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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 3, 2014)
WWW . THESKANNER . COM D ECEMBER 3, 2014 P ORTLAND AND S EATTLE V OLUME XXXVII, N O . 9 For The Skanner website scan this QR code By Donovan M. Smith Special to The Skanner News T he final decision on whether to add armed police officers to Oregon’s largest public university, Portland State University, may be handed down this month from the school’s Board of Trustees. Last week, students, activists, and com- munity members protested at the school’s downtown campus before a public forum on the nearly $1.5 million proposal to increase campus security’s power and training — and eventually arm them with guns. Right now the school is spending $2.6 million on public safety annually; the $1.5 million proposal would be in addition to that. The proposed plan comes from state legis- lation passed in 2011 giving the State Board of Higher Education authority to allow cam- puses in the Oregon University System to create their own police force. Students have been speaking out against Portland State’s proposal all year. T.J. Love, a student at the university, penned an op-ed in the school’s newspaper in October. In the article Love, who is Black, detailed an experience where his sta- tus as a student was allegedly questioned by campus police. He writes, “…but ultimately I decide not to escalate the situation partly out of fear, but also because I’ve become resigned to this experience as a black man in Amerikkka. I thought that CPSO were cops and I didn’t want to get shot dead, which is something white police officers are wont to do anytime there’s any melanin involved.” Portland State’s 16-member team of Cam- pus Public Safety Officers already works closely with local, state, and federal police agencies to provide law enforcement to the university. However, some say that level of protec- tion is not enough for the school, which is less than a mile from Portland Police’s cen- See PSU on page 3 INDEX Pacific NW ‘MY LIFE MATTERS’ An elementary school boy was among thousands who protested, marched and demonstrated in Portland this week after authorities in Ferguson, Mo., declined to indict a police officer there in the shooting death of an unarmed teenager. The Rev. Jesse Jackson visited Portland on Saturday, as 10 people were arrested and Portland Police use of flash-bang grenades knocked an Oregonian photographer to the ground. This week 20 complaints were filed with the Internal Police Review Committee linked to the demonstrations. PHOTO BY LISA LOVING Public forum fields conversation on armed campus CENTS The Skanner News presents our new regional edition, featuring more news and local information. C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW PSU Police Proposal 25 Early Cancer Screening is Key Even without symptoms, seeking out diagnostic tests saves lives By Arashi Young Of The Skanner News K athrine Reed laughed dryly as she recalled the time when she discov- ered two different cancers through preventative screening. Her routine mammogram showed that she had stage one breast cancer. After successfully treating this, Reed looked into screening for lung cancer through low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) at the Salem Cancer Institute. Reed had been a smoker for 50 years before quitting four she had stage one lung cancer. “The one good thing I got out of ‘A lung cancer that is found early is highly curable, but not likely to be symptomatic. It’s really silent until it’s too late’ years ago. Despite the test not being covered by her insurance, she chose to pay for the screen- ing. The procedure revealed that breast cancer saved my life,” Reed said. Reed and the Salem Health Medical Center want people to know her story so they can get checked out as well. At the time of Reed’s lung cancer screening, she had no symptoms, which is typical for most people in the early stages, according to the medical direc- tor of the Salem Cancer Institute, Dr. Nancy Boutin. “A lung cancer that is found early is highly curable, but not likely to be symptomatic,” Boutin said. “It’s really silent until it’s too late.” See CANCER on page 3 Ben Chavis Keynotes Breakfast Event News...............1,3,8,10 The Skanner News celebration is Jan. 19 at the Convention Center Opinion .....................2 By Lisa Loving Of The Skanner News Calendars ..............4,5 A & E .........................6 Bids/Classifieds ........11 T he 29th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast will be held on Monday, Jan. 19, 2015, from 8:30 am —10:30 a.m. at the Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Junior Blvd., in Portland. Keynote speaker is the Rev. Benjamin Chavis, executive director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association and a former assistant to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. At the age of 24, Chavis became one of the Wilmington 10, a group of teenagers and civil rights activists wrongly convicted of firebombing a grocery store in the city in 1971. In 1980 the convictions were overturned after members of the group had been impris- oned for nearly 10 years. More than three decades later, North Carolina Gov. Beverley Perdue in 2012 granted a “pardon of inno- cence” on the group, including state-paid financial settlements for surviving mem- See CHAVIS on page 3
