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News Alberta continued from page 1 children get on the right track,” he said. The trauma-informed organization Heal- ing Hurt People, which serves primarily males of color between the ages of 10 and 25 who’ve been shot or stabbed, visited the victims at the hospital about an hour after the shooting. “It’s scary for the neighborhood, the fam- ilies, and the people involved,” Sheryl A. Johnson of Healing Hurt People told The Skanner. The group said until they get the OK from the teens’ parents, they cannot do any fur- ther work with them. Around 50 people showed up to the arraignment hearing the following day at the Justice Center, including members from activist and hip-hop communities, who showed up in support of the two men. According to Portland Police Bureau spokesperson Pete Simpson, Cooper and Ware were not arrested for the shooting but for their actions after that. “They were arrested for their actions after that and their interactions with officers other departments to serve on the Gang Enforcement Team. That will bring the number of officers on the team up to 24. A video of the scene uploaded to Youtube ‘It’s scary for the neighborhood, the families and the people involved’ -Sheryl A. Johnson attempting to get critical information about this attempted murder investigation.” A press release from the Portland Police Bureau said the bureau’s Gang Enforcement Team is investigating the incident and would like to hear from witnesses. Earlier this week, the department announced that due to an uptick in gang activity, it is reallocating six officers from May 30 shows the already-unfolding ten- sion just out front of the Don Pancho taque- ria, where witnesses said they’d been assisting the boy. Cooper appears irate with six officers sur- rounding both he and Ware. Cooper can be heard repeating his name, while saying, “I’m an activist out here,” and, “I was helping save their life at the crime scene.” Shortly after an officer grabs Cooper’s hands and puts him into cuffs and moves him into a police squad car while two offi- cers move in to detain Ware before the three minute video comes to a close. Cooper and Ware are both scheduled for appearances in community court June 10. According to deputy district attorney Caro- line Wong, community court participants are required to plead guilty going in. Community court judges can order partici- pants to perform community service, write an essay about their offense or attend a class that addresses the nature of the offense. A bank account has been set up for Ware and Cooper’s legal fees through US Bank. Read the rest of this story online at www.theskanner.com Herndon continued from page 1 was a terrible decision. We have the state money that we already have, but we did not get any expansion money. So that means, given that we serve the largest number and percentage of Black children, that probably zero additional Black kids got served after the state spent an extra $300 million. TSN: What do you think about the Obama Administration’s “reform” propos- als for Head Start? And why does it seem that the program that has been praised for years is suddenly inadequate? Herndon: Children who go through Head Start are more likely to graduate from high school, they’re healthier. As a matter of fact, President George W. Bush credited Head Start with lowering the child mortality rate in the entire country because of our emphasis on health care. You have award- winning economist and Nobel Prize winner James Heckman at the University of Chica- ‘President George W. Bush credited Head Start with lowering the child mortality rate in the entire country’ —Ronnie Herndon go who says said Head Start is one of the best investments we could make. Now they’re saying, for it to work better or you have to make sure that all of your teachers have education degrees. And all this research that they talk about over the first 40 years, the majority of those teachers did not have a degree. They were well- trained; we train teachers on the job. It’s like an apprenticeship program. For a lot of low-income women and women of color, college is not an option. Some don’t want to go. If I’m already doing a job well, why do you tell me that now I have to go get a college degree? And interestingly enough – this is almost laughable to me – in Head Start the majority of children are children of color. They’re either going to be Black, Hispanic or Native American. You put those three groups together, that’s probably 70 or 75 percent of all the kids at Head Start, historically. Now look at all the early childhood experts in this country and see if they reflect that population. You will travel a long way before you’ll see a panel that’s made up of people who look like the population of Head Start. TSN: In terms of politics and Head Start, how have the Republican presidents stacked up to the Democrats? Herndon: Well, President Bush set up a panel that essentially said, okay, come up with the standards that you want, and we’ll see if you either meet them or don’t meet them. The Obama administration came out ini- tially and said, every year, one third of all Head Start programs will be monitored and reviewed. Read the rest of this story online at www.theskanner.com Death continued from page 1 Another example of a death from Boscoe’s work was the prevalence of black lung disease, found in the coal mining states of Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylva- nia. In Oregon, there were 110 legal interven- tion deaths between 2001 and 2010. Boscoe said the age-adjusted rate for these deaths criminal justice system. Renaud said the budget cuts to the state mental health system in the 1990s removed people with mental illness from medical treatment and made the criminal justice sys- tem into their primary caregivers. “What we have seen over the years of looking at this is that most people who are In Oregon, there were 110 legal intervention deaths between 2001 and 2010 was 3.2 deaths per million people. “This is obviously on the rarer side of things, but the national rate is 1.2 per mil- lion, so Oregon ends up being about 2.6 times higher than the national average,” he said. “And that’s why it was on the map.” Portland Police Association President Daryl Turner said the numbers were not consistent with the use of force statistics for the Portland Police. “Our numbers are a lot lower than the national average for uses of force and uses of deadly force, amongst our officers and also the rate of officers killed in the line of duty is about equal to the national average,” Turner said. Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Asso- ciation of Portland said that these deaths are the result of failures in two separate but related social systems: the mental illness and addiction treatment system and the harmed by police officers have untreated alcoholism, untreated drug addiction and untreated mental illness,” Renaud said. Legal intervention deaths are the “canary in the coal mine” in the break-down of these systems, according to Renaud. The report used U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mortality data which was divided into 113 causes of death. Renaud questions these statistics. “The numbers are probably higher because often the medical examiner will list the death as accidental or as suicide, when it really should be listed as legal interven- tion,” Renaud said. He mentioned the case of James Chasse who died in police custody in 2006. Read the rest of this story online at www.theskanner.com June 3, 2015 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 3
