THE BULLETIN • TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2021 A3
TODAY
Today is Tuesday, May 11, the
131st day of 2021. There are 234
days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 11, 1935, the Rural
Electrification Administration
was created as one of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal
programs.
In 1858, Minnesota became the
32nd state of the Union.
In 1943, during World War
II, U.S. forces landed on the
Aleutian island of Attu, which
was held by the Japanese; the
Americans took the island 19
days later.
In 1946, the first CARE
packages, sent by a consortium
of American charities to provide
relief to the hungry of postwar
Europe, arrived at Le Havre,
France.
In 1947, the B.F. Goodrich Co. of
Akron, Ohio, announced the de-
velopment of a tubeless tire.
In 1953, a tornado devastated
Waco, Texas, claiming 114 lives.
In 1960, Israeli agents cap-
tured Nazi war criminal Adolf
Eichmann in Buenos Aires,
Argentina.
In 1973, the espionage trial of
Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony
Russo in the “Pentagon Papers”
case came to an end as Judge
William M. Byrne dismissed all
charges, citing government
misconduct.
In 1981, legendary reggae artist
Bob Marley died in a Miami hos-
pital at age 36.
In 1996, an Atlanta-bound
ValuJet DC-9 caught fire shortly
after takeoff from Miami
and crashed into the Florida
Everglades, killing all 110 people
on board.
In 1997, IBM’s “Deep Blue”
computer demolished an
overwhelmed Garry Kasparov,
winning the six-game chess
rematch between man and ma-
chine in New York.
In 1998, India set off three
underground atomic blasts, its
first nuclear tests in 24 years. A
French mint produced the first
coins of Europe’s single currency,
the euro.
In 2010, Conservative leader Da-
vid Cameron, at age 43, became
Britain’s youngest prime min-
ister in almost 200 years after
Gordon Brown stepped down
and ended 13 years of Labour
government.
Ten years ago: Former hedge
fund titan Raj Rajaratnam was
convicted by a federal jury in
New York in an insider-trading
case of five counts of conspiracy
and nine of securities fraud. (Ra-
jaratnam was sentenced to 11
years in prison.)
Five years ago: A white former
South Carolina police officer
already facing a state murder
charge in the shooting death
of Black motorist Walter Scott
was indicted on federal charges
including depriving the victim
of his civil rights. (Michael Slager
pleaded guilty to violating
Scott’s civil rights and was
sentenced to 20 years in prison;
prosecutors agreed to drop
the state murder charge.) CBS
News veteran Morley Safer, a “60
Minutes” correspondent for all
but two of the newsmagazine’s
48-year history, announced his
retirement (Safer died eight days
later at age 84).
One year ago: After two cases
of COVID-19 were confirmed
among staffers, a memo to
White House staff directed
“everyone who enters the West
Wing to wear a mask or facial
covering”; a maskless President
Donald Trump addressed a Rose
Garden audience filled with
mask-wearing administration
officials. Twitter announced that
it would add a warning label to
tweets containing disputed or
misleading information about
the coronavirus. Jerry Stiller, best
known for his role as George
Costanza’s father in “Seinfeld”
and earlier as part of a comedy
duo with wife Anne Meara, died
at 92.
Today’s Birthdays: Comedian
Mort Sahl is 94. Nation of Islam
leader Louis Farrakhan is 88.
Jazz keyboardist Carla Bley is
85. Rock singer Eric Burdon (The
Animals; War) is 80. Actor Pam
Ferris is 73. Former White House
chief of staff John F. Kelly is 71.
Actor Shohreh Aghdashloo is 69.
Actor Frances Fisher is 69. Sports
columnist Mike Lupica is 69.
Actor Boyd Gaines is 68. Actor
Martha Quinn is 62. Actor Tim
Blake Nelson is 57. Actor Jeffrey
Donovan is 53. Actor Nicky Katt
is 51. Actor Coby Bell is 46. Cellist
Perttu Kivilaakso is 43. Actor
Austin O’Brien is 40. Actor-singer
Jonathan Jackson is 39. Rapper
Ace Hood is 33. Latin singer
Prince Royce is 32. Actor Anna-
belle Attanasio (TV: “Bull”) is
28. Musician Howard Lawrence
(Disclosure) is 27.
