Cinco De Mayo Festival Starts Thursday
New PGE Park Opens
See Metro Section for full story
See Page A6
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PORTLAND OR
PERMIT NO. 1610
Volume XXXI
Number 18
www.portlandobserver.com
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Established in 1970
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W ed n esd a y
May 2,2001
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No Fault Found in Police Shooting
A series o f new reports are clearing
police and sh e riff s deputies o f any w rong­
doing in the arTest and subsequent shoot­
ing death o f a Mexican immigrant.
A n in te rn a l in v e s tig a tio n by th e
M ultnomah County S h eriffs Office finds
that deputies acted properly w hen they
struggled with Jose Santos V ictor Mejia
Poot to place him in an isolation cell at the
downtown Portland Justice Center.
Two days later, he was shot and killed
by Portland police during a confrontation
at BHC-Pacific Gateway Hospital.
A M ultnomah County Grand Jury last
week cleared Portland police officers o f
any criminal wrongdoing in M ejia’s arrest
or shooting.
•
A Portland police internal affairs inves­
tigation is continuing into allegations that
Portland officers used excessive force at
the time o f M ejia’s arrest.
All the investigative reports on M ejia’s
case, including the jail reports, have been
turned over to the FBI, which is reviewing
w hether to conduct a civil rights investiga­
tion.
Mejia, 29, was arrested March 30 on
allegations o f resisting arrest and harass­
ment after he boarded a Tri-Met bus and
couldn’t pay his fare.
W hile being booked, he refused at least
two direct orders to remove his watch and
place it on the booking counter, a routine
step, officials said.
They said Mejia pushed him self free,
clinched his fists and began swinging his
Russian Rocket Lifts Off
Carrying U.S. Space Tourist
BAIKONUR, Kazakstan — A Russian
‘ rocket lifted o ff flawlessly, carrying the first
space tourist, American Dennis Tito, and
two cosmonauts. The Soyuz rocket blasted
" off from the barren steppes o f Central Asia
under sunny, blue skies, headed toward the
International Space Station. “ It’s for real,"
said Tito’s girlfriend, who cried as she
watched the launch. “I just can’t believe it.”
U.S. Team Arrives in China
for Look at Spy Plane
BEIJING — A team o f U.S. technicians
arrived in China to figure out how to get a
damaged Navy spy plane back to the United
States. The technicians from Lockheed Mar­
tin, a Pentagon contractor, are expected to
meet with Chinese officials in Hainan Island.
Bush Gets Less Press,
Positive Reports
President Bush has gotten less positive
news coverage at the start o f his term than
Bill Clinton did, according to a media watch­
dog group. O f newspaper, newsmagazine
and TV stories about Bush in the first two
months o f his term, 22% were positive
versus 27% for Clinton in his first two
months. The amount ofreporting has plum­
meted: TV and print coverage o f Bush fell
41 % from the same period during Clinton’s
administration.
Evenflo to Recall 3.4M
Baby Car Seats
About 3.4 million infant car seat/carriers
will be recalled because a faulty handle can
cause the seat to flip forward, federal offi­
cial say. At least 97 infants have suffered
skull fractures, concussions, a broken leg
or other injuries in the Evenflo Joyride.
China Accuses Bush of
Violating Commitments
A
BEIJING — China’s Foreign Ministry
accused President Bush o f violating commit­
ments to China when he said that the United
States was willing to defend Taiwan in the
event ofaChinese invasion. Ministry spokes­
woman Zhang Qiyue expressed “serious
concern” over what she called Bush’s “ex­
tremely mistaken position.” Bush’s remarks
ventured far beyond U.S. policy, which was
strategically vague and avoided specifically
describing what America would do if China
invaded Taiwan.
A grand ju r y ’s decision clearing police o f wrongdoing in the shooting death o f a Mexican immigrant ignites a strong protest
downtown. .
(P hoto by M ark W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver )
Rainfall Good For Bull Run Supply Achievement
(AP)- April produced near-normal precipi­
tation — about one-third o f the average for
winter months — but the rainfall was espe­
cially good news for the city ofPortland’s Bull
Run watershed, about five miles west o f the
summit o f Mount Hood.
W ater supplies for the summer should be
normal, thanks to the recent rain, said Ross
Walker, a spokeswoman for the Portland
W ater Bureau.
