Current Events > Portland Police defend trash

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https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2021/02/portland-police-guard-dumpster-face-off-with-residents-trying-to-get-discarded-food-from-fred-meyer.html

Roughly a dozen Portland police officers faced off with a small group at a Northeast Portland Fred Meyer on Tuesday after people tried to take food that had been thrown away.

Workers at the Hollywood West Fred Meyer threw away thousands of perishable items because the store, like many others, had lost power in an outage brought on by the regions winter storm.

Images on social media showed mountains of packaged meat, cheese and juice, as well as whole turkeys and racks of ribs that had been tossed into two large dumpsters near the store.

A few people gathered about 2:30 p.m. at the store, 3030 N.E. Weidler St., in hopes of salvaging the food.

But within a few hours, people seeking food from the dumpsters began to report police officers showing up to guard the dumpsters and prevent people from taking the items.

Morgan Mckniff, a prominent activist and outspoken Portland police critic who lives in the neighborhood, said employees were guarding the dumpsters when they showed up to get some of the discarded food. Mckniff began to film the employees and reported staff members threatened to call the police on them for doing so.

The store manager called police shortly thereafter, Mckniff said, and Mckniff began livestreaming the interaction on Instagram.

After that, other people started showing up and asking them, Why are you guys guarding a dumpster? Mckniff said.

Mckniff said about 15 people eventually gathered in an attempt to collect food.

At that point, Mckniff said, a dozen officers arrived at the scene. One officer wasnt wearing a mask and refused to put one on until a supervisor arrived and brought him one, according to Mckniff.

On Wednesday, Portland police said officers were sent to the scene after employees said they felt the situation was escalating and feared there may be a physical confrontation, a police spokesman said in a statement.
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The run-in also came as the region reeled from a winter storm that brought on widespread power outages that left many people unable to salvage perishable items in their refrigerators.

The people who were there werent there for selfish reasons they were there to get food to distribute to hungry people around the city, Simonis said. There are mutual aid groups that have been helping feed people at warming centers, because the city doesnt have enough resources to feed them.

Multnomah County kept emergency severe weather shelters open Monday, taking to social media to ask for volunteers to keep the doors open an additional night. More than 300,000 people and businesses lost power over the weekend, with nearly all of the areas hotels filling up as people tried to escape the cold.

Mckniff said many of the people police threatened with arrest and turned away are regular customers of the store.

I live in this neighborhood. This neighborhood doesnt have power, Mckniff said. And Fred Meyer is telling people in this immediate community who shop here that they cant have these things theyre throwing away. Cheese, pickles, yogurt things that are intentionally cultured and cured.

Simonis said its hard to rationalize the actions by police and the store.

None of this makes sense to me except through the lens of severely ingrained policing and a culture of disrespect for human dignity, they said.

They noted parallels between the Fred Meyer incident and Portland protests.

Simonis, for their part, is one of several plaintiffs in a lawsuit that alleges local, state and federal officers violated the rights of people with disabilities through aggressive police responses to the protests.

Here its not broken windows, its tossed away but otherwise completely fine food, Simonis said. Its not a bad situation or vandalism, its literally the exact opposite feeding hungry people. Yet they still use the same apparatus to prevent anything from being done.

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Bump

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they need to ask permission from the store if they can take anything. it's a waste if they don't give it out (long as it can be used within that short time).
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kingdrake2 posted...

they need to ask permission from the store if they can take anything

The store fucking threw it out.

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Portland should pass a law giving food stores indemnification from stale food lawsuits and decriminalize trash picking, then.

Oh wait, that would require legislation and accountability.

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Captain_Qwark posted...

You can't just go rummaging through people's trash, bro...

Better people starve to death than the sacred dumpster be violated.

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Just trash defending their own kind

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Wtf man @darkprince45

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Captain_Qwark posted...

You can't just go rummaging through people's trash, bro...

It depends on the local laws. Some places, it's not illegal.

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fuck the police and fuck the law in this instance
people are starving and freezing
for fucks sake

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It's a huge waste, yes, but these people act like they're entitled to it and they simply aren't. Criticizing the store is fair

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ScazarMeltex posted...

