NEWS
BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
POLICE DATA ON RACE IN LANE
COUNTY DIFFICULT TO TRACK
A
HAPPENINGPERSON
blistering report by the U.S. Justice Department
finds that “the Baltimore Police Department for
years has hounded black residents who make
up most of the city’s population, systematically
stopping, searching and arresting them, often
with little provocation or rationale,” The New York Times
reports.
Racial bias here in Lane County is trickier to track.
In the wake of recent Black Lives Matter protests and
police shootings of African-Americans, EW contacted
the Eugene Police Department, the Lane County Sheriff’s
Office and Springfield police to get an idea of how race is
tracked in this area in interactions with law enforcement.
The answer is that it’s not tracked very much at all.
As of July 2015, Lane County has an African-
American population of just 1.1 percent, compared
to 13.3 percent nationally, and Oregon is 2.1 percent
African-American. According to a July report by The
Sentencing Project, in Oregon one in 21 of all African-
American adult males was in prison in 2014.
In its analysis of U.S. Justice Department data, The
Sentencing Project found that African-Americans are
incarcerated more than whites by a ratio of 5.6 to 1,
slightly higher than the national average.
Here in Lane County, Sgt. Carrie Carver with the
Lane County Sheriff’s office says that the sheriff’s office
doesn’t track race when it comes to arrests and police
contacts.
EW put in a public records request with Springfield for
its contacts, arrests and incarcerations, which the police
department is in the process of responding to, however
interim Police Chief Rick Lewis tells EW, while arrests
and use of force are tracked, if a person is pulled over or
police make a contact but don’t arrest or cite the person
that information is not tracked.
Lewis says that from his perspective, if people are
pulled over for a traffic stop but not cited, being asked
what race they are might seem offensive or lead to the
impression a ticket is given or not given based on race.
In Eugene, EPD’s public information officer Melinda
McLaughlin says the police officially began testing an
iPhone app on Dec. 1, 2015, that would collect traffic
stop data. She says, “A group of 12 of our officers
collected data for six months to test the app.”
After six months, McLaughlin says EPD assessed
the app for needed changes and continued testing for
another six months. “We will next decide how to roll out
the collection technology for the rest of the department.
The project in 2015 focused solely on data collection
technology as the first step.”
And according to the most recent 2013 police use of
force review by the Eugene police auditor, “We found
no pattern among individual officers using force against
minorities.”
Eric Richardson, Eugene-Springfield NAACP
president, says the issue of tracking race has kind of
gotten the runaround, but he knows EPD Chief Pete
Kerns has it “on his radar and moving in that direction.”
Richardson also points to House Bill 2002, which
passed in the Oregon Legislature in July 2015, as another
positive step. The bill directs law enforcement agencies
to adopt written policies and procedures prohibiting
profiling by Jan. 1, 2016.
At the same time, Richardson says, “There’s a lot to
be desired when it comes to the interactions with people
of color.” And he’d like to see race “as an issue that gets
dealt with promptly as opposed to being on the bottom
of the pile.”
He says that the juvenile justice system tracks race a
little better, “and if we go by that there is disproportionate
contact” locally and statewide.
LINDA BURDEN-WILLIAMS
“I started guitar lessons in third grade,”
says Linda Burden-Williams, who grew up
in Marysville, Washington, and played bass
guitar for 15 years in Puget Sound-area rock
bands. “Shady Lady, She, Ship of Fools,
City Slicker,” she enumerates. “We changed
names regularly. We played music on the
road, six months at a time. We traveled with
eight people, two dogs and a monkey in a
school bus with a VW van on top.”
The bus is where she met her husband of
36 years, Gary Williams. In the early 1980s,
Burden-Williams took an acting class at the
Northwest Actors Studio in Seattle.
