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L the clackamas print Shootings spark riot By James Duncan The Clackamas Print On Starch 29, the streets of downtown Portland were filled with angry protesters, many in masks, acting out against the two most recent police shootings. Geoffery Makramara of the Rose City Cop Watch said in response to what happened that day, “The people of Portland are angry and fed up and are resisting police brutality and police violence in their communi ties.” Rose City Cop Watch is an organization that is com mitted to building commu nity power in opposition to the police violence. “We do that in a number of ways,” said Makramara. ”We have engaged in patrols where we go out on the streets and observe police behavior, follow them with video cameras with the hope of keeping them accountable for their actions and also the hope that them knowing that they’re being watched and recorded will reduce their tendency towards violence against our communities.” The Rose City Cop Watch did not help in coordination of the protest but was on scene recording the police response to the protesters. Not long after the protest got started, police were on scene. Detective Mary Wheat, Public Relations Officer of the Portland City Police Bureau, said “We still don’t know what their purpose was but apparently from what we could see in the intelligence information that was being put out in e-mails and blogs was basi cally to try to get into fights With the police and to cause property damage in down town Portland.” The protesters left dam age in their wake. From pushing large green dump sters into the streets and pushing over newspaper dispensers, to breaking a window at the Bank of America, which will cost $8,500 to fix. “They were very aggres sive with our horses and the officers riding them. They threw large rocks, bottles, locks and tried to punch some of our officers,” said Wheat. “They didn’t obtain a permit, and our job was to try to allow them to get their message out in a safe manner and also to follow the laws as far as not block ing traffic ... We respond to crisis and incidents that occur in the city of Portland and our job is to keep the community safe.” Kimberly Miller, a fifth- year student of Clackamas Community College said, “Obviously the police had a pretty important part of it, but the violence prob ably didn’t need to happen with the protesters. There are other ways to get their point across and if the police saw fit to arrest someone for destroying property or throwing stuff at the police officers themselves, then they had every right to ... I don’t see just cause in the protesters’ way of getting their point across. Quite frankly destroying property is not a good way. Violence is never the right answer.” Brad Heineke Clackamas Print Portland Police officers stay on guard downtown after the notorious protest on March 29. Police said the pro testers didn’t obtain a permit. r- staff the elackamas print Co-Editors in Chief: Veteran fights stre John Shufelt Clued - Veteran Eddie Black presents post combat issues to students in the McLoughlin Auditor] April 6. Black served as a Marine for five years during Operation Desert Storm. By Travis Hardin The Clackamas Print “If you like what you see here, I will come talk to you, your family, your church, your knitting group. Anyone and everyone, I’ll go talk to you. I don’t care. I’ll sit in a bar at the bar stool and talk to you or whatever. I’ve done a million dif ferent types of presentation,” said Eddie Black as over 60 students and instructors greeted him on April 6 in the McLoughlin Auditorium. From a glance, Black looks like your typical college student. A resident of Beaverton, Black is in his fifth year at Portland State University, working towards dual degrees in psychology and phi losophy. Black, however, is not your typical college student; he is much more. First off, Black is a combat veteran. Black joined the Marine Corps in 1989 after graduating high school. Black spent the follow ing five years serving his country seeing action in Operation Desert Storm. It was during his tour in the Corps that Black was able to travel the world five different times. After getting out of the Corps, Black went off to college and then the events on Sept. 11, 2001, hap pened. “I was on the phone with the prior service Marine Corps recruit er out of Portland saying ‘Get me in.’ That day, ‘Get me in. I want to go back in.’ [The recruiter] lost my paperwork or something. And before you know it President Bush is on the aircraft carrier saying mis sion accomplished.” According to Black, he went back to college after Bush made those comments aboard the carrier. While making his coffee in the morning, Black would review his class notes for the day and watch Ad Manager: Kayla Berge^John Hurlburt Meredith James the television as well. He would see Marines on the screen going house to house clearing them in Iraq. He thought the war was over because of what Bush had said. According to Black, he looked into the situation and found out that there still were a lot of combat operations occurring over in Iraq and Afghanistan. “So I called up the Army, the Marine Corps, the National Guard and said ‘Somebody get me some paperwork. I’ll sign it. I don’t care who you are.’ The National Guard was there two days later saying, ‘Here you go we got [the paper work] right here.’ Boom, I signed up and became an infantry sol dier.” After Black got back home from the Middle East, he re-enrolled into college. Black was fine, nothing was wrong with him. But he did notice something wrong among his fellow soldiers of Charlie Company. Many of his comrades were taking happy pills and sleeping pills because they either were depressed, had trouble sleeping or had anger issues. Black saw members with 15,16 or 17 years in the service quitting. These members only had three to five years left before they could fully retire. Alcohol and drug use was also on the rise. Black, being a psychology stu dent, saw these incidents as warn ing signs while the service, accord ing to Black, tied these incidents to a few bad soldiers. At the time, Black was taking a class studying anxiety disorders. A fellow classmate gave Black some information about a Web site called Returning Veterans Project and was made of local psychologists in the Portland area. The psychologists provide free counseling to veterans and their families for as long as they need Steven Weldon Arts & Culture Editor: Web Editor: Annemarie Schulte Brian Steele News Editor: Erik Andersen Associate News Editor: \ Sports Editor: Mark Foster Associate Sports Editor: it. Black himself spent n receiving counseling fii same group. Black decided to take! this helpful information ba National Guard Unit basq Gresham. This was the start of wl is doing todaysBlack offers for free at different events out the state. When asked what then the Post Traumatic Stress! presentation was, Greglfl Vet coordinator at Clack™ “I wanted to bring somera credibility and education to lege to share his experiena When asked how I out about Black, Myers met him at another event through his presentation,» so impressed with it. I exte invitation to come to the d Black was asked after sentation what was one wanted people to walk aw Black replied, “PTSD is manent. It’s normal to ha sort of reaction to combat, able.” For Black, being a con eran does come with a stii “I have people at work] man whoa, whoa. Doni angry.’ I was like, ‘You seen me angry. If you w| angry, I will show you and blow up and destroy thl and then you will see and you will know that just bed talking to you like this to a thing. That this isn’t and called directness.’” When asked what shl about the presentation Blakesfield, a student who the event, said “I was so w with it. With what these have to deal with, both inj and when they get back could never go it.” Staff Writers/ Photographers Production Assistants Joshua Baird, Brian Baldwin, C opy Editor: Michael Bonn, Hillary Cole, Kayla Calloway Alexandria Coover, George Associate Copy Editor: Craig, James Duncan, Cody John Simmöns Ferdinand, Travis Hardin, Brad Design Editor: Heineke, Neil Lundin, Javierh Kelsey Schneider Montero, Robby Morrison, Ste Photo Editor: ven Riley, Mark Sunderland, John Shufelt Kitty Suydam Jaime Dunkle 19600 S. Molalla Ave. Oregon City, OR 97045 503-594-6266 ne Wednesday, April 14, 2010 Karlie Gilliam, Bethany Jackson, Tyler Kem, Tiffany Myers, Wesley Northcutt, Tom Redick, Corey Romick, Mark Sun derland Goals The Clackamas I aims to report the! in an honest, unbij professional ml Content published i| Print is not screen subject to censorship Journalism Adviser: Melissa Jones E-mail comment chiefed@clackama|
