Local News
Police
Sister at De La Salle
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that people with mental illnesses may need
a specialized response. As in previous poli-
cies it states officers should resolve situa-
tions using the least amount of force
necessary, a standard stricter than federal
law. It also says officers should describe
their efforts to de-escalate situations, and to
justify any use of force.
The deadly force draft policy includes a
new, on-scene interview, where officers
who kill someone must give investigators
an overview of what happened, after
they’ve had time to contact an attorney or
union representative. The
police contract allows offi-
cers 48 hours before they are
questioned in a formal inter-
view. Under the draft policy,
an internal affairs officer
would be present at the inter-
view or view it remotely.
What Reese’s proposed
deadly force policy does not
do is get rid of the 48-hour
rule, one of the DOJ recom-
Hardesty mendations.
Reese already has decided
to push forward with a plan to create a spe-
cialized crisis intervention team, within the
bureau— a key recommendation in the DOJ
report. From 1995 to 2007, the bureau
deployed a specialized crisis intervention
team, but Chief Tom Potter disbanded it,
after James Chasse died in police custody.
Instead, all police officers were required to
attend 40 hours of crisis intervention train-
ing.
Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Asso-
ciation of Portland said the problem then
was that crisis team officers were rarely
available when most needed.
Renaud says that all of the people killed
by police since Chasse’s death were suffer-
ing from some kinds of mental illness or
addiction. And he remains convinced that
all police officers need to be skilled in crisis
intervention.
“The majority of people arrested – maybe
70 – 80 percent is dealing with active men-
tal illness or addictions,” he said. “What
we’ve done is dismantle the community
mental health system, and those people now
flow, without much intervention into our
criminal justice system. Police officers are
caught in the middle and they resent it.”
water main that by all accounts has leaked
heavily for many years.
Originally, City officials set up the LID
with the proviso that before any improve-
ments were made, the HOA would have to
the past due water bill.
Residents say the City is essentially forc-
ing them to pay for the water twice by put-
ting them on the hook for the HOA’s
years-past water bills — but City officials
arrangement at the Council meeting Oct. 10,
two property owners spoke out against the
assessments.
Putting liens on the homes will drain them
of equity and make them unsellable, proper-
ty owner Christine Hermann told Commis-
sioners.
Hermann introduced an array of docu-
ments, including RMLS statements show-
ing the only six homes sold in the past three
years were priced at $50,000; $49,000;
$40,000; $36,900; $31,000; $29,500.
The foreclosure rate since 2008 is 29 per-
cent, she testified.
“I appreciate the fact that you have the
safety net program, and I think that’s great.
That safety net program may defer pay-
ments to those who qualify, but still, even
for those who qualify, the principal and
interest is accruing — which wipes out any
equity that any of these homeowners may
have.”
‘I hope city council won’t allow
this to happen before the
community has seen the letter
of Agreement and
understands what the DOJ has
mandated’
—JoAnn
and also consider other strategies if two
cycles are ineffective. It also says that tasers
should not be deployed against people who
are running away from police, unless they
present an immediate threat.
DOJ officials had called for a limit on the
number of times a taser can be deployed
against a person, but that is not in the draft.
The draft use of force policy includes new
language that says officers must recognize
PHOTO COURTESY DE LA SALLE
the DOJ has mandated,” she said. “This
needs to be a transparent process.”
The three draft policies address: taser use;
use of force; and deadly force. To com-
ment, you must read through the policies
and click on the comment link at the bottom
of the page.
Several recommendations in the DOJ
report are not included in the policy
changes.
The draft taser policy includes new word-
ing that says officers should consider a per-
son’s mental health before using the taser,
Sister Helen Prejean, prominent advocate for qabolition of the death
penalty, speaks with seniors at De La Salle North Catholic high school.
Students in the Class of 2013 at De La Salle North Catholic High School had
the unique opportunity to hear directly from Sr. Helen Prejean, a prominent
advocate for abolition of the death penalty in the United States. Her wide-
ranging talk, which took place in the school auditorium, described her
journey of discovery and faith from an invitation from a colleague to write
to a death-row inmate to a leader in the movement to eliminate the death-
penalty in our country.
