Street roots., November 16, 2018, Page 7, Image 7

Nov. 16-22, 201 8
News
Ban sought
on use of
police dogs
on inmates
Disability advocates say
the practice, allowed in
Oregon, is dangerous
and unnecessary
BY JOANNE ZUHL
E X E C U T IV E ED IT O R
regon’s leading civil rights group for
people with disabilities is calling for
an end to using dogs in jails to
forcibly control inmates.
Disability Rights Oregon is calling for a
statewide ban of the practice in a report
that focuses on the Columbia County Jail,
the scene of a violent interaction between
a police dog and an inmate in 2017.
Oregon is one of only five" states that
allow police dogs to be applied in use-of-
force situations, and Columbia County is
the only county in the state that reports
using them that way, according to a survey
by DRO. On Aug. 1, 2017, Columbia County
deputies sicced' a police dog on 47-year-old
Christopher Bartlett when he failed to.
follow commands in preparation for leaving
his cell. Bartlett suffered a dog bite on his
arm, among other injuries, and was sent to
the hospital for medical attention.
Bartlett “identifies as having mental
illness,” said Emily Cooper, legal director
with DRO. “The jail records support that,
and there was a detailed assessment by a
mental health clinician after the attack that
showed that he does have auditory and
visual hallucinations. He’s the exact reason
why jails can be difficult for people with
disabilities because they’re not following
the rules or the norms - not because they
don’t want to but because the disability
prevents them from doing i t ”
A video of the attack recorded on one of
the deputy’s body cameras shows the dog
pulling Bartlett to the floor of his cell and
biting him repeatedly with several deputies
in attendance.
A grand jury found no evidence of
wrongdoing on the part of the officers, and
no charges were filed. Bartlett ultimately
sued the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office
for $500,000, claiming cruel and unusual
punishment In October, the county settled
with Bartlett for $251,000 without
admitting any wrongdoing.
In its report titled “You Are Going to
Get Bitten,” released Tuesday, DRO said
that using K-9s to intimidate and control
inmates is dangerous to both the inmates
and the deputies and that it is unnecessary,
given the range of options available to
compel inmate compliance. However,
Oregon doesn’t have a protocol for using
K-9s in use-of-force situations like the cell
extraction of Bartlett, Cooper said. DRO is
■
ArtistAbigail DeVille sets up her installation, “The American Future, ” at Portland's Institute for Contemporary Art. The exh ib i^w h ich uses'^
trash from local sites to showcase Portland and its history o f oppression and racism, runs through Jan. 12.
Portland’s story of oppression, through art
Abigail DeVilie’s installation at PICA features Street Roots papers, vendor artwork
BY HELEN HILL
STAFF REPO RTER
V Portland’s Institute for Contemporary
Art’s 16,000-square-foot exhibition
space in Northeast Portland is the
site of Bronx-based artist Abigail DeVille’s
massive installation piece. And thousands of
back issues of
Street Roots, as
PICA
well as the art of .
many Street
P o rta is Ín s ita
Roots vendors,
for Contemporary
are an intentional
Art
element.
DeVille’s
15 HE Hancock St,
commissioned
Ported
work has a
Hours: Noon-6 p.m,
purpose deep and
wide. She has
Wednesday-Friday;
long been
noon-4 p M
perfecting her
Saturday l | | S
craft as an
archaeologist who
unearths a dark, invisible America with
massive installations created from detritus,
often trash gleaned from local dumps, bins
and recycling centers. With these cast-off
objects, DeVille creates meticulous and
immersive installations designed to reveal a
site-specific p a s t
“History is deep; it’s dark and affects
everything happening in this very moment,”
DeVille said. “History is the tale of the
victor. And it’s garbage.”
DeVille’s work repeatedly references the
victor’s tale with structures that are
associated w ith the systemic racism and
oppression that have defined America for
centuries.
DeVille calls the exhibit “The American
JL
“The American Future” includes artwork by Street Roots vendors. This wall features pieces that
appear in Street Roots'2018 holiday zine, which will be sold by Street Roots vendors.
Future.” She used Thomas Jefferson as her
entry point for this reflection on the
Portland experience. It was Jefferson, after
all, the father of Manifest Destiny, who
commissioned the Lewis and Clark
expedition that opened up the Oregon
Territory to white settlers.
DeVille said Jefferson “is an interesting
figure but fraught because he had all these
aspirations and high-minded ideals that
never really translated. He said all men are
created equal, but I’m going to own over
250 people. These things I feel have
proliferated and filtered down into the way
Americans think of themselves. I read a
housing statistic (from Portland) that said
the families that are the most vulnerable to
being homeless are Native Americans and
African-Americans.”
The exhibit, which runs through Jan. 12,
features a massive representation of the
stepped Pyramid of Djoser in Egypt,
saturated in a blue light that suggests
memory. The foundational “stones” of this
pyramid are made up of 20 years of back
issues of Street Roots newspapers.
Nothing is accidental in DeVille’s work.
She chose to incorporate the newspapers,
stored in the basement beneath Street
Roots’ offices at 211 NW Davis S t, because
Street Roots is a voice for the voiceless and
marginalized. Intermingled throughout the
bricks of the Street Roots bundles are
hundreds of crumpled copies of the
See PICA, page 12
See DOGS, page 12