APRIL 21, 2021
Portland and Seattle Volume XLIV No. 15
25
CENTS
News .............................. 3,8-10 A & E .....................................6-7
Opinion ...................................2 Vaccinne in Pregnancy ...8
Calendars ........................... 4-5 Bids/Classifieds ....................11
CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
GUILTY
Currently, organizations must apply for funds
through one of 18 regional agencies. Even state
officials decry the system.
Critics call current state
system ‘discriminatory,’
‘antiquated’
By Saundra Sorenson
Of The Skanner News
A
bill moving through the Ore-
gon Legislature confronts what
many housing advocates view as
discriminatory red tape around
public funding for housing.
Currently, state statute bars orga-
nizations from applying directly for
federal and state housing funding. In-
stead, 18 community action agencies
(CAAs) throughout the state distribute
See HOUSING on page 3
COURT TV VIA AP, POOL
Housing
Advocates
Push to
Free Public
Funds
In this image from video, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is taken into custody as his attorney Eric Nelson, left, watches, after his bail
was revoked after he was found guilty on all three counts in his trial for the 2020 death of George Floyd, Tuesday, April 20, 2021, at the Hennepin County
Courthouse in Minneapolis. (Court TV via AP, Pool)
Grim List of Deaths at Police
Hands Grows Even After Verdict
By Lindsay Whitehurst
and Alanna Durkin
Richer, Associated Press
J
High School
Renamed After
Years Of Being
Named After KKK
Leader
page 9
ust as the guilty verdict
was about to be read
in the trial of former
Minneapolis police of-
ficer Derek Chauvin, po-
lice in Ohio shot and killed
a Black teenager in broad
daylight during a confron-
tation.
The shooting of Ma’Kh-
ia Bryant, 16, who was
swinging a knife during a
fight with another person
in Columbus, is in some
ways more representative
of how Black and other
people of color are killed
during police encounters
than the death of George
Floyd, pinned to the
ground by Chauvin and
captured on video for all
the world to see.
Unlike Chauvin’s case,
many killings by police
involve a decision to shoot
in a heated moment and
are notoriously difficult to
prosecute even when they
spark grief and outrage.
Juries have tended to give
officers the benefit of the
doubt when they claim
to have acted in a life-or-
See GUILTY on page 3
Portland Renter Mediation in Effort to Avert Evictions
Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty sounded a note
of caution saying thousands of people would be
headed to court when the moratorium expired
The Associated Press
LeVar Burton to be
‘Jeopardy!’ Guest Host
page 7
death situation.
While Tuesday’s convic-
tion was hailed as a sign
of progress in the fight for
equal justice, it still leaves
unanswered difficult ques-
tions about law enforce-
ment’s use of force and sys-
temic racism in policing.
The verdict in the Chauvin
case might not be quickly
repeated, even as the list of
those killed at the hands of
police grows.
“This was something
unique. The world saw
what happened,” said Salt
Lake County District At-
torney Sam Gill, who has
examined over 100 use-of-
force cases there. To have
video, witnesses, forensic
evidence and multiple po-
lice officers testify against
one of their own is unique
and “demonstrates how
high the bar has to be in
order to actually have that
kind of accountability,” he
said.
Convictions like Chau-
vin’s are extraordinarily
rare. Out of the thousands
of deadly police shootings
in the U.S. since 2005, few-
er than 140 officers have
been charged and just sev-
en convicted of murder, ac-
cording to data maintained
by Phil Stinson, a crimi-
nologist at Bowling Green
State University.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The City
Council in Portland, Oregon, has ap-
proved funding for a pilot program
to divert a small number of tenants
and landlords from going to court
over eviction filings.
Oregon Public Broadcasting re-
ports the council’s money, approved
Wednesday, will pay for a mediator
and, in some cases, provide rent as-
sistance.
The Council unanimously ap-
proved a $150,000 contract to Port-
land-based nonprofit Resolutions
See EVICTIONS on page 3
During its pilot phase, the landlord-tenant
mediation program would provide somewhere
between 70 and 100 mediations