Think about it: Which Portland groups spend the most time on Portland streets? Clearly, the police and the Homeless. So it's a chancy relationship at best. On the one hand, by virtue of their circumstances the Homeless often present the visual stereotype of The Criminal. Being ragged and unwashed, in the middle American eye just makes a person look guilty of something - that and being Black. So along with African Americans, the Homeless are constantly the targets of police interest. On the other hand, life on the street is dangerous and debilitating. The Homeless frequently have no one to look to for protection other than the police. Jack Collins found himself lost in the No Mans Land between choosing life or death and clearly the man needed help. The police - Society's ultimate arbitrors of life and death - arrive on the scene and lay a heavy hand on delicately balanced scales. Collins spent ten minutes lying on the ground in a seething, roiling storm of sirens, shouts, squealing tires and his own blood. What did he wonder? Who's were the final faces he saw? The last eyes he looked into? The arrival of silence; the shimmering air; then nothing.
- KBOO