The BulleTin • Tuesday, May 25, 2021 A3
LOCAL, STATE & NATION
Rumors fly after adventurous
wolf goes missing in California
BY LOUIS SAHAGÚN
Los Angeles Times
Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian file
Protesters prepare to observe nine minutes of silence on the Burnside Bridge in Portland on June 1, the fifth
night of protests against the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by police in Minneapolis.
Floyd murder prompts Oregon,
other states to target chokeholds
BY FARNOUSH AMIRI, COLLEEN
SLEVIN AND CAMILLE FASSETT
Report for America/Associated Press
Democratic Rep. Leslie
Herod had no luck persuad-
ing her colleagues in the Colo-
rado Legislature to ban police
from using chokeholds after
the death of a 23-year-old Black
man in suburban Aurora in
2019.
She couldn’t gather enough
support to even introduce a po-
lice reform bill that included
a ban. That changed when
George Floyd died after be-
ing pinned under the knee of a
Minneapolis police officer and
the video set off a summer of
protests over police killings and
racial injustice.
Within a month of Floyd’s
death, Colorado lawmakers
took the step they had avoided
after the death of Elijah Mc-
Clain and approved a ban on
chokeholds as part of broader
police reform legislation. The
law overrode more limited
chokehold restrictions that
were put in place four years
earlier.
“Making it clear that is com-
pletely banned in all circum-
stances has the potential to save
lives,” said Herod, who is Black.
Colorado and Oregon are
among at least 17 states to pro-
hibit or severely limit the use of
chokeholds and neck restraints
by police officers in the year
since the world watched Floyd
plead for air as he was pinned
under the knee of former offi-
cer Derek Chauvin, who was
convicted of murder and man-
slaughter last month.
Before Floyd was killed, only
two states, Tennessee and Illi-
nois, had bans on police hold
techniques that restrict the air-
way or blood flow to the brain
when pressure is applied to the
neck.
A majority of the bans en-
acted over the past year are in
states controlled by Democrats,
as Colorado is. But the efforts
also have generated support
among some Republicans.
Jim Mone/AP file
A mural of George Floyd in the Minneapolis square now named after him.
Tuesday marks a year since Floyd’s death.
Just a month after Floyd’s
death, Utah lawmakers voted to
ban knee-to-neck chokeholds,
though the legislation stopped
short of a ban on all types of
neck restraints. The bill was
sponsored by the only Black
member of the Utah Legisla-
ture.
Consequences
Many of the new laws include
criminal penalties for officers
if a chokehold or neck restraint
leads to death or injury, unless
they can show it was necessary
to protect their life or someone
else’s. In Vermont, officers can
face up to 20 years in prison and
a fine of up to $50,000.
Those consequences are im-
portant to gain compliance, said
Lorenzo Boyd, director of the
Center for Advanced Policing at
the University of New Haven in
Connecticut.
“If we say chokeholds are
prohibited, police will still use
chokeholds,” he said. “If we say,
‘Chokeholds are now felonies
and if you use a chokehold we
can now prosecute you,’ I think
that would change the narrative.”
Floyd’s death was not the first
police case involving a neck re-
straint to capture wide public
attention.
In 2014, a New York City
police officer put Eric Gar-
ner in what appeared to be
a chokehold while arresting
him on suspicion of illegally
selling cigarettes on Staten Is-
land. On amateur video, Gar-
ner can be heard saying “I can’t
breathe.”When asked to specu-
late why the Legislature didn’t
act after the Garner death, state
Sen. Brian Benjamin said there
was room for detractors to give
the officer the benefit of the
doubt. He said what happened
in Minneapolis was different.
“With the Floyd video, there’s
absolutely no wiggle room of
any kind around the evilness
of what was happening there,”
he said.
Broader police reform
Since May 2020, at least 67
police reforms have been signed
into law in 25 states related to
specific topics the National
Conference of State Legislatures
analyzed at the AP’s request. In
addition to neck restraints and
chokeholds, the laws address
police-worn body cameras; dis-
ciplinary and personnel records;
independent investigations of
officer conduct; use of force re-
strictions; qualified immunity;
and no-knock warrants.
At least 13 states enacted re-
strictions on officer use-of-force
and at least eight have imple-
mented laws beefing up officer
reviews and investigations, ac-
cording to the NCSL data. Leg-
islatures elsewhere took no ac-
tion or went the other direction
and gave police even more au-
thority. City police and county
sheriff’s departments also have
wide leeway to set many of their
own rules, including around
use-of-force.
