A4 The BulleTin • Friday, June 11, 2021
Diversion
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Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
Guests wait in line to check in at the homeless shelter, located at 275 NE Second St. in Bend, on Wednesday.
Homeless
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But within that population, the
count also showed an increase in the
number of unaccompanied homeless
youth in the region from 48 last year
to 169 this year — a 252% jump.
Thomas said it is hard to pinpoint
any one reason why numbers are go-
ing up. But in general, a steadily grow-
ing homeless population reflects a
community without enough housing,
untenable rental prices for the work-
ing class and not enough resources to
support everyone, she said.
Addressing this issue means cre-
ating more housing options, ranging
from managed homeless camps to
multifamily homes, Thomas said.
“Without those options, without
the continuum of services and re-
sources we’re going to continue to see
more visible homelessness in our re-
gion,” Thomas said.
Thomas said the large spike in the
number of unaccompanied homeless
youth — which means kids who are
homeless and are not in the care of
their parents — could be in part due
to the pandemic, as well as a change
in the way homeless people were
counted this year.
Because of the pandemic, the
county was advised to not send lots
of volunteers into camps to do counts
and ask people survey questions, and
instead get data from service provid-
ers, who work with the population
more regularly and can provide a
more accurate picture of how many
people are in this situation than a ran-
dom count.
The U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development, which over-
sees the count, allowed counties more
time to gather data, Thomas said.
Homeless service providers and
nonprofits were given a week instead
of a single day to ask people whether
they were homeless the night of Jan.
20.
The fact that schools were virtual
could also be a contributing factor,
said Eliza Wilson, the program man-
ager of the homeless organization
Grandma’s House of Central Oregon,
which operates under J Bar J Youth
Services.
Because schools were closed, more
kids have been reaching out to organi-
zations like hers for services, making
Deputy
Continued from A1
On June 16, 2020, Johnstone took
a leave of absence, according to state
police records.
On Feb. 11, he retired prior to com-
pletion of the investigation.
“It has been an honor and a privi-
lege to serve the citizens of Alaska and
Oregon as a law enforcement officer
for 25 years,” Johnstone wrote to Sher-
iff Shane Nelson. “I have come to a
place in my life where I recognize the
toll the career has taken on me and I
am informing you that I am resign-
ing my position as a Patrol Sergeant
with the Deschutes County Sheriff’s
Office.”
The sheriff’s office would not turn
over records from Johnstone’s conduct
investigation, nor explain the nature
of the complaint against him, citing
an exemption in Oregon’s public re-
cords law against disclosing informa-
tion about a personnel investigation
of a police officer if the investigation
doesn’t result in discipline.
“Thank you for all your service
to our community,” Nelson wrote to
Johnstone Feb. 11 in response to his
resignation. “I wish you all the best in
Deschutes County Sheriff’s Officevia Facebook
Grant T. Johnstone posed with Sheriff
Shane Nelson when he was promoted to
patrol sergeant in September 2017.
your new adventure!”
For his part, Johnstone told The
Bulletin his retirement had nothing to
do with the conduct investigation. He
said the accusation of unprofessional-
ism was true and he was “absolutely in
the wrong.”
“My retirement was due to a medi-
cal condition that did not allow me to
return to law enforcement by a spe-
cific time,” Johnstone wrote. “The in-
ternal issue and the retirement were
unrelated.”
In November, the office assigned
two detectives to temporary roles as
patrol sergeants, because several pa-
them more visible for something like
a Point-in-Time count, Wilson said.
Wilson said she was not surprised
to see the high number of homeless
youth counted this year.
“I think the (Point in Time) count
is only as good as our effort,” she said.
“Historically, and nationwide, the
(Point in Time) count for youth is
substantially lower than other counts.”
Several factors can contribute to a
kid becoming homeless. Wilson said
one-third of the children she serves
experienced homelessness with their
family before being on their own. Cir-
cumstances like a parent dying, going
to jail or substance abuse all can con-
tribute to children becoming home-
less and on their own.
In the 12 years Wilson has worked
in Central Oregon, she has seen the
population grow.
“People always think it’s kids out of
the area. It’s not,” Wilson said. “These
kids are from Central Oregon.”
A full Point-in-Time count report,
which will get into the specifics of the
data more thoroughly, will be com-
plete next week, Thomas said.
e
Reporter: 541-633-2160,
bvisser@bendbulletin.com
trol sergeants, including Johnstone,
were on leave at the time.
Since Nelson took over as sheriff in
2015, several department employees
have sat out for long periods during
internal investigations.
Former Lt. Tim Leak, thought to be
the right-hand-man of disgraced for-
mer sheriff’s Capt. Scott Beard, was
investigated for 21 months before he
was offered a severance package.
Nelson’s onetime election oppo-
nent, former deputy Eric Kozowski,
was on leave for 14 months until Nel-
son fired him for policy violations. A
trial in Kozowski’s federal wrongful
termination lawsuit is scheduled for
late summer.
Former deputy Richard “Deke”
Demars was also on paid leave for 14
months before he retired prior to the
completion of an internal investiga-
tion. While he was in a relationship
with a subordinate, DeMars was in-
vestigated by Redmond Police Depart-
ment for allegedly sexually assaulting
a different woman. He also resigned
before his conduct investigation was
complete and the sheriff’s office de-
clined to release records in the case.
e
Reporter: 541-383-0325,
gandrews@bendbulletin.com
“I remember thinking, if he had
been a juvenile, his case would have
probably been handled completely
differently,” Doyle said of the older
brother. “He could have applied for
diversion, for one thing.”
