Photo: Ford, Brad
Photo: Multnomah County
Following a fatal shooting and a violent stabbing, Andrew Sloan, the President of the Portland Metro Chamber is calling on Multnomah County to increase safety at the Central Library. Here's Sloan's statement:
For over a year through numerous communications, meetings, and pleadings, the Portland Metro Chamber, Downtown Portland Clean & Safe, the Downtown Retail Council, and numerous leaders from the community have demanded action from the county to address severe safety and public health issues at the Central Library.
Just two months after a deadly shooting at that library which rocked our community, another victim was stabbed multiple times by assailants yesterday. Today, we learned that once again, the attackers came from inside with undetected weapons.
The library should be a haven for the public, a beacon of learning, and one of Downtown Portland’s greatest attractions. Instead under County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson's watch, it has become a hotspot for violence and drug use that make employees and visitors unsafe and is a deterrent to vibrancy in the heart of the Rose City. Persistent inaction by the Chair has been a direct contributor to these tragic incidents and the conditions that have enabled them.
How many more people must be hurt or killed until the county takes decisive action?