I don't know about Laaka Swego, but I'm starting to suspect there's something extra in the water supply around here that the water reports aren't testing for.

Sal Monella for PDX mayor!

Wow...maybe the guy is innocent? Isn't there a presumption about that? Maybe the cop scrapped his finger while beating the crap out of a senior citizen after entering onto his property without a warrant. Nothing says the Lake O police are any better than the Po Po.

If there is one police department worse than PPB it is LOPD. They seem to really like to violate people's rights, and pretty much are a bunch of racist good 'ol boys.

Also, administrative warrants are pretty much a joke. I hope the homeowner is found not guilty and than sues the heck out of LO.

The LOPD chief stated as much in an article a year or so ago.

"You have business here, son""

"Keep moving"

Harassing people to keep crime down, that's the LO way

NoPo, I'm glad you know so much about this case. I'm sure you've read the reports and talked to all of the eyewitnesses. I find it hilarious that people will jump to an uninformed conclusion in the course of accusing others of reaching an uniformed conclusion in their decision making.

Well Chris, It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that something got way out of hand for a simple tree cutting violation!
Some Police take into consideration the seriousness of a crime before they go gestapo. Some don't.
If you can't grasp the fact that taking an old man to the ground for a possible simple city tree code violation is profoundly stupid.
Just get off his property and send him a citation already.

For cutting down a tree on his own property?? Really?? I'll bite off more than a finger. Guaranteed.

Don't be cuttin' any trees down without a permit in Portland either. The PPD will come after you big time.
Come to think of it...don't plant anything unauthorized either!

dman

"Well Chris, It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that something got way out of hand for a simple tree cutting violation!"

-Agreed

As far everything else is concerned, just wait until the facts come out before you reach a damning conclusion about how anyone acted when you have no knowledge what what took place. Would doing so be such a radical concept that only a rocket surgeon could grasp?

Good people in this town (LO) are finding it a strange place to live these days. Much like the residents of Portland, we find ourselves enmeshed with a raft of interlopers with titles like: staff, WDW, mayor, councilor, consultant, and now police.

Everything that happens in LO these days is political, designed to hurry our once fair city into urban doom. There is no conspiracy here, just a lot of people being paid to work all day with one another to enlarge their "vision" and influence and expand their importance and job security. If there is more to it, I'll leave that to others to decide, but citizens have little to no hope of stopping such a growing force.

How does this relate to Gary? He thought, and probably still thinks he owns his property and everything on it. He probably thinks that he should be able to do reasonable things on his property that others may not like (plant a garden or put a swing set near a tree grove). He is probably old enough to believe that property rights are part of our intrinsic rights as Americans and that our elected officials, government and police should be fighting FOR us, not against us to protect our rights as citizens.

At least, this is what I believe. And I hope that belief is not dead and our rights are not being sold down the river on a sea of land use regulations that strip us of our individual rights and sell them to the likes of con artists and bureaucrats who value only themselves.

Chris, I am more informed on this case than you think, and also very familiar with how the LOPD operates. Many of the officers in LO get off on acting like tough guys, and LOPD is used routinely for the mayor and councils political advantage. To take down and injure a small old man like this "suspect" is disgusting and wrong, especially for a tree code issue. One of these days the LOPD will screw around with the wrong person and they will than find the Feds taking over the department. There is a good 'ol boys network within LOPD that violates rights all the time, and it will catch up to them.

This happens more often than people realize. I've known of two officers who were bitten (one lost the end of his finger) as well as a local convenience store worker who still has a nasty set of scars on the side of one hand.

There's little as nasty as a human bite (unless it's being bitten by a chimp).

NoPo -- Right on!

NoPo, then what is your basis of knowledge with this case other than gossip? Are you the defense attorney? Did you sit on the Grand Jury that indicted the defendant? Were you an eyewitness? Otherwise, you don't know what eyewitnesses have said and haven't seen the statements of the accused. If you know as much as you claim you do, then you know the accused is a wealthy, politically connected person in L.O.. I take it you would be okay with the following rush to judgment thinking by just reading a blurb in The O and then drawing from a bias: The accused lives in Lake Oswego, therefore he is wealthy. He is someone not used to being told what to do, especially by some blue collar cop. His sense of entitlement led him to conclude he was above a legal directive and he was the one who needlessly caused thing to escalate.

Other than your vague promise that you are "more informed" than I think, what is the difference between that line of thinking and your line of thinking?

He thought, and probably still thinks he owns his property and everything on it. He probably thinks that he should be able to do reasonable things on his property that others may not like (plant a garden or put a swing set near a tree grove).

CoPo's BES slapped an "environmental overlay" on property I used to think I owned (since I bought and paid for it). Hundreds of pages of "regulations" were sent to me. No tree-cutting of any sort. No planting of non-native species (by the way, a vegetable garden qualifies as "planting non-native species"). Any alterations to the house must first be approved. This "process" involved submitting architectural renderings and a fee of $1200; upon receipt, they would decide whether or not to allow the work to proceed.

When they started sending this stuff, my back deck (five feet up) was rotting and starting to pull away from the house. I quickly dismantled it and built a new one, then sold the place.

Granted, there was a small creek at the very back of "my" property, but I managed the place with care; even leaving dead snags down by the creek for wildlife habitat. Heck, beavers moved in down there and built a small dam. Obviously, wildlife was thriving under my management. Yet CoPo bureaucrats decided that they just had to impose rules and regulations, and that I should be required to obtain their okey-dokey to do just about anything on "my" property.

When the first inch-thick stack of regulations arrived, (declaration of "environmental overlay", and "regulations regarding plantings")I could see that it'd be just a matter of time before they attempted to strip all of my property rights. So I beat them to the punch, then bailed.

Max -- I once had a client whose property was inside the Johnson Creek overlay. I was able to get an interview with a pair of cute recent grads from planning school so I could understand the rules. They told me that tomatoes would be a violation as a 'non-native' species. Always the wise guy, I asked if using the acreage to grow native Oregon truffles would violate the rule. They scanned some papers and replied, 'They aren't on the Portland plant list.'

'They aren't on the Portland plant list.'

Any bets that pot is on the list.....

Environmental overlays are really a community-building exercise. The more regs there are, the more people get to call up the authorities and squeal on their neighbors. Only planning school grads could imagine this type of Utopia.