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J ANUARY 28, 2015
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V OLUME XXXVII, N O . 17
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C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW
Pepper
Spray on
King Day
25
ACHIEVEMENT
Noted author and
educator announces
suit against Seattle
O
ne of the nation’s leading voices on
school reform is suing the City of
Seattle and the Seattle Police
Department after being pepper sprayed in
the face during the Martin Luther King Jr.
march last week.
The James Bible Law Group announced a
tort claim is being filed Wednesday after-
noon.
A history teacher and advisor to the Black
Student Union at Garfield High School,
Jesse Hagopian says he had just finished a
speech about nonviolent civil disobedience
and was walking on the sidewalk while talk-
ing on the phone with his mother when the
unnamed officer sprayed him.
(Read The Skanner News interview with
Hagopian on his new book, “More than a
Score: The New Uprising Against High-
Stakes Testing,” on page 8 of this issue.
Hagopian also blogs at “I Am an Educator”)
Seattle Police spokesperson Sgt. Sean
Whitcomb was not immediately available
for comment.
Bible, former president of the Seattle
NAACP, in a statement cited the U.S.
Department of Justice ruling against the
Seattle Police in bringing the suit.
“Recent police activities in Seattle serve
as a reminder that there is a great deal of
work that remains to be done in terms of
police accountability,” Bible said. “We will
be forwarding information that we gather
about this incident and others to the Depart-
ment of Justice.”
Newspapers in Seattle reported about
8,000 participants at the Jan. 19 rallies.
From the event’s main stage, Hagopian
spoke out against injustice in the “racist sys-
tem,” the national political blog The Daily
Kos reported last week.
“We know that Martin Luther King would
have been out in the streets with the protest-
PHOTO COURTESY OFFICE OF EQUITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
By Donovan M. Smith
and Lisa Loving
Special to The Skanner News
The Urban League of Portland’s Ty Schwoeffermann announced the City of Portland’s selection as one of 11
municipalities participating in the National League of Cities’ Black Male Achievement Initiative to improve
outcomes for Black men and boys. Members of the local BMA steering committee announced the new initiative at
Self Enhancement Inc., on Monday. The program will be run out of the city’s Office of Equity and Human Rights.
Homeland Security Simulator
Concordia University makes history with new training center
By Arashi Young
Of The Skanner News
A
ferent training scenarios. This
simulator serves as a teaching
instrument for Homeland Secu-
rity students at Concordia and is
available for disaster training
for other businesses and public
agencies.
The simulator features a 43
foot by 10 foot semi-circular
display that provides a fully
immersive experience as if the
incident commander was actual-
ly at the scene of an emergency.
This involvement is key in
learning to make decisions,
according to Jason Nairn, the
director of the Homeland Secu-
rity Simulation Lab.
“The simulator has a number
of functions, but one of the
things it does well is put leaders
in the position to have to make
critical thinking judgments and
ethical decisions,” Nairn said.
Attached to the large display
are six video monitor stations
which also interact within the
simulation. These stations sup-
port other active participants
like emergency medical person-
nel who treat injured people.
In a nearby room there is the
Emergency Operations Center
that also shows the simulation.
This room offers training for
executives like the chief of
police, the fire chief, or the
mayor — people who wouldn’t
be on the scene, but would still
be responsible for decisions and
resources.
There is even a broadcast stu-
dio on site for the instructors to
create newscasts to deliver dis-
aster information.
The system is designed to
See TEACHER on page 3
wind storm has knocked
over an old oak tree on a
desolate country road.
Power lines are entangled with
branches, trapping a small car
with passengers. A fire breaks
out in a nearby house – what do
you do?
This is the question being
asked at the Homeland Security
Simulator at Concordia Univer-
sity, a state-of-the-art facility
that can create thousands of dif-
INDEX
Ticket Bots Targeted in Washington
News ..............1,3,8-10
Opinion .....................2
Calendars ..............4,5
A & E ......................6,7
Bids/Classifieds ........11
See SIMULATOR on page 3
Ferguson goes after scalper software used to drive up ticket prices
A
ttorney General Bob Ferguson is
proposing legislation with biparti-
san support to outlaw ‘ticket bot’
software used to inflate online ticket prices,
often by four times or more their face value.
Ticket bots — short for robots — are com-
puter programs used by scalpers to buy
large quantities of tickets online to popular
concerts and sporting events. Bots often tar-
get the most desirable seats.
Scalpers then sell those same tickets on a
re-sale website minutes later at inflated
prices.
This process allows scalpers to control the
secondary market, denying people access to
ticket sales, forcing them to pay far more
than face value and ensuring a hefty profit
for the scalpers.
Ticket bots simulate the action of human
beings buying tickets for events, avoiding
website security measures and controls
meant to limit the number of tickets any
individual can purchase.
“My office is dedicated to the principle
that consumers deserve a fair deal,” said
Ferguson. “Outlawing ticket bots will keep
the hard-earned money of fans in their pock-
ets, instead of fattening the wallets of
See BOTS on page 3