Medford, Ore. — Medford Police are gearing up to clean out homeless camps along the Bear Creek Greenway.
Just two weeks ago a homeless man was arrested on the greenway after police said he sexually assaulted a 25-year-old woman. Now in an effort to keep the bike path safe and clean officers are taking action.
“Citizens of Medford deserve to have a safe greenway,” Lieutenant Curtis Whipple said.
Whipple said while there are always officers patrolling the path Thursday morning they’ll do a sweep to clear out homeless camps.
“Often times when we go into these camps we’ll have sex offenders in there, we’ll have individuals with warrants in there and we absolutely want to make sure they’re cleared and off the greenway,” he said.
Whipple said the people living on the greenway have already been given a 24-hour warning to leave, those who don’t will be cited for prohibited camping.
This is MPD’s first sweep of 2016, and it won’t be their last. Whipple said officers did several sweeps in 2015. During their efforts they issued more than 130 citations and cleared more than a dozen tons of trash from the camps.
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