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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 20, 2017)
SEPTEMBER 20, 2017 Portland and Seattle Volume XXXIX, No. 51 25 CENTS News .............................. 3,8-12 A & E .....................................6-7 Opinion ...................................2 Public Records Secrecy ..9 Calendars ........................... 4-5 Bids/Classifieds ....................11 CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW COURTESY OF MULTNOMAH COUNTY SUPPORTING BENNETT Tricia Tillman, director of Multnomah County public health, told the audience the county is committed to getting the community more information. By Melanie Sevcenko Of The Skanner News T hree days after The Skanner pub- lished the story of Tricia Tillman’s forced exit from Multnomah County, Chair Deborah Kafoury announced a strategy to address com- plaints of racist and unjust employ- ment practices. Karfoury’s official announcement last Friday came on the heels of a pub- lic hearing where more than a dozen people testified about experiencing or observing systemic racism within the county’s workforce. “I want employees at Multnomah SANCHEZ FAMILY PHOTO VIA AP See TILLMAN on page 3 Magdiel Sanchez is pictured in an undated photo. Sanchez was shot and killed when Oklahoma City police officers opened fire on him in front of his home Sept. 19 as he approached them holding a metal pipe. A department official said the police officers didn’t hear witnesses yelling that Sanchez was deaf. Cop Shoots Deaf Man page 10 New Hope for a Cure for Sickle Cell Disease page 8 Katrina Johnson, a cousin of Charleena Lyles, and Reshaud Bennett, younger brother of Seahawk defensive player Michael Bennett, joined several dozen people in a march to Century Link Stadium after the “Standing with Kaepernick, Supporting Michael Bennett” rally on Sept. 17 before the Seahawks’ first home game. Similar rallies in support of Colin Kaepernick will be held before the first home game of every NFL team this season. The protestors in Seattle wanted to show support for Seahawk Defensive player Michael Bennett after he said was recently subjected to excessive force by the Las Vegas Police Department. Speakers at the rally included Katrina, Reshaud and Gerald Hankerson, President, Seattle King County and Washington State NAACP, Dave Zirin, Nation Sports Editor and co-author of Michael Bennett’s forthcoming book, Jesse Hagopian, a high school teacher and member of Social Equality Educators, and Nikkita Oliver, social justice activist and former mayoral candidate. Sessions: Sanctuary Cities Undermine Law Comments came after judge rules administration cannot withhold funding By STEVEN DUBOIS Associated Press PORTLAND — U.S. Attor- ney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday criticized sanctuary cities that try to protect immigrants in the country illegally as places that “undermine the moral authority of the law.” He made the comments a day after the Trump ad- ministration appealed a judge’s ruling blocking its efforts to withhold money from the cities. Sessions, speaking to law enforcement officers in a sanctuary city in the sanctuary state of Ore- gon, urged officials who have decided that local po- lice should not cooperate with federal immigration agents to reconsider those policies. As he spoke, protesters lined the streets outside the Portland field office of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Their chants could faintly be heard inside the room where Sessions appeared. Sessions said the federal grant money that U.S. cities receive are not an entitle- ment, and cannot be given to sanctuary cities that he said frustrate efforts to re- duce crime. “Rather than reconsider their policies, these sanc- tuary jurisdictions feign outrage when they lose federal funds as a direct re- sult of actions designed to nullify plain federal law,” Sessions said. A Chicago judge last Fri- day at least temporarily blocked the administra- tion’s attempt to withhold one particular public safe- ty grant from cities that don’t cooperate. On Monday, U.S. govern- ment lawyers appealed a judge’s ruling in lawsuits by San Francisco and an- other California county challenging President Donald Trump’s broader executive order threaten- ing to cut off funding to sanctuary cities. U.S. District Judge Wil- liam Orrick rejected the administration’s argument that the executive order applies only to a relative- ly small pot of money and said Trump cannot set new See SESSIONS on page 3 ‘Hands Up’ Series Has Second Run in Portland The seven-monologue theatrical performance explores Black perspective on police profiling By Melanie Sevcenko Of The Skanner News T he August Wilson Red Door Project in North Portland will be presenting “Hands Up” for a second time in Portland Sept. 22 – 24. As an African American-led non- profit, the theater is working to change the racial ecology of the city through the arts – and “Hands Up” aligns poignantly with its mission. In the wake of 2014’s police shoot- ing of Michael Brown in Fergu- son, Mo., and John Crawford III in Beavercreek, Ohio, The New Black Fest in Brooklyn commissioned seven emerging Black playwrights to write monologues about the state- of-mind of African Americans in an COURTESY OF REGIONAL ARTS & CULTURE COUNCIL First non-White public health director abruptly forced out of position PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED Firing Ignites Plan to Address Racism See HANDS on page 3 2016 performance of “Hands Up” in Portland