This is Part 2 of a three-part series. Read Part 1 here.
To businesses and property owners in downtown Portland, Echelon Protective Services’ seamless slip into a police role was a lifeline.
But to the people taxpayers pay to provide public safety in Portland — the city police and county prosecutors — the area’s growing reliance on a private security firm was a source of deepening alarm. Within months of Echelon’s arrival downtown in July 2020, records show, law enforcement officials — both within the police bureau and the district attorney’s office — faced mounting stories of misconduct from Echelon employees but had few tools for holding the company accountable.
Many of these reports hit the desk of Matt Jacobsen. An acting sergeant with the bureau’s Central Precinct Neighborhood Response Team, Jacobsen was well-sourced in the area, particularly among the homeless population.
According to police reports, several people with “knowledge of the day to day” activities in Old Town told Jacobsen that guards had swept a group of campers off the sidewalk along Northwest Couch Street during Christmas week. Jacobsen was told guards had handed campers an “Oregon Exclusion Form,” informing them they were not allowed back.
Jacobsen declined to be interviewed for this story. According to the narrative he provided in his police report,...
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