PORTLAND, Ore. — The KGW Investigates team cast a wide net this year, with deep and ongoing coverage on topics ranging from emergency response times to financial fraud to shoplifting. Some of these stories were single articles or videos, and others were ongoing topics that received multiple rounds of coverage throughout the year.
Here's a look back at some of 2023's biggest investigative stories:
Michael Burns had never heard of a company called LVNV Funding, but the Hillsboro man became all too familiar with the debt collector after he was hit with a lawsuit claiming he owed $1,096 to Credit One Bank — a company he said he'd never done business with. A Portland attorney agreed to represent him for free, and a judge dismissed the case in June, later ordering LVNV Funding to pay Burns $19,737 in legal fees.
A previous KGW investigation in July documented how LVNV Funding sued a West Linn woman for about $2,100 in unpaid bills, but she vowed to fight back, arguing that she never took out the debt in question. And another story in May highlighted how a different debt collector garnished everything in a Happy Valley man's bank account over unpaid medical debt.
The stories collectively highlight Oregon's lack of rules to stop debt collectors from seizing bank accounts and garnishing wages, as well as the limited options available for the people who are targeted, regardless of whether or not they actually owe any money.
Multnomah and Washington counties have both struggled for much of the year with the problem of EMS contractors falling short of county standards when it comes to speedy responses to calls. A KGW review of ambulance response time data in March showed that Metro West Ambulance and American Medical Response were both increasingly missing the mark.
In Multnomah County, AMR pointed the finger at a county rule requiring that ambulances be staffed by two paramedics rather than one paramedic and one Emergency Medical Technician. Paramedics have higher educational and training requirements than EMTs, making it harder to fill staffing quotas if two are required for each ambulance. The county argued that two paramedics will be better prepared and produce better results.
Another KGW investigation in June found that ambulances in Multnomah County were unavailable to immediately respond to more than 6,300 emergency calls from Jan. 17 to June 8. In September, the county rolled out an update to its system for sorting and managing 911 calls, aiming to screen out low-acuity calls rather than immediately dispatching an ambulance to every single call.
Ricky Klausmeyer-Garcia's name is well-known across Washington state. A recovery advocate, he transformed his personal story of addiction into a new state law, "Ricky’s Law," which passed in 2016 and took effect two years later. The law expanded involuntary treatment to people with substance use disorders. Ricky said treatment had saved his life, and other people should have that chance — even if they’re reluctant to accept it at first.
Ricky had been sober from his alcohol addiction for years, but when he took a trip to Portland in May 2023, he had relapsed — and he was running from his own law. While Ricky could’ve been compelled into a substance use treatment program in Washington, Oregon has no such system. Instead, Oregon limits involuntary treatment only to people with severe mental illness.
Ricky was evaluated at a Portland-area hospital, but despite please from his family, the hospital staff said they had no choice but to release him. Although Ricky did return to Washington days later, he ultimately died at a substance use treatment center.
Sidney Sean Mecham was arrested on multiple criminal charges after he allegedly drove his pickup truck onto closed streets on the Grand Floral Parade route in June. He reportedly drove several blocks down the parade route on Northeast Weidler Street and Northeast MLK Jr Boulevard and continued even after a police officer began pursuing him on a motorcycle. No one was hit, but there were several close calls. Mecham eventually left the parade route and was later arrested.
In October, KGW obtained dashcam footage from inside Mecham's truck, showing Mecham himself as well as the view to the front and rear of the truck during the incident. The recording shows Mecham leaving a home in Southeast Portland and committing several traffic infractions while driving toward downtown, then becoming increasingly frustrated by heavy traffic on westbound Interstate 84.
Mecham became enraged upon reaching the I-84 ramp to northbound Interstate 5, at one point yelling while on a phone call about all the exits in the Lloyd district being blocked off. The video then shows him swerving around an Oregon Department of Transportation car and driving through a row of cones in order to take the blocked Broadway-Weidler Street exit and enter the parade route.
Andrew Keheley relies on Social Security disability benefits, but the 28-year-old Portland man discovered on Sept. 3 that his Direct Express account was almost empty due to were 138 unauthorized charges, all on the same day, and all for $6.57 and all apparently connected to Facebook in Ireland. Keheley immediately called Direct Express to report the fraud, but the company ultimately denied his claim, concluding that Keheley had authorized each of the charges.
Milton Zimmer of Salem similarly found that his veteran disability benefits had been drained and reported roughly $6,000 in bogus charges, but Direct Express denied his claim. More than 4.5 million people receive federal benefits through Direct Express prepaid debit cards, many of them seniors, and various news outlets around the country have reported similar stories of frustrating experiences with Direct Express, where victims can't get their money back despite obvious signs of fraud.
