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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 22, 1994)
Volume \ . \ l \ Number 47 S cia mg the communi!) through cultural ili Santa Fe Roast Turkey Donna Knight Crowned Miss Black Oregon The new Southwestern Cuisine Shedding tears o f Joy, Knight could only mutter “thankyou ' to an ecstatic crowd. Brandy Her irrepressible good humor, perkiness, and penchant fo r shopping make her a typical 15-year-old See Metro, Page BI See Arts & Entertainment, Page B3 Racketeering Law Takes Aim At Gangs by P romise K ing all these problems," Washington said. he fortress of the inner After nine months o f investi north and northeast gation, the district attorney’s office gang world may be and Portland Police, used the rack crumbling as the Multnomah eteering law to slam the indictment County District Attorney’s against the 17 suspects o f the Bloods office prosecutes 17 gang, operating in north and north suspected gang members east portland. before Oregon Circuit Court The main face o f the act was Judge Robert Redding. patterned in 1970 after a federal Sources reveal that some gang law to contain the mafia. sters have made inquiry about the T he law a p p lies to peo p le Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt w ho com m it or co n sp ire to com Organization Act [RICO] being m it a p a tte rn o f crim es as part used in their arrests. They realize o f a group fo r w hich a key c h a r the law has a legal punch that could a c te ristic is crim in al activ ity . put them behind bars for a very long R a c k e te e rin g c a rrie s a m ax i period. mum prison sentence o f2 0 years The Portland O bserver has a n d /o r a $ 3 0 0 ,0 0 0 fine. learned that those who used to pound Racketeering can include an their chest as gang lords are bailing act or threat involving, murder, kid out to Seattle, Tacoma and Califor napping, gambling, arson, robbery, nia. bribery, extortion, dealing in ob Others are seeking places to scene matters, or dealing in narcot hide, pending the prosecution. ic or other dangerous drugs. It has also been learned, that The question o f whether the some gangsters are hoping to fan up racketeering enterprise needs to be support among African-American accompanied by an underlying eco organizations, but black leaders nomic motive, has kept prosecu appear to support the criminal in tors from using the act against street dictment recently filed against them. gangs who may not have financial James Posey, a community motives. activist, said the African-American But the Supreme Court has community in Portland does not cleared the air, ruling early this support the gangs. year that prosecutors don't have to Roy Washington, program di prove economic motives. rector at the Minority Youth Con “ RICO contains no economic cerns Action Program (M YCAP) m otive requirem ent,” the court said police deserve every coopera ruled. tion from the community. Chunk French, a deputy dis “People are tired o f the shoot trict attorney, said the authorities ing, people are tired o f funerals and are battle ready. are tired o f the drugs. There must be “ The law has been used be a stop and there should be a stop to fore,” he said. T Voter Shift Expected To Hurt If history is a predictor o f the future, the results o f national voting to the politi cal right, portends bad news for American blacks. Historically, Republicans and con servatives have adopted positions ranging from mild opposition to down right hostil ity to social programs which most blacks believe beneficial. The move to the right appeared to have been led by disaffected white males who felt liberals and Demo crats had given too much attention to blacks, homosexuals and to various pro-women issues. Bias Continues In Mortgages A federal agency has reported that efforts to end mortgage loan discrimina tion against minorities appears to be pro ducing positive results. But the report found that the mortgage rejection rate is still much higher for blacks and Hispanics than for whites and Asians. FBI To Investigate Shooting The FBI says it will investigate the Lexington, Ky. shooting o f a black teenag er which touch o ff rioting by over 200 blacks in the city. The white officer in volved in the shooting claims his gun went off accidentally. Antonio Sullivan, 18, was shot in the head. When new softhe incident spread, rioting erupted, cars were over turned and at least five police vehicles were damaged and seven people were ar rested. NAACP Reduces S ta ff The financial plight o f the nation’s leading civil rights organization has gotten so desperate that it has been forced to furlough 80 members o f its staff because it could not pay them. Interim administrator Earl Shinhoster said the two-week layoff affected all but 29 