Summer of love.

It's the gun's fault. Fire them all!

Mere blocks from North precinct. Brazen.

The poor cops are trying. A motorcycle cop even circled around the outdoor tango practice at the gazebo at Peninsula Park last weekend. Every time I see cops these days I give them a thumbs up, and pray for their souls, that they might not succumb to any lurking sadistic impulses pushing their psyches to depravity...

It's a murder now, per the news. Victim was 49, apparently he was walking from a store, had some sort of verbal interaction/confrontation with the guys in the car (not clear if they knew each other from the report), and they shot him. I go between pitying these gang bangers (and with report of two late 20s men as suspects, I'm assuming bangers, dealers, or a combination of the two) for living in such a senseless manner and wanting to march them off a pier for ruining so many lives. One way to keep from going crazy is look at the people trying to do good in these areas - I had a work related event where myself and some colleagues interacted with a group of kids at SEI, and the work the staff there (a lot of whom are in the late teens/late 20s age bracket that is responsible for the gang violence in large part) do with kids who are largely considered "at risk" due to location/economic/family factors is heartening. We should not be satisfied with any gang violence, but celebrate the wins where we get them. The hapless stewardship of the mayor/city council on this is another matter entirely.

Street violence does not encourage the pedestrian or bicycle transportation the city wants. If stopping criminal behavior by gangs isn't reward enough, it is in their best interest to do so to be a cool, hip place to live.

Will the suburbs come back? Does dispersed housing make it more difficult for gangbangers to do their thing? Somehow I can't see anyone dealing drugs at the local Safeway, and the neighborhoods would be all over any shenanigans in residential areas.

There has to be zero tolerance for all gang-related associations, activities, and criminal behavior. What about that jail that has never been used? Is it time we locked some people up?

I think gang-related activity and their criminal behavior would be considered a problem if it were covered by the local print media. Since it isn't covered very much, it's probably not a problem.

If you think of Portland's institutions acting in collusion as one big real estate development corporation, covering actual news would make for poor advertising and could hurt the corporate image.

Gaye. And I'm sure there are a number of officers that pray for the uber-liberal folks who are so blinded by hate that they would indict an entire class of people (rather than individual miscreants), simply because they chose a life of public service. I wasn't one, but I'm sure there are...

We try so very hard to make our hood safe clean and fun.

It's too bad the police have told us openly that such things are not a priority for the leaders who run the city.