A separate KGW investigation found that Oregon EBT card holders often face similar fraud, exacerbated by the fact that the state's Oregon Trail debit cards lack the smart chip technology included in most modern debit and credit cards, making them more vulnerable to "skimming" devices that fraudsters use to copy card information when the magnetic strip is swiped.
The bright red portable toilets were tough to miss. Starting in September 2020, Portland employees put out roughly 130 of the port-a-potties across the city to help people experiencing homelessness have access to clean restrooms. At the time, strict COVID-19 protocols eliminated places were people living outside normally used the restroom.
In the first few months, city officials admitted, every single unit had been vandalized or damaged in some way. The program cost the city an average of $75,000 per month. So, three years later — what happened to those portable toilets? As it turns out, most of them are gone, taken off the streets due to the lack of funding and vandalism, city officials told KGW.
But the alternative bathroom options for Portland's homeless population remain very limited, especially at night. Many businesses also lock their restrooms and only allow paying customers to use them. Moving forward, the city plans to only maintain 20 to 25 portable toilets, far fewer than in the original pilot project.
Tesla owners nationwide have been documenting and sharing videos of a phenomenon known as "phantom braking," where their vehicles suddenly slam the brakes, often on open roadways, dropping in speed in response to imagined hazards. The incidents happen when the cars are using Tesla's Autopilot driver assistance system, which includes a cruise control feature where the car automatically speeds up or slows down as needed to keep a safe distance with the vehicle in front.
KGW analyzed thousands of federal auto safety complaints, interviewed more than 50 Tesla owners and even tested a vehicle during a 750-mile road trip. The investigation found that incidents of phantom braking are more widespread than previously reported, but most drivers aren't aware of the risk because Tesla, along with federal auto safety regulators, hasn't done much to warn them about it.
The unexpected braking forces drivers to suddenly respond and decide if the hazard is real or imagined, and there have been documented cases where phantom braking has caused crashes due to cars piling up when the Tesla vehicles in front slow down.
Two years after a $240 million renovation at Leodis V. McDaniel High School in Portland, the school's baseball and softball teams were still unable to play on their own field because of an unfixed defect. Every game continued to be an away game during the 2022-2023 school year, costing student athletes class time and creating headaches for parents.
The school reopened after the renovation in September 2021, but at some point the district realized that there was a flaw with the rebuilt field that created a safety concern. There was no protective padded wall in front of a cement retaining wall, and the new netting at the edge of the field didn't allow balls to properly bounce off and remain in play.
Portland Public Schools initially hoped to have the fencing replaced by late 2022, but staffing issues forced the original contractor to pull out of the project, and supply chain issues and labor shortages slowed down the replacement contractor. In late June, the district announced that a new $750,000 contract was in place for a fix that would hopefully be done in time for the new school year in the fall.
KGW did extensive reporting on Portland's organized retail theft problem and its impact on the community in 2022 and 2023, speaking with police, prosecutors, retailers, private security, customers and neighbors. But there was one voice left out: a convicted shoplifter.
In order to learn about the effectiveness of anti-theft measures, where the stolen merchandise ends up and the driving forces behind the rise in shoplifting, KGW sent a crew to the Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario for a sit-down interview with Martin Castaway.
Castaway is currently serving seven years in prison for theft convictions in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties, and was the leader of a crime ring that hit big box retailers throughout the Portland metro area. He said most shoplifting is committed by people on drugs, and said they need treatment rather than prison.
In 2017, Multnomah County came out with a plan to build tiny homes in people’s backyards for free if they agreed to let a homeless family live there for the next five years. The project, called A Place for You, aimed to build as many as 300 ADUs, or "accessory dwelling units," in backyards across the Portland area. Nearly 1,000 homeowners applied, and four were initially selected. By late summer of 2018 the first units were complete, and four homeless families had a place to call their own.
Things went well, but then relationships began to sour. One of the participating property owners told KGW that within two years, the once-homeless family in her backyard ADU had ditched the program and moved out. The unit sat vacant for months, then years, with little support from the program. Other participants shared similar frustrations, and only one homeowner said he'd had a family stay in his backyard for the whole five years since the program began.
Five years later, the pilot program has quietly dwindled — seemingly due to a lack of coordination by those who promised big, new ideas to help homeless people. The total number of units never advanced beyond the initial four, and the participating homeowners put the blame on a lack of follow-through from the program staff.
