MAY 25, 2016
Portland and Seattle Volume XXXVIII No. 34
News .............................. 3,8-10 A & E .....................................6-7
Opinion ...................................2 Dr. William Couch ...........8
Calendars ........................... 4-5 Bids/Classifieds ....................11
Henderson
Named as
Interim
Chief of PPB
O’Dea on administrative
leave following
revelation of off-duty
shooting incident
By Christen McCurdy
Of The Skanner News
P
ortland Police Bureau has a new
interim chief.
On Tuesday the bureau an-
nounced that Portland Police As-
sistant Chief Donna Henderson would
assume the helm of the department
following the revelation that Chief Lar-
ry O’Dea had shot a friend in the back
during a hunting trip in Harney Coun-
ty in late April. Harney County Sheriff
See O’DEA on page 3
YOUTH
VIDEOS
ON RACE
The Roosevelt High School Urban Griots, a writing
group taught by writer and poet S. Renee Mitchell,
have produced a video about racial profiling after
surveying more than 100 students about their
experiences. Pictured here are Joti Mangat (left),
Emmerson Donnell, Jordan Harris, Dejonet Sanders,
Justice English, Sovoki Kolo and Autumn Sanders.
Teen
Journalists
Take on Racial
Profiling
PHOTO BY S. RENEE MITCHELL
PHOTO COURTESY OF PORTLAND POLICE BUREAU
CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
Donna Henderson has been appointed as interim
chief of the Portland Police Bureau, following
revelations of Chief Larry O’Dea’s involvement in a
shooting in eastern Oregon in April.
Roosevelt High School Urban Griots’ videos discuss students’ experiences
with racism
By Arashi Young
Of The Skanner News
O
n the evening of Feb.
20, five students
from Roosevelt High
School say they went
to the Nordstrom Rack in
downtown Portland. These
Black teens were followed
around the store and then
falsely accused of steal-
ing before being asked to
leave.
For them, the story could
have ended there — just
another incidence of racial
profiling and “shopping
while Black.”
Instead, one of the teens
brought this experience
to his journalism class to
bring more exposure to the
daily prejudices Black teen
shoppers endure.
The
Roosevelt
High
School Urban Griots pro-
duced a video about racial
profiling after surveying
more than 100 students
about their experiences.
Since posting the video
on Facebook, it has been
viewed more than 22,000
times and has been shared
by more than 600 people.
The project also created
a social media campaign
with the hashtag #teens-
4socialjustice.
The Skanner News went
to Roosevelt High School to
talk to the team of students
who produced the film. The
Urban Griots are taught by
the writing teacher and
poet S. Renee Mitchell. The
word “griot” is a West Afri-
can phrase referring to the
travelling writers, poets
and musicians who are the
keepers of oral tradition
stories.
In the film, students of
color spoke about being
followed around by secu-
rity guards who watched
their every move. Some
students spoke of feeling
unwelcome and ashamed
by the treatment. Other
students told the film-
makers their bags were
searched before being
kicked out of the store.
Emmerson Donnell, a
Haiti Health Experts
Concerned Over
Conditions Linked to
Zika Virus
page 9
Only a handful of U.S. prisons allow mothers to
care for their children while serving time
By Colleen Long, Associated Press
BEDFORD HILLS, N.Y. (AP) — Jen-
nifer Dumas sits on a sofa, her smil-
ing 6-month-old girl on her lap. The
room is full of bright toys and chil-
dren’s books. A rainbow-colored ac-
tivity mat is on the floor, and Winnie
the Pooh is painted on the walls.
It looks like any other nursery, ex-
cept that there are bars on the win-
dows and barbed-wire fences outside
the austere brick building.
New York’s maximum-security
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility is
one of the very few prisons in the U.S.
that allow inmates and their babies to
live together, a century-old approach
that not all corrections experts agree
is the best way to deal with women
locked up while pregnant.
Mothers who get such a chance
say it’s better than the alternative:
See BABIES on page 3
17-year-old junior who
helped produce the video,
said it was an eye-opening
experience and he was sur-
prised at how many people
watched the film.
“I was surprised at how
the video spread. I didn’t
expect it, and I don’t think
many people in here did
expect that,” Donnell said.
For Jordan Harris, a
16-year-old Junior, the film
was a way to bring togeth-
er people who had been
racially profiled and give
them an opportunity to
speak about it. Through
these interviews, peo-
ple felt less alone as they
See PROFILING on page 3
AP PHOTO/JULIE JACOBSON
South African
Boys Welcome
Sandboarding Caring for Babies Behind Bars
Weekly activity provides
an escape from daily
struggles
page 11
25
CENTS
In this April 12 photo, Jennifer Dumas looks
out the window with her daughter, Codylynn,
inside her room at Bedford Hills Correctional
Facility, in Bedford Hills, N.Y. Bedford Hills has
one of only eight working prison nurseries
where women live with their babies while
incarcerated, out of more than 100 women’s
prisons around the country.