Gateway to College
Prehistoric
Dropouts earn
diplomas.
at PCC
See inside, page 5
Predators
Dinosaurs
descend on zoo
See inside, page 13
IfJnrtÎanù
Established in 1970
Volume X X X X , Number 20
www.portlandobserver.com
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Wednesday • May 19. 2010
Police Chief Reset
New top
cop has
public
service roots
unsure to optimistic.
For advocates o f police reform,
Reese seems to be an unknown
quantity..
"I don't know him very well," said
Jason Renaud, a co-founder o f the
Mental Health Association o f Port­
land, who made a short-lived run for
C ity Hall on a platform o f reforming
the Police Bureau.
"We don't know much about
him," said Ron Williams, the interim
executive director o f the civil rights
group Oregon Action.
In announcing Reese’s appoint­
ment, Adams sought to reassure
the public stating that he recog­
nized that police are often the first-
responders to situations that have
been unaddressed by the fraying
social safety net.
"My incoming police chief un­
derstands this reality better than
perhaps anybody," said Adams in a
statement.
Reese a graduate o f Roosevelt
High School and Portland State
University, began his career in 1983
as a counselor, program manager,
and later direct for the Boys and
Girls Club in Lents.
by J ake
T homas
T he P ortland O bserver
Mike Reese, the former com­
mander o f East Precinct, said he got
a call from the mayor at about 10 in
the morning on Tuesday last week.
M ayor Sam Adam s was having
a very public dispute with Police
C h ief Rosie Sizer, and w anted to
get his thoughts on how to take
the em battled Police Bureau in a
new direction.
Later that evening, Reese said he
got a call from the mayor who of­
fered him Sizer’sjob.
Reese has his work cut out for
him. Tensions have been high be­
tween the community and the police
in the wake o f several high-profile
shootings that left Portlanders dead
by an officer’s shot. So far, reac­
tions to his appointment range from
photo by J ake
T homas /T he P ortland O bserver
Police Chief Mike Reese answers questions during a news conference.
continued ’W on page 8
Black Panthers Retrospective
Exhibit brings
powerful images
by J ake
photo by J ake T homas /T he
P ortland O bserver
Eve Crane, a photo journalist who vividly captured the Black
Panther Party in the late 1960s, features her work during an
exhibit at A 'Kasha gallery in Beaverton. Next to her stands
David Hilliard, a former chief of staff for the Black Panthers,
who met Crane during the tumultuous time.
T homas
T he P ortland O bserver
An art gallery in Beaverton is an
unexpected to place to catch a rare
glimpse into a radical civil rights
movement that once shocked the
country.
But A ’kasha gallery in dow n­
town Beaverton brings some o f
the powerful images o f that tu­
rbulent time to the pubic with an
exhibit this week that highlights
the work o f Eve Crane, a photo
journalist who captured pictures
o f the Bay Area Black Panther
Party during the 1960s and 70s.
In 1968, Crane, now retired and a
resident o f Aloha, met a writer and
activist named Eldridge Cleaver
while covering the tum ultuous
Democratic National Convention for
the now defunct Ramparts maga­
zine.
What ensued was a deep friend­
ship that granted Crane access to
burgeoning Black Panther Party
movement in the Bay Area, which
Cleaver was a key member of.
“I was interested in what he had
to say,” said Crane, speaking at
A ’kasha, o f how she secured such
intimate access to the radical politi­
cal movement. “I was there to take
pictures, not steal a man,”
A soft-spoken and unassum
ing woman. Crane chronicled the
movement that shocked the Bay
Area and the nation with its mili­
tant demands for civil rights and
prominent toting o f firearms. She
photographed marches, speeches,
the tense protests, and the after-
math ofperiodic conflicts with the
police in vivid detail.
But she also captured the more
human side o f a controversial po­
litical movement that was widely
demonized in the press.
continued
on page 16