With chairs filled and people lining the walls, University of Oregon students packed the room during the Eugene City Council public forum on Monday.

The students said they were concerned about police interactions with students during parties in the West University neighborhood. 

In a post made on their Instagram earlier that day, ASUO urged students to attend the public meeting and voice their concerns.

“The Eugene City Council needs to hear from students firsthand about the increased policing,” the post said. 

Students filled the seats of the public forum building. About 20 students had to wait outside, ASUO Executive President Luda Isakharov said during her testimony. 

“My peers have started expressing to me that they don’t feel comfortable calling 911 when they’re hosting parties in cases of emergencies,” Isakharov said. “They feel like they need to handle emergency situations themselves out of fear of engaging with law enforcement.”

Isakharov said ASUO has worked to educate UO students about how to be mindful neighbors and trained Greek Life leaders on how to have positive and respectful interactions with law enforcement. 

“Every weekend, it feels like it’s getting worse and the violence is escalating,” Isakharov said.

Julia Lo, a fourth year UO student and the student member of the University’s Board of Trustees, testified that the police presence in the West University neighborhood where she lives is markedly different from what she experienced in her freshman year before COVID-19 began. 

Lo said the increased policing has caused more stress for students.

“For a lot of students this is our first interaction with police,” Lo said. “It can be a very scary situation and one where we may not be informed of our rights.” 

An increased communication pathway between UO students and EPD is one avenue Lo said she hopes will develop as a result of this forum. 

The city’s 2013 Social Host Ordinance permits the Eugene Police Department to halt unruly or noisy gatherings.

Spencer Smith, a UO student who testified at the public forum, said he and his roommates were charged with criminal misdemeanors when police responded to a noise complaint directed at a party being held at Smith’s house on Oct. 29. 

In an interview with the Daily Emerald and Duck TV, Eugene police chief Chris Skinner said EPD tries to communicate with the student body about the intentions of party patrol, including through press releases, conversations with ASUO and neighborhood outreach.

“As much as we think we’ve done a really good job of communicating it, one of the things that I took away from hearing from all the students is that, obviously, we didn’t communicate well enough,” Skinner said.

A resident of the Jefferson West Side neighborhood, Kelly Shunk testified she is experiencing the opposite problem of the students and not getting help from the police regarding threats and people trying to break into her house. She said she and her neighbors are waiting up to 58 minutes for police to respond to calls on the 600 block of West 8th Avenue. 

Shunk said she feels the lack of responsiveness from the police to her calls has made her lose faith in the local police department and that the over-responsiveness of the police to unruly gatherings in the West University neighborhood makes no sense. 

“They’re just trying to be college students,” Shunk said. “I’m down on the Jefferson Wests Side as a 58-year-old grandma getting no help, ready to take concealed carry classes.”

Skinner said any amount of response time that’s too long isn’t acceptable and that EPD underperforms in that area. EPD prioritizes calls based on their severity, like whether someone’s life needs saving or there’s an in-progress crime such as a break-in, he said.

“But when that person is calling us from the safety of their own home, and it’s a verbal threat and there’s no other piece of information to suggest that danger is imminent, then that gets prioritized below the other things that are happening that are in progress,” Skinner said.

Eugene City Council member Emily Semple said this was the largest turnout for a public forum she’s seen since the council started meeting in the building. Semple, whose ward encompasses West University as well as the Jefferson neighborhood, commended those who shared testimony.

“This is very distressing,” Semple said. “I appreciate people having the strength and intelligence to come forward and tell us what their truth is.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with an interview from Eugene police chief Chris Skinner. Alexis Weisend contributed to this report.