August 8, 2018 The Skanner Page 3
News
cont’d from pg 3
with backs to the White
supremacist protesters,
facing out with weapons
pointing at the far big-
ger left-wing crowd that
includes black-clad anar-
chists and clowns in full
costume.
Community
groups
have sharply criticized
the Portland Police Bu-
reau’s response, and pro-
testers stormed Portland
City Hall Wednesday
morning, scuffling with
security guards and oth-
ers. At least one person
was arrested.
At Saturday’s march,
police used flash-bang
grenades, pepper balls
and tear gas against dem-
onstrators; a photograph
circulated online of an
unconscious protestor
allegedly shot in the back
of the head with a con-
cussion grenade.
Another post showed
video of two reporters
being rushed by riot of-
ficers.
“The Portland Police
Bureau’s response to
protest is completely
unacceptable in a free
society,” said the ACLU
of Oregon in a statement
Sunday.
“The repeated use of
excessive force, and the
targeting of demonstra-
tors based on political be-
liefs are a danger to the
First Amendment rights
of all people. We call on
the Portland Police Bu-
reau, Mayor Wheeler,
and Chief Outlaw to im-
mediately end the use of
weapons, munitions, and
explosives against pro-
testers.”
Eder Campuzano, a
reporter for The Orego-
nian, was hit on the head
with a glass bottle and
bleeding profusely. Cam-
puzano later wrote that
he received four staples
Jacobs
to the head but was not
seriously hurt, and that
he did not think he was
targeted.
Patriot Prayer has al-
ready hosted a series
of increasingly-violent
public rallies in down-
town Portland, and Sat-
urday’s was expected
to be the biggest so far.
Organizers at first called
for marchers to “open
carry” their weapons,
and conservative talk
show host Alex Jones of
InfoWars was expected
to fly in from the East
Coast (in the end he sent
in a replacement host).
On Monday morning,
Portland Police Chief
Danielle Outlaw said that
allegations of injury due
to police actions will be
scrutinized and the in-
formation will be turned
over to the Internal Po-
lice Review.
“I have directed the Pro-
fessional Standards Divi-
sion to begin the intake
process regarding these
allegations to determine
if force was used and if
so, was within our policy
and training guidelines,”
she said.
When reporters who
were on scene asked Out-
law why crowd control
devices were not used
against Patriot Prayer
protesters who moved
into the counter-demon-
strator crowd against po-
lice orders, she said she
could not answer that.
Outlaw also said there is
video footage of count-
er-protesters throwing
projectiles immediate-
ly before crowd control
measures were used
that will be released.
That claim runs counter
to many accounts from
reporters and activists
at the scene, and as of
Wednesday
morning
Black Parent Initiative
Hires Tara Cooper as CEO
The board of directors of the Black Parent Initiative announced Monday
that it has appointed Tara Cooper as its new CEO. The organization says
Cooper has signed a 12-month contract for the role and has stepped
down from a prior role as director of equity, diversity and inclusion at the
graduate school of education at Portland State University.
Cooper’s professional experience includes program development,
fundraising and partnership development as well as extensive
management and leadership practice. She has served on BPI’s board of
directors since April 2017 and will step down from her board position in
order to take on the CEO role.
Cooper replaces Dr. Ann Beckett, who replaced interim CEO Chuck Smith
in March.
In February Smith was appointed to replace CEO and founder Charles McGee,
who was fired in February following allegations of sexual harassment and
sexual assault, with the latter allegation resulting in criminal charges.
The Skanner staff had
not seen or obtained
footage that confirms
that narrative.
The Oregon chapter
of the Council on Amer-
ican-Islamic
Relations
and the Portland chapter
of the Democratic Social-
ists of America released
a statement Wednes-
day morning criticizing
Outlaw’s response and
calling for an outside
investigation and full
funding of the Oregon
Department of Justice’s
civil rights division.
“We’re deeply disap-
pointed by Chief Out-
law’s response to these
troubling events. The
Portland Police Bureau
(PPB) has failed to pro-
tect Portlanders who
have for years experi-
enced the ramifications
of violent alt-right be-
havior gone unchecked
in the city,” the statement
reads. “This behavior has
included racist groups
openly admitting to
spreading hate speech
and violent threats,
carrying weapons into
public spaces, causing
violence that provokes
police attacks upon in-
nocent protesters, and
manipulating the police
from conducting thor-
ough and proper investi-
gation of riot events they
have organized.
On Tuesday, Port-
land Police Association
president Daryl Turner
praised Outlaw’s com-
ments, saying police
“prevented a potentially
catastrophic outcome to
a situation that grabbed
media attention nation-
wide.” Turner recently
drew criticism for call-
ing Portland a “cesspool”
as a defense against re-
porting that homeless
people account for the
majority of arrests made
in 2017.
The IPR last year in-
vestigated Portland Po-
lice response to a Patri-
ot Prayer rally held in
downtown Portland on
June 4, 2017. The police
review agency reported
27 complaints by mem-
bers of the public and
made a series of policy
suggestions.
