January 8, 2020
Page 3
INSIDE L O C A L N E W S
The
Week in Review
page 2
Jason Washington is pictured in this image from his Facebook page. The Portland father, U.S. Veteran
and postal worker died in a shooting at the hands of Portland State University police in June of 2018.
Shooting Death Settlement
Family of victim
looks for change
at Portland State
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
page 6-7
by b everly C orbell
t he p ortland o bserver
As part of a settlement to avoid
a lawsuit, Portland State Univer-
sity has awarded $1 million to
Michelle Washington, widow of
Jason Washington, a black father,
U.S. postal worker and Navy vet-
eran from Portland who was shot
to death by campus police in June
of 2018.
A portion of the settlement will
be used to set up a Jason Washing-
ton Memorial Scholarship at the
school, according to a joint press
release from the Washington fam-
ily and PSU released just as the
New Year began.
Washington was shot outside
the Cheerful Tortoise bar, just off
the PSU campus, after he had in-
tervened to stop a fight after an af-
ternoon and evening of drinking in
local bars with two Navy buddies.
His friend Jeremy Wilkinson was
legally armed and handed Wash-
ington his gun during a confron-
tation that escalated outside the
establishment. That’s when police
confronted Washington. Both men
had concealed weapon permits.
James Dewey and Shawn
McKenzie, the two campus police
officers involved in the shooting,
have left the force. A Multnomah
County grand jury ruled the shoot-
ing was justified.
The university decided to arm
campus officers in a controver-
sial 2014 vote, and this fall, after
a decision by the PSU Board of
Trustees to keep officers armed,
students and members of Wash-
C ontinued on p age 10
A Dedicated Public Servant
Condolences for Nick Fish
after his death at age 61
M ETRO
O PINION
C LASSIFIED /B IDS
page 8
pages 9
pages 10
Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish was re-
membered as a dedicated public servant who cared
about people and who helped make Portland a better
place by focusing on issues like affordable hous-
ing, helping the homeless and providing a reasoned
voice for consensus on the Portland City Council,
following his death from cancer on Thursday.
Fish, 61, was the longest tenured city commis-
sioner and died just two days after announcing his
resignation from office after a more than two year
battle with abdominal cancer.
His 11 years of service on the City Council was
“the great honor in his life,” his family said, convey-
ing publicly their thanks for the words and encour-
agement Fish received in the course of his illness
and in his last days of life.
C ontinued on p age 10
Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish died
Thursday after a two year battle with cancer.