Monday • June 13, 2022
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OREGON
State Police may renew investigations
of people who fail gun background checks
By noELLE CRoMBIE
The Oregonian
Momentum is building to
reinstate a state police task
force that investigates people
who try to buy guns but fail
background checks.
The mass shootings in
Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo,
New York, and local and na-
tional calls for further gun
restrictions have drawn at-
tention to the absence of the
unit.
Gov. Kate Brown has told
Oregon State Police Superin-
tendent Terri Davie to “im-
mediately” look into ensuring
the investigations are getting