In a related develop-
ment, the ACLU of Or-
egon’s federal class ac-
tion lawsuit against the
City of Portland based
PHOTO COURTESY OF PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY
Protests
on police actions at the
June 4 protest is moving
forward. The lawsuit
argues that hundreds
of people were rounded
up (“kettled”) by officers
without probable cause
and forced to show their
identification to leave
the site.
Christen McCurdy, The
Skanner’s news editor,
contributed additional re-
porting to this story.
Don’t Shoot
state-sanctioned
ism;
rac-
6 p.m. Aug. 10:
Community conver-
sation with partner or-
ganizations to discuss
ways to make change
happen collectively;
1:30 p.m. Aug. 11:
Community building
and barbecue provid-
ing a space for healing.
The
organization
also invites communi-
ty members to visit an
interactive video booth
Saturday to “let City
Hall know how we, as a
community, feel about
policing
houseless
members of our com-
munity.” According to
the release the video
will be professionally
edited and presented at
a later date, along with
a petition.
“Don’t Shoot Portland
cont’d from pg 1
remains committed to
this fight and since 2014
has organized an annu-
al community gather-
ing to honor and mourn
those killed by police
violence and state-sanc-
tioned racism,” the or-
ganization writes in a
release announcing the
event. “This year is no
different, especially in
light of the ever grow-
ing list of Black, Brown
and Indigenous mem-
bers of our global com-
munity being margin-
alized, assaulted and
killed. Through our
work, we continue to
demand justice and ac-
countability from those
in power and continue
to fight the upholding
of white supremacy in
our country.”
For more information
visit www.dontshootp-
dx.org.
cont’d from pg 1
ily. She’s been a trooper and followed
me around for two or three decades. I
felt like if this worked out it would be
a good opportunity to get close to her
folks.
TSN: What are some of your plans
and expectations for your time at
OHSU?
DJ: We’re focusing on the next sev-
eral months where the objective is to
facilitate my onboarding and transi-
tion to the presidency, and to do that as
quickly and as efficiently as possible.
There’s been a lot of work, even before
I started today, in terms of documents
that have been requested for viewing. I
started reviewing the materials four or
five weeks ago. That is an instrumen-
tal and essential first step to strategic
planning. Dr. Robertson emphasized
the importance of strategic planning
as he was coming on board. I’m also a
believer in strategic planning, but the
first step is trying to make sure I un-
derstand the current reality and that
we, as members of this fine institution,
understand the current reality.
Some folks describe that as looking
in the mirror and making sure you un-
derstand exactly what’s looking back.
Once we define our current reality
then we can get to the revised or con-
tinuation of the strategic plan that Dr.
Robertson introduced years ago. That
“
The first step is
trying to make sure
I understand the
current reality
means I’m going on listening tours. The
whole point is to get out, ask clarifying
questions. It is the wisdom of the crowd
that is critically important, I think, for
the success of the president at OHSU.
We will ask those questions, we will
launch a new strategic planning pro-
cess – and by “new,” I mean a contin-
uation of the plan that was originally
authored. I think it was scheduled to
finish around 2020. Every good strate-
gic plan is a living, breathing document
that can be reviewed on a regular basis.
You don’t just write it and put it on a
shelf. There’s active engagement that’s
required for all strategic planning.
TSN: What are some of the challeng-
es that you anticipate encountering in
this job?
DJ: I think the challenges are not
necessarily unique to this particular
academic health center. The list would
include things like information tech-
nology and how should that be used,
managing population health, disrup-
tive technologies that our trainees
might use. It’s absolutely essential to
provide the highest quality to everyone
that we serve.
We’re not alone in terms of needing
to address this issue of the quality of
the work environment. People have
written about the importance of avoid-
ing burnout, facilitating resiliency
among everyone. The National Acade-
my of Medicine has talked about that.
What we’ve found out is that, at least
in my opinion, this issue of how to im-
prove resiliency is a local process. We
have to ask ourselves, “What can we
do locally, because one size doesn’t fit
all?” I’d say patient care is job one in
many respects, but we also have a duty,
I think, to educate and train future
health care providers, and if we could
wave a magic wand and practice medi-
cine perfectly right now, we still would
not be satisfied because the outcomes
are not what we would want them to be.
That means there’s still things for us to
learn, and that’s where the innovation
piece comes in.
TSN: How can OHSU become a more
diverse and inclusive campus?
DJ: I think it’s going to require that
process I described earlier. I think
we have to define our current reality.
There’s been a great amount of work
already done to poll the members and
ask them their opinions about diversi-
ty and inclusion at OHSU. I will say that
I’ve been impressed by OHSU’s dedica-
tion to diversity and inclusion because
it was front and center. All the docu-
ments were given to me as I was inter-
viewing for the job. And in fact the job
description itself that was written for
the president talked about the impor-
tance of promoting inclusion and di-
versity at OHSU.
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