News
Alberta
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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.
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Herndon
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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.
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Death
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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.
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June 3, 2015 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 3