News
Shooting
Search for Meaning Book Fest
Antoinette Cisneros said she wants people
to hold their judgment until an investigation
is done.
At the time of his death Cisneros worked
as a legal intern in Seattle firm specializing
in immigration law. The Portland Mercury
last week reported Cisneros had spoken in a
television news interview about attempting
suicide in the past.
The Portland Police bureau identified the
officers involved in the fatal shooting as
Officer Brad Kula, and Officer Michele
Boer.
The bureau, in a statement, said Kula and
Boer drove in separate cars to the top level
of the parking garage where they were
“immediately confronted by Cisneros, who
was armed with a shotgun. Within seconds,
shots were fired.
“Cisneros fired multiple shots from his
shotgun. Both officers returned fire, striking
him and knocking him to the ground.”
A bureau spokesman said officers
approached Cisneros on the ground with a
shield because her was still moving and
lying next to his shotgun.
The officers arrested Cisneros and trans-
ported him to a hospital where he died of his
injuries.
Kula and Boer were placed on administra-
tive leave and were interviewed Thursday,
March 7, about the incident, according to
the bureau’s statement.
McGiver
continued from page 1
McIver’s name for people outside Seattle.
During the 1999 public protests against
the World Trade Organization, McIver was
pulled from his car, spread-eagled and
frisked by Seattle police — and almost
arrested — before officers recognized him
and let him attend the WTO-related event
he had tried to enter.
Current City Commissioner Jean Godden,
who describes McIver as her mentor, spoke
to the Seattle Times about the incident this
week.
“He said he was a city councilman, and
the policeman didn’t believe him and made
him spread-eagle against the car. He never
forgot that, not so much because of the
indignity to him, but that others did not
believe an African American might be a city
councilmember,” Godden told the Times.
McIver was appointed to the Council in
1997 after the previous commissioner quit;
McIver won election to the post later that
year, was elected again and ultimately
served until retiring in 2009.
At the time of his appointment to the
Council, McIver had served as executive
director of the Washington Association of
Community Economic Development; he
had also worked as development director
for the Tacoma Housing Authority.
Proudly a fifth-generation Seattleite and
known for his “laid-back” style, McIver
was also known for speaking his mind and
breaking with political traditions – even to
the point of becoming friends with his elec-
tions rival in 2001,Grant Cogswell, driving
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
continued from page 1
Award winning writer Rebecca Walker, daughter of the author Alice Walker,
joined 40 other authors at the Fifth Annual Search for Meaning Book
Festival, March 9 at Seattle University. The event, hosted by Seattle
University’s School of Theology and Ministry, features local national and
internationally renowned authors on spirituality, faith and social
justice. Rebecca Walker read from her book “Baby Love” and talked
about how she found meaning by choosing motherhood.
the Seattle Film Festival – and featured
Cedric the Entertainer as McIver.
A major force in creation of the Rainier
Valley Community Development Fund –
In fact a film of Cogswell’s election campaign,
“Grassroots,” premiered last year at the Seattle
Film Festival – and featured Cedric the
Entertainer as McIver
him to the polls, then partying with him on
Election Night.
In fact a film of Cogswell’s election cam-
paign, “Grassroots,” premiered last year at
established in 2002 to help small businesses
in the path of light-rail construction and
mandated as a part of the federal govern-
ment’s funding for the transportation proj-
diagnoses at Madigan; rather, the changes
amounted to difference of opinion, she said.
The task force interviewed 750 people
stationed around the globe, conducted lis-
tening sessions with 6,400 others and
reviewed more than 140,000 records. The
Medical Command reviewed diagnoses for
all soldiers evaluated for behavioral health
problems from October 2001 until last
April.
Since September 2001, the report found,
diagnosis changes than the Army-wide
average _ Fort Polk in Louisiana and Fort
Irwin in California, Horoho said. Cases
from those locations are being reviewed to
ensure no soldiers were improperly affect-
ed, but part of the reason for the higher rates
may be because those bases rely heavily on
civilian health workers, she said.