“The first day, I felt like I was home,”
she says. “It was a safe place where I could
express all my emotions.” She had roles
in several plays at the Actors Studio, then
studied camera acting, and has since
appeared in many network TV shows and
independent movies. After the birth of their
son, Garrick, the family moved to Veneta
when Gary was offered a job in Eugene. On
trips to New York or L.A. for work or education,
Burden-Williams brought Garrick along and
homeschooled him in a hotel room. In the
mid-1990s, she began to offer acting classes
at home in Veneta.
“I started with my son and his friends
from school,” she says. A few years later,
she moved her business, In Focus Camera
Acting and Production, to a classroom in
Eugene, where she teaches and coaches
public speaking as well as camera acting.
Her credits as a casting director include The
American Gandhi, chosen as best film at last
year’s Eugene International Film Festival.
• While we welcome the recent re-embracing of long-
form journalism, we weren’t impressed by The Oregonian’s
recent and massive “Firestorm” piece. Fire is a huge
concern in Oregon, but The O put thousands of words into
laying blame on how the Malheur National Forest attacked
last year’s Canyon Complex fires on Oregon’s east side,
accusing firefighters of being timid, rather than examining
how climate change and a lack of fire let those fires get so
big in the first place. The life of a firefighter — usually a
young man or woman — is more valuable than anyone’s
home or ranch. Aug. 13, a member of Lolo Hotshots, Justin
Beebe, 26, was killed fighting a fire in Nevada. Did The O
miss the point? Aggressive fire suppression over the
years caused these large blazes. We need to care for our
forests better, not ask young people to take more chances
than they already are to protect private property built into
forestland.
• Those dark-suited men and their security system
shouldn’t scare anyone away from the terrific art show
hung this week in the Wayne L. Morse Courthouse at 405
E. 8th Avenue. Security takes a few minutes, requiring
a photo ID and a walk through a metal detector — no
cameras allowed. Kirsten Shende hung the show, bringing
creative talent to the expanses of white that architect
Thom Mayne designed into the 10-year-old building. A
reception is planned for Oct. 5, 4 to 6 pm for the artists Jon
Jay Cruson, Lynn Isen Peterson, Mike Pease, Deigh Bates,
Michael Thompson, James Earl and Lynda Lanker. See Aug.
11 EW for Alex V. Cipolle’s story.
• Phil Barnhart’s race to hold his seat in the Oregon
House is one not to be overlooked. Representing parts of
both Lane and Linn counties, he nearly always has a quiet
but critical contest. Chair of the House revenue committee,
Phil is one of those public servants Oregon and Eugene is
lucky to claim, going back to his beginning on the 4J school
board. In the races in play this fall, his is listed as “lean
Dem” not “likely Dem.” If you want to volunteer to knock on
doors or donate a dime, here’s a good place to do it.
• Warning! Donald Trump is coming to Oregon Aug.
31. His plans seem rather loose, but so far they include
a fundraiser in Portland and a rally someplace else. We
don’t want him here, especially after reading Nicholas
Kristof in The New York Times Sunday, Aug. 14. Kristof, an
Oregonian, writes how even the students in Forest Grove
High School reflect the hatred and fear Trump is spewing
about immigrants and “others.”
• Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so we’re
flattered that several news sources reported on the
peculiar case of “Fred Brito” the con artist who led the
Downtown Athletic Club for three months as Carlo DiMaria
before being fired for lying on his résumé after we broke
it on our blog. But let’s have a little honor among thieves
journalists. If a news source breaks a story, give credit
where credit is due! See our first story on our blog and the
follow up in our 8/11 issue.
• Organizers of Eugene/Springfield’s “new homegrown,
non-commercial, progressive, all-volunteer community
radio station” meet at 7 pm every Thursday on the 2nd
floor of the Growers Market building, 454 Willamette; next to
Morning Glory Café. “No Voice Left Unheard” KEPW says it is
a news/public affairs and arts radio station that will soon be
broadcasting radio shows “hosted and produced exclusively
by people who live in this Eugene/Springfield area.” The
group is looking for an experienced office manager as well
as volunteers for programming, PR and fundraising. Call 541-
731-9941or go to KEPW.org for more info.
eugeneweekly.com • A ugust 18, 2016
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