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THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, MAy 21, 2019
Teen accused in Oregon school gun case pleads not guilty
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — Former Univer-
sity of Oregon football star Keanon
Lowe said he had just entered a class-
room at the Portland high school
where he works as a coach and secu-
rity guard when a student armed
with a black shotgun appeared in the
doorway.
Lowe had just seconds Friday to
react. He lunged at the gunman and
wrestled with him for the weapon as
other students ran screaming out a
back door, Lowe recalled in an inter-
view with Good Morning America.
Lowe said he managed to get the
gun away from the student and pass
it to a teacher while Lowe held down
the student with his other hand.
Lowe wrapped the student in a bear
hug until police arrived, he said.
No one was injured. Police are
still trying to determine if any shots
were fired.
“I lunged for the gun and we both
had the gun, we had four hands on
the gun,” Lowe recalled. “I’m just
trying to make sure the end of the
gun isn’t pointing toward where the
students are running.”
Lowe, who is head football
and track coach at Parkrose High
School, said it was the “longest frac-
tion of a second of my life, but I kind
of assessed that situation and my
instincts kicked in.”
The suspect, 19-year-old Angel
Granados-Diaz, pleaded not guilty
Monday during a brief court hear-
ing to a felony count of possessing
a weapon in a public building and
three misdemeanors.
His public defender, Grant Hart-
ley, declined to comment.
Granados-Diaz turned 19 in jail
on Monday, the same day students at
Associated Press
Keanon Lowe in 2016 with the San
Francisco 49ers.
Parkrose High returned to class after
an emotional weekend that included
their prom.
Parkrose School District Super-
intendent Michael Lopes-Serrao
said two students had previously
informed a staff member of “con-
cerning behavior” by the student —
later identified as Granados-Diaz —
before the incident. He said school
security personnel were respond-
ing to those concerns when Grana-
dos-Diaz arrived at the classroom.
A police report says the incident
was a “suicide attempt with a gun”
and someone added in bold hand-
writing “enhanced bail/suicidal.”
Granados-Diaz has declined an
interview with authorities and has
no prior convictions, according to
court papers.
He’s being held on $500,000 bail
and has another court appearance
next week.
Lowe said he was called on a
radio to go to a classroom in the
fine arts building and get a student.
When he got there, the substitute
teacher told him the student wasn’t
in class. Lowe said he was about to
leave when Diaz entered the room.
“I feel like I was put in that room
for a reason,” Lowe said. “He didn’t
know I was in that room when he
opened the door and I think there’s
things in my life that have happened
that have prepared me for that very
moment.”
Lowe was a star wide receiver
at the University of Oregon, play-
ing from 2011 to 2014. He caught
10 touchdown passes and had nearly
900 receiving yards.
After college, he worked as an
offensive analyst for the San Fran-
cisco 49ers and as an analyst for the
Philadelphia Eagles.
Lowe began working at Parkrose
last year as the football and track
coach, according to his LinkedIn
profile. Before that, he worked for
his high school alma mater, Jesuit
High, where he had earned state
defensive player of the year as a
defensive back and was a standout
sprinter.
left voluntarily or with buyouts,
while another 300 have already
been laid off. About 500 workers
will be let go starting this week,
largely in and around the compa-
ny’s headquarters in Dearborn,
Michigan, just outside Detroit. All
will get severance packages.
The layoffs are coming across
a broad swath of the company
including engineering, product
development, marketing, informa-
tion technology, logistics, finance
and other areas. But the company
also said it is hiring in some crit-
ical areas including those devel-
oping software and dealing with
self-driving and electric vehicles.
be enriched only to the 3.67%
limit set under the 2015 nuclear
deal with world powers, making
it usable for a power plant but far
below what’s needed for an atomic
weapon.
But by increasing production,
Iran soon will go beyond the stock-
pile limitations set by the accord.
Tehran has set a July 7 deadline
for Europe to come up with new
terms for the deal, or it will enrich
closer to weapons-grade levels in
a Middle East already on edge.
The Trump administration has
deployed bombers and an aircraft
carrier to the region over still-un-
specified threats from Iran.
Already this month, officials in
the United Arab Emirates alleged
that four oil tankers were dam-
aged in a sabotage attack; Yemeni
rebels allied with Iran launched a
drone attack on an oil pipeline in
Saudi Arabia; and U.S. diplomats
relayed a warning that commercial
airlines could be misidentified by
Iran and attacked, something dis-
missed by Tehran.
A rocket landed Sunday near
the U.S. Embassy in the Green
Zone of Iraq’s capital of Baghdad,
days after nonessential U.S. staff
were ordered to evacuate from
diplomatic posts in the country.
No one was reported injured.
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
5th migrant child dies
after detention by US
border agents
HOUSTON — A 16-year-old
boy from Guatemala who died in
U.S. custody Monday had been
held for six days — twice as long
as federal law generally permits
— then transferred to another
holding facility after he was diag-
nosed with the flu.
The teenager, identified by
U.S. Customs and Border Protec-
tion as Carlos Gregorio Hernan-
dez Vasquez, was the fifth minor
from Guatemala to die after being
apprehended by border agents
since December.
Advocates demanded that Pres-
ident Donald Trump’s adminis-
tration act to safeguard the lives
of children in detention as bor-
der crossings surge and the U.S.
Border Patrol detains thousands
of families at a time in over-
crowded facilities, tents, and out-
door spaces.
“If these were white children
that were dying at this rate, people
would be up in arms,” said Efrén
Olivares, a lawyer with the Texas
Civil Rights Project. “We see this
callous disregard for brown, Span-
ish-speaking children.”
Border Patrol agents said Car-
los was apprehended on May 13
in South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley
after crossing the border illegally.
He was taken to the agency’s cen-
tral processing center in McAl-
len, Texas, a converted warehouse
where hundreds of adults and chil-
dren are held in large, fenced-in
pens and sleep on mats.
Judge rules against
Trump in records
dispute with Congress
WASHINGTON — A federal
judge in Washington ruled Mon-
day against President Donald
Trump in a financial records dis-
pute with Congress.
U.S. District Judge Amit
Mehta, who was appointed by
President Barack Obama, said
Trump cannot block a House sub-
poena of financial records. He said
the Democratic-led House com-
mittee seeking the information
has said it believes the documents
would help lawmakers consider
strengthening ethics and disclo-
sure laws, among other things.
The committee’s reasons were
“valid legislative purposes,”
Mehta said, and it was not for him
“to question whether the Commit-
tee’s actions are truly motivated
by political considerations.”
The decision comes amid a
widespread effort by the White
House and the president’s lawyers
to refuse to cooperate with con-
gressional requests for informa-
tion and records.
Seeing a twisting road
ahead, Ford cuts 7K
white-collar jobs
DETROIT — Ford revealed
details of its long-awaited restruc-
turing plan Monday as it prepared
for a future of electric and auton-
omous vehicles by parting ways
with 7,000 white-collar work-
ers worldwide, about 10% of its
global salaried workforce.
The major revamp, which had
been under way since last year,
will save about $600 million
per year by eliminating bureau-
cracy and increasing the num-
ber of workers reporting to each
manager.
In the U.S. about 2,300 jobs will
be cut through buyouts and lay-
offs, Ford said. About 1,500 have
Reports: Iran
quadruples production
of enriched uranium
TEHRAN — Iran quadrupled
its uranium-enrichment produc-
tion capacity amid tensions with
the U.S. over Tehran’s atomic pro-
gram, nuclear officials said Mon-
day, just after President Donald
Trump and Iran’s foreign minis-
ter traded threats and taunts on
Twitter.
Iranian officials made a point
to stress that the uranium would