— Associated Press
LOCAL, STATE & NATION
LOCAL BRIEFING
POLICE SHOOTINGS
NeighborImpact receives $800,000 in COVID-19
relief money to expand food bank warehouse
Jennifer Sinco Kelleher/AP
Items were left at a street memorial April 28 where Honolulu Police shot and killed Iremamber Sykap, 16, whose
nickname was Baby. Some in Hawaii’s Micronesian community say the shooting highlights the racism they face.
‘HAWAII IS NOT
DIFFERENT’
A teen’s death highlights feelings of otherness among Micronesians, even on a
Pacific island: ‘All I wanted to do was to fit in,’ says one Oregon transplant
BY JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
Associated Press
ONOLULU — Com-
ments on social media
about a 16-year-old boy
shot and killed by Honolulu
Police have been so hateful that
a Catholic priest, who hails
from the same small Pacific
island as the teen’s family, hesi-
tates to repeat them.
“It is really bad, and I don’t
want to say it as a priest,” said
the Rev. Romple Emwalu, pa-
rochial vicar at a parish outside
Honolulu who was born in
Chuuk in the Federated States
of Micronesia. “But, like, ‘Mi-
cronesians are dirt.’”
Some in the Micronesian
community say the April 5
shooting of Iremamber Sykap
highlights the racism they face
in Hawaii, a place they ex-
pected to be more welcoming
to fellow islanders.
Police say Sykap was driv-
ing a stolen car when he led
officers on a chase through
oncoming traffic after a series
of crimes including an armed
robbery and purse-snatching.
A memorial for Sykap has
been started at a street corner
near where the shooting took
place. It’s decorated with flo-
ral bouquets, balloons, candles
and a stuffed bear.
Sykap’s family is from
Chuuk, but he was born in
Guam, a U.S. territory, said his
mother, Yovita Sykap.
“He’s American,” she said.
Of Hawaii’s 1.5 million resi-
dents, 38% are Asian — mostly
Japanese and Filipino — 26%
are white, 2% are Black, and
many people are multiple eth-
nicities, according to U.S. cen-
sus figures. Native Hawaiians
account for about 20% of the
population.
There are an estimated
15,000 to 20,000 Micronesians
in Hawaii, who began migrat-
ing here in bigger numbers in
the 1990s in search of economic
and educational opportunities,
said Josie Howard of We are
Oceania, which advocates for
the Micronesian community.
The Compact of Free Asso-
ciation allows citizens from the
Federated States of Micronesia,
the Republic of the Marshall
Islands and the Republic of Pa-
lau to live and work freely in
the United States in exchange
for allowing the U.S. military to
control strategic land and wa-
ter areas in the region.
Located about 2,500 miles
southwest of Hawaii, the Fed-
erated States of Micronesia
consists of 607 islands with a
population of about 107,000.
The relationship with the U.S.
seems to make people in Ha-
waii incorrectly believe that Mi-
cronesians are a drain on social
benefits, said Sha Merirei Onge-
lungel, a Honolulu resident.
A Palauan born and raised
in Oregon, Ongelungel came to
Hawaii “because all I wanted to
do was to fit in and be around
Pacific Islanders and know
what it was like to not stand
out like a sore thumb.”
A younger
Iremamber
Sykap goes
fishing in 2012
at Hoomaluhia
Botanical Garden
in Kaneohe,
Hawaii, with his
grandmother,
Akiwine Sykap.
Iremamber was
16 when police
shot and killed
him during a
car chase last
month.
H
Ann Hansen/
Submitted via AP
When she first got here,
a cousin advised her to tell
potential employers she was
from Oregon. “If you tell them
you’re Micronesian, you won’t
get a job,” she said her cousin
told her.
