VIDEO: Portland police recorded trashing property of unhoused residents

In a video captured by a bystander on Monday, Portland police officers are seen literally kicking bags holding the personal belongings of unhoused residents to the curb. They then disposed of them in a garbage truck.

The incident was recorded at a bus stop near the Portland Post Office, across the street from a section of Deering Oaks Park where many unhoused residents regularly gather. Activity within the park increased during the summer after daytime walk-in services at the Preble Street Resource Center were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and a therapeutic shelter at the University of Southern Maine was shut down.

With unhoused Portland residents left with nowhere to go, advocates have been calling on city officials to decriminalize outdoor camping. It was one of the key demands of the organizers behind the recent City Hall encampment.

The video shows a masked police officer, wearing a truncheon on his belt, kicking possessions left near the bus stop, including backpacks and shoulder bags, into a pile on the curb. Shortly after, the masked officer and an unmasked bike cop are seen helping a sanitation worker throw clothes, blankets, a pillow, a shopping cart, a plastic chair and what appears to be a small tent into a garbage truck.

Two bystanders are seen in the video approaching the officers, protesting the disposal of personal items, which the masked officer can be heard calling “trash.”

“It’s not trash,” Portland resident Rachel Corey, a grad student who recorded the cell phone video, can be heard responding to the officers. She later posted the incident on Twitter.

“To see your stuff thrown away, when it could have been very useful to your existence, is, I think, probably very traumatic,” Corey later told Beacon.

In the video, one bystander continues to voice his disapproval. In response, the masked officer asked, “Are you going to continue to act disorderly?” The man turns away and the other bystander steps between them to deescalate the situation.

“Disorderly conduct is a pretty overarching term,” Corey said. “Almost anything can be disorderly conduct, so when the cop used that language, I picked up on it as setting the stage for a possible arrest.” 

Moments earlier, the same police officer forcefully questioned Corey after noticing that she was filming him. He asked if she was waiting for the bus and told her to get off post office property.

The masked officer pointed Corey out to a third officer who later arrived on scene. That officer approached her and stood behind her, but did not address her.

“It felt like he was mocking my cop watching,” she said. “When I took a step back, he kind of used that as a way to corral me away from what was happening. It was very intimidating. He had his hands below his hips slightly at one point.” 

Corey decided to leave. The third officer followed her to her car, and as she drove out of town towards South Portland, she said he tailed her for several minutes in his cruiser.

“That was uncomfortable for me, for sure,” she said, “but I don’t want to take away from who the cops are giving most of their harassment to — those folks who are unhoused.”

‘When you use police for this, you’re just setting up a repeating cycle’

An encampment erected at Portland City Hall this summer. | Dan Neumann, Beacon

Several unhoused residents and social workers in Deering Oaks Park on Tuesday said the police regularly seize tents because camping isn’t allowed in city parks. They also frequently issue criminal trespassing orders to anyone gathering in the park after 10 p.m.

City officials have maintained that there are still beds available in the city’s Oxford Street Shelter as well as in temporary shelters set up during the pandemic.

But unhoused residents and their allies say the city’s shelter spaces, which are not staffed by social workers, are not designed to address the mental and physical needs of those who are the most susceptible to being chronically homeless, people with untreated trauma, underlying health issues and substance use disorder.

“I just can’t go there. I’d rather sleep out in the woods like an animal,” said Brian, a Yarmouth resident who began camping out with his fiancée two years ago. 

Brian said he was pushed out of Portland’s Baxter Woods by police and told to set up his tent in another part of the city.

Other unhoused residents have been barred from the city shelter, which sometimes issues criminal trespass orders for behavioral infractions. Social workers say some people are avoiding the city shelter while it is still warm, so they don’t incur any infractions now and can use the shelter during the winter.

With people avoiding the city shelter and passing time in the park while Preble Street’s daytime services are curtailed, there is greater potential for unhoused residents to have contact with the police, who maintain a regular presence in the area.

“When you use police for this, you’re just setting up a repeating cycle. You can’t be in the park. Your stuff gets thrown away. You go to jail. You get back out. You do it again. What we’re doing actually isn’t helping anybody,” said Adam Rice, an organizer with the Maine People’s Housing Coalition, which helped organize the City Hall encampment.

The coalition had previously called for the city to establish police liaisons to limit interactions between unhoused residents and law enforcement when safety issues arise.

“Imagine if the police weren’t doing all of these things that might be better suited for a social worker, or a peer support specialist — people who could actually help,” Rice said.

For Corey, the interaction she filmed demonstrated to her that police are ill-equipped to protect and serve unhoused residents, but rather see themselves as responsible for policing a population they are not accountable to.

“The police are there to serve the property-owning class,” she said. “What you see in the video just exemplifies they don’t respect the property of people who don’t have land, quite literally, to be on.”

The Portland Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Top: Video still of two Portland police officers and a sanitation worker loading the belongings of unhoused residents into a garbage truck on Monday. | courtesy of Rachel Corey