Page 4
December 21, 2016
Drawing on Experience
C ontinued froM f ront
especially with people of color.
She believes more people with
backgrounds in criminal justice
and sociology are needed in Port-
land and on police forces nation-
wide.
Jackson also has experience
working in schools. She was a
former school resource officer at
Grant High School in northeast
Portland. Her youngest son is
about to graduate from PSU.
“Portland State University
has a very excellent safety team,
very capable,” she says, describ-
ing the challenges of working
with students and staff to build
trust. “There’s an opportunity
to bridge. I believe I’m a con-
nector, a bridger. I help bring
understanding. I am who I am.
I treat people fairly, with dig-
nity, and respect at all times.
Most young people are support-
ive, some scowl. I can’t change
their hearts. I give them the same
smile every day. We’re coming
in very ginger, not blockbuster.”
Elmore worked for the Portland
Police Bureau for 26 years before
joining the PSU force. An Afri-
can American who came of age in
the South during the Civil Rights
movement, he says he understands
where groups like Black Lives
Matter and Don’t Shoot Portland
are coming from. Elmore has su-
pervised police officers during
protests. He believes in the role
of the officers, but also thinks that
conversations between the people
behind the uniform and citizens
are important.
After a report issued in 2013
revealed the need for more se-
curity measures on the PSU,
faculty, students and civil rights
groups were vocal in their op-
position against having armed
officers on patrol. The fierce ob-
jection came in the wake of Mi-
chael Brown’s death in 2014 and
Portland’s own history of police
shootings.
Portland State students of color
worried about the impact of hav-
ing deputized officers placed in
their learning environment with
the potential for police profiling.
Also raising tensions on
campus has been the racism el-
evated during Donald Trump’s
The Law Offices of
Patrick John Sweeney, P.C.
Patrick John Sweeney
Attorney at Law
1549 SE Ladd, Portland, Oregon
Portland:
Hillsoboro:
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Email:
(503) 244-2080
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Sweeney@PDXLawyer.com
campaign for president and un-
leashed even more since his
election in November
Last May, when students or-
ganized a walkout event calling
for campus security disarma-
ment, it was organized by stu-
dent and Black Lives Matter
activist Olivia Pace and was
met by a handful of pro-Don-
ald Trump students. In the days
before, the pro-Trump students
posted mocking flyers around
campus reading: “Thug Lives
Don’t Matter.”
The Southern Poverty Law
Center has reported an increase
of hate crimes across the coun-
try since the election. In Oregon
alone, 900 incidents of hate have
been reported with local authori-
ties, which put the state in the top
10 of states with such incidents.
PSU Police Chief Philip Zer-
zan told the Portland Observer,
“There’s been an increase in bi-
ased based graffiti, swastikas on
campus.”
Last year, PSU recorded in-
creases in the crimes of rape,
robbery, burglary, arson, domes-
tic violence and stalking. Two
reports of hate crimes described
as intimidation were also found
in the report.
Zerzan says another campus
safety concern is a high rate of
suicide in the student popula-
tion. Across the nation youth sui-
cide rates have remained fixed,
but have been on the increase in
Oregon since 2010.
Addressing all these concerns,
PSU police and school leaders
are counting on the experienced
new police officers of color and
other members of the depart-
ment to build relationships with
the school’s student and activist
population, rather than depend-
ing upon Portland Police Bureau
officers to come in from the out-
side.