Public comment: Man is threatening homeless with ax

Presenter: Public comments criticize the Police Department and ask: What is the city doing to protect us? On June 22: 

Nayeli Cisneros: My name is Nayeli Cisneros, and I’m here today to bring awareness to the growing pattern of harassment and intimidation happening towards our immigrant community. It has been happening in different forms, distinct ways, and different places to different people.

For me personally it has been in person. While canvassing for signatures for a nonprofit I was a founder of, I was asked if I was legal or if I was permitted to create my own nonprofit. They yelled at me and told me that they would never support me because I was just here taking jobs.

It has been online, in my comments, under pictures of me and my family. People telling me directly that me and my family should pack up and go back to our country and some other profanity that I am going to skip.

For a community member who owns his own construction company, it was in the form of a very small note on his windshield that carried an enormous weight. On one side, the number to the ICE tip line and on the other side, one word, in all capitals: ‘RUN.’

These are not isolated incidents. These are part of a growing pattern of intimidation, and many are too afraid to report it to the EPD, or do not believe that it will lead to any meaningful protection for us. 

I want to be clear of some things that are often suggested in this as a response. People are already doing everything in their power to avoid these situations. We’re already doing everything legal and nonconfrontational available to us. We report it to people, coordinators, officials, report blocked people on social media. 

We avoid going to certain places in town known to be less than friendly to those of us with more melanated skin or accents. We stay silent to prevent escalation. But the pattern continues, and it escalates. Which leads me to the questions that bring me here today:

What consequences actually exist for people engaging in this type of harassment and intimidation in our community? What resources exist for families who are threatened, but do not know where to turn, or do not know how to trust that the reporting will lead to change?

What is the city doing right now to address harassment of our immigrant families by private individuals? What is the city doing to ensure repeated harassment that leads to meaningful accountability, rather than being absorbed quietly by us that are already fearful in our communities? If possible, I would also respectfully request a written response.  

Eliza Brock: My name is Eliza Brock. I’m here as a proud lesbian to speak on EPD’s decision to not provide traffic control or support for the Eugene Pride rally in March, leading the organizers to cancel the outdoor portion of the event.

To quote Eugene Pride’s statement on the subject, they stated that ‘any of our volunteers that were in the street could be viewed by EPD as engaging in disorderly conduct. This despite the fact that EPD has provided traffic control for at least four unpermitted marches in Eugene this year, including a Charlie Kirk rally in March.’ 

In light of this and the bodycam footage released last month showing an officer making racist comments and trivialising domestic violence, it’s becoming obvious which people EPD intends to protect and which people they intend to suppress and assault.

I echo the sentiment I’ve heard in the wider LGBTQ community when I say we are disappointed, but not surprised that we are not fooled by empty buzzwords and symbols without material support that we’ve learned from our elders and do not put our faith in the police.

For that reason, I am not here to ask for apologies or backtracking from EPD, rather, to demand that Chief Skinner resign and that EPD funds be directed towards organizations that actually protect and serve the people.

Kamryn Stringfield: My name is Kamryn Stringfield, and I am a lesbian transgender woman living in Eugene, Oregon. As I said in my opinion piece in the Eugene Weekly last week, I joined those who are calling for Chief Skinner’s removal. I won’t take so much time to speak on that because I’ve already explained why that is.

So today I want to speak on two things. First, I know that you’re going to discuss surveillance technology again soon. We as Eugenians are not in need of more mass surveillance systems now.

We are in need of services and resources locally that prevent poverty and crime, rather than expanding the surveillance state and using our tax dollars to give EPD more cameras to spy on us all. The community made this clear when we rejected Flock last year. As it stands, there’s already too much surveillance here with drones, Guardian trailers and the Stingray system. We need to cut back, not buy more.

Worth noting that the Drones As First Responders program is at least partially funded by the Eugene Police Foundation, and we continue to demand full transparency around the funds of the Eugene Police Foundation, and we reject any new ALPRs.

Second, I want to bring attention to the news this morning, as was mentioned from Eugene Pride and a note posted to their website. They canceled their rally in March, in part because of the non-cooperation from the Eugene Police Department and threats to charge those who choose to march in the streets with disorderly conduct.

However, as Eugene Pride pointed out, Eugene police afforded full protection to a white supremacist event in the fall of last year.