She wasn’t prepared for the
racism in Hawaii, and so she
left after a year.
Ongelungel said she felt
equipped to deal with the
racism on the U.S. mainland
against those who are not
white. “I didn’t have training to
fight people who looked like
my actual blood relatives,” she
said.
She returned to Hawaii
nearly 15 years later.
After the shooting, some
local media outlets reported
about Sykap’s criminal history
as a juvenile.
“I want to press people on
why his past matters when he’s
a child,” Ongelungel said.
The police department has
offered little information on
the shooting. The department
won’t release body camera foot-
age because there were other
minors in the car with Sykap.
A little more than a week
after the shooting, Honolulu
police shot and killed a Black
man who had entered a home
that wasn’t his, sat down and
took off his shoes, prompting a
frightened occupant to call 911.
Chief Susan Ballard said race
wasn’t a factor in that incident.
In response to protests in
other parts of the country de-
crying police brutality against
minorities, Ballard, who is
white, has said that in general,
that degree of racism doesn’t
exist here.
“Officers are extensively
trained to respond to the indi-
vidual’s behavior and actions,
not race,” said police spokes-
woman Michelle Yu.
Eric Seitz, an attorney not
involved in the Sykap case who
represents families of others
who have been killed by police,
says Honolulu Police have sim-
ilar issues with race as other
U.S. cities.
“More and more people are
coming to realize that Hawaii
is not different and that just as
they release video footage in
all of these other cities for all of
these other incidents, it should
be obligatory as a matter of
public responsibility to release
the similar information here,”
Seitz said.
NeighborImpact will receive $800,000 in federal COVID-19
relief funds to go toward expanding the nonprofit’s food bank
warehouse.
On Monday, the nonprofit in an announcement credited
state House Rep. Jack Zika, R-Redmond, with dedicating the
discretionary funding toward the cause.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the number of people
using the food bank has increased from 22,000 monthly to a
peak of 34,000, according to NeighborImpact.
To keep up with the increasing demand, NeighborImpact,
which serves all of Central Oregon, is trying to raise $5 million
to expand its warehouse. The project will add 6,400 square feet
to the existing warehouse, as well as improve loading and un-
loading areas and upgrade to rooftop solar to make the build-
ing more resilient.
Between the COVID-19 relief funds, private donations and
a grant from the Maybell Clark Macdonald Fund, the organi-
zation has secured $1.04 million toward the $5 million expan-
sion campaign.
“NeighborImpact would like to express appreciation to Rep-
resentative Jack Zika for his leadership in dedicating these funds
and for expressing his concerns for those experiencing hunger in
Central Oregon,” NeighborImpact wrote in a statement.
3 years after arrest, Bend man pleads not guilty
to attempted murder of roommate
A Bend man returned from the state mental hospital Mon-
day to Deschutes County Circuit Court, where he faces charges
related to an attack on his former roommate with a hammer
in 2018.
Matthew Thomas Planteen pleaded not
guilty to 10 felony charges.
Planteen, 37, is accused of three counts of
first-degree assault, three of unlawful use of a
weapon, two of kidnapping in the first-degree
and one each of coercion and attempted mur-
der. The alleged victim in all counts is Plant-
Planteen
een’s onetime roommate, Terry Trask.
Planteen was arrested in the early morning
of Feb. 11, 2018, at the home he and Trask shared in the 64000
block of the Old Bend-Redmond Highway. Trask told police he
talked to Planteen earlier about Planteen moving out. He said
Planteen later attacked him with the hammer as he slept, accord-
ing to Bulletin archives.
Trask was eventually able to reach a baseball bat, which he used
to fend off Planteen until authorities arrived. Planteen was arrested
and Trask was taken to St. Charles Bend with serious injuries.
Planteen has spent much of the time since then under evalua-
tion at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem.
Planteen’s attorney, Shawn Kollie, on Monday told the court
he is awaiting another mental health evaluation that will de-
termine if Planteen can be found guilty except for insanity.
— Bulletin staff reports