The case made such an impact on
Doyle, it inspired a new pilot pro-
gram at his next job, with the De-
schutes County District Attorney’s
office: a diversion court for young
adults with minimal records ac-
cused of breaking the law in minor
ways.
“Young adults ... often make poor
decisions, and some of those de-
cisions result in young people en-
tering the criminal justice system,”
District Attorney John Hummel
wrote to local judges May 26. “Un-
fortunately, after that has occurred
we are likely to see them return to
the criminal justice system due to
the unintended consequences of an
arrest record.”
Because human brains don’t au-
tomatically stop developing at age
18, the “emerging adult” program
aims to give second chances to peo-
ple 18 to 24 arrested for low-level
offenses of the kind that can follow
a person around for a lifetime and
lead to more involvement in the
justice system.
Two years after the pillow-throw-
ing case, Doyle attended an office
retreat at his new job with the De-
schutes County District Attorney’s
Office. One activity was a “Shark
Tank”-themed contest to devise and
pitch a specialty court, like one of
the county’s existing family-drug
and mental health treatment courts.
Doyle was paired with fellow Dep-
uty District Attorney Mara Houck,
and in about an hour, the two had
devised a framework for the emerg-
ing adult program.
Doyle and Houck’s pitch won that
inter-office competition, but more
importantly, it got the attention of
their boss, Hummel.
A nine-month pilot version is
now scheduled to start July 1. It will
enroll 12 young adults who’ve been
arrested or otherwise cited with a
crime.
According to the district attor-
ney’s office, the three-year recidi-
vism rate for the average 400 cases
a year in Deschutes County that in-
volve defendants aged 18-24 is 60%.
Hummel stressed the new pro-
gram will not be open to young
people with long criminal records
or those accused of serious crimes,
including sex crimes and Measure
11 offenses, which qualify for auto-
matic strict sentencing in Oregon.
A number of specialty courts al-
ready exist in Deschutes County, in-
cluding a DUII diversion program,
and treatment courts for mental
health issues and drug offenders
with families.
The emerging adult program
will be available only to people who
don’t qualify for other specialty
courts.
Hybrid
Continued from A1
“It certainly has some wolf-like
features, but its behavior and the
area it has been repeatedly seen
(with extremely high amount hu-
man activity) has us wondering if
perhaps it is a domestic wolf/dog
hybrid,” Walch wrote in an email to
The Bulletin. “It can be difficult to
tell from photos sometimes.”
Walch said there are occasionally
wolves that disperse through Central
Oregon, but they generally leave the
“It’s a policy that actually makes
sense, that’s consistent with brain
development science.”
—Bobbin Singh, executive director of
the Oregon Justice Resource Center
Beyond that, a panel of prosecu-
tors, victim advocates and staff will
oversee referrals, including review-
ing the alleged facts of a case.
Participants will be assigned a
case manager whom they must
meet with regularly. They must de-
velop a personal intervention plan
and take part in a restorative jus-
tice “circle” with trained facilitators.
And they must periodically appear
before the emerging adult volunteer
panel to discuss their progress.
If they complete their interven-
tion plan within six months, their
cases will not be charged. Partici-
pants who reoffend or fail to prog-
ress will be removed and their cases
turned over to the traditional crimi-
nal justice system.
The idea isn’t completely novel.
Other jurisdictions have sec-
ond-chance specialty courts dedi-
cated to young people. But a novel
aspect of the local pilot program is
that it will be available before for-
mal charges are filed with the court.
The thinking is that once a charge
is filed, it can remain on a person’s
criminal record for life.
The fact the program will be of-
fered before charges are filed allows
for more flexibility, because some
charges have associated mandatory
sentences.
Bobbin Singh, executive direc-
tor of the Oregon Justice Resource
Center, said he supports what he’s
seen of the nascent program. He
thinks being offered before charges
will lead to better outcomes for par-
ticipants.
“Once you charge an offense, you
then connect it to sentences that are
attached to those charges,” Singh
said. “So I think it’s important to
recognize at the outset that there
are developmental factors that exist.
It’s the reason we keep youth in a ju-
venile system that is fundamentally
different from how we resolve cases
in the adult system.”
Singh believes the diversion court
for young offenders is rare but gain-
ing popularity.
“We are seeing more and more
state and individual jurisdictions
start to look at this population dif-
ferently,” he said. “It’s a policy that
actually makes sense, that’s consis-
tent with brain development sci-
ence.”
The program isn’t intended to be
easy, Doyle said.
“When you’re talking about the
mechanics of it, it’s a lot easier to
just plead guilty and sign a piece of
paper and be done with it,” Doyle
said. “With emerging adults, there’s
so much more that the person will
be required to do.”
e
Reporter: 541-383-0325,
gandrews@bendbulletin.com
area within a couple of days, usu-
ally continuing south. There are no
known resident wolves or wolf packs
in Deschutes County, he added.
ODFW encourages people to
fill out a wolf report form, includ-
ing any photo or video evidence,
at www.dfw.state.or.us/wolves/
wolf_reporting_form.asp This form
provides details of potential wolf
sightings to the Fish and Wildlife’s
statewide wolf program, as well as
local biologists.
e
Reporter: 541-617-7818,
mkohn@bendbulletin.com
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