Drugs, violence, crime, overdoses, chronic alcoholism, medical emergencies…and madness.

Port Townsend police generated over 250 pages of reports on calls to the Jefferson County Fairgrounds from March through October 2020. The incidents range from calls to help one of the homeless/transients at the sprawling encampment find their birth certificate to rescuing a man who stood intentionally in a bonfire he had set himself to breaking up fights and executing felony arrest warrants.

The reports were provided to Port Townsend Free Press by a neighbor of the Fairgrounds who had submitted their own public records request.

The encampment started early in the COVID days with people paying to stay in the campsites. When the shelter downtown closed and after people were moved out of the substitute shelter at the Oskar Ericsen building, the camp grew. When Governor Inslee prohibited evictions the camp grew even more. It has now at least doubled in size.  None of the homeless/transients are paying for their campsite, use of the bathrooms and showers and SaniKan (which are cleaned at least daily for them by the Fairgrounds Association) or the electricity travelling through the extension cords snaking across the muddy field.

The exact number of people living in the encampment is undetermined as there is no requirement to check in. People just show up in ever larger numbers. Bayside Housing is bringing 35 dinners each night. This author estimates the number is far higher as the camp continues to grow and has birthed a satellite encampment on another section of the Fairgrounds.

One person there accounts for the largest number of incident reports. He is a danger to people in the neighborhood as well as others at the Fairgrounds. Some other names keep showing up in the reports. Some people have moved on, like the man airlifted to Harborview after an overdose. Many of the reports reveal multiple police officers and cars tied up at the Fairgrounds for hours at a time.

The problems requiring police response have continued beyond the cut-off for this batch of records. We reported on November 23 an incident where a neighbor was accosted before dawn at his house by the violent man mentioned in the preceding paragraph. On December 8, when this author was at the Fairgrounds, so were three police cars and an ambulance. There was a fight the weekend of December 11-12. And on December 14 three police cars were again at the fairgrounds as a fight broke out. Port Townsend Free Press will follow up this report after we receive police records for the remainder of 2020.

Following is a sample of what police have been dealing with.

Madness and Mental Illness

May 11: Mental health pickup. Subject offered resistance and started harming himself. Refused to exit patrol car and it took multiple officers to get him out and into the hospital. Police assisted in restraining him until sedated. The report states that this man “is gravely disabled. Unable to care for basic human needs.”

September 15: A resident of the apartments to the south of the Fairgrounds called 911 to report that someone in the camp had a bonfire with flames ten feet high. Something just exploded, the caller told the 911 operator. And a man was standing in the fire. When police arrived they saw a man building the fire larger and then stepping into the flames. Officers pulled him out and called for an ambulance. The man was “very elevated,” an officer reported.

October 27: The camp manager called police to report that a woman he had not seen before was in the bathroom and refusing to leave. She had been in the shower for 2 to 3 hours. She was in there screaming.  When police contacted her she again refused to get out of the shower. She told them she “had to get rid of mites” and that she had been waiting for someone to bring her a towel. Officers observed that she was bitten all over her body. They got her out of the shower but she refused all other aid. They helped her back to her van and told her she could be trespassed (barred from the campground) if she repeated that conduct. They called the Department’s Navigator on her behalf in hopes maybe he could get her some help.

October 16: A resident near the Fairgrounds saw a man, known to police from many encounters at the Fairgrounds, attempting to conceal himself in bushes off the Fairgrounds and videotaping him. Later, while walking Cappy’s Trails the same man emerged and followed him. The resident told police he was very concerned for his safety.

October 21: A neighbor outside the Fairgrounds called to report that she had been followed on a walk by a man who previously had been at their house yelling at her husband to “stop putting things on the Internet.” When she encountered him on a trail he started yelling at her. She told police she was scared for her life. (This is the same man in the October 16 incident. This man generated around two dozen police responses, including his own complaints of being under attack and having items stolen. This is the same man who confronted a neighbor blocks away at 6 a.m. in that neighbor’s own yard, claiming that he lived there. See our 11/23/20 report, “Fairgrounds’ Neighbor’s Plea to County Commissioners About Dangers From The Homeless Encampment.”)

May 19: Police contacted a man who claimed “there were people around who would not let him out of his tent.” No one was seen around his tent. He complained there were people chasing him and “out to kill him.” This happened whenever he drank alcohol. In this case he imagined two men attacking him after drinking, he said, only two tall beers.  He had made other calls to police about people out to kill him, all of which had been found to be baseless.  “At this point,” an officer wrote, “his fear of people trying to kill him, along with a large fixed blade he carries, makes me concerned that he may mistake an innocent person for an assailant and attack them.” This man had an open therapeutic court warrant but due to COVID restrictions the jail would not take him. “At this point there is little we can do,” the officer concluded. (This man may have left the camp. He does not reappear in subsequent reports.)

Violence and Crime

May 11: Neighbor called about hearing yelling, screaming, sounds of fighting. “They are going to kill each other.” Police responded. One man had invaded another’s tent, they fought and tent was damaged. “________ is getting more out of control and will eventually have to be placed in jail or put on a mental hold,” an officer wrote.

May 20: Police assisted “community partner” in collecting belongings of man arrested that day at Penny Saver.

May 21: Man assaulted female camper and was arrested. While in back of patrol car he started self-harming, banging his head as he was being transported to jail.

June 2: Man “trespassed” (banned) from Fairgrounds for committing assault.

June 3: Neighbor who walks the area reported seeing stripped bicycle parts every day, and people from the campground walking around “carrying sticks.” He feared for his safety and asked if he could open carry a handgun for personal protection. He requested police presence and patrols. (In our 10/29/20 “Transient/Homeless Village Grows at Fairgrounds,” according to the campground manager, 50-100 bikes have appeared at the Fairgrounds. Some get thrown in the dumpster.)

