AUGUST 16, 2017
Portland and Seattle Volume XXXIX No. 46
SPECIAL SECTION INSIDE:
News .............................. 3,8-10
Opinion ...................................2
Calendars ........................... 4-5
Bids/Classifieds ....................11
CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
25
CENTS
RAINIER VALLEY PARADE
Multnomah County will
lose funding to help
health disparities and
teen pregnancies
By Melanie Sevcenko
Of The Skanner News
J
ust two years into the federal-
ly-funded Teen Pregnancy Pre-
vention Program (TPPP), the U.S.
Department of Health & Human
Services has announced it plans to pull
the plug on funding in June of next year.
That’s two years shy of the five years
of funding the program promised.
Moreover, the announcement to
shorten the TPPP funds, issued by the
Office of Adolescent Health on July 6,
came with no warning, explanation or
alternative.
PHOTO BY CHRISTEN MCCURDY
See PREGNANCIES on page 3
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
Funds
Aimed to
Reduce Teen
Births Cut
The Ravens Cheerleaders and Football team were one of 62 local groups who participated in the 25th Rainier Valley Parade and Festival Aug. 12.
Hundreds of people lined Rainier Avenue as drill teams, drum lines, dance teams and community organizations walked or rode by before heading off to
enjoy the festival which featured games, performances, art, children’s activities, food and a beer garden and a car show.
Portland Throws Out the 48-Hour Rule
Officers have less than two days to provide account of deadly force cases
By Melanie Sevcenko
Of The Skanner News
L
ast week Portland City
Council voted in sup-
port of more police
accountability when it
unanimously voted to abol-
ish the 48-hour rule — a
topic of contention among
law enforcement, the Dis-
trict Attorney’s office, and
community members con-
cerned that police over-
sight was slipping.
Mayor Ted Wheeler —
who presides as the city’s
police commissioner – had
made promises during his
campaign to toss out the
rule, which had allowed
officers to wait two days
before giving a statement
after being involved in cas-
es of deadly use of force.
“There’s no reason po-
lice should have more time
than the rest of the pub-
lic,” said Jo Ann Hardesty,
president of the NAACP
Portland branch, during
her testimony before city
council on Aug. 9.
Police-involved
shoot-
ings culminate in both a
criminal and internal in-
vestigation, to determine
if the officer committed a
crime and broke police bu-
reau policy. In the past sev-
en years, Portland police
have been involved in 32
shootings; 20 of them were
See 48-HOUR on page 3
Gang Member-Turned-Filmmaker to Go on Tour
Program Helps
Former Foster
Students Adjust
to College page 7
Baltimore
Statues Removed
Overnight page 10
Author, documentary filmmaker to speak at Boys
and Girls Clubs, youth detention facilities
By Christen McCurdy
Of The Skanner News
N
icky Taylor was 16 when a
member of the Woodlawn Park
Bloods was shot and killed at a
party at her house.
The following morning, her pastor
died in church — due to natural caus-
es, but suddenly.
After her pastor died, she ran out
of the church and ended up at the in-
tersection of Northeast 17th and Hol-
man, where hundreds and hundreds
of people stood mourning her friend.
This was in 1988, as gang activity
and the crack epidemic started to
ramp up in Portland. Prior to that
day, Taylor said, she knew little about
the life. But seeing two people she
knew die in front of her in the space
of 24 hours changed her. Because the
young person shot at her party —
17-year-old David T Kalamafoni, also
known as “Big Red” — was a Wood-
lawn Park Blood, she became a Blood
too.
“That was like the beginning of my
life,” she said.
For the next few years, Taylor was
immersed in gang life. She’s been
shot three times and has spent some
time in prison. One scene in her
30-minute documentary, “The Nicole
Taylor Story,” portrays her surprise
as she reviews her own rap sheet.
But in the early 1990s, she left gangs
behind and wrote a book, Ask Nicky:
A Young Person’s Workbook for Build-
ing Dreams, filled with advice and
exercises for young people. She’s
spent much of her adult life mento-
ring and working with at-risk youth
and discouraging them from getting
See TAYLOR on page 3
PHOTO BY CHRISTEN MCCURDY
Robert McDonald is preparing for a career teaching
math – a subject he long avoided – after years
struggling to find his path as an adult. Through PCC’s
Fostering Success program, also acts as a mentor
and tutor to students who, like himself, experienced
foster care while growing up.
Nicole Taylor got involved in gangs in 1988, but
has since turned her life around, writing a book
and making a documentary about her life. This
fall she’s going on tour to speak at Boys & Girls
Clubs and youth detention centers on the West
Coast.