Last year the Army—and the military as a
whole—suffered the highest number of sui-
cides ever recorded, prompting then-
ect – McIver served as the organization’s
interim executive director in 2010 after a
scandal forced out the previous director.
Richard J. McIver was first appointed to
fill a vacancy on the Seattle City Council in
early 1997 and was subsequently reelected
to three full four-year terms in 1997, 2001,
and 2005.
While on the council, McIver: chaired the
Council’s Housing & Economic Develop-
ment Committee; served on the board of the
Washington State Housing Finance Com-
mission; served on the Puget Sound
Regional Council’s Economic Development
and Operations Committee; and more.
He is survived by his wife, Marlaina
Kiner-McIver; a daughter and a son.
PTSD
continued from page 1
about whether the changes were made to
save money.
About 150 of those soldiers eventually
had their diagnoses restored.
“I am pleased that the Army completed
this review and has vowed to make fixes
over the next year, though I am disappoint-
ed it has taken more than a decade of war to
get to this point,’’ Murray said in a state-
ment. “Many of the 24 findings and 47 rec-
ommendations in this report are not new.
Creating a universal electronic health
record, providing better rural health access,
and standardizing the way diagnoses are
made, for instance, have been lingering
problems for far too long. Our service mem-
bers and their families deserve better.’’
The report noted that the Army had made
strides in some areas, including cutting how
long it takes soldiers to obtain a disability
evaluation and publishing a guide to the
process.
On a conference call with reporters, Army
brass emphasized that many of the report’s
recommendations are already being put into
effect. For example, over the past year the
Army has been assigning behavioral health
workers to brigade combat teams so soldiers
will feel more familiar with them and more
comfortable about getting help, said Lt.
Gen. Patricia D. Horoho, who heads the
Army’s Medical Command.
Horoho also stressed that there was no
evidence that malice motivated the altered
Of the soldiers surveyed, 37 percent had never
received any information about the Army’s
disability evaluation system or had to seek the
information out on their own
4.1 percent of all soldiers deployed wound
up in the disability system with a behavioral
health diagnosis such as PTSD or traumatic
brain injury.
Nationwide, the report said, 6,400 sol-
diers had behavioral health diagnoses
“adjusted’’ by medical evaluation boards,
with approximately equal numbers having
PTSD added as a diagnosis and removed as
a diagnosis.
Two locations where medical evaluation
boards are held had slightly higher rates of
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to declare it
an epidemic. The Army had 183 suicides
among active-duty soldiers, up from 167 in
2011, and the military as a whole had 350
suicides, up from 301 the year before.
Among the problems the report docu-
mented was that Army bases don’t have a
person on site dedicated to overseeing
behavioral health issues, despite the many
problems they can cause: suicide, alcohol
abuse, drug abuse, and child and spouse
abuse. Each installation needs someone
with a view of all those programs to make
recommendations to the commander, the
report said.
Army Secretary John M. McHugh said in
a statement that the Army will work to place
behavioral health experts “at the command
and installation levels to provide better con-
sultation, guidance, coordination and rec-
ommendations to improve behavioral health
care for our soldiers.’’
The task force found that of the soldiers
surveyed, 37 percent had never received
any information about the Army’s disability
evaluation system or had to seek the infor-
mation out on their own. It also said it was
confusing and inefficient for troops to navi-
gate the vastly different disability systems
maintained by the Army and the Veterans
Administration.
The Army and VA plan to have a joint dis-
ability system, by which health care
providers in either organization will have
access to records, by 2017.
“Some changes can be made immediate-
ly,’’ McHugh said. “Others will require
more time and coordination. Importantly,
this report reviewed our systems holistical-
ly, recommending not only short-term solu-
tions, but longer term, systemic changes
that will make care and treatment of our sol-
diers and family members more effective.’’
Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek in
Washington contributed to this report.
March 13, 2013 The Seattle Skanner Page 3