em ployees o f the NA A CP's national staff. Groups Say Civil Rights Movement Failed A group o f civil rights activists from the 60s and early 70s recently gathered at a Connecticut college to reflect on the progress ofth e movement. The conclusion emerging from the gathering was that there was little to celebrate. University o f Wis consin professor Herbert Hill told nearly 250 people assembled that the high point o f the civil rights movement was the Civil Rights Act o f 1964 and that "there has been a massive retreat ever since." He conclud ed, “abolishing legal racism did not pro duce racial equality.” Aristide’s Prem ier Accepted Haiti’s Parliament has approved Pres ident Jean Bertrand A ristide's selection o f Smarck Michel, a 57-year-old business man. as the country 's prime minister Danny O'Neil, Quarterback for University of Oreqon Ducks, leads the team to the Pose Bowl, Jan. 2 in Pasadena, California (see story on sports, B2). Apartment Burns, Man Charged An early Sunday morn ing fire in an apartment com plex at Northeast 29th and Killingsworth has resulted in the arrest o f a man charged with arson. K enneth B ernard Bevens, 35, is accused of starting the fire inside the stairway o f the 8-unit com plex at 5517 N.E. 29th. He was taken into custody and lodged in the Multnomah County Justice Center jail. Fire department officials said the building's occupants were able to escape un harmed. When firefighters arrived about 3:30 a.m ., flames were shooting out a doorway and upstairs win dow. Study Predicts Urban Ills he Willamette Valley will see o f O regon set up a land use m a n a g e more urban sprawl, more m ent system fo r the en tire sta te in 1973 traffic and higher housing based on the notion that urban a re a zones costs in the next 20 years, according w ould c o n se rv e land by c o n c e n tra tin g to a new survey by University of dw ellings and bu sin esses into sm a lle r Oregon researchers. lots. T T he study docu m en ts how grow th has a ffe c te d the liv a b ility o f the valley from 1970 to 1990 and p ro je c ts future tren d s. “ Y o u ’re seein g the v a lle y stru g g le w ith h isto ric and p ro je c te d p o p u latio n g ro w th ," says M att M alone, lead author o f the study. “ The grow th is likely to co n tin u e and w ill in crease the p ressu re to d e v e lo p land that is now set aside for farm and fo rest u se s.” A n o th e r tren d w ill put p re ssu re on so cial se rv ic e s. T he stu d y show s that p er c a p ita incom e in O reg o n is three p e rc e n t b elo w the national av erag e. The num ber o f peo p le living below the po v erty line in creased by 150,000 during the stu d y p erio d . “ I f th e se tre n d s c o n tin u e ," M alone says, “ 20 years from now we w ill see the n u m ber o f O reg o n ian s living in poverty in crease by an o th er h a lf m illio n peo- M alone says he was su rp rise d by the kind o f dev elo p m en t th a t has o c curred in the urban grow th b o u n d a rie s around in c o rp o ra te d c itie s. T he state T hat h a s n 't happened. In ste a d , the study show s, new d e v e lo p m e n ts g e n e r ally are sp read out over la rg e r lo ts than the land use p la n n e r ex p ected . T his tre n d m eans th a t c itie s w ill use up the land w ithin th e ir urb an grow th b o u n d aries m uch so o n e r than a n tic ip a t ed, M alone said. Other findings about the 1970- 1990 trends include: • Population increased by 500,000 and is gro w in g even faster now. The study projects ano th er 7 00,000 O re gonians by 2012. • U rb an s praw l increased by 91 percent. M ixe d farm and forest land decreased by 43 percent. • T ra ffic nearly doubled. • M e d ia n h o u s in g v a lu e s in creased by more than 400 percent. M edian rent increased about 650 p er cent. • W illa m e t t e V a lle y re s id e n ts d ra n k , bathed, washed and s prin kled th e ir lawns w ith an estim ated 1.1 billion gallons o f w a te r p er day in 1990. SPORTS N PCC Opens New Library new library and classroom s on the Cascade campus of Portland Community College opened Monday. A The $4.5 facility was made pos sible by voter-approved bonds in M ay 1992. The library is a two-story, 25,000 square foot structure, which can seat 317 people, more than four times as many students as the old library. The addition contains a state-of-the- art multi-media classroom, a faculty multi-media production area, a con ference room and seven small study rooms. A third story, with five class rooms and faculty officers will be ready for winter term classes. SRG Partnership architects cre ated the library's design with classic features, an atrium skylight and a dramatic circular staircase. The lib r a r y faces N o rth K illingsworth Street across from Jefferson High School. CLASSIFIEDS