June 18: Officer tracked down stolen phone to man in encampment.

June 22: Check fraud reported, but victim grew belligerent toward officer, calling him “fascist” and refused help.

June 23: Two individuals wanted on felony warrants had been at campground but had left when police arrived.

October 15: The same man in the October 17 and 21 incidents, lunged at a man in the Fairgrounds bathroom and told him “you’re lucky I didn’t kill you.” The aggressive man had previously spit on this man.

October 19: This same man got in an argument with a person who lives near the Fairgrounds, and later punched him as he was walking his dog.

May 9: Police were called in response to fighting between men. An officer observed flies on one man’s sock, and that his ankle was swollen and oozing liquid. The foot was gangrenous. Though the man did not want help, the officer had him transported to the hospital.

September 7: Police were called with report of a woman beating up a man. She had fled by the time they arrived. The male victim gave a fake name and produced false identification, but was correctly identified and found to be wanted on a felony warrant. He was taken into custody.

September 10: Two men were fighting against one man over a camping space.

August 21: A neighbor called 911 to report sounds of fighting and screaming.

August 19: A neighbor called, hearing sounds of fighting and yelling, things being thrown. Police arrived and found there had been a conflict over placement of a bike.

August 14: Someone invaded a woman’s tent and threw her out.

July 21: Caller reported a car chasing another car through the Fairgrounds at a high rate of speed and a collision. The camp manager reported that those involved were new to the camp.

July 3: Neighbor called to report clearly hearing a gun shot from inside the Fairgrounds.

August 31: Squatters had moved into an abandoned trailer. One was heard bragging about breaking into a vegetable stand pay box. [A letter read aloud at a County Commissioners meeting was from the owner of the vegetable stand who reported the theft and other problems with people from the Fairgrounds encampment].

August 31: Fairgrounds Association pay box broken into. $300-$400 stolen and the box had to be replaced.

September 29: Women’s purse with her medications stolen from her pickup truck.

Drugs and Alcohol

June 8: Fairgrounds called about a woman parked in prohibited area. Officer found her sleeping in a car in middle of day, with syringe on ground by driver’s door.

June 15: “Extremely” drunk habitual drinker, being belligerent, staggering, resisting police. Had been kicked out of the homeless shelter.

June 17: Habitual drinker from campground drove to nearby house and was in driveway. Extremely drunk. Had urinated on himself. He resisted arrest and fought police, injuring the arresting officer.

July 6: Apparent overdose. Man found in car “unresponsive and catatonic, had very strong, rapid pulse but shallow breathing.” Life Flight called for air lift. Anti-overdose injection given [exact substance redacted in records released]. No effect noted as the officer grew more concerned. As officer was getting ready for next injection, the man came around. Transported for medical attention.

July 22: Man under influence of drugs or alcohol in distress, vomiting, choking. Other campers were irate and yelling at police. CPR administered. Life Flight called for air lift but could not fly due to weather. Police turned him over to medics.

August 24: Paying camper who stayed two nights called police to report seeing “a lot” of drug activity at two specific camping spaces. One person was serving as a look out while the other did business. She also reported hearing “suspicious communications about taking over the place.”

September 22: Neighbor reported syringe on ground just outside Fairgrounds. Retrieved by officer.

October 21: Known habitual drinker found passed out on track. Could not be wakened. “In his usual intoxicated state,” wrote officer. Left him with water and Gatorade.

Other Incidents

March 9: A trailer was fully engulfed in fire, but the flames were suppressed before a propane tank exploded. The occupant, wheelchair bound, had been rescued by neighbor who heard him shouting for help and then moved his own RV before it caught fire. Report does not state cause of fire, but a later report has police looking for a resident of the campground who was seen outside at the burned trailer immediately before it ignited. [Fairgrounds Association incurred a charge of $5,000 to have the burned trailer removed.]

May 27: Man banging cans, acting crazy and throwing garbage into street.

May 30: Campground called police about woman observed with with facial sores. Officer reports she had “a massive infection in her chin the size of a golf ball” and needed medical treatment.

In addition to what is covered by date here, over the period of seven months neighbors made frequent calls about hearing sounds of fighting, screaming, loud music and “sex noises.” Police made numerous calls simply to serve the mentally ill as substitute case workers, to get them to their camp and off the street, look for a lost wallet or birth certificate, to calm them, to check on their welfare and provide some kind of medical service, such as getting them inhalers or an Epipen to counteract a bee sting. Police also made a point of frequently conducting vehicle and foot patrols.

The Word Is Out

I have reported here and at the Port Townsend Free Press Facebook page how the camp has continued to grow as people from outside our community have gotten word that they can stay there for free, get a free hot meal, free showers and bathroom facilities (with janitorial service), and free electricity and not be hassled about squatting. The word is out, as confirmed by a call the police received from a transient who has moved to Port Townsend from outside the area. He called the Department saying he had “heard about a new kind of homeless encampment at the Fairgrounds and would like to know all about it.”

The man wanting to learn “all about” the “new kind of homeless encampment at the Fairgrounds” was one of the individuals police stopped from beating a man to death in Kah Tai Park. We wrote about that incident in “A Bloody Afternoon in Kah Tai Park.” He has an extensive criminal record here and elsewhere.

Related: “Lines Form in Battle for Future of Fairgrounds,” PTFP, 9/9/2020

“A Grim Existence at the Fairgrounds,” PTFP, 12/9/2020

“Squatters Camp Grows at Fairgrounds,” PTFP, 12/1/2020