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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (May 27, 2015)
News Suicide Michael Brown Memorial continued from page 1 injured another police officer in 2006 when he fired a loaded riot-suppression launcher during a training session. In that case, Reister admitted he had forgotten he’d previ- ously loaded it with a smoke projectile. The injured officer in that case recovered. An investigative report by The Oregonian in 2013 showed Reister was never officially certified to carry a beanbag shotgun. Because of bureaucratic errors, Reister and a handful of other officers had thought they earned that certification as part of Rapid Response Team training in 2002, but that in reality Reister had carried the shotgun for almost a decade before being informed he hadn’t been properly trained. Reister’s firing after shooting Monroe came the year after the US Department of Justice ruled that Portland Police dis- played a standard and practice of unnecessary use of force against mentally ill people. Suicide is one of the most common causes of death in Oregon. According to a 2013 report by the Portland Police Behavioral Health Unit, “Moreover, suicide is one of Ore- gon’s most persistent yet largely preventable public health problems; it is the second leading cause of death among Oregonians ages 15-34, and the eighth leading cause of death among all Oregonians in 2010.” According to the international police support organization Badge of Life, which advocates for better suicide preven- tion programs for police officers, the 2012 National Surveillance of Police Suicides showed 126 police suicides across the United States – but that was the last time the numbers were collected. AP PHOTO/JEFF ROBERSON Police advocates demand better mental health access for cops with PTSD Michael Brown Sr. unwraps a plaque remembering his son, Michael Brown, to show volunteers as they remove items left at a makeshift memorial to Michael Brown Wednesday, May 20, 2015, in Ferguson, Mo. The memorial that has marked the place where Brown was fatally shot by a police officer in August has been removed and will be replaced with a permanent plaque. The group is advocating for further study, as well as the adoption of what they call the Emotional Self-Care Training Program – including an annual “mental health check” that they compare to a dental checkup— to provide mental health support to officers with post-traumatic stress disor- der. The group’s website uses colorful language to promote better mental health services for police – and urging officers to access those services. Washougal Police are requesting anyone with information about Reister’s suicide to contact Washougal Detective Kate Tierney 360-835-8701. The Multnomah County Mental Health Call Center is available at (503) 988-4888. Cascadia Behavioral Health- care has an urgent walk-in clinic, open from 7 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., 7 days a week. Call (503) 963-2575 for more informa- tion. Lines for Life is also available 24 hours a day at (800) 273-TALK (8255). Gang-Related continued from page 1 not quite sure — [but] all my friends are gang members, and I’m kind of doing what they’re doing, but not really. That’s a “gang- involved” kid. That’s a kid that’s making decisions based on the gang, but he’s not necessarily a gang member. In fact, those are the kids you really want to identify because that’s the ones that early interven- tion really can help. You and I get in an argument we say, “Hey, what’s the problem here?” and we sit down and we talk about it. Violent gang members get in an argument and they decide to shoot each other. TSN: So for example, two kids who are gang-involved get into some kind of con- flict — not necessarily even a shooting — and media get a press release. Will that be categorized as “gang-related” to the media? Grandjean: Designating a crime as “gang-related” is problematic. And I guess I would tend to say no, unless they were fighting for the gang. Obviously, you don’t want that to happen, California. You and I get in an argument we say, ‘Hey, what’s the problem here? and we talk about it. Violent gang members get in an argument and they decide to shoot each other TSN: There really isn’t the leadership structure that gangs had in the past. So does that change how you’d identify one? Because these could be kids who are joining together and not necessarily be a gang in what we would think of traditionally. Grandjean: Right. They don’t have the roots and an OG who’s sort of pulling the strings. I get that. And again, there’s a legal definition for purposes of documentation. If they are all coming together for the purposes of further- ing criminal activity, whether it be, “Hey, let’s be the only ones selling drugs in this area, we’ll intimidate everyone else out of here,” and that’s their thing — even if they’re a bunch of kids getting together and they’re calling themselves whatever — that’s a gang by legal definition. But agreed, it doesn’t have the same top down structure that a lot of these traditional gangs do. And I suppose, part of that is the gangs aren’t as embedded here in terms of over generations as they are in Southern justice, and “unfairness results,” she said. Most of the money collected from infrac- tions comes not from the initial tickets but from penalties added when a payment is computer system is unquestionably critical, with district courts handling immense case- loads that include domestic violence protection orders, assaults, drunken driving but there’s a whole different conclusion to that than people firing guns at each other. If they have guns or knives, we’re going to report that as gang-related, because that escalation is related to the gang. If they’re just fighting, everybody’s been doing that forever. TSN: How big a factor is race when incorporating “gang-related” into media releases? Grandjean: Oftentimes, the information we put out is in response to media inquiries. So, for example — a white guy shot on NW 7th versus a Black kid shot on 195th and Burnside, I guarantee I get asked [if it’s gang-related for the latter]. So I’m respond- ing to what I’m being asked. When somebody dies, our goal is to find who did it and get some justice for the fam- ily. It makes no difference to us what color the dead person is. To be honest with you, the less informa- tion we put out in the early parts of an investigation, the better it is for us. But we have a duty to inform the public of what’s going on. Read the rest of this story online at www.theskanner.com Tickets continued from page 1 courts to take active steps to reduce the potential harmful consequences for low- income persons who are financially unable to pay.” That answer wasn’t good enough for Jus- tices Sheryl Gordon McCloud, Steven Gonzalez, Mary Yu and Charles Johnson. McCloud wrote in her dissent that courts around the country are starved for money, and the Justice Department’s recent investi- gation of the legal system in Ferguson, Missouri, following the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown last summer showed the trouble with using fines and fees to pay for basic court operations: It creates an incentive to fine people, rather than to seek It’s the first boost since 2007, and the money will go partly to the new computer system and partly to provide legal services for poor people missed, McCloud wrote. That further hurts those least able to pay and has a dispropor- tionate impact on minorities, she said. The dissenters said the need for the new cases and other criminal charges. The cur- rent system is basically obsolete, McCloud said. “A new computer system that can proper- ly track district court cases statewide, and that can provide access to a party’s record in other cases including other prior convic- tions, protection orders, or prohibitions, is not a luxury — it is a necessity for public safety,” McCloud noted. That said, she concluded, “The majority’s position is consistent with past practice and the national standard. But that system is broken.” Justices Susan Owens, Charles Wiggins, Mary Fairhurst and Debra Stephens joined Madsen in approving the increase, which was proposed by the state Office of Public Defense and the Judicial Information Sys- tem Committee. May 27, 2015 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 3