As Mayor Knudson recognized in her proclamation of Pride Month this year, Stonewall was an uprising. But what was it an uprising against? It was an unpermitted uprising against the NYPD and a violent system of repression that was cracking down on their community. The struggle of Stonewall in 1969 is alive today, almost six decades later.

This community will protect our LGBTQ+ members as we have in the past. However, it is necessary to call out these threats of charges against the march participants and lack of cooperation from EPD because the chief and the city often try to frame the department as progressive and our protectors. We can see that this is not the case.

City: Our next speaker is Tim Lewis.

Tim Lewis: I got a call the other day from Neighbors Feeding Neighbors. They feed the homeless folks down in Washington Jefferson Park. It was two days ago. They said there was a problem down there, so I went down there with my camera because I do video production work, as many might know.

And there was a guy who was parked in a van and he had an ax and he was sharpening his ax, and he was wiggling it back and forth right toward all the guests who were feeding there.

So I was videotaping him, went up to ask what was up. He flipped out, screaming and yelling. He attacked me later on and he wouldn’t leave. We called 911—someone called 911. The police rolled by a couple of times.

He stayed there for nine hours on that day. He stayed there for another nine hours yesterday. And he’s still at the park, at Washington Jefferson Park, on Washington Street between 4th and 5th. The reason he is there is because he hates homeless people, he hates women, he hates Blacks, and he’s still there.

We called 911. Nothing has been done. What the police did do on the, two days ago. was coming to the park and arrest a young woman in the park and took her away. But he was still there doing his nasty deeds, screaming and yelling at everybody.

And I did some research on this guy. And this guy has quite the history. And if you want to see something a little bit even more harsher than the (EPD Officer Martin) Siller body cam stuff, if this guy goes off and you don’t do anything about it, you guys are in deep s—.

City: Our next speaker is Sam Sanderson:

Sam Sanderson: I come here today to share my immense disappointment with the city of Eugene and their absolute ineptitude in responding to the presence of ICE. Our city is in crisis. Our neighbors are being ripped from their homes and families. And you have given us excuse after excuse when you ask for your support. This is a blatant violation of human rights, and it is aided and abetted by our very own Eugene Police Department.

We have video evidence of ICE vehicles parked in the parking lot, and I have seen with my own eyes EPD’s vehicles parked in the federal building and officers going inside. The sheer number of EPD officers dispatched to patrol the Federal Building is staggering. This is not simply protection of federal property. This is blatant collaboration.

I don’t need to define what a sanctuary state is to get this point across. There’s absolutely no reason to dispatch two separate riot suppressant vehicles in over eight officers on bicycles to surveil a peaceful group of about 15 people. I have witnessed this firsthand.

ICE would not be here kidnapping and brutalizing our neighbors if not for the support of EPD. When I marched in solidarity with 4J teachers on May day, our protest was followed by an armored police truck and six officers on bicycles. I was walking next to educators pushing strollers.

It has become clear to me that EPD serves not to protect our community, but to intimidate its citizens and silence their voices. These are the voices that elected each and every one of you.

It is your responsibility to rein in this corrupt department and effect change when you can. We demand transparency from your office and the Eugene Police Department. Immediate annulment of support from EPD to ICE and Chief Skinner’s resignation papers. Use your power to stand up for the people that pay your checks instead of sitting on your f—ing hands. 

City: Our next speaker is Pete Goldlust.

Pete Goldlust: I’m also here in recognition of another proud news day for Chief Skinner, the city of Eugene and our tax-funded police department. Of course, acquiesce to every request by the Trump regime to make way for their giant, massively expensive fence to prevent public access around the Federal building.

We supplied many hours of officer time—how much money and equipment, how much administration time for EPD to stand watch against our community members, with your blessing, to allow federal goons to put this monstrosity up quickly and efficiently.

We paid for all that time assisting them because our city leaders would not stand up for our community against EPD’s collaboration with DHS.

Then just today—hopefully you’ve seen this already in a case by local plaintiffs against the federal government—a federal judge held that the fence was a clear violation of First Amendment rights and of your constituents.

You allowed our tax dollars to be used by our police department for that incursion into our rights, because you, our elected officials, simply wouldn’t refuse to help them.

As reported by the Register-Guard, the judge noted that the recent protests at the Federal Building have been peaceful, even though the fence wasn’t up for most of this recent time, and the GSA only fenced off the courtyard area, not the exterior of the building, which also has breakable windows, suggesting the true purpose of the fence is to stifle speech among your constituents.