Better people starve to death than the sacred dumpster be violated.

Visit a food bank instead of a dumpster if you need food.

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dolomedes posted...

i don't get fucking with people desperate enough to pick food out of a dumpster

Maybe they were homeless

Paragon21XX posted...

Visit a food bank instead of a dumpster if you need food.

you have no idea wtf a food bank is or how convoluted it is to get into one
this is literal free good quality food being saved from waste

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Except it isn't free because the store didn't give it to them

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eston posted...

Except it isn't free because the store didn't give it to them

at what point does possession cease?
when they throw it out, do they own the rotting material?
do they own the oil that it eventually turns into?


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A philosophical question for the ages

But in this case it is in leased dumpsters located on private property and the employees told them no, so I'd say that definitely disqualifies it from being free food

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eston posted...

A philosophical question for the ages

But in this case it is in leased dumpsters located on private property and the employees told them no, so I'd say that definitely disqualifies it from being free food

again, in this extreme case of thousands of peoples lives like they have right now....fuck the law


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mobilebloechel posted...

CE gonna CE. where do you draw the line? Fred Meyer doesn't want to get sued if someone gets sick eating that food. They literally can't give it away. For fucks sake.

Do you think people desperate enough to pick discarded food out of a dumpster are going to not only go through the trouble of but also put forward the resources necessary to file a lawsuit against Fred Meyer?

Cobalt_Wasps posted...

you have no idea wtf a food bank is or how convoluted it is to get into one
this is literal free good quality food being saved from waste

Food pantry, food bank, same difference. One is just a distributor network for the other with the end goal being the exact same: giving food and other items at no charge to those that ask for it, usually no questions asked other than if they have a permanent residence (soup kitchens are there for the homeless or anyone seeking a hot meal).

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treewojima posted...

Do you think people desperate enough to pick discarded food out of a dumpster are going to not only go through the trouble of but also put forward the resources necessary to file a lawsuit against Fred Meyer?

Have you ever heard of a little country called the United States of America and its braindead population that sues over literally anything even at their own expense?

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Portland is a dumpster

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Generally, throwing something away terminates possession. That's literally one of the paradigm examples we used in property class in law school. You can't steal someone's trash. It's no longer theirs.

Even then, it's scummy, anti-human behavior to attack someone for attempting not to starve by eating discarded food. We've seen throughout the pandemic that cops have the discretion to just decide not to enforce mask mandates, social distancing etc. They are choosing to enforce an anti-human law.

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this topic got me fired up

when the restaurant i was running got shut down last year, we gave away all our food to employees and family and friends. it fed probably 20 families for a few weeks at most. if a small independent restaurant did it, then why shouldnt a massive outlet like a grocery store do it?

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Cobalt_Wasps posted...

this topic got me fired up

when the restaurant i was running got shut down last year, we gave away all our food to employees and family and friends. it fed probably 20 families for a few weeks at most. if a small independent restaurant did it, then why shouldnt a massive outlet like a grocery store do it?

There are very strict rules and regulations regarding food storage and grocery stores. All the food they threw out was because the food went too long with no refrigeration and was no longer safe to eat according to the regulations. They literally could not give it away or else they were breaking the law. They would be on the hook if someone got sick.

It's not like your restaurant example that had to close down, where I assume the food was properly stored.

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expiration dates are always marked early for safety reasons just like this
and since no one is keeping track of this waste, no one knows when it got there or when it was made or when it will become dangerous to eat...so they throw it out to cover their own asses. this is disgusting at best

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Capitalism failing once again. Food is thrown out rather than given to people that can use it.

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More proof that we have enough food to go around, most of it just gets wasted.

"but they have to worry about liability!" - these people are eating trash. Once it hits the dumpster, it shouldn't be the store's problem any more. That's why dumpster divers started dumpster diving - to make use of perfectly fine food or products that were being thrown away, to get use out of something deemed useless and without worth. If nothing else, to roll the dice to see if they can prevent unnecessary waste.

Now it's not even a grey area to take something deemed trash. Electronics are smashed so no-one can use them, even if they're perfectly fine. Clothes are cut into ribbons. Dumpsters are padlocked so no-one can get into them. Dumpster diving went from being a grey area to being outright criminalized.

