Police chief responds to crime moving east since Jordan River Trail operation began

SALT LAKE CITY — New data shows crime is moving east since the Jordan River Trail safety operation went into effect.

An increase in calls relating to homelessness spiked downtown, at Richmond Park and Herman Franks Park.

People living near Liberty Park told KSL-TV the problems there are worse than ever.

"This year was the first year where we had a lot of challenges with the homeless population," said Kevin Lindsay, secretary of the Liberty Wells Community Council.

He said a community cleanup event at Liberty Park in April was disrupted by a verbal altercation between some unsheltered people.

"There was a lot of language, a lot of yelling and screaming and violent threats, which makes it an unsafe area for kids and for families to be around," Lindsay said.

Kyle Butler said the problems are moving from the Jordan River Trail to his neighborhood, south of Liberty Park.

"You're trying to enforce no camping in the parks, but now they're camping in our neighborhoods, which is less safe, right?" he said. "There's kids that walk outside of their homes now, and there are just piles of trash and stuff."

He and others said they regularly find human waste, toilet paper, drugs, alcohol and garbage, which bring in more rats and raccoons.

Nate Cornwall, another Liberty Wells resident, pointed out dirt piles along a senior citizen's fence line on 700 East, near Roosevelt Ave. He said people are digging holes there to use as a restroom.

"We report it through the mySLC app to the health department, but usually there's a delay in them getting out here, and the waste is just continuing to stay piled up," Lindsay said. "We try to, as a community, come out and clean it."

Cornwall said a lot of issues occur in a lot near 700 East, between Kensington and Roosevelt avenues. He said the lot is owned by the Utah Department of Transportation, which has an agreement with Salt Lake City that the city will maintain it.

Cornwall said he's tried to reimagine the area through requests to UDOT and the city, but instead it's become a space the homeless population goes to when nearby parks close, then leave by mid-morning the next day. He said they leave a lot of debris behind.

"Asking for assistance to help with the unhoused individuals that use this in this area, the response has been a little lackluster or apathetic," he said. "If you come in the morning, you'll see a whole caravan moving up and down."

These residents said they want homeless people to have resources.

"My hope is that we can find a way to enforce a place that they can camp if we're going to allow it," Butler said.

Current conditions are changing how they feel about where they live.

"When you ask for them to move on, the ones that are massively in a drug-induced state are very unnerving," Butler said. "It's really heartbreaking to hear my 8-year-old son saying, 'I don't want to go do that because I'm worried about homeless people,' or something like that," Cornwall said.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd said he knows crime is moving, and his department is adjusting its actions.

"In the case of Liberty Wells, we identified that one of the areas that we were having trouble with was state property, so we contacted the state, and they helped us with some no trespassing signs and helped us with some fencing," Redd said.

He said many of the people involved in drug use are experiencing homelessness, but some are not.

"A lot of these individuals aren't all residents of Salt Lake City," Redd said. "A lot of them are from other cities, other states, but we have to just continue to work on the problem."

He said the city needs more shelter beds and treatment options but acknowledged a lot of people don't want to come off the streets.

"The addiction is too powerful; they have mental illness challenges, mental health challenges that are impeding their decision making. And some of them just don't want to change their lifestyle," he said.

Homeless advocate Wendy Garvin, with Unsheltered Utah, pointed out some individuals won't go to shelters because of barriers.

"They don't have the ability to jump through the hoops to get all the ID and all the paperwork filled out in the short amount of time, or they've tried and they've been rejected," Garvin said. "Even if you have funding, the apartment manager can still say 'no' because of past evictions or something like that."

Redd said he's talking with other stakeholders about these issues.

"A lot of times, we just arrest, and we book them into jail, and they're released, and they get a court date, and they go to warrant," he said. "And that is what causes the escalation in the charges and does create the barriers. We're looking at how can we make the criminal justice system more effective and combine it with the treatment."

When it comes to camping, Redd said officers follow the city ordinance.

"We have to look at the ordinance; we have to look at what the case law is," he said. "These discussions are going on internally. I don't have an answer beyond that for you. Like every situation, every case is a little bit different."

It's the kind of response that frustrates residents like Butler, who experience negative impacts of homeless encampments.

"When I talked with the officer, he was saying, 'Well, I can't do anything because there has to be camping equipment,'" Butler said. "Then it gets into the whole, well, is a tarp camping equipment? Is the cart that they're wheeling around camping equipment? And the way they view it is no, it has to be legitimate camping equipment, which I think everyone can agree, if you just critically think about it, that that's not going to solve anything."

Redd encourages residents to continue reporting issues.

"We'll continue to be as responsive as we can and just making incremental improvements along the way," he said.

Redd said he believes in showing compassion by holding people accountable.

"We're not going to let Salt Lake City become a place where it's acceptable to allow people to live on the streets and the conditions that they're living, them to be victimized, traumatized, abused, especially the women," he said.

Redd said he's having conversations with local and state leaders to figure out next steps.

"We'll go to the state, I'll go to the other city departments and we'll look for solutions with trash pickup and cleanup and just working together," he said. "I speak with policymakers: 'Here's some things that are happening on the streets of Salt Lake City. This is kind of the what we're seeing out here day to day.'"

He didn't say when the Jordan River Trail temporary closure would end.

"Going forward is we're going to look at the data and where we have the problems, that's where we're going to put officers," Redd said. "As we saw movement over into the Liberty area, we took some resources from the Jordan River and we moved them over to the Liberty area."

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