Traffic calming barrels are helping reduce gun violence in the Mt.Scott neighborhood.
Courtesy of Matchu Williams
A program aimed at reducing gun violence in the Mt. Scott-Arleta neighborhood is having results. The most visible part of the program is traffic barrels on streets shooters frequently used to get away quickly. We hear from Matchu Williams, chair of the Mt.Scott Arleta Neighborhood Association, Nadine Salama, director Green Tulip Peace & Nature school, and Dunja Marcum, program director at Vibe of Portland, about what they’re seeing in the neighborhood, and how safe things feel for them now.
The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB, I’m Dave Miller. We start today with an unlikely success story in gun violence prevention. Last summer, with shooting spiking all across Portland, residents in the Mount Scott-Arleta neighborhood were facing a crisis. They were hearing gunshots day after day after day. Instead of asking for more police officers, they asked for orange traffic barrels. The idea was to discourage would-be shooters from speeding into the neighborhood, and then speeding away.
The results were dramatic. Shootings dropped by more than two thirds in the area, while remaining pretty constant in the rest of the city. So what happened, and what lessons are there for other neighborhoods? I’m joined now by three people with direct experience for this project. Matchu Williams is the chair of the Mount Scott-Arleta Neighborhood Association, Nadine Salama lives and works in the neighborhood, she’s the director of the Green Tulip Peace & Nature School. And Dunja Marcum is with us as well, she lives in the area, and has worked to help build community around Mount Scott Park. Welcome to all three of you.
Dunja Marcum: Thank you.
Nadine Salama: Thank you. Glad to be here.
Matchu Williams: Thanks for having us.
Miller: Nadine Salama first, can you give us a sense of what things were like in the Mount Scott-Arleta neighborhood before these community efforts began?
Salama: Sure. I’ve been a resident in the neighborhood for over 10 years. And before July 2021, things were relatively peaceful. I don’t think anyone was concerned about gun violence or violent crime. Starting June and July of 2021, we started to notice in that particular area in front of Mount Scott Park, that there was shootings happening frequently. Things escalated rather quickly. They went from no shootings at all, to about 5-6 shootings on average a month.
Miller: My understanding is you live right there. What was it like for you to hear shootings so often, to hear gunfire so often?
Salama: I mean it was absolutely, absolutely terrifying. We were on the second floor of an apartment. I have an eight year old daughter. We had no idea where the bullets- it sounded like a war zone. My daughter had to belly crawl, my neighbors had to belly crawl and hide, because we were worried about ricocheting bullets or something coming through the window.
Miller: So in your apartment, you would hear gunfire, and your eight year old and you would get on your bellies and crawl away from the window?
Salama: I put her in the bathtub, correct. That felt like the safest place for her to be. It was the one room in our apartment that did not have a window. My neighbor had their vehicles shot through the driver door. Luckily he wasn’t in it at the time. We’ve seen another vehicle that was driving down right in front of our apartment building, and had a bullet shot through her windshield, and she had her 13 year old son. Luckily they both survived it. It was quite terrifying. It was something unlike anything that we’ve ever experienced or expected to experience.
Miller: What would you say to your daughter in those moments?
Salama: I would just try to calm her down, and that we would figure it out. We will find a way to help figure this out. I would just try to keep her safe. And she saw that it wasn’t just us. But yeah, there’s very little that you can say at that moment to help them feel safe.
Miller: Matchu Williams, how safe did you feel just walking around the park or being in the neighborhood last summer?
Williams: I had some reservations about what was going on. Knowing it just would drop on the neighborhood spontaneously definitely made me reconsider what time of the evening I walked to the park with my daughter, and the routes I was taking. So, concerned, very much concerned with the increased shootings, and particularly as they cracked into the daytime, more and more alarmed at where this was going, and would there be an end to it?
Miller: Oh, because earlier they had been restricted more to nighttime, but then they were in the late afternoon or early evening?
Williams: Yes, that’s correct. So the shootings at first in June and July seem to be particularly limited to the evening, the late evening summer months. So we’re talking like 10 p.m, as early as 4 a.m. But typically not daylight hours. But we did see a trend being like 6 p.m., and then a few days later 5 p.m. during broad daylight in the summer months, in August.