Your police department enabled this fence to go up without an ounce of visible pushback. You are responsible for this misuse of public funds at the expense of our rights. This is just one of the latest egregious incidents by Chief Skinner to fail to uphold our community values and side with the thugs who try to divide and threaten us. And yet you stand by him.

Also in the news today, just today, Eugene Pride Festival has canceled its usual march and rally. They are limited now to the fairgrounds only. This was necessitated, according to Pride, due to a host of abuses by EPD, leading to the organization’s complete inability to have any trust in a department that only weeks ago had an officer, a veteran of eight years on the force, caught on camera making overt, abusive, racist and sexist comments.

How is that officer dealt with? Was he fired? Did he lose his pension? No. He was able to resign on his own, keep his pension, and slink off to work as a cop somewhere else. No accountability from EPD, no accountability from the city of Eugene.

Do better. Stand up for Pride. Stand up for your activist community. 

Robert Brock: My name is Robert Brock. I’m a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. 

The Eugene Police Department has received $146 million from Eugene’s general fund—almost 40% of the general fund—on top of another $30 million from the community safety payroll tax. 

What is EPD doing with this funding? Harboring racist officers. Refusing to protect Eugene Pride from bigots harassing our unhoused community. These all represent profound failures to ensure public safety. 

What sort of problems are Eugenians facing? Surveys show that homelessness is one of the biggest concerns for our community. That problem is driven and exacerbated by rising costs of living, a lack of affordable housing, a critically overloaded healthcare system, and a lack of access to addiction and mental health care services.

No amount of arrests, trespassing charges, and homeless sweeps will ever address the root causes of homelessness. We need funding for affordable housing, for accessible health care, for services that can connect people with the resources they need.

EPD is not suited for that, and in fact, they’ve demonstrated their unsuitability through a pattern of brutality against the unhoused community and those experiencing mental distress. We need funding for a real alternative response program.

For decades, we had CAHOOTS, which received nationwide attention for its innovative approach to crisis response. CAHOOTS workers in Eugene were trained to provide medical aid, deescalation assistance with transportation, and could spend the extra time to follow up and connect people with the services they needed.

This led to better outcomes for clients and built rapport with the community they responded to; 18% of emergency calls provided a level of support that EPD couldn’t, and for a fraction of the cost.

Alternative crisis response accessible medical care, including addiction and mental health support and affordable housing is what will make our community safer. These are the programs that need to be a priority in the budget, not a racist and bigoted police force.

Recent events only highlight long running failures of the Eugene Police Department to protect our community, to protect unhoused people, to protect immigrants, and to protect people of color.

This is why EPD funding needs to be redirected towards the public good, towards real community need. And this is why Police Chief Skinner needs to resign. 

Taryn Brevig: My name is Taryn Brevig. In response to the Martin Siller incident, Chief Skinner said in his public statement, you don’t want the entirety of the reputation of the Eugene Police Department to be shaped by one officer’s actions, as many community members have already stated for the past three City Council meetings.

I would like to challenge that this was not just a one off incident by one person, and instead a reflection of the culture that Skinner has allowed in his eight year reign. In 2019, Officer Samuel Tykol killed Eliborio Rodriguez and Chief Skinner has since promoted him to sergeant and he trains new officers.

In 2020, Officer Christopher Drumm stalked and raped a domestic violence victim twice after she called the police for help after demanding answers from EPD. They arrested the rape victim for felony riot charges. Officers Wes Darling, Judson Watson and Joshua West all committed sexual or domestic assault on women.

Former EPD officer Kirsten Cardwell was harassed by her sergeant for four months straight, despite being or excuse me, despite begging to be moved repeatedly. 

She said in her four years as a patrol officer, she was surrounded by a culture of harassment and sexism, and several other female officers left the department shortly after she did, while not responding to community members attempting to report ICE kidnappings.

Recent viral footage shows EPD interfering with rapid responders on behalf of ICE. And those are just the incidents that we know about this one officer’s actions. The narrative ignores that this officer is just the latest example of this culture.

Removing one person alone won’t reform the culture that Chief Skinner would leave behind. So we also demand that the city give civilian oversight bodies the power to act on their findings.

