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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 31, 2001)
Police commission releases new protest policies ■An advisory panel otters recommendations on six police policies involving use of force, conflict strategies By Sue Ryan Oregon Daily Emerald A Eugene advisory police com mission presented the fruits of a two-and-a-half year review of po lice policies Wednesday to the lo cal community. The recommenda tions centered on six individual policies, including the creation of a new policy on public assemblies and demonstrations. The new policy provides guide lines for officers on how they re spond to events which do not meet the definition ot a civil distur bance. “The focus is on conflict preven tion strategies to allow the event to proceed peacefully,” said John Brown, a police commission mem ber. These strategies include police monitoring the event, maintaining neutrality, communicating with participants and making enforce ment decisions which are propor tionate to the offender’s behavior. The policy dictates that the officer assess the threat to public safety while enforcing order. Commission members also re viewed the technique known as field force. Police use this tech nique of working together as an or ganized unit in incidents involving a group. The commission also studied the general use of force, control techniques, less lethal weapons and the use of pepper spray. The mayor appointed the com mission in the fall of 1999 which serves as an advisory board to the city council on police issues. “This is the first time a citizens’ group has been involved with po lice review,” said Jeannine Parisi, an analyst for the Eugene Police Commission. “There has been a history of conflicts with protesters and police each June.” Parisi said the annual tensions began with a tree-sitting June 1,1997, followed by a riot in June 1999 and annual commemorations each year since. “The third weekend in June seems to [be]... followed by politi cal activism and at times, people getting arrested,” she said. Before presenting the recom mendations to the public, the po lice commission met with the Eu gene City Council Tuesday evening during a work session on the policies. Mayor Jim Torrey said the work session was not to change the policies. “We are here to hear Council’s opinion of that recommendation,” he said at the meeting. Councilors acknowledged the complexity of the commission’s task. “It was a balancing act to give the police department discretion to use their best judgment and yet give the community a sense that policies are being carried out con sistently,” Councilor Bonny Bettman said. Councilors had questions re garding definitions of certain activ ities, including the difference be tween passive and static resistance. Police commission member Floyd Prozanski said the commission worked on showing the difference between the two lev els instead of lumping both into one category. “Passive resistance is basically when the person goes limp after they have been told they will be ar rested,” he said. The new recommendations have been e-mailed to all officers in the police department. Fledgling tech industry continues to give donations ■ Despite a recent downward trend for online technologies, the University is not seeing a decrease in their donations By Brooke Ross Oregon Daily Emerald According to an industry track ing Web site www.smallcapcen ter.com, CNN laid off more than 400 Internet employees this year. Teligent.com, a telecommunica tions company, laid some 900 peo ple off. ScreamingMedia.com re cently lost more than $4 million in the stock market, while ToyS mart.com and e.spire Communica tions both filed bankruptcy within the last year. Craftshop.com, a for mer Connecticut e-retailer, recently shut down its operation altogether. The red-hot technology industry has cooled off, with Internet dot corns going under left and right, ac cording to countless media reports on the Web and in the mainstream press. But the University is not feeling the effects with any de creases in donations from the high tech sector. Higher education institutions across the country, including the University, often receive financial support from some of these compa nies and the money helps to open doors for both research and curricu lum. Although several companies seem to be going under, University ad ministrators are not worried that the companies’ financial support will end. Susan Plass, University director of corporate and foundation relations, said the University receives funding from Intel, Cisco Systems and about four other computer technology companies through donations, in ternship programs and endow ments. “1 haven’t heard any hints that things are going to change,” she said, Plass, who works to match up outside companies with areas of the University where there is financial need, said several different depart ments receive funding from Internet companies including the Comput ing Center, the Charles H. Lundquist College of Business and the Materials Science Institute. She said the companies have just as much interest in funding education as the schools who receive the fi nancial support. “They don’t want to see the pipe line of well-trained students stop,” she said. Intel recently named three Uni versity faculty members as 2001 In tel Faculty Fellows and awarded the University grant money to sup port new projects to advance tech nological education. Plass said the company has do nated thousands of dollars to the University in the last few years and does not think the trend will stop any time soon. “Intel is a good example of a com pany that looks broadly across the University,” she said. “I’ve heard nothing that suggests their fellow ship program is in jeopardy.” Dietrich Belitz, physics professor and department head, is one of the three University professors who re ceived a $35,000 fellowship from Intel for their work in semiconduc tor processing and characterization. He said while the success of the In ternet industry is of some interest to the physics department, he is not worried about the overall success of the Internet economy. “The computer industry is doing just fine,” he said. “I can’t see any warning signs at this point.” Belitz said he is aware that sever al dot-coms are failing, but he said those businesses are just one part of a huge industry. “I’m not concerned at all,” he said. “It’s absolutely clear that com puter technology is here to stay.” Joanne Hugi, director of the Com puting Center, agrees with Belitz. She said the center has received about 10 donations from computer technology companies over the last several years, including a donation from Cisco Systems. Hugi said the financial support they have received from outside companies were typically one-time donations, and sometimes they were not even money donations but rather computer equipment gifts. “Although the stock market may have dumped on them as well, I don’t think any of us think they’re going out of business,” she said.
