M ARCH 13, 2013
S EATTLE , W ASHINGTON
V OLUME XXXV, N O . 23
25
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C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW
Did PTSD
Lead to
Death?
RICHARD
McIVER
Seattle mom on
phone with son as
Portland police shoot
‘Richard was warm, funny, well-loved
and dedicated to his city,’ Mayor Mike
McGinn said in a statement on Sunday.
‘My thoughts are with his family and his
friends. He will be missed.’
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
WWW . THESKANNER . COM
City Mourns Storied Leader
Former Seattle City Commissioner Richard McIver, 1941-2013
A
fter years of serious
health problems, for-
mer City Commis-
sioner Richard McIver died
Saturday night at age 71.
The cause of death has not
been reported, but McIver
survived a heart attack while
in office in 1998, and under-
went surgery for prostate can-
cer in 2000. More recently he
survived a stroke.
He was born on June 14,
1941 to Mildred Artis-McIver
and William McIver, II, and
attended Horace Mann Ele-
mentary School.
McIver graduated from
James A. Garfield High
School, and earned a BA in
Community Development,
with major emphasis in
finance and urban planning,
from Western Washington
University, Fairhaven College
in Bellingham. There he was
given the “Distinguished
Alumnus” honor in 2003.
“Richard was warm, funny,
well-loved and dedicated to
his city,” Mayor Mike
McGinn said in a statement on
Sunday. “My thoughts are
with his family and his
friends. He will be missed.”
McIver was both beloved
and at times reviled. Although
he was re-elected three times
after being appointed to office
in 1997, many bios published
since his death focus on his
two biggest scandals while in
office: an alleged ethics viola-
tion in 2008 and a controver-
sial 2007 domestic violence
incident in which his wife first
called 9-1-1 then called back a
few minutes later to try dis-
suading
officers
from
responding; in that case he
was arrested but all charges
were dropped.
The two incidents marred a
long and storied career in pol-
itics which saw the Seattle
native champion the rights of
at-risk communities in areas
ranging from gentrification to
police accountability, afford-
able housing and transporta-
tion equity.
But it was another memo-
rable incident that cemented
SEATTLE (Associated Press and staff
reports) — The mother of a man fatally
wounded by police in Portland, Ore., said
she was on the phone with her son when it
happened.
Antoinette Cisneros told KING-TV in
Seattle that her son spoke his final words to
her and then she heard gunfire.
“I heard everything until the time he was
killed,’’ said Antoinette Cisneros told the
television station.
Police said Santiago A. Cisneros III, 32,
had a shotgun and fired at them when they
encountered him on a parking lot roof in
northeast Portland on the night of March 4.
Officers said they returned fire.
Cisneros died at a Portland hospital. No
officers were injured.
He was an Iraq war veteran who had
talked about the challenges of post-traumat-
ic stress disorder. Cisneros lived in Seattle
but was visiting family in Portland last
week.
His mother said she called him late Mon-
day night but didn’t know where he was at
the time. She later learned he was driving up
a Portland parking garage.
Moments later, he told her on the phone
that he loved her and stepped out of the car,
she said.
“He said, `Forgive me, mom. Mom, I love
you. I love you, mom.’ And I said, `Mijo,
don’t leave, don’t go away. I hear you going
away from the car,’’’ Antoinette Cisneros
told KING-TV.
Soon she heard gunfire, followed by
another man’s voice.
“He said `stop,’’’ she recalled. ``And then
I heard him again say `stop.’’’
Portland police said the shooting unfolded
quickly after Santiago Cisneros approached
the two officers.
“Within seconds, they’re confronted by
this guy with a shotgun and shots were
fired,’’ police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson
said last week. ``The officers returned fire
and knocked him to the ground.’’
See MCGIVER on page 3
See SHOOTING on page 3
INDEX
News .....................2,3,6
Calendar ....................2
Opinion .......................4
Bids/Classifieds............7
Military Struggles with Stress Diagnoses
Report details flaws in Army’s handling of behavioral health issues
By Gene Johnson
Associated Press
SEATTLE (AP) An Army report released
Friday finds the service still has trouble
diagnosing and treating soldiers for post-
traumatic stress disorder, despite more than
doubling its number of military and civilian
behavioral health workers over the past five
years.
Confusing paperwork, inconsistent train-
ing and guidelines, and incompatible data
systems have hindered the service as it tries
to deal with behavioral health issues, the
report said. It’s a crucial issue: After a
decade of war, soldier suicides outpace
combat deaths.
Last May, the Army commissioned a task
force to conduct a sweeping review of how
it evaluates soldiers for mental health prob-
lems at all its facilities. The review came
under pressure from Democratic Sen. Patty
Murray, of Washington, who was upset to
learn that hundreds of soldiers at Madigan
Army Medical Center south of Seattle had
had their PTSD diagnoses reversed by a
forensic psychiatry team, resulting in a
potential cut to their benefits and questions
See PTSD on page 3