Page 6
July 13, 2016
O PINION
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A Step Backwards for Police Diversity
Command
shuffle leaves
out African-
Americans
d r . l e r oy h aynes J r . and
d r . t. a llen b ethel
by
The recent developments with
the investigation and retirement
of Police Chief Larry O’Dea, the
demotion of the assistant chiefs,
and particularly Kevin Modica,
plus the appointment of a new
chief of Police Mike Marshman
can either turn us backwards or
propel us forward in transform-
ing the Portland Police Bureau
into a 21st Century community
policing era.
More than 12 years of constant
struggle by the Albina Ministerial
Alliance Coalition for Justice and
Police Reform has propelled us to
the intervention of the U. S. De-
partment of Justice and the “set-
tlement agreement” accepted by
Judge Michael Simon.
The implementation of the
agreement has been far from per-
fect. Obstacles, hindrances, de-
tours, resistance, as well as suc-
cess in a few key vital areas have
made a bumpy ride the first two
years of implementation.
The future success or failure
of the settlement agreement in
transforming the Portland Police
Bureau and creating 21st Century
community policing is critically
dependent on the kind of lead-
ership we have from the chief of
police to the assistant chiefs, to
the command staff, as well as su-
pervisors.
We need leadership in the po-
lice bureau, in city government
and in the community who will
embrace the vision of communi-
ty policing that will be effective
and relevant as well as imple-
menting the settlement agree-
ment.
The demotion of Assistant
Chief Modica and the lack of
African- American presence on
the command staff or the assis-
tant chiefs is a “step backward”
to creating a leadership team that
will meet these goals.
We are living in a critical time
in Portland and our nation. A time
in which cities across America,
as well as the city of Portland are
“crying out” for police account-
ability. Uprisings have erupted
through major cities; gang vio-
lence has intensified particular in
black communities. The failure
to have an experienced, relevant
African -American voice at an as-
sistant chief or command level is
a detriment to the welfare of the
city.
“Where do we go from here?”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked
at the crossroads of the modern
Civil-Rights Movement. Is it
backward or forward?
A costly price has been already
paid in blood, sweat and tears.
Let us move forward to create a
new and fresh model for the city
of Portland and the nation.
Dr. LeRoy Haynes Jr. and Dr.
T. Allen Bethel are chair and co-
chair of the AMA Coalition for
Justice and Police Reform.
To Stop ‘Bomb Trains,’ I Honeymooned in Jail
Facing down a
locomotive in
Vancouver
d aPhne W ysham
It was a
few days after
my wedding. I
was supposed
to be honey-
mooning at a
nearby win-
ery with my
newly minted
husband, celebrating our unlikely
marriage at age 55.
Instead, I was sitting on the
railroad tracks in the pouring rain.
Along with 20 other brave souls,
some weeping, some singing, I
was facing down a locomotive in a
town — Vancouver, Wash. — that
many fear will be forced to accept
the largest oil-by-rail terminal in
the country.
Why would anyone do some-
thing like that?
Because a few short days be-
fore, we’d watched in horror as a
mile-long train filled with Bakken
crude derailed in Mosier, Ore.,
and burst into towering flames.
We call these oil trains “bomb
trains” because we know, with
one tiny loose bolt, they can erupt
into an inferno, scorching every-
thing for miles. It happened in
Lac-Megantic, Canada in 2013.
Forty-seven people were killed in
a matter of minutes, the town lev-
eled when a train’s brakes failed.
In the aftermath of the Mosier
derailment, local fire chief Jim
Appleton, who was originally
unwilling to condemn oil trains,
was beginning to sound more
by
and more like one of us: “I think
it’s insane” to ship oil by rail, he
told a reporter. “Shareholder val-
ue doesn’t outweigh the lives and
happiness of our community.”
And yet shareholder value is
outweighing the lives and happi-
ness of communities all over the
world. I live in the “blast zone”
less than a mile from tracks that
ply this dangerous cargo here in
the Pacific Northwest. And mil-
lions of people, most of them on
the other side of the world, are al-
ready feeling the heat.
More bomb trains, after all,
mean more climate change. Ris-
ing temperatures mean dangerous
weather patterns, like the floods
that recently killed hundreds in
Pakistan and China.
Meanwhile,
ExxonMobil,
whose scientists knew as early as
the 1960s that catastrophic climate
change would ensue if they didn’t
change course, has invested in cli-
mate denial in order to maximize
their shareholder value, counting
on us to not connect the dots.
I grew up in India. I can see the
faces of friends and loved ones
on Facebook enduring record
heat and flooding there. So if the
trains wouldn’t stop coming, I fig-
ured, I’d put my body on the line
in Vancouver. If I went to jail, I
hoped my husband would forgive
me for skipping out on our first big
date as newlyweds.
The riot police were beginning
to gather, and the railroad’s private
police were issuing their warnings
while hundreds chanted nearby.
Not wanting to lose valuables in
jail, I gave my wallet, cell phone,
and wedding ring to a friend.
Then they hauled us off, one by
one, in plastic handcuffs like tiny
angel’s wings behind each protes-
tor’s back. They put the 13 women
— as young as 21 and as old as 85
— in one cell and the eight men in
the other.
Seven hours later, as we were
released from our windowless
cage into the beautiful summer
evening, I felt an unspeakable
gratitude to my cellmates and
those who awaited us outside.
Should we go to trial, many of
us will be arguing we did this out
of necessity, in order to prevent
a far greater looming evil — of
being incinerated in our sleep, of
doing nothing to stop this deadly
fossil fuel cargo while hundreds of
thousands of people die each year
from floods, disease, malnutri-
tion, and heat stress due to climate
change.
Call me crazy, but we might
just win this one. And in so doing,
we’ll send a very strong message
to the oil companies that threaten
us all that they must end this mad-
ness.
Daphne Wysham is the direc-
tor of the Center for Sustainable
Economy’s climate and energy
program in Portland. Distributed
by OtherWords.org.