Nearly 200 people filled the Prescott Room inside the Medford Police Department Wednesday for a downtown safety meeting, some of them spilling out into the hallway in hopes of getting inside to talk about crime and homelessness issues plaguing the downtown.

Inside the meeting room, people filled chairs, stood along walls and even sat on the floor to listen to topics ranging from arrest statistics and human waste cleanup to needles polluting Bear Creek and the desperate need for more jail space.

The 90-minute meeting, hosted by Medford police and the Downtown Medford Association, gave merchants and community members a chance to weigh in on their concerns about the state of downtown. One theme that emerged was a consensus that police and community members are equally frustrated with crime and homeless issues in the city center.

Deputy Chief Darrell Graham told the crowd that between September 2022 and March 2023, police filed criminal charges against 472 people and issued 52 noncriminal citations in the downtown area. They also wrote 63 exclusion ordinances, banning individuals from certain areas due to bad behavior, and made 83 arrests for individuals with outstanding warrants. 

Graham said his department is taking measures to keep things at bay, including expansion of the Livability Team this summer and weekly Greenway cleanups. Long-term solutions, he said, hinge on figuring out how to increase jail space and repealing Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of small amounts of illegal drugs.

Graham told the audience there was “more consequence for a traffic violation than for possession of fentanyl.” A larger jail, he said, would give law enforcement more teeth in dealing with repeat offenders. He talked about how quickly offenders are released after arrest, noting, “I believe the record was eight minutes.”

“This is the first time I’ve looked around and actually seen the silent majority show up for anything,” Graham told the crowd. He urged attendees to report crimes instead of becoming apathetic, and to speak out to elected officials at the city, county and state levels.

“I have owned a business on Main Street for 15 years, and it has never been as unsafe as it is right now,” Meghan Deangelo, owner of Lotus Hair Body and Soul salon, told the crowd. She said she had dealt with four broken windows in the past 30 days and alleged she was nearly stabbed by a homeless person. There has been “a massive escalation” in the number of crime issues downtown over the past year.

“It is very busy from midnight to 3 a.m. I put a Ring (security) camera on the door of my business, and I had to turn it off within the first seven days. It was going off constantly. I saw three different people try to break into my business in the middle of the night,” she said.

“I have 10 women that work for me who cannot come to work without being sexually harassed. … You cannot tell me that it is safe to be downtown anymore. Ultimately, the police department is doing the best they can, and I appreciate them tremendously. This is a City Council issue, a city mayor issue, a Downtown Medford Association and a county issue,” Deangelo said.

Todd Kirkendol, owner of Northwest Defense Contracting, said several businesses had recently signed on for protection in the downtown. Kirkendol signed a contract to provide security for the Medford library Monday.

Brandy Paris, a local teacher and mother of two, said she was disheartened by changes happening around the city. She pointed to the fire that burned part of the Bear Creek Park playground, patrons feeling unsafe at the downtown library, and “not being able to use our parks because there are needles everywhere.”

“I’m hoping people will start standing together. We need to take back our town. Because if we don’t start now, it’s going to become scary. I worry that people are going to start taking it upon themselves to start patrolling and doing it as some sort of militia thing, and we don’t need that,” Paris said.

“What we need is for people to stop giving them needles and to stop enabling. These individuals can do whatever they want because there is no recourse,” she said, referring to the shortage of jail space. 

Graham said a planned expansion this summer of the police Livability Team would mean two dedicated groups of officers working along the Bear Creek Greenway and downtown. Once fully staffed, the team will include a sergeant, corporal, six Livability Team officers and two community service officers.

Eugene Meyerding Jr., a retired dentist, said homeless people were disrespecting the community without consequence. He voiced frustration with the Greenway being unusable for most citizens.

“The community is being taken over by some really nonproductive citizens, but when we give out free tents and food and clothing, we’re making things worse. I don’t like that our law enforcement says that our hands are tied. We need to repeal proposition 110. Maybe we should all meet in Salem one day,” he said.

“The fact they come in and clean it up one day and three days later it’s back, what if we didn’t clean it up? Let’s go six months and see what kind of crap goes on. How many deaths will happen? Why are we still cleaning up after them? They’re disrespecting our community, so why should we respect them?”

Graham said he was encouraged by the community response to the meeting and hoped local people would be proactive.

“We ended up with a really good turnout. I’m really hopeful there will be some people willing to stand up and help,” said the deputy chief. “This is an issue that goes way beyond the police department.”