Police in Southeast Portland have cleared out an abandoned property that had plagued neighbours for five years, removing a dozen alleged squatters after a tense stand-off in which some occupants tried to barricade themselves inside. The house at 3254 Southeast 111th Avenue had become notorious locally for alleged criminality, including gun violence and sexual harassment, and had been declared "hazardous and unlivable," forcing officers to wear protective bodysuits when they executed the vacate warrant on 27 August.

Five people were arrested, four of them on outstanding felony warrants, while two others who barricaded themselves inside and tried to flee were charged with trespassing and evading arrest; one of them is also linked to a separate car theft investigation. Those not facing charges were offered shelter services and allowed back to collect their belongings, while four kittens found at the property were taken by animal control. The house, unpaid on its taxes since 2018, had passed from an elderly owner to her grandson, who let the squatters in before being pushed out himself; the city has since boarded up the property amid a wider surge in Portland's homelessness and nuisance-property problems.