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