JANUARY 6, 2016
Portland and Seattle Volume XXXVIII No. 14
News .............................. 3,8-10 A & E .....................................6-7
Opinion ...................................2 Rwanda President ........10
Calendars ........................... 4-5 Bids/Classifieds ....................11
CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
Officer who shot
Aaron Campbell to
return to duty
By Christen McCurdy
Of The Skanner News
M
ayor Charlie Hales isn’t happy
about having to re-hire fired
Portland Police Bureau officer
Ron Frashour. Community ac-
tivists aren’t either, and they’re asking
the bureau to place Frashour in a desk
job where his contact with the public
will be minimal.
According to a ruling released last
week by the Oregon Court of Appeals,
Frashour must return to duty.
In a statement released shortly after
the ruling, Hales’ office put out a press
release expressing disappointment in
See FRASHOUR on page 3
‘Where to
Invade Next’
Kam reviews new movie
from ‘the proven master
at questioning authority’
page 7
Oregon Tribe Says
‘Protesters Are Not
Welcome Here’
page 8
JUSTICE
FOR
TAMIR
Benjamin, 7, and his mother, the Rev. Amy Roon, were
among the group of about 85 people who showed
up at Westlake Park Jan. 3 to protest the decision
by a grand jury not to indict the police officer who
killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November 2014.
Wapato as a
Homeless
Shelter?
Petition to convert never-
used jail to shelter has
more than 1,700 names
By Arashi Young
Of The Skanner News
A
mid this week’s
freezing
weather,
a debate heated up
about using Wapato
Jail as a homeless shelter.
On Thanksgiving day of
last year, homeless advo-
cate Jeff Woodward sub-
mitted a Change.org peti-
tion to open the never-used
Wapato facility. Nearly six
weeks later, the petition
has been signed by more
than 1,700 people, and has
sparked discussion among
county officials, business
leaders and non-profit or-
ganizations.
Woodward’s vision for
the Wapato facility is to
address both the tempo-
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
City Must
Re-Hire
Frashour
25
CENTS
rary need to shelter the
homeless, and to foster
treatment of root causes
of homelessness — such as
mental illness, substance
addiction and community
disconnection.
“The idea behind Wapato
is that people aren’t going
to leave until they are set
up for success,” he said.
In 1996, voters approved
a bond measure to finance
the construction of the jail
and simultaneously passed
a tax-limiting measure
that cut off the funds need-
ed to operate the facility.
Multnomah County owns
the
189,670-square-foot,
525-bed jail that has never
housed a single inmate.
The facility cost more
than $58 million dollars
to build and requires
$300,000 a year to main-
tain since it was completed
in 2004. Since then it has
found some use as a film-
ing location for TV shows
like “Grimm,” “Leverage”
and “Portlandia,” as well
as commercials and docu-
mentaries.
Multnomah County has
also been trying to sell the
property. In June of 2014,
the county collected sev-
en proposals to repurpose
the facility. The proposals
included a community gar-
den with a rehabilitation
facility, a film production
house and a private prison
for high-profile criminals.
Woodward would like to
see Wapato emulate other
correctional facilities that
have turned into shelters,
such as Grace Marketplace
in Gainesville, Fla. and
Fort Lyons in Colorado.
Critics say the plan will
isolate and warehouse vul-
nerable people away from
the city center and neces-
sary services. Other critics
say Wapato is being touted
as a silver bullet solution
that pushes the homeless
out of public view and
keeps camps out of neigh-
borhoods.
In November, Mult-
nomah County released its
official assessment of the
use of Wapato as a home-
less shelter. The letter
from County Chair Debo-
rah Kafoury, addressed to
See WAPATO on page 3
Kalimah Abioto’s Film Explores Black Beauty
Series of ‘video portraits’ attempts to capture diversity of Black beauty
By Donovan M. Smith
Of The Skanner News
P
ortlander Kalimah Abioto de-
scribes herself as a filmmaker,
writer, and transmedia artist.
Her latest work is a series of
video portraits lasting no longer
than 30 seconds, dedicated to explor-
ing the bounds of Black beauty.
The Skanner spoke with Abioto to
discuss the origins of her latest proj-
ect, which she started working on this
summer in New York. This interview
has been edited for space and clarity.
The Skanner News: What is the
Ace Book?
Kalimah Abioto: The Ace Book is
a series of video portraits of people.
It’s just been a way for me to connect
with people and share ideas about
life, about beauty, about fashion, the
way people express themselves vi-
sually. Film is my background and
film is a big part of how I express my-
self and that being a way to express
what’s unconscious, as opposed to
Kalimah Abioto
what’s always consciously felt. And
it’s a way of documenting what may
See PORTRAITS on page 3