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Portland Approves $207,411 Grant to Clear Street Takeovers Within an Hour
Portland has approved a $207,411 state grant to help police shut down street takeovers, with most funding going to overtime and a one-hour clearance target for two of four planned missions.
By Eleanor Ellington · 3 min read
Portland has approved a $207,411 state grant to help local law enforcement shut down street takeovers, with a new one-hour clearance target attached to the funding. The money will give officers more personnel, equipment and technology when illegal street-racing gatherings occur, according to city grant documents.
The Portland Police Bureau plans four focused street-racing missions, which works out at roughly $50,000 per operation. At least two of those missions are supposed to restore unrestricted traffic flow within an hour of officers learning about a takeover. The missions may involve other agencies, and the bureau says it will use its own ground and air fleet, officers, dispatchers and public-information staff.
The fine print of the grant shows where the money is going. About $147,403 is budgeted for personnel and another $25,790 for benefits, while equipment receives $34,219. That means roughly 84 per cent of the grant is directed at people rather than hardware, with the remaining slice covering technology intended to help identify participants and build cases after an event has ended.
One detail in the public documents has attracted attention. The city ordinance refers to «deployable cameras», but the detailed budget describes «takeover site static mounted cameras» alongside vehicle- and body-camera accessories. That does not necessarily mean Portland is installing permanent surveillance at every popular stunt spot, but the documents do not identify the equipment, locations, vendor, retention rules or who can access the footage.
The scale of the problem in Portland is significant. The city recorded 139 street-racing events in 2023, including three multi-day gatherings that drew more than 1,000 people and produced 238 service calls and four vehicle-related deaths. The city also attributes 12 homicides since 2021 to takeovers.
Street takeovers and sideshows are an issue across the United States, and different cities handle them in dramatically different ways. Some have tried physical infrastructure changes with little success. Others have run similar operations that included air support, while some openly use videos and photos posted online by participants to track vehicles down after a takeover ends.
For Portland, oversight looks likely to be a key element of the plan. The police bureau will need to prove that the extra overtime, air support and new cameras actually prevent future takeovers. Otherwise, the grant risks looking like a large amount of taxpayer money spent on documenting takeovers in high resolution rather than stopping them.
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