Officer Eli Arnold was hiding on Nov. 1, watching a man in a black rain jacket, khakis and a fanny pack hand out what he thought was fentanyl to people in exchange for cash.
Many of the people who interacted with the man in the black rain jacket then immediately lit up “an unknown substance on a piece of tinfoil.”
Officers moved in and arrested the man in the rain jacket, finding about 9 grams of fentanyl on him — far more fentanyl than is usual for one person to have, police and court documents state.
That man, Eric Hurtado, was not the first suspected drug dealer to be arrested near Southwest 13th Avenue and Yamhill Street, a relatively new drug-dealing and drug-using hotspot in Portland.
Dozens of people have been gathering at or within a few blocks of the intersection for weeks. It’s among the most popular open-air places for drug users and dealers to congregate since downtown Portland’s boarded-up Washington Center was raided last year, police said.
The Portland Police Bureau has arrested at least seven people in the area for suspected drug dealing in less than a month, court records show. The Portland Clinic on Southwest 13th Avenue and Yamhill Street recently announced it would close to patient care, citing safety concerns.
Drug dealers and police are aware of each other and have been playing a cat-and-mouse game in the area.
On Oct. 25, for example, Officer Daniel Hall was at the intersection when he saw a man “surrounded by a large population of transient individuals who had cash in their hands,” according to court records. As Hall approached, people whistled and shouted “Six up,” meaning police were coming.
The man surrounded by people with cash in their hands looked up, spotted Hall, then leaned over some planter boxes and walked off, court records state. Hall checked inside the planter boxes and found clear baggies with white powder inside that later tested positive for fentanyl. Police arrested the man and found about $76.50 of “loose disorganized bills” in the man’s pockets.
That same night, Hall was approaching a parking lot near Southwest 14th Avenue and Yamhill Street when someone yelled “Six up,” and Hall caught sight of a man whose right pants pocket appeared to be filled to the brim with cash. Searching the man, police found $1,895 in cash and 17 grams of fentanyl pills. They also came up with a phone, coated in a white powder, that continuously pinged while police searched him.
“Hey can I come see you I only got 140 so not to much this time,” one message read, according to court records.
The arrests in the area have continued.
One week later, Arnold, who lost a run for Portland City Council this year, was watching people gathered near Southwest 13th Avenue and Taylor Street. After seeing a man repeatedly make what appeared to be drug transactions, he radioed to another officer on the Portland Police Bureau’s Bike Squad that there was probable cause to make an arrest. Two officers arrested the man, finding white powder in baggies, cash and pills.
At least three other arrests since then, including an arrest Friday, followed a similar pattern.
In the approximately three years since the Bike Squad has been surveilling drug-dealing groupings and making arrests, Arnold has seen a pattern emerge, he said.
Something about a particular spot will draw in drug dealers and users. There might be a convenience store nearby, or benches and rain cover, or light from a nearby building or a MAX stop. Then, Arnold said, “the efficiency gains of grouping up will start to drag everybody more toward that one spot,” and a drug hotspot comes into being.
Police then focus their enforcement on the space, until the dealers and users disperse for good.
A new hotspot will then pop up a few blocks or more away, and the police again start targeting the dealers, Arnold said. The cycle pushes the groupings around the city.
For years, Portland’s drug dealing was centered in Chinatown, near the Greyhound Station. When police started aggressively “picking off” dealers there around 2021, the dealers moved to Northwest 2nd Avenue and Glisan Street, then to Northwest 5th Avenue and Davis Street, and eventually to Southwest 4th Avenue and Washington Street in front of the Washington Center. The one on Washington Street got so big, it was shut down in a widely publicized raid.
Arnold first saw people gathered at 13th and Yamhill around Oct. 30, and it quickly became clear to him that something had to be done.
The large open-air drug markets began appearing in Portland soon after Measure 110, decriminalizing possession and use of drugs in Oregon, went into effect in 2021, Arnold said. When users understood they could use drugs openly without fear of arrest, he said, they started gathering near the source of the drugs — the dealers. The dealers, in turn, often benefited from the cover provided by having more people around them.
Soon there was a backlash to Measure 110, and lawmakers repealed the decriminalization of drug possession during a short session earlier this year. Beginning Sept. 1, possessing drugs was again a misdemeanor crime.
Arnold said he has found that the places where people buy fentanyl are usually south of West Burnside Street, where he believes the dealing is likely connected to the Mexican cartels, selling primarily fentanyl, Arnold said. Those dealers rarely, if ever, go north of Burnside, where dealers associated with local gangs sell crack cocaine, meth, Xanax and smaller quantities of fentanyl.
It takes concentrated enforcement and multiple arrests of drug dealers for people to give up on an illegal drug market.
Now a critical mass has gathered at 13th and Yamhill, an area that has some particular disadvantages for police, chiefly because it’s harder for them to observe suspected drug dealers, Arnold said.
“I can just tell you that this is a harder spot to use our surveillance techniques on, the way we normally do it,” Arnold said, adding that he didn’t want to say too much for fear of giving drug dealers and users information that could be useful for them.
The place where the bulk of people gather is lined with tall trees, and there are no buildings to the east of The Portland Clinic from which officers could easily monitor the scene without detection. It’s unclear, though, if those are the reasons police say surveillance in that area is more challenging.
Despite the difficulties, Arnold is confident the police will be able to pressure the users and dealers enough in the coming weeks to make them stay away and find another place.
“I wouldn’t expect it to last too much longer there,” Arnold said. “At least, it’s my goal to kill that spot here shortly.”
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