PORTLAND, Ore. — For the first time since Portland City Council passed a new prohibited camping ordinance in early May, police on Friday arrested a homeless person for refusing to move or take an offer of shelter. However, the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office declined to book the person in jail.
Willamette Week was first to report on the arrest Monday. Portland ostensibly began enforcement of the new ordinance at the beginning of July, but this arrest marked the first time that the more drastic consequences of the ordinance have come to bear.
According to a statement from the Portland Police Bureau, officers arrested a man identified as Alasdair Macdonald around 9:15 a.m. on Friday for unlawful camping near Northeast 28th Avenue and Alberta Street. Both police and city outreach workers had spoken with Macdonald "several times" prior, PPB said, and he refused to accept shelter or any other services.
On Friday, Macdonald was given a last chance to seek shelter, including access to a tiny home, police said.
"Macdonald was told his options would be to accept services or he’d be arrested," PPB said. "Macdonald stated he would rather be arrested than go to the tiny home."
Cited and released
After taking Macdonald into custody, officers took him to the Multnomah County Detention Center. But instead of being booked into jail, he was cited and released. According to Mayor Ted Wheeler's office, Macdonald was cut loose because the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office refused to book him.
Wheeler expressed his displeasure with that decision in a statement:
“I am disappointed by the Sheriff’s decision to refuse to book individuals arrested for violating the law. My office met with the Sheriff and her team several times over the last year and a half to receive input on the City’s public camping laws. In August 2023, the Sheriff declared 'open booking' and in later meetings specifically discussing booking criteria, her representatives explicitly stated publicly that booking restrictions had been lifted. That is clearly not the case.
"The Sheriff has expressed in other conversations that law enforcement must respect the expectations of the community and hold people who violate the law accountable. Her decision in this situation does not align with those statements or with community expectations as we work to address the issue of the highest concern to our residents.
"I am deeply concerned by this disconnect and what it may mean for future efforts to improve public safety, including enforcement of drug possession beginning September 1 for those who decline deflection. I urge the Sheriff to reconsider her position,” Wheeler concluded.
In response to requests for comment, city commissioners Mingus Mapps, Carmen Rubio and Dan Ryan all expressed surprise at the decision not to book Macdonald, saying that they were unaware that this would be MCSO's policy for illegal camping arrests.
"The Sheriff's policy raises important questions about the enforceability of City laws and the broader implications for public safety," Mapps said in a statement. "I have reached out to the City Attorney's office for clarification on what this means for City administration and enforcement."
Some Portlanders expressed frustration with the Sheriff's position. Todd Littlefield, a lifelong resident and member of the Lents Neighborhood Livability Association, has dealt with camps surrounding his home for years. He profoundly disagrees with Sheriff Morrisey O'Donnell.
"This problem will never be solved with the current crop of people that we have, leadership that we have at the county, because none of them want to do anything that needs to be done," he said. "If the Sheriff's not going to enforce the laws the city puts in place for a very good reason, she's in the wrong job. She should be a homeless advocate."
The sheriff's response
In a lengthy statement of her own released Tuesday afternoon, Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O'Donnell made clear that the decision not to book Macdonald was not a one-off instance, but a policy that she stands behind.
"As the elected official charged with managing the jail, I believe we need to utilize the corrections system as a place for people who pose a genuine danger to the public," O'Donnell said, in part, "and that does not include individuals whose only offense is living unsheltered."
Even if people arrested for illegal camping aren't booked into jail, O'Donnell said that the consequences are there. Someone handed a criminal citation is expected to appear in court, and the citation still carries a potential fine of up to $100, up to 7 days in jail, or both.
"Arresting and booking our way out of the housing crisis is not a constructive solution," O'Donnell continued. "Incarceration is a costly, short-term measure that fails to address the complex underlying issues. We need to continue to focus on creating pathways out of homelessness through evidence-based, sustainable solutions that enhance public safety for all residents."
Though O'Donnell did, as Wheeler suggested, open up booking back in August 2023, the sheriff clarified that she specifically cited violations of Oregon law, not local ordinances — and Portland police policy for taking people to jail is supposed to follow the MCSO's own booking policy, she said.
Nor should the city have been surprised at the outcome in this case, O'Donnell indicated.
"The Sheriff’s Office did not receive any request or communication from the Portland Police Bureau or City of Portland about adding the Public Camping Ordinance to its booking criteria prior to the city enforcing the ordinance," O'Donnell said. "Our communications with the Mayor’s office pertaining to the Public Camping Ordinance began in Spring 2023 and clearly outlined city ordinance violations as not bookable and being eligible for citations only.
"I will not be directing the Sheriff’s Office to book any individual on city ordinance violations."
'I want to be where I'm loved'
On Tuesday, KGW reporter Blair Best found Alasdair Macdonald close to his former camp, his belongings now gone. He gestured with a green illegal camping notice posted by the city, now held in his hand.
"This is actually the campsite notice that they put up on the day that they took my camp," he said. "I’ve been a nuisance to some of these neighbors by not cleaning up my camp."
According to Macdonald, he's lived in this area for as many as six years. But Friday brought a new experience for him.
"Friday, I woke up to police surrounding me — I was not free to go," he said. "They offered me a tiny home, I really appreciated that. I was willing to take it, but they told me it was not really a choice you had to make. 'You’re going to a tiny home.' I sort of put my brakes on."
Macdonald described being taken to jail by police, but said he wasn't booked because "there's no actual crime." When he got back to Northeast Alberta Street, he lay down on the sidewalk to sleep — all of his things were gone by then.
Being in this pocket of Northeast Portland has enabled Macdonald to stay off opioids like fentanyl, he said, which are rampant downtown. He's managed to stay clean from them for six years because of it, he claimed.
"I don’t know what it will take for me to finally snap," he said. "I feel like I’m down and out, like I have nothing. I don’t want that feeling ... I want to be where I’m loved and appreciated, and that’s right here on Alberta."
And according to some neighbors, Macdonald isn't wrong about being appreciated. Multiple people told KGW that Macdonald is known as friendly and helpful, though he's always declined shelter and services.
One person had the opposite opinion, however, saying that Macdonald's campsite took up multiple parking spots along the side of the street and that his behavior was often problematic over the years.
While court records do indicate that Macdonald has had many brushes with law enforcement dating from 2019 all the way back to the 1990s, KGW was unable corroborate a claim that the clearing of his camp was related to any suspected crime beyond the illegal campsite.
Macdonald said that he lost the citation ordering him to appear in court on the prohibited camping violation.
Camping ban enforcement
While enforcement of the new camping ordinance was set to begin July 1, Wheeler's office said the weather emergency during Portland's early July heat wave prompted them to pause camp removals for over a week.
Regardless, the city's Impact Reduction Program has performed 3,620 site assessments since July 1, Wheeler's office said, and the Street Services Coordination Center reviews campsites "that scored in the top 10%" for negative impact.
For most camps contacted by outreach workers or police through this program, Wheeler's office said that people either accepted shelter offers or otherwise complied with camping restrictions.
Macdonald's campsite was the first referred by the city to PPB's Neighborhood Response Team for arrest.