GRESHAM: NEW DRUG-FREE ZONES

Crime - Police Officials Say That an Expansion Will Help Clean Up Two
Areas and That Exclusions Can Be Fair

After watching the metro area's only drug-free zone recover from a
slow start and lax enforcement in Rockwood, the Gresham Police
Department is seeking to expand the controversial program.

Police hope to target two new areas: East Burnside Street at 162nd
Avenue and Northeast Eighth Street at Kelly Avenue. Both have been
home to some of Gresham's most violent crimes -- the 162nd area to
summertime shootings and Kelly Avenue to the November baseball-bat
beating of a 71-year-old man.

With the Rockwood zone set to expire in March, city leaders had
expressed hesitation in a renewal but now say they support expansion.

"I'm confident in what they're planning to do," city Councilor
Shirley Craddick said. "I'm sure I'll scrutinize it more than I did
before, thinking it was the magic to address the drug activity in the area."

When the council approved the program in September 2006, police said
they expected drug citations in the area to increase. In fact, they
dropped 24 percent. And police failed to take full advantage of the
zone's main feature: forbidding a suspect from returning for 90 days.

Before Oct. 1, officers made 70 arrests and excluded just 10 percent
of those people. "That's unacceptable," Mayor Shame Bemis said.

Since then, enforcement has jumped. Police have made 46 arrests and
excluded 75 percent of eligible offenders.

Police Chief Carla Piluso acknowledged the program initially "got off
the radar screen," but said refresher training has reinvigorated
officers. With the program now showing stronger enforcement, Piluso
said she thinks expansion would help reduce problems in other high-crime areas.

Piluso, who has been with the police department nearly 30 years, said
she would feel uncomfortable allowing her own teenage daughter to
spend time alone in Rockwood and the other two potential drug-free zones.

"I think they can become areas where our kids can wander through,
where they can wait to catch the (MAX) trains," she said. "They can
become vital areas. But we need to clean them up."

Cleaning up blighted and troublesome neighborhoods has long been the
mantra behind drug-free zones. Portland first introduced the program
in 1992 to target street-level drug dealing. As in Gresham, anyone
excluded from the area cannot return for 90 days, except for
pre-approved reasons. Violators can be arrested for trespassing.

Portland's drug-free program faced numerous legal battles and
revisions through the years. Gresham's ordinance was modeled after
Portland's. Gresham has seen one person recently challenge an
exclusion order, but not the program.

Zones in Portland ultimately met their demise Oct. 1, however, after
a study found that African Americans received exclusions 68 percent
of the time compared with 54 percent for whites. Gresham's
enforcement has not produced similar results. But critics remain.

David Fidanque, executive director of the American Civil Liberties
Union of Oregon, contends it's unconstitutional to ban from an area
someone who is charged with a crime but not convicted.

He also said drug-free zones typically displace rather than dissolve
criminal activity. When the problem moves, he said, so does enforcement.

"There's a tendency to add areas, expand areas. The natural extent of
that would just be to make the entire city of Gresham an exclusion
zone," Fidanque said, tongue firmly in cheek.

The proposed 162nd zone would run into the existing Rockwood zone,
creating a combined span of roughly 35 blocks. But some residents
near Eighth and Kelly worry existing problems will shift into their
neighborhood.

Stuart Cullins, 38, lives at the Elliott House apartments, where the
sign out front reads, "A nice place to live."

As proposed, the new drug-free zone would end one street to the
north, making his block the first where drug dealers could conduct
business but not receive an exclusion.

"I'm definitely worried about that," Cullins said.

Police will meet with area residents at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Rockwood
and again Jan. 21 near downtown Gresham to discuss the program and
seek feedback. Sgt. Mike LeDuc, who oversees the program, said he is
studying complaints about zones in Portland and is looking to
establish checks to ensure exclusions do not show racial disparity.

Rockwood's zone renewal will be reviewed by the City Council on March
4. The new proposals could be evaluated by the council then, too, if
prepared by police.

But LeDuc said the department will proceed only if it finds community backing.

"In this kind of program," he said, "you have to have support or else
it's just not going to work."