Miller: When you would hear gunshots regularly, what would you do? Did you call anybody at the city, for example, did you call any emergency services?
Williams: Yeah, we absolutely did, particularly non-emergency, as well as 911, because bullets are flying, that’s just the appropriate response to it. And officers would show up. But sometimes the response time would be so far after the fact that whoever was involved in the shooting was nowhere to be found by the time first responders showed up.
Miller: And Nadine Salama, what would you hear from police officers or dispatchers or other people that you might have called, or might have eventually arrived on the scene?
Salama: I typically did not call. I knew that other people in the neighborhood were calling, and I was more concerned about making sure that our neighbors and my daughter were okay. But what I did hear from the police officers that did arrive is that this is happening all over, they’re not really sure what’s going on, and that they were overwhelmed and couldn’t be here in the area as much as they would have liked to. That’s really the gist of it. I didn’t sense that we had a lot of hope working down that avenue. It just felt like that’s not where we wanted to go.
Miller: So you told us about your daughter, and the fear of bullets going through open windows into your apartment. But I know that you’re also the director of the Green Tulip Peace & Nature School, which is right nearby. How much in the past would you use that park, Mt Scott Park, with your students?
Salama: Very often. We would go there on Wednesdays for lunch sometimes, and story time. This was our park. We frequented it almost on a daily basis, not just with my students, but we used it very often for the school. There was also another, Mt Scott Jubilee, which was a preschool that existed in the area. It’s no longer, but they used the playground every single day for their students.
Miler: And so at the peak of the shootings, I’m not sure if school would have been in session then or maybe there are summer sessions, but would you have felt comfortable taking students there in September, in October?
Salama: No. It was very heartbreaking, because I don’t think that was just limited to myself. The parks were pretty empty, especially as Matchu mentioned, when the shooting started to happen during the daytime. So we definitely saw a huge scale back on the use of the park. It was pretty deserted.
Miller: So Matchu Williams, what kinds of conversations at that point were you having with other residents, with other neighbors about what options you had, about what you could do?
Williams: I would hear from neighbors that they were feeling increasingly uncomfortable going to the park. They were hoping for anything. There was a lot of concerns about what can we do to stop the shootings from happening in the first place so we can feel safe again walking our own neighborhood? A lot of people thought police would be the most obvious answer, but we had some concerns about availability, limited resources, and also just kind of being mindful that we’re in a very diverse neighborhood that is diversifying at a rate faster than the rest of Portland. Creating a solution that was less reactive and carceral in its approach, and more preventive and community based-
Miller: Carceral meaning the criminal justice system.
Williams: Yes, thank you for the clarification. We didn’t want to just react to things, we wanted to prevent them from happening in the first place. So neighbors had all sorts of ideas, and some conversations started to happen around what we could do to create more safety in the neighborhood, and limit these dangerous behaviors, reckless driving, and the gunfire that precedes it. And we came up with some ideas about investing in our parks, increasing lighting,
and bringing traffic calming measures into the neighborhood.
Miller: Nadine Salama, you had these ideas, or really requests, as a group of neighbors. How did you get buy-in from the city?
Salama: I reached out to Matchu, and Sarah Iannarone, and Dunja, and we all met and we had a conversation about what our goals were, and what we wanted to see happen, which is what Matchu just stated. We started to see where the speeding was happening, where the locations of the shootings were occurring the most. We started to identify patterns, and how things were going down, and we started to come up with solutions that we felt were tangible, and things that we could do as community members to help eliminate, prevent, or reduce the violence, and discourage it from happening in our neighborhood.
So we came up with a list of things that we wanted, and reached out to Commissioner Hardesty’s office, who responded immediately and sent out her team within a few days of our initial meeting. And they listened to us. They heard what we came up with. And it just so happened that Dr. Jon Jay was there, who is an expert in the field of gun violence prevention through community work and environmental design. And what we had come up with and his studies were very similar, and were in line with his ideas and with Commissioner Hardesty’s ideas. And from then on, we had an open line of communication and unlimited support from Commissioner Hardesty’s office, and Andrew Miller, a Community Justice Organizer, and Nate Takara, a Senior Policy Advisor. They were there for us, and what we were proposing made sense. And so they were willing to try.