Snoozy’s
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asked for special permission from Commis-
sioner Randy Leonard’s office to submit the
LID application without getting more resi-
dents onboard with the idea.
Snoozy’s Hollow is surely one of the odd-
est communities in Portland. So much that
has happened there over the past 20 years
seems like pure corruption – but residents
say they can’t find a single government
agency that can do anything about it.
Located exactly across the levee from
what used to be Vanport City, Snoozy’s —
these days technically known as Deltawood
— is named after Earl Snoozy, who bought
the property in 1948 and turned it into a pri-
vate community run by a Home Owner’s
Association (HOA).
Only 41 homes, most World War II tem-
porary housing just like Vanport itself was,
Snoozy’s Hollow has until now never been
hooked up to City water, sewer or road serv-
ices, getting by for generations with just one
water main – one very small, rusty, broken
The foreclosure rate since 2008 is 29 percent
pay its back water bill, which by 2009
reached over $100,000.
That’s because in past years the HOA did
not pay its own water bill even though resi-
dents paid as much as $200 per month in
dues, according to residents and a 2009
report in the Oregonian.
But that requirement has fallen by the
roadside; Water Bureau spokesman Tim
Hall says the Deltawood HOA has now
been turned over by the City to a collection
agency to recover some of the money from
counter that homeowner associations are
not regulated by the City, and there’s noth-
ing that can be done to force the HOA to
bail itself out.
Baxter, who currently is suffering from a
severe medical condition, did not respond to
requests for comment for this story, nor did
Jed Spera, contracted by the HOA as its
“community manager.” Neither appeared at
any of the City Council hearings.
At the conclusion of City officials’ Power
Point presentation about the benefits of the
countries of Rwanda and Uganda have
invaded Congo in the past and are currently
linked to warlords responsible for mass
killings and rapes. Angola and Burundi
were also implicated in a U.N. mapping
report released in 2010.
“They have looted the place outrageously,
taking hundreds of millions of dollars, and
supporting some of the worst warlords, with
never a word of protest from the United
States,” Carney says.
Friends of the Congo is asking the United
States to enforce a law, passed by Congress
in 2010. The Democratic Republic of
Congo Relief, Security and Democracy Pro-
motion Act, requires the Secretary of State
to withdraw aid from any countries shown
to be promoting conflict in the DRC. The
United States gives aid to Rwanda and
Uganda, as well as to the DRC.
“The law is on the books; there is no
excuse not to enforce it,” Crawford says.
For centuries Congolese music has influ-
enced musicians across the African conti-
nent and beyond. And its art has been
admired and emulated by artists such as,
Picasso to Matisse.
Congo’s descent into widespread conflict
came after 125 years of subjugation by
Western powers. The Congolese people
were enslaved and exploited from 1885
through the end of colonization in 1960. Its
first democratically elected leader, Patrice
Lumumba, was assassinated within a year.
Congo
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poorer.
“All of that we’re benefiting from. And
yet we’re silent,” says Maurice Carney
executive director of Friends of the Congo
in the video, “Crisis in the Congo.”
“There’s a global consensus that exists,
that says it’s ok for nearly 6 million Black
people to die in the Heart of Africa and for
us to be silent.”
The advocacy group, Human Rights
Watch says 45,000 people are being killed
in Congo every month. An estimated 6 mil-
lion people have been slaughtered in the
conflict, about half of them children under
five. And hundreds of thousands of women
have been raped.
Who’s responsible? The neighboring
Lumumba was succeeded by a dictator,
Joseph Mobutu, who ruled for 30 years,
with U.S. and British support. Civil war
broke out in 1996 and again in 1998.
“We have 125 years of this, and what it
does is it destroys and eviscerates Con-
golese institutions,” Carney said.
Crawford says the United States has taken
action against Rwanda for the first time.
“We’ve seen progress since we started
this campaign in 2004,” she said. “This is
not a hopeless situation.”
Friends of the Congo works with youth
groups in the DRC and student groups in the
United States to push for change.
October 24, 2012 The Portland Skanner Page 3