and cracked his jaw in three places. While he
underwent surgery that night, his assailants, according to police
reports, played cards near the fountains outside Keller Auditorium.

Hager was hospitalized for a week and a half, then spent nearly two
months recovering at his mother's house. Five people -- known on the
street as Satan, Diablo, Rage, Youngster and Voodoo -- were arrested and
convicted on felony charges.

Hager, 22, now holds a full-time job, but he had been living on
Portland's streets on and off for four years.

"They're doing this because they get this rush of power. Most of them
think that the world owes them," Hager said. "They all need to grow up."

Condron is in custody at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in
Pendleton for Hager's beating. His release date is December 2006.

"I don't feel a lot of guilt," Condron said, after he matter-of-factly
rattled off Hager's injuries. "He knew better. He got what he deserved.
. . Maybe a little more than he deserved."

Condron dismissed characterizations of his associates as gangsters.

"It's a family," Condron said. "We don't have our own families, so we
make our own mom and dad, brothers and sisters."

Yet, while in custody, Condron said he has begun to think about his life
on the streets.

"Revenge doesn't solve everything. It's not necessarily the best way to
do it," he said. "But I couldn't very well have gone to the police."

Difficult to crack down

Police say the reluctance of the homeless to report crimes makes their
job difficult. Most victims are afraid that any contact they have with
law enforcement will bring them only more trouble on the street. Or
they're escaping abuse or other problems at home and don't want their
parents to learn their whereabouts.

Others have simply come to accept the "taxing" assaults and robberies as
a reality of street life.

If a crime is reported, tracking down the suspects and even finding the
victim to testify in court is another daunting challenge, police and
prosecutors said. Witnesses are usually other street youths who are
fearful of getting involved.

"When that is your category of victim -- a street youth or homeless
person -- the odds are pretty good that the assailants won't be brought
to justice," said Donald Rees, a Multnomah County deputy district
attorney.

In an unusual move, Detective Troy King once distributed a flier with an
assault victim's photo on it so officers could help him locate the
victim in a case that a witness reported.

"You shouldn't have to do that," King said. "It's frustrating because
you feel like you're fighting a spreading disease and you just want to
stop it."

Over the past several years, police have briefed officers at Central
Precinct roll calls about what to watch out for and, for a brief time,
assigned a team of two bicycle cops to talk to homeless youths on the
street. Police also coordinate efforts with downtown social service
agencies.
Investigators do learn of the more dire cases and, more often, those
that involve victims who are not homeless, or so-called "housies."

Jeremy Treb-Pollock, who used to hang out downtown with many of the
homeless youths but lives with his parents, was robbed at knifepoint in
May by a young homeless pair, "Alcatraz," 18, and "Flower," 24. One held
a knife to his gut, the other had one to his throat as they robbed him
of his wallet and CD player on Southwest Oak Street. Treb-Pollock didn't
know their real names but identified them to police through photographs,
and they were arrested.

"I don't have a doubt in my mind, if I didn't cooperate, they would have
cut me," Treb-Pollock said. "It woke me up to what's really going on out
there. Now I avoid Pioneer Courthouse Square. I stay away from the hot
zones."

Pettit, the Yakima teen-ager pulled from the library and thrown over the
I-405 overpass, was partly targeted because he was wearing another
homeless person's dog collar. He fell 25 feet and landed in dirt next to
the freeway. He limped to a fire station a couple of blocks away and
phoned police.

Rees prosecuted five defendants, who pleaded guilty to attempted
kidnapping and received prison terms of one to two years. It was
difficult, he said, because the victim was a transient who had to be
found and bused to Portland for the court case.

"The defendant was made to feel as if he was this 'out-of-town'
interloper who did not understand the rules of the streets of Oregon,"
Rees said. "He was extremely fearful of returning to Portland. These
people think they can get away with these crimes since no one will
report it. But this case showed that's not true."

Paul J. Berg wrote:
Paul J. Berg wrote:
From The (Portland) Oregonian newspaper

Attacks by homeless youths grow more violent and often go unreported,
frustrating police

A lot (most) of these aren't kids - they are young adults. There was a
teen girl with special needs killed by a group of young adults - I
think the oldest was 24 - a year or so ago. Thow their asses in prison
for life, I say.

-L.