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On Feb. 19, a man left his apartment in the Rose City Park neighborhood in Northeast Portland and shot five people directing traffic away from a protest march, paralyzing one and killing 60-year-old June Knightly. In the following days, mourners turned a picnic shelter in Normandale Park into a memorial shrine packed with candles and graffiti messages.
By Feb. 23, neighborhood residents using the social media platform Nextdoor began voicing their dismay and confusion—over the graffiti.
“There are a lot of options for temporary public memorials,” wrote Melissa H. “It’s too bad graffiti seems to be the go-to around here. It might be ‘temporary’ in some sense, but it costs the people of the city to clean up and it contributes to the downfall of yet another park that people won’t take their children to.”
For months, a narrative has grown among Oregon conservatives that Portland is filthy and needs to be cleansed. That idea has also found purchase among neighborhood associations, whose members on several occasions have threatened to take the law into their own hands. And it thrives on Nextdoor, the app that functions as a virtual neighborhood watch.
By several accounts, similar obsessions drove Benjamin Smith, the man charged with murdering Knightly last week. So the actions of a lone gunman had a destabilizing effect: People on Nextdoor in the neighborhood where the killing happened struggled to fit the violence into their worldview.
Two lengthy threads started on the Rose City Park page of Nextdoor each drew dozens of comments. One focused on the shooting, the other on spray paint. (The concern would eventually shift to a campsite growing nearby, first reported by KGW-TV.) WW has selected some representative comments. In both cases, the original posters grew so frustrated by the discourse that they shut the thread down.
Rob Vance: Several homeless campers live on the south end of the park by the baseball stadium. Wonder if it was a territorial dispute, gangs, or dope dealers fighting. Either way the [Portland Police Bureau] needs to be beefed up to reduce these events in Portland—pathetic situation in the city.
Mel L: I know when I lost my brother to cancer and was going to go to his funeral and memorial, the first thing that I did was buy 12 cans of spray paint so that I could tag up the church and funeral home in order to express my grief. Isn’t that what is acceptable now? Destroy public property in order to mourn? My heart goes out to all of the victims in this tragic incident. Destroying public property is not appropriate or acceptable. What if all the parents that have experienced school shootings all gathered with spray paint to destroy the schools?
Mary Thi: The vandalism in question is such a small incident compared to the shooting that it hardly seems worth mentioning. Are people trying to impugn the character or morals of those doing the supposed vandalism? One person was murdered, one was paralyzed for life, and three others injured, and all you can complain about is how people are memorializing the tragedy. The pettiness and small-mindedness is unbelievable.
Christina L: I understand the flowers and chalk messages, such a tragic event. She deserves to be remembered. But you don’t destroy property to remember someone You can’t just paint over it when it is brick and sandblasting will destroy the brick over a period of time. Maybe contact the city about something more permanent to remember all the victims of this mass shooting.
Shaneya R: Nothing brings a community together more than complaining about their murdered neighbor’s memorial.
Suzan R: I don’t understand why people have gotten so off track. I am shutting this thread down. I am shaking my head in disbelief that so many of the posters here have completely misunderstood the gravity and horror of the actual events. It makes me so sad to know many of you just want to rant and are not paying attention. Maybe that is the problem with Portland. I urge you to go back and read about what happened.