PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK

Her son found the syringes at four o'clock Tuesday afternoon. The gutter,
corner of 25th Avenue and Northeast Knott. She didn't waste any time
calling the cops. The nonemergency number. Jane Skopil knew she had a
problem, but she also knew it didn't add up to 9-1-1.

Skopil is a nurse at Providence Portland Medical Center. She recognized the
debris. Blood-clogged syringes, abused and discarded. Drug addict litter,
probably tossed out the window of a car.

Hazardous waste. Not the stuff you wanted to leave in the can for the
garbage hauler or a trash picker down on his luck.

The dispatcher said she'd send a car. She didn't say a needle drop in
Northeast was a low-priority call.

Skopil went to work with a needle magnet, a tool of her trade. Separated
out the sharp objects. Left a note telling the neighborhood kids to steer
clear of the mess.

Waited for the cops.

Called at 5. Called again at 6.

At 6, the dispatcher said there was no record of her calls.

And at 7? At 7 o'clock, the syringes still were in the gutter and a
sergeant from Northeast Precinct was on the phone.

Throw them in the garbage, he said, as Skopil remembers it.

No way, Skopil said: "What if the garbageman gets stuck?"

Well, we're not sending anyone, the sergeant said. That's not our
responsibility.

"Whose responsibility is it?"

I don't know, Skopil recalls the sergeant saying. They're your
responsibility. They're in your yard.

"He was really irritated. We had words," Skopil said. "He didn't want to
deal with me. He might as well have said, 'I don't care what you do with
them.' "

So, imagine you're this sergeant.

Mild-mannered. Midshift.

And imagine you have a lot on your mind when you get word some lady keeps
calling about a boat-load of syringes on her stoop.

Like it's the first time. Like there aren't bloody needles sprinkled on
lawns throughout the city.

Like the precinct is some social-service agency that gets called every time
a bike gets swiped, the baby sitter is running late or something goes bump
in the night.

She should have called the fire department. Those boys are more EMT oriented.

And you -- or dispatch -- should have calmly told her that so she'd learn
something from this.

But you're running low on patience and people skills.

You don't have time for this.

Shots fired in Humboldt? A parking-lot assault on Alberta? A domestic beef
that spills onto the street?

Those are the desperate calls. Those fill up the shifts. Those are the fun
and games in the 25,480 emergency or priority calls the precinct responded
to last year.

Needles in the weeds?

That's life in the big city, lady, not some crime in progress.

It's nasty stuff. . . . but the nasty truth is that it's not what we do.

Who does? Who knows? Maybe you should perform a public service and summon
yourself. But calling the cops?

Get real.

Reality?

The reality is there aren't enough cops to put a dent in auto theft, much
less police our lawns.

The reality is the community better get used to doing more and more of the
policing.

But the reality of last Tuesday night at 25th and Needle Park?

Even as Jane Skopil was on the phone, going back and forth with an
irritated sergent, a patrol car pulled up to the curb and a cop got out and
cleaned up the mess.

"Saw a bumper sticker today," Cmdr. Derrick Foxworth said: " 'I'm always
late, but I'm worth waiting for.' "

You can reach Steve Duin by phone at 221-8597, by fax at 294-5159, by
e-mail at Steveduin@aol.com, or by mail at 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland,
Ore. 97201.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)