OCTOBER 25, 2017
25
CENTS
Portland and Seattle Volume XL No. 4
News .............................. 3,8-10 A & E .....................................6-7
Opinion ...................................2 Fats Domino ....................9
Calendars ........................... 4-5 Bids/Classifieds ....................11
CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
SIT UNTIL IT STOPS
Hundreds
Expected
for Black
Women’s
Gathering
M
PHOTO PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY
a n y
years
back,
during
what
was
known as the
annual
Black
Women’s Gath-
ering in Port-
land, a woman
stepped up to
Joyce Harris
the open mic, as
was tradition for the event.
As both a symbol and a powerful
component of the gathering, the mi-
crophone was for any woman to speak
what was on her mind. This particular
woman, however, just screamed until
she was embraced by her fellow attend-
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARMORY
See GATHERING on page 3
Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of “Mojada:
A Medea in Los Angeles.”
Interview with
‘Mojada’ Lead
Actress page 9
Update on
Puerto Rico
page 8
A small group of people meditated in the rain in front of the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct Oct. 21 to draw attention to the killings of
Charleena Lyles, Tommy Le, Giovonn Joseph-McDade and others by the police. The organizers plan on continuing the silent protest every Saturday “until
the city and county implement policies for non-lethal engagement in our communities.”
Safety and Justice Challenge Moves Forward
Grant includes $750,000 for culturally specific programming
By Kate Nacy
For The Skanner News
M
ultnomah
Coun-
ty plans to create
a treatment shel-
ter for women
involved in the criminal
justice system, and will
create culturally specific
programming for African
American women with a
new grant from the John D.
and Catherine T. MacAr-
thur Foundation.
Early this month Mult-
nomah County received
$2 million from the John D.
And Catherine T. MacAr-
thur Foundation to reduce
reliance on jails. The grant
is part of the Safety and
Justice Challenge (SJC),
which offers financial and
technical support to ju-
risdictions implementing
data-driven strategies to
eliminate ineffective, inef-
ficient and unfair practices
in local justice systems.
That funding includes
$750,000 allocated for pro-
gramming that caters spe-
cifically to African Amer-
ican women who are on
probation, have charges
pending in mental health
court or are awaiting a
competency hearing in
criminal court.
Abbey Stamp, executive
director of Local Public
Safety Coordinating Coun-
cil (LPSCC), said the new
round of funding from the
MacArthur
Foundation
will support the develop-
ment of a new treatment
shelter for women in-
volved in the criminal jus-
tice system.
According to Stamp,
the shelter will be loosely
modeled after a transition-
al housing facility for men
on Northwest 5th Avenue
and Glisan Street. The Sta-
bilization for Treatment
Preparation Housing Pro-
gram (STP) offers psychi-
atric care, legal assistance
and a number of other re-
sources to men with men-
tal health issues.
“STP has been widely
successful and a wonder-
ful resource for people
in need of stabilization,”
Stamp said.
Careful to note the wom-
en’s shelter is “still a con-
cept, for now,” Stamp says
programming will be de-
signed to focus on cultur-
ally-specific,
trauma-in-
formed services.
“Trauma characterizes a
lot of women in the crimi-
nal justice system,” said Er-
ika Preuitt, adult services
director for the Depart-
ment of Community Jus-
tice. “It’s a huge pathway
See GRANT on page 3
Forest Service Employee Fights a Different Kind of Fire
Joey Jones helps keep remote communication networks secure
By Christen McCurdy
Of The Skanner News
J
oey Jones loves nature and the
Northwest, so when he left the
military, working for the U.S. For-
est Service seemed like a natural
fit.
But Jones’ job isn’t what one might
picture when one imagines working
for the Forest Service.
He’s a network operations super-
visor who works in Portland but su-
pervises a team of about 20 people,
who work remotely from all over
the country, to monitor and repair
the Forest Service’s information net-
works.
“What makes the Forest Service
unique is usually, where our busi-
ness takes place is where no one else
is at,” Jones told The Skanner.
Supporting communication net-
works in places where firefighters or
other workers have poor cell phone
signal, or low-bandwidth Internet
connections — but still need to com-
municate with colleagues quickly
and frequently — is key, he said.
“So for example, where these fires
are taking place across the nation,
there’s no infrastructure there.
PHOTO BY CHRISTEN MCCURDY
By Melanie Sevcenko
Of The Skanner News
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
Oct. 28 marks the official
revival of the largest
congregation of Black
women in more than two
decades
Joey Johnson manages network operations for
the U.S. Forest Service.
There’s no Verizon, there’s no AT&T
out in these locations. So that’s a
See FOREST on page 3