Miller: Dunja Marcum, I want to welcome you into this conversation. Were there people in the neighborhood, or in the neighborhoods, who said no, the problem is people shooting, we don’t need to worry about things that are going to slow us down as drivers?
Marcum: Yes, to clarify, I’m not in Mount Scott-Arleta, I’m in Brentwood-Darlington. But I’m really close to 72nd, which was a thoroughfare where cars were speeding, and still are. And so in our neighborhood, we were experiencing a lot of issues with people breaking traffic laws all over the place, and then coinciding with this increase in gun violence. And I think what people wanted to really focus on solving the problem of gun violence, as in let’s make it stop, let’s just bring in police and make it stop, rather than looking at what are ways that we can react now while we’re waiting for those bigger solutions, that would be able to make a difference. But we did receive quite a bit of pushback at first.
Miller: What were your arguments to get people on board?
Marcum: We have to do something. I know that sounds terribly simplistic, but if we’re waiting for big solutions, our choices are to sit at home and complain about it or wish for something different, to try something.
Miller: Matchu Williams, how big a reduction in gunfire did you notice personally, after these traffic calming barrels and signs saying local access only, after those were put in?
Williams: So, I live in the middle of the study area, and I was counting shootings every day, if not multiple times per day. For example, one of the weeks in September it was five nights in a row next to Mt Scott Park. And then, while this is a multifaceted safety project, after the barrels went up, it sounded like weeks between when I heard shootings next to the park. And I realize it’s a big neighborhood, but in the study area, it felt like such a huge sigh of relief. I don’t know, it just seems like night and day difference to me, what I was experiencing personally living near that intersection of 72nd and Woodstock.
Miller: Nadine Salama, did that surprise you at all? Obviously you were hoping that what you were doing would make a difference. But did you think you would see as big a reduction in gunfire as you actually ended up seeing as a result of these sort of community environmental changes?
Salama: Yes and no. I had witnessed about a week before the barrels went down, there was a shooting at six o’clock in the afternoon around that time, in Mt Scott Park. The shooters were fleeing, and they ended up crashing, they turned on to Knight Street, and they crashed into the fire hydrant right in front of our apartment building. And just watching how scared they were, and how quickly they were fleeing, is really what gave us the idea of, if we were to find a legal way to create obstacles around the park in the road, fleeing vehicles would likely not want to turn on these residential streets. So we were definitely hoping for a positive result, and it felt like this would work.
I wasn’t expecting it to happen so quickly. But like Matchu said, it really felt like night and day, to starting the first when the barrels first went down, I think the first shooting that happened within a six block radius where the barrels were was December 3rd, I believe. So it was almost 60 days of peace before things started. They weren’t as frequent, and it didn’t feel like the neighborhood was as free for them to operate. So yeah, I was very grateful for that.
Miller: Dunja Marcum, there are a couple of really striking things about this. One is that while shootings went down tremendously in this one pilot area, they were basically just as high as they had been in the previous months for the city as a whole. And so it’s hard not to read that as evidence that, while these traffic calming devices were preventing shootings in this area, it’s possible they were just moving those shootings to somewhere else. I’m curious what you saw, because you’re in a nearby neighborhood just to the south. What did you see in Brentwood-Darlington after the community safety project started in Mount Scott-Arleta?
Marcum: First, I just want to say, when we see it in articles and whatnot, the focus is always on the orange barrels. But there is so much more than just the orange barrels, that’s what’s visible and that’s what people notice.
Miller: I’m glad you brought that up because I think I too keep focusing on the orange barrels. So set me straight. What are the other components of this that you think have made a difference?
Marcum: I think probably Matchu or Nadine can speak better to that than I can. So if one of them want to interject here.
Miller: Matchu, what do you see as the other important built environment changes or social changes that are at work here?
Williams: Yeah, this is a great question. In addition to some of the built environment, it was this question of how do we reactivate spaces for people, and create safe gathering places for people to convene, exchange ideas. And so part of the strategy from the community, and just neighbors, was just meeting each other, being outside, and having events, getting to know each other, create that interconnectedness and accountability, while slowing down traffic and discouraging the violent behaviors that we were having to endure as a neighborhood.
