Black Leaders:
Open Tubman
School board’s delay
called a ‘betrayal’
‘City
of
Roses’
Volume XLVI • Number 46
See Local News, page 3
Nothing As It
Seems
OMSI illusion
exhibit to challenge
your senses
See Metro, page 9
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • November 15, 2017
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Photo by d anny P eterson /t he P ortland o bserver
Dontae Blake, an ex-gang member who turned his life around, said it felt like a stigma getting lifted when Portland Police stopped keeping records of suspected and
known gang members. Blake helps at-risk youth get out of gang life by engaging in violence prevention work as a community outreach specialist.
d anny P eterson
t he P ortland o bserver
New police practices, technologi-
cal advances, and years of advocacy
by civil rights advocates pushing for
a change have culminated in the Port-
land Police Bureau’s decision to phase
out using a gang designation database
as a law enforcement tool, which was
officially halted last month.
Though Portland police said gang
lists were never made public, the more
than 20-year-old practice of tracking
suspected and known gang members
was determined to be unfairly and dis-
proportionately impacting minorities,
by
No More
Gang Lists
How advocates, new practices
and technology bought change
a position held for years by national
and local civil rights groups like the
NAACP and American Civil Liberties
Union.
The gang designations also did not
necessarily distinguish between a
non-criminal gang member and ones
with a criminal history. Of the 359
“criminal gang affiliates” that Port-
land police flagged, as of last year, 81
percent were part of a racial or ethnic
minority, officials said.
Black Male Achievement, a group
associated with the Portland Office
C ontinued on P age 4