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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 2, 2017)
AUGUST 2, 2017 Portland and Seattle Volume XXXIX, No. 44 25 CENTS News ...............................3,9,10 A & E .....................................6-7 Opinion ...................................2 Dr. Jasmine ......................9 Calendars ........................... 4-5 Bids/Classifieds ....................11 CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF PORTLAND WATKINS SWORN IN Mayor Ted Wheeler is expected to announce his selection for Portland’s new police chief sometime this month. Activists say they will pursue a recall if Marshman is hired By Christen McCurdy Of The Skanner News P ortland Mayor Ted Wheeler is expected to announce this month who will serve as Portland’s next police chief. He’s down to four candidates after a nationwide search drew 33 applications. Mike Marshman, who was appoint- ed as interim chief last summer, is one of the four. The city has confirmed the identity of one other candidate, as- sistant Pittsburgh police chief Larry Scirotto, but has said the other two have requested their names remain confi- dential. Portland’s Resistance, an activist AP PHOTO/WONG MAYE-E See CHIEF on page 3 Kim Hyo Sim, 21, a student at Pyongyang City Commercial College speaks to The Associated Press on July 27 in Pyongyang, North Korea, ahead of celebrations for the 64th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War. PHOTO BY MELANIE SEVCENKO City Down to Final Four Chief Candidates On Tuesday, Aug. 1, Judge Adrienne Nelson (left), of Multnomah County Circuit Court, swears in Ulanda Watkins (right) as judge of Clackamas County Circuit Court. Presiding Judge Robert D. Herndon looks on (center). Watkins is Oregon’s first Black judge to serve outside of Multnomah County By Melanie Sevcenko Of The Skanner News B efore an intimate crowd of friends and colleagues on Tues- day, Ulanda Watkins was sworn in as judge of Clackamas County Cir- cuit Court, one of 36 trial courts in the state system. Watkins, a former de- fense lawyer and manag- ing attorney at insurance firm GEICO, is among eight judges Gov. Kate Brown re- cently appointed to Mult- nomah and Clackamas County Circuit Courts, as well as the Oregon Court of Appeals. The Portland native is the only judge of color in Clackamas and the third Black woman judge on the Oregon state bench. She is also the first African American judge to sit on the bench outside of Mult- nomah County. Watkins will officially take the reins Aug. 14. In the days before her swear- ing in, she spoke with The Skanner about her prece- dent-setting appointment and her eagerness to re- turn to the courtroom. This interview has been edited for space and clarity. The Skanner News: Tell me a little bit about your background. How did you get into law? Ulanda Watkins: I went to Wilson High School and they have a street law class that they still offer to stu- dents at Portland Public Schools. I was a member of our team, and all the teams complete at the county lev- el, then at the state level. I remember representing Wilson and I had a specific role of doing the opening statement. I enjoyed that so much. I thought, how awesome to have a career where I can argue and get paid for it. So that sparked my interest. Then at some point, I think it was maybe my freshman year at col- lege, I (decided) I wanted to go to law school. So I kept that in mind throughout my undergrad. I applied and got into both the Wil- lamette University College of Law and Lewis & Clark Law School. I decided on Lewis & Clark because it was in Portland and I had a two-year old at the time. So I needed to be somewhere where I had family sup- port because law school is so intense. It’s boot camp for lawyers. It’s grueling (laughs). TSN: You worked as a de- fense lawyer before you joined GEICO. How did that experience compare to your work at the insurance firm? UW: I worked with judge Ken Walker and attorney Ernie Warren (of Walker, Warren and Watkins). At the time they were among the first African Amer- ican-owned firms. I did criminal law and worked with those guys for 15 years before coming to GE- ICO. We represented peo- ple charged with crimes at the state and federal level. See WATKINS on page 3 By Melanie Sevcenko Of The Skanner News ‘Detroit’ Docudrama Opens This Week page 6 O regon’s inaugural Pan African Festival will kick-off Saturday, Aug. 12 at Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland. From noon to 8:30 p.m., Portlanders can celebrate the music, dance, food and fashion from across the African continent. Initiated by Nafisa Fai, a Somalian immigrant and rookie event orga- nizer, the one-day festival has been in the works for close to a year, as a means to “really illuminate the trea- sures that exist in our community,” said Fai. “I always wanted to a have a pan African festival for foreign Afri- cans, Afro-Caribbeans, and African Americans, similar to Festa Italiana at Pioneer Square,” Fai told The Skan- See FESTIVAL on page 3 PHOTO BY KURT BAUSCHARDT First Pan African Festival Comes to Oregon Young North The cultural festival aims to galvanize Portland’s Koreans Talk of African community Aug. 12 Tensions page 10 Cameroon Dancing