“We still wan, people to conserve,” Walker
said. “W ater use doubles in the summer, so
we want to urge customers to use the water
wisely.” Jon Lea, a hydrologist for the U.S.
Natural Resources Conservation Service in
Portland, said Monday the snowpack on
Mount Hood stood at 88 inches, about 1 'A
inches more than where it stood April 1.
“That’s about 59 percent o f average for
that site at this time o f year,” Lea said. “The
rain and snow right now certainly helps, but
these are the kinds o f storms we should have
been having back in January and February.”
Tom Herrett, a hydrologist with the U.S.
Geological Survey in Portland, said stream
flows statewide have rebounded in the past
two months but still are far below normal.
Herrett estimated that stream flows are
about 30 percent to 40 percent o f normal on
the west side and about 60 percent to 70
percent o f normal for the east side.
In southwest Oregon, the Rogue River at
Agness is about 27 percent ofnormal, and the
Umpqua River is 24 percent o f average, he
said. The W illamette River at Salem is only
about 37 percent o f normal.
D ancers o f the H eart
M ississippi C rests at
Near-record Level
DAVENPORT, Iowa— City workers kept
watch on sandbag levees as the bloated
Mississippi River hovered at its crest, not
quite as high as predicted and short o f a
record. At mid-moming, the river was at 22.30
feet, its third highest on record at Davenport,
the largest urban area on the upper Missis­
sippi without a permanent flood wall.
More G irls G oing to
Jail, Study Says
WASHINGTON— Young girls are being
arrested and jailed in record numbers, ac­
cording to an American Bar Association
study released that says the juvenile justice
system isn't equipped to handle the special
needs o f troubled girls. Whileju venile crime
has dropped overall and the problems o f
young male offenders tend to get more atten­
tion, girls under the age of 18 have become
the fastest growing segment of the juvenile
justice population, said the ABA report,
which is an amalgamation ofmany studies on
girls and crime.
Scientists Unearth
Dinosaur Fossil
Scientists have found the well-preserved
fossil o f a down and feather-covered dino­
saur, providing powerful new evidence
that feathers evolved in dinosaurs before
they evolved in birds, a Chinese and Ameri­
can team reports in today’s Mature. The
fossil is believed to be the first discovered
with its entire body covering intact.
«
S tory C ontinued on P age B8
Aztec dancers. Itotianitzayolltl (Dancers o f the Heart), perform at St Andrews Church in northeast Portland Saturday. Inadditionto
celebrating Latino culture, the program called for awareness o f the poor living and working conditions o f farm workers, raising money for
the National Walk for Farmworker Justice, to be held across Oregon June 18-24
(P hotoba M ark W ashington /T he P o k ii . and O bserver )
Gap Separates
White and
Minority
Students
(AP) — The achievement gap in reading
between Oregon's white and minority stu­
dents is decreasing in elementary school but
growing among middle and high school stu­
dents, state education officials said.
The achievement gap in math is either
static or increasing, according to test scores
from 1996-2000.
Although education officials knew Afri­
can-American, Latino and otherminority stu­
dents don’t perform as well on state assess­
ments as white students, Thursday’s report
was the first formal look at the problem.
State School Superintendent Stan Bunn
said three initiatives in Gov. John Kitzhaber’s
proposed budget should begin to address
the problem:
•
A $2.7 million program to cut the
high-school dropout rate by 20 percent in the
next two years.
•
A $3.4 million proposal would pro­
vide help for schools with low-performing
students.
•
A $ 1.5 million proposal to provide
mentors for new teachers to help keep them in
the profession and improve their teaching
techniques.
The report showed that achievement in
math and reading improved for all groups in
third- and fifth-grade. In math, minorities made
no gains on white students. African-Ameri­
can third-graders made a dramatic gam on
whites in reading. In eighth grade, all groups
improved in reading, but the gap did not
narrow. In math, white eighth-graders im­
proved faster than minorities, thus widening
the achievement gap. The same held true in
1 Oth-grade reading and math.
Sen. Avel Gordly, D-Portland, who had
pushed the department to separate test scores,
applauded the release o f the data.
"W e should look at it as a diagnostic tool,
to tell us where to focus our efforts," she said.
Gordly said the Legislature should approve
the dropout, mentoring and school aid pro­
posals in the governor’s budget.