Awbrey Dental Group is giving away Free Teeth Whitening
If you’re looking for a new dentist, claim your FREE
Whitening by scheduling a New Patient Exam!
Exams are typically 100% covered by most insurance plans!
Don’t have insurance? We off er 0% fi nancing with approval.
Come see why we’re one of Bend’s top-rated dental practices!
* Th is off er is limited to New Patients * Limited supply available
965 SW Emkay Drive, Suite 100, Bend
Call 541-383-0754 or visit www.awbreydental.com
California’s most adventur-
ous wolf has not been heard
from since biologists lost track
of the “pings” emitted by OR-
93’s radio collar on April 5
in San Luis Obispo County,
about three hour’s drive north
of Los Angeles.
Deepening the mystery:
Officials have not picked up
a “mortality signal” from the
young male’s collar, indicating
that OR-93 had not moved for
at least eight hours.
Where could he have gone?
In search of an answer, state
biologists in Oregon and Cal-
ifornia on Friday said they are
collaborating on a plan to fly
over his epic path in a plane
equipped to detect the faintest
signals emitted by its GPS and
radio transmitter.
“OR-93 hasn’t pinged since
April 5 — and that’s been aw-
ful tough on us,” said Jordan
Traverso, a spokeswoman for
the California Department of
Fish and Wildlife. “We’re try-
ing to keep hope alive.”
“It’s not beyond the realm of
possibility that OR-93 found
some other wolves down
there,” she said, “and is run-
ning with a Central Coast pack
that no one knew existed.”
“Or it could be that the radio
collar is broken or malfunc-
tioning due to dead batteries,”
she said. “Then, too, this (wolf)
may have been killed.”
There’s no shortage of the-
ories among wolf advocates
and wolf haters who have been
keeping their eyes peeled for
one unusually large long-legged
canine predator — and they’re
getting wilder by the hour.
Recent claims of sightings
reported to state authorities
and wildlife organizations
California Department of Fish and Wildlife
The gray wolf known as OR-93
was spotted here near Yosemite,
California, in February.
include photos of “wolfish”
looking paw prints in the
wet sand at San Luis Obispo
County’s Oceano Dunes State
Vehicular Area suggesting
that OR-93 is still alive and
enjoying the surf.
Other blurry photos of a
grayish dog-like image in the
distance suggest the resilient,
mobile and efficient hunter
may be following his nose to
his next meal, raising con-
cerns among ranchers who
regard wolves as four-legged
killing machines.
OR-93’s official story began
in June, when biologists fitted
him with a GPS tracking col-
lar near where he was born,
south of Mount Hood.
He left the pack and headed
south, traveling swiftly and
leaving a scented trail past
Northern California lava
beds, over snowy passes in
the Sierra Nevada, along the
outskirts of Yosemite National
Park, into an agricultural area
near Fresno. From there, he
headed west toward the Cen-
tral Coast, successfully cross-
ing the 99, 5 and 101 freeways
— three of the most perilous
roads in the nation.
The GPS collar gave Or-
egon Department of Fish
and Wildlife biologists a few
downloads of data about its
location each day that were
shared with California wildlife
authorities.
In California, wildlife au-
thorities have been reluctant
to reveal details about the
2-year-old wolf’s precise loca-
tions out of fear that it might
make it easier for hunters to
track him down and kill him.
The California Cattlemen’s
Association, which had been
keeping track of the wolf’s
progress in weekly bulletins,
has decided not to announce
that OR-93’s radio collar has
gone silent. “That fact doesn’t
give us much new information
that is beneficial to our mem-
bers,” said Kirk Wilbur, the
association’s vice president of
government affairs. “For all we
know that wolf is still running
around in the place where the
collar quit sending signals.”
“That’s too bad,” he added,
“because it would be great to
be able to alert folks in, say,
Santa Barbara County that
a gray wolf moved into their
neighborhood.”
Beth Pratt, California re-
gional executive director for
the National Wildlife Feder-
ation, was only half-kidding
when she mused, “I keep hop-
ing that someone will grab a
photo of OR-93 that is clear
and definitive — not fuzzy
like the ones offered up as ev-
idence of the existence of the
Loch Ness monster and yeti.”
“The ultimate Hollywood
ending of this mystery,” she
added with a laugh, “would be
for OR-93 to settle down with
a surfer girl canine in Malibu
and raise a pack of cute pups.”