Today, the police auditor and the Civilian Review Board can make recommendations to Chief Skinner, but he holds the power to ignore them. These review boards need to be given teeth so that it’s not up to the police chief whether accountability happens or not.

Currently, the window for logging complaints with the Civilian Review Board is 60 days from the time of the incident. This window should be extended. The 2021 Ad Hoc Committee on Police Policy already recommended that this window should be extended to one year for non-fatal incidents and two years for fatal incidents, as well as requesting the Civilian Review Board reach out to the victims’ families to help them navigate the whole process. I say ‘recommended’ because that committee also has no power.

It’s time for Chief Skinner to resign, and it’s time for real community control to make a stand that this behavior and culture will not be tolerated in Eugene. 

Ember: My name is Ember. Before the fence around the Federal Building went in, myself and a lot of people gathered tonight worked gathering signatures for a proposed Pedestrian Promenade Project on Pearl between 6th and 7th, because we had hoped that that would be an opportunity for our city government to do,  you know, something.

And when I brought those signatures to the Council, my councilwoman emailed me to say that city projects take time and hearings and budgets, which is true.

So I’m sure glad you found a bunch of money in the local road fund to put a sidewalk in next to that fence— a fence that is now coming down, I assume also at taxpayer expense.

So question: Was this sidewalk planned before the fence? Because if not, then the city can in fact move quickly when it is convenient for you. And if it was planned, that’s the sort of opaque leadership that gets councilors recalled.

How are we, the taxpayers, going to be recouped for the local tax money that was spent on the sidewalk that we no longer need, because the fence is coming down?

And for the record, as always, I am not speaking tonight because I believe that this council will save us if we want Eugene to fight fascism, corporate power and federal occupation. We’re going to have to build that power ourselves because we know who protects us. And it’s not EPD and it’s not DHS. It’s not you. It’s us.

So with that (turns back to Council and addresses crowd): Hey friends, come fight fascism with us at the building. It’s fun. We have snacks!  

Mayor Kaarin Knudson: Would you please address the Council with your remarks? There is, of course, time to speak with the public, but this is to speak with City Council. 

Ember: Great. 

Mayor Kaarin Knudson: Thank you. 

Ember: Come hang out at the building with us. There are snacks! And of course, there are many reasons we haven’t seen as many people at the building recently. And, you know, knowing that our city government doesn’t have our backs doesn’t really help with that.

But if you are here because you care about Eugene, then do not let your councilors, EPD, or DHS tell you not to believe your eyes. We protect us and I look forward to continuing to protect us in the Plaza. 

Blair Hickok: Hello, I am Blair Hickok, I’m a TRIO McNair scholar. I did research on housing policy. I’m also a grad student entering the Masters of Public Administration. 

So I have a lot of both lived experience on the streets and academic experience trying to figure out why that is happening so frequently here.

So there’s some things that have been going down for quite a few years. And I chatted about some of them last time I was here, but one of the things that I forgot to mention is some of the myths that we need to bust.

A lot of folks are under the impression that we are busing folks in from out of state and things like that. But if you look at any of the point-in-time counts, that’s just not the case.

We’re looking at less than 2% of people who are on the streets here are not from here. They were priced out of housing here. So that being said, a lot of these folks are also working.

A lot of these folks are working full-time. A lot of these folks are entering homelessness. Like I said last time, disabled, elderly. The other demographic that’s really alarming is women escaping domestic violence with children.

So again, we’ve got these really vulnerable populations that were supposedly going to make housing for, but these are the folks that are severely rent burdened. Their rent costs are over 50% of their income. If they have an income at all, they are going to be imminently priced out of housing.

So my question is, is this middle housing that’s going in and all of this low-income housing and thinking about the fact that the chronically unhoused population is exponentially increasing every year.

Is any of it supportive housing? Because like I said last time, people’s skills, their life skills devolve the longer that they’re on the streets and these folks are getting on the streets for longer.

I was out there 10 years ago. The people are still there. They are still there. When I go out and serve them food, they are still there. I was lucky enough to have a hand up in certain situations. People took chances on me and here I am now today to speak at you as an academic and a scholar with lived experience.

So all that being said, can we stop focusing on the students? Because I also served on the tuition and fee advisory board, and our enrollment is down significantly, and all the housing that’s being put up from them is going to be empty. Thank you. 

Presenter: Public comments at the City Council June 22 report there is a man sharpening an ax and waving it at the city’s homeless.