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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 9, 2019)
January 9, 2019 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 3 News cont’d from pg 1 According to Pescaia, Gladen pulled out a mar- tial arts-type throwing knife and ran at the offi- cer, who opened fire. The Portland Police Bureau included a photo of the “ According to Pescaia, Gladen pulled out a martial arts-type throw- ing knife and ran at the of- ficer, who opened fire knife in a Wednesday press release with Glad- en’s name. Gladen was taken by ambulance to a local hos- pital, where he was de- clared dead. Hate PPB has not named the officer who fired at Glad- en and has said the offi- cer is under administra- tive leave. Family members said Gladen suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had been hospital- ized several times. This is the first offi- cer-involved shooting in Portland in 2019, but the second in the Portland metropolitan area. Clack- amas County deputies shot and killed 50-year- old David John Enge- bretson near Oak Grove Church after, authorities say, Engebretson and law enrforcement officers exchanged fire. Oak Grove is an un- incorporated area in Clackamas County with a population of 16,629. In 2016 Clackamas County officers shot and killed 19-year-old Oak Grove resident Christopher Ka- lonji after what officers described as an hours- long standoff that began as a mental health inter- vention. MLK Proclamation The Metropolitan King County Council and the King County Executive presented members of the Martin Luther King Jr. Organizing Coalition and the King County Office of Equity and Social Justice with a Proclamation on Monday January 8. The proclamation declared the month of January 2019 as Martin Luther King Jr Month and acknowledged the annual MLK Jr. Celebration at Garfield High School. The 2019 rally and March will mark the 37th year the event has been held in Seattle making it one of the longest running celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the country. cont’d from pg 1 the available data all point to a growing problem that’s especially bad in Ore- gon. FBI statistics show a 40 percent increase in hate crimes between 2016 and 2017. “ PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED Gladen We know hate is more complex than the numbers reflect “Oregon has consistently exceeded the national average,” Rosenblum said Monday at the first of a series of listen- ing sessions held around the state this week. But — for a variety of reasons — num- bers don’t tell the whole story, she add- ed. “Despite the numbers I just shared, we know hate is more complex than the numbers reflect,” Rosenblum said. She noted that many hate crimes go un- reported due to distrust between vul- nerable communities and the police. Some incidents that are reported are not investigated or categorized as hate crimes. According to Aaron Knott, Rosen- blum’s legislative director and the chair of a state task force on hate crimes, the Jayapal attorney general’s office is still taking feedback from the public before re- leasing draft legislation. It would add services for victims, force prosecutors to focus on the content of a crime rath- er than perceived intent and improve data collection, which has been spotty in the 30 years since Oregon’s first in- timidation laws were introduced. “In my stay in the US I have never seen as much hatred and racism as Oregon,” said Samuel Van Dyke, a wildland fire- fighter and film writer and actor who relocated to Portland recently after liv- ing in Corvallis, to members of Rosen- blum’s hate crime task force at Unite Oregon in Northeast Portland Monday. Roughly 100 people attended the event. Originally from Swaziland, Van Dyke said he has also lived in Haiti and Co- lumbus, Ohio. He described a recent in- cident walking in Sellwood with three other men — one Latino, two White – where a woman followed them to a park and accused them of having been in her backyard staring in her windows. She told them they had scared her, he said, making him wonder why — if she was so afraid — she was following them rather than calling for help. Van Dyke also said a White friend was once pulled over and the officer ap- proached the passenger side of the car — where Van Dyke was sitting — rath- er than approaching his friend in the driver’s seat. Van Dyke was not alone in describing adverse interactions with police as well as with civilians. Several other indi- viduals who spoke at the event talked about experiencing discrimination while shopping, including a Mexican American woman and her daughter who were accused of stealing and es- corted out of a store where they had gone to pay a utility bill and Lisa Fay, a Muslim woman whose boss told her to remove her hijab, calling it a “doo-rag.” Fay said she’s also been followed and received threats as a result of her work advocating for houseless people and fighting the Montavilla Initiative, which received coverage in the Los Angeles Times in December as a neigh- borhood watch group that has engaged in vigilante-like harassment against houseless people in the Montavilla neighborhood. In one of the final comments of the night, Sam Sachs, founder of the No Hate Zone, praised the attorney gener- al’s office for convening the task force, but suggested they hold more listening sessions or engage in other forms of outreach. (Those wishing to report a hate crime to the DOJ can do so through its website.) He also called out the fact that the ma- jority of the task force members pres- ent at the event appear to be White, and while he realizes not all task force members were able to attend the event the task force should consider recruit- ing more members from minority com- munities, and make sure the public is aware of minorities who do serve on the group. The task force also held listening ses- sions in Eugene and Medford this week. Rosenblum’s legislation does not yet have a bill number, Knott said. So far the following legislators have signed on as sponsors: Sen. Lew Frederick, Sen. James Manning, Sen. Floyd Prozanski, Rep. Karin Power and Rep. Jennifer Williamson. es the plan, setting her apart from her predecessor Loretta Smith, who ran an unsuccessful bid for city council last year as her county commission term came to an end. (As of November, Wap- ato was marked for demolition.) But for the most part, she said, people just urged her to do something to address the problem. “If we don’t have some visible change, we’re going to drive more and more solutions that aren’t good solutions, like a Wapato,” Jayapal said. Jayapal supports solutions to help keep people in housing they already have, includ- ing vouchers and long-term rent assis- tance for vulnerable renters including seniors. She also intends to prioritize job training programs and workforce de- velopment, and to ensure diverse staff- ing for county projects. Jayapal’s parents live in India and she tries to get home to visit them once a year. She has two grown children, ages 23 and 26, who are graduates of Grant High School. When she’s not at work, she reads, plays the piano, hikes, and is “sort of a fierce tennis player.” “I try to force myself to do yoga be- cause I hear it’s good for you,” she said, laughing. “ In my stay in the US I have never seen as much hatred and racism as Oregon cont’d from pg 1 of social services the county provides – which tie in with her background in the nonprofit sector. “People often don’t have a clear sense of what the county does,” Jayapal said. From health services to bridges to pet services, she said, “the purpose of all of those programs is to give people what they need to thrive in this community.” “Homelessness was the number-one issue that people brought up in the eight months I was campaigning,” Jay- apal told The Skanner. “I heard about homelessness and I heard about mental health.” Most didn’t propose specific solu- “ If we don’t have some visible change, we’re going to drive more and more solutions that aren’t good solu- tions, like a Wapato tions, though a few mentioned the idea of using the never-used Wapato jail as a homeless shelter. Jayapal oppos-