This store wasn't getting any use out of that food. Granted, the food was at risk of being spoiled. But once they throw it out, they shouldn't have any say in what happens to it. They don't benefit from it in any way whether someone takes it out of a dumpster or whether it's taken to the dump. And in return, they shouldn't be considered liable for any misfortune that comes from someone eating some spoiled meat out of a dumpster.

It's a better arrangement than pouring bleach over salvageable food to deter people, or from calling the fucking police to defend a dumpster of viable food that they deemed worthless by disposing of it.

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Cobalt_Wasps posted...

you have no idea wtf a food bank is or how convoluted it is to get into one
this is literal free good quality food being saved from waste

Did you miss the part where, like

There was a power outage and the food could no longer be refrigerated

Are literally any of you aware about this? It's not good quality food, it's spoiled and you can get sick from it. And now you're really going to get sick from it because it was sitting in the fucking dumpster. I know cops tend to be shitheads but this isn't an instance of such
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mobilebloechel posted...

CE gonna CE. where do you draw the line? Fred Meyer doesn't want to get sued if someone gets sick eating that food. They literally can't give it away. For fucks sake.

Get sued if you protect trash or get sued if you are given trash, eat it, and get a superbacteria

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i dont know how else to explain that people need to eat to live and there is no law in the world that will stop a hungry person....its absurd to even suggest that a person be penalized for eating.

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Cobalt_Wasps posted...

i dont know how else to explain that people need to eat to live and there is no law in the world that will stop a hungry person....its absurd to even suggest that a person be penalized for eating.

You'll be penalized for eating it by getting sick from eating literally spoiled unrefrigerated food that's been sitting in the dumpster.

And what people are saying is that restaurants can and will get sued for giving away contaminated food. That's the penalty
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Cobalt_Wasps posted...

this topic got me fired up

when the restaurant i was running got shut down last year, we gave away all our food to employees and family and friends. it fed probably 20 families for a few weeks at most. if a small independent restaurant did it, then why shouldnt a massive outlet like a grocery store do it?

Maybe they already gave as much as they could to employees. We don't know one way or the other. All we know is they wouldn't let some random group of people pick through their dumpsters.

The other thing is, the guy in the article flat out says they aren't taking it for themselves. They intended to donate it. But no legit organization is going to take meat that was salvaged from a dumpster. So unless they plan to personally go door to door handing out dumpster meat, it really doesn't sound like they thought this through.

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Capitalism in a nutshell.

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Eating contaminated and rotten food to pwn the libs by overflowing hospitals when there's a pandemic going on and every hospital bed is needed

fucking genius

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Im not against dumpster diving in the slightest but its pretty fucked up that people were going to redistribute dumpster food
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eston posted...

Maybe they already gave as much as they could to employees. We don't know one way or the other. All we know is they wouldn't let some random group of people pick through their dumpsters.

The other thing is, the guy in the article flat out says they aren't taking it for themselves. They intended to donate it. But no legit organization is going to take meat that was salvaged from a dumpster. So unless they plan to personally go door to door handing out dumpster meat, it really doesn't sound like they thought this through.

im not so concerned anymore with the specifics of this situation, they could be ravenous looters for all we know. i am however, firmly in stance of "no one should be penalized for feeding themselves" there is far too much waste in this country and far too many malnourished people. its an simple solution that just requires a smidgen of humanity. fuck this topic im out

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I agree that the store should have tried harder to avoid wasting it, but logistically there's only so much they can do. Where can they send it when the power is out? And once it has been out of refrigeration for a certain amount of time they can't legally give it to people for consumption.

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eston posted...

I agree that the store should have tried harder to avoid wasting it, but logistically there's only so much they can do. Where can they send it when the power is out? And once it has been out of refrigeration for a certain amount of time they can't legally give it to people for consumption.

Ok but we dont need armed guards on it.

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Literally a page right out of The Grapes of Wrath

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dolomedes posted...

i don't get fucking with people desperate enough to pick food out of a dumpster

There are unwritten laws (well, some explicitly written) against being poor in America

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