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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 3, 2018)
October 3, 2018 The Skanner Page 3 News cont’d from pg 1 ning away from officers when he was shot and had placed a gun on the ground. Police say that mo- ments later Sgt. Garry Britt and Officer Jef- frey Livingston fired at Kimmons. On Tuesday KATU reported that Britt was involved in the 2012 shooting of an assault suspect and was on the scene of the shooting of John Elifritz earlier this year, but did not fire his weapon. Kimmons is the second person killed by Port- land police this year and the third person killed in an officer-involved shooting. John Elifritz was shot and killed in April by members of the Portland Police Bureau; in June, Jason Washing- ton was shot and killed by Portland State Univer- sity campus public safety officers. Kimmons was a North Portland native who at- tended Jefferson High School and had three children. According to other media reports, he had prior convictions for witness tampering (in 2010), for delivery of cocaine and possession of a firearm (2011) and was ordered to have no contact with gangs in each case; in 2014 he was DeLaSalle the victim of a shooting near NE 122nd Avenue and Sandy Boulevard that was at the time de- scribed as gang-related. Friends and family have said Kimmons had prior gang involvement, but left to focus on raising his children. Before Kimmons’ name was released by author- ities, friends and fami- ly members had begun posting “RIP” messages to social media announc- ing he had died. Kim- mons’ family has also started an online fund- raiser for expenses asso- ciated with his funeral: w w w.gof undme.com / my-son-quotpatrick-sim- monsquot-home-going. As of Wednesday morn- ing, it had raised $7,900 toward a $20,000 goal. Police say the two peo- ple injured in the initial shooting were treated for serious injuries. Initial police reports also said a gun was found near Kimmons and that other firearms were recovered in the area. Police say they are reviewing video recovered from the scene and are interviewing two officers they say wit- nessed the shooting. The officers have been placed on paid adminis- trative leave until an in- vestigation is complete. PHOTO COURTESY OF PORTLAND PARKS & RECREATION Shooting Kenton Park Reopens Neighbors, friends, and project partners celebrated the grand opening of Kenton Park’s new playground (8417 N. Brandon Avenue) Sept. 29. The latest Parks Replacement Bond project was the result of community input which influenced the project’s natural theme, including wooden play elements such as a fort and balance beams, an accessible play surface, new park benches and picnic tables, a new drinking fountain, paved paths, and playground swings designed for a variety of abilities and ages. This project removed approximately 25 percent of the identified accessibility barriers in Kenton Park. Cop Out cont’d from pg 1 rector and cofounder of the Red Door Proj- ect. But Jones also de- scribes “Hands Up” as “one-sided,” and that one-sidedness became more apparent at dis- cussions following the show, as law enforce- ment officers began to show up and partici- cont’d from pg 1 the path, where before the path was blocked by different factors. I think having our students in there, under- standing the fabric of corporate Amer- ica, really makes them think outside the box. That’s really the difference at school like DeLaSalle. We really think DeLa- Salle kids are a true reflection of Port- Oscar Leong, president of de la Salle North Catholic High School that we understand the child’s path in life. It’s also what we can do to rein- force that child’s level of confidence, open doors, invite the parents into the conversation. So the parent component is super important because they’re looking for something more, I think that’s really important here. What we do is offer opportunities to students who may not otherwise be able to go to a private school. We also offer important opportuni- ties through what is called the corpo- rate work-study program. And that program I think is really the stepping stone of huge things. That’s the part here that is truly special, it is truly a game changer. Because the opportuni- ty to have every one of these kids walk into these ivory towers — and they’re not understanding what kind of person works there and their journey there — but once they’re in the office and are considered an employee of the compa- ny, they start to create relationships with these mentors. The kids have conversations with their professional coworkers about their college degrees and jobs. I think our kids have an opportunity to see “ The DeLaSalle Fall Benefit Dinner and Auction is Oct. 24 at the school land. TSN: How does it work? LEONG: For every student that we accept, the agreement is that the corpo- rate work-study program is embedded into their weekly schedule (reporter’s note: the wage the student earns from it also pays almost all of that student’s annual DeLa Salle school tuition. During the first week that I was here I wanted to see what it was like for stu- dents to travel to their work, so I actu- ally job-shadowed two freshmen stu- dents who went downtown on TriMet. For me it seemed exciting — also I could see daunting — for a freshman. For both of the students I was shadowing, it was their first time traveling to down- town on the TriMet. And now as I meet that girl and boy on the campus they’re so different. Their confidence levels — the way they shake my hand, the way they look me in the eye — is so different. I ask them, “How’s work?” And they are talking to me like they are adults. Read more at TheSkanner.com pate. Jones made contact with Bob Day, now dep- uty chief of the Port- land Police Bureau, then captain of the bureau’s training division, and began to build a rela- tionship with the police. The organization staged a production for police officers only and held a discussion afterward. “It was not an easy conversation,” Jones said, but later Day told him it was the first time he’d heard police stay in a room togeth- er and talk about how they felt. Out of that relation- ship-building comes “Cop Out: Beyond Black, White and Blue,” a series of sev- en monologues from the perspective of law enforcement officers, focusing on the expe- riences of Black and brown officers. To create a followup production, the Red Door Project hired writers all over the country, most of them African American, to create a series of monologues from the perspective of police officers, based on real stories drawn from interviews. Officers could choose not to be identified by name in the series, though some allowed their names to be used. Ul- timately playwrights submitted 19 mono- logues, seven of which will be produced Shepsu Aakhu, a Chicago-based writer who contributed three monologues to “Cop Out” and also acted as the show’s drama- turge, helping shape the submitted works into a cohesive production, said the project interest- ed him because it offered the opportunity for a more candid conversa- tion about race and po- licing. “ The whole thing is just a little bit scary “I think the whole thing is terribly important. The whole thing is just a little bit scary. Most of the conversation around this particular topic, I find to be incredibly tepid,” Aakhu told The Skanner. “Everybody is concerned about being PC and about hurting people’s feelings. Once I heard the chance to have a candid conversation, I got interested.” Aakhu’s monologues include one called “Locked and Loaded,” based on an interview with a childhood friend of Aakhu’s who is now a police officer in Detroit. The friend described looking in the mirror after dressing in riot gear: “How can anyone actually think of you as anything other than a machine when they see you in this paramilitary gear?” The second, “PSA,” describes an officer’s frustration at being sent to calls that waste offi- cers’ time, the nature of which have made head- lines recently: Black men waiting in a Starbucks, Black families barbecu- ing in a public park and Black children selling water from their stoop — all of which he called examples of the public “weaponizing their inse- curities,” including their racial biases. “You have to be mind- ful of the fact that not ev- erything that makes you uncomfortable deserves an armed response,” Aakhu said. The production pre- views at Portland’5 Cen- ters for the Arts this weekend and is set to premiere at SEI later this fall. Jones said the concept for the new show has rubbed some the wrong way, and he’s been ac- cused of having Stock- holm syndrome: “A lot of folks say, ‘I don’t want to hear anything cops have to say. I don’t care.’” The idea is not to equiv- ocate between officers’ experiences and the experiences of Black ci- vilians, Jones said. The struggles are not equiva- lent. He also doesn’t have any illusions the produc- tion itself will change po- licing in Portland or the United States (he does hope the production will eventually tour nation- ally). “I don’t have any illu- sion that we can change the police. The police have to change the po- lice,” Jones said. But the stories “Cop Out” presents are com- plex and challenging, presenting a more nu- anced picture of policing than presented in TV cop shows or video clips of shootings or beatings. And Jones argues that being human requires participation in difficult conversations. “Sitting in a room lis- tening to a person you disagree with is good for the soul,” Jones said.
