Police arrested five #occupy squatters who tried to take advantage of an elderly couple in Portland.
Police have rounded up a group of squatters who, they said, were trying to take advantage of an elderly couple in Northeast Portland.
Two different vacant homes were involved, police said. One is in the 5600 block of Northeast 14th Avenue while the other is in the 4900 block of North Minnesota Avenue.
In the Northeast 14th Avenue home, police found documentation indicating the squatting was an organized effort to victimize the elderly property owner. A handwritten letter said, in part: “The idea was that we might have a better chance at survival if the landowner was, as our research could tell, a batty old lady and her bed ridden husband.”
Police said they found material in the homes from the local anarchist and Occupy movements.
Police arrested the squatters in the 14th Avenue home at about 11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 9.
Three different neighbors said the squatters had been living in the house since at least last summer. Police have not yet confirmed that detail.
James Lambert said he had no idea the people next door were allegedly trespassing.
“They fixed the house up and said they were fixing it up while they were renting,” he said. “They had an agreement with a third party that they were supposed to fix it up as they lived there.”