Miller: It seems like there’s a real chicken and egg thing though, because one of the reasons, as you were all saying earlier, that some of that sense of community went away is that people became afraid to use the park. And so you have to somehow first show them it’s okay to go back in the park before they can be there to build community once again, right?
Williams: Yes. I had neighbors say they don’t feel comfortable walking to the park anymore, during last summer. And the summer months are the optimal time to be outside and having these events. So yeah, there is kind of a chicken and egg dynamic there. How do you create events? And that was part of our intentional strategy, was having some events, so you can show it yes, people are gathering, people are getting to know each other. This is what makes the community, neighbors getting together and celebrating just living together.
Miller: So Dunja, to go back to you, I’m curious to get your thoughts on that earlier question I asked, about gun violence not being down overall in the city, just being down in this one neighborhood. How do you reckon with that?
Marcum: Well, in fact Matchu and I talked about that briefly the other day. Part of the reason I became interested was one, because Nadine is such a good friend of mine, but two, I also had it in the back of my mind that that was the exact thing would happen, that if we are making it harder for shootings to happen in this area, would they not just go somewhere else, and probably my neighborhood? And looking at data, it doesn’t look like that’s happened, but anecdotally, it sounds like people are hearing more shootings. I have had people argue that exact point, they’ve pushed back saying you’re just moving it, you’re not actually solving a problem.
To that, I say we are trying to solve the overall issue of gun violence. It’s a multifaceted, huge issue, and to say that people in charge are not trying to solve that, it’s just, it’s not true. But you know, if it shows up in my neighborhood, then I now have a template. I can reach out to my neighbors and say, well look, this is what worked here, and let’s come together and try to have some success in this neighborhood. And then if it pushes that elsewhere, then let’s go together and let’s go into that neighborhood, and let’s show them what worked for us. There’s nothing stopping us from going into every neighborhood and trying to make a change, basically. Just because it helps in Mount Scott-Arleta, it doesn’t make that exclusive to that neighborhood. There’s no reason why we can’t do something in my neighborhood, or in Woodstock, or any of the other neighborhoods.
Miller: Well, Nadine Salama, on that note, what advice do you have for other neighborhoods that are dealing with high levels of gun violence right now?
Salama: I would say meeting with your neighbors, taking notes, being the eyes and ears on the ground. We can reach out to the local authorities and the commissioners that we are the ones on the ground, and we know what’s happening. So identifying patterns, seeing what could help as a community. Like Dunja said, this is a multifaceted approach, and community and neighbors have a big part to play. Fundraising for your community, adding lights, trying to cut through some of the red tape that we have to go through in order to get changes. Help implement it in your neighborhood, taking matters into your own hands a little bit, and working with your neighbors. That would be my advice.
In addition to that, in Mount Scott-Arleta, in Brentwood-Darlington, there’s a huge BIPOC movement that is working on community youth outreach, and gang violence prevention. And so like this isn’t just the orange barrels, there’s way more than that, and that could be implemented in other areas of Portland, and other areas where there’s gun violence. So taking ownership of your community, using your space. Take up space, use your space, claim it, beautify your neighborhood, clean it, make it greener, work with your local stores and neighbors that need help, because that all makes an impact. When people coming into our neighborhood to cause violence see how invested we are in our neighborhood, and that we’re not just going to put up for sale signs and leave, we’re gonna work with our neighbors and our marginalized community to protect them, I think that sends a great message. It shows that we’re not gonna just let this deteriorate and take over.
Miller: Matchu Williams, barrels can be moved. It’s not necessarily easy, but it’s not that hard either as a sense, I guess from seeing them move sometimes after PBOT has put them somewhere. What are your hopes for permanent changes?
Williams: Yeah, it’s a question I get all the time, is how can you make this permanent? Can we get concrete planters? Can we do curb extensions? What other traffic coming investments can the city provide? And that’s our hope, that we do get some concrete planters, that we do get additional traffic calming. And we’ll say one of the fun things about the barrels being movable, we’ve seen an expansion of where they are, because neighbors want on their street. This is a fascinating dynamic of more demand than supply available. And so people want to see it expanded, and taking that into their own hands, because people know best what their street and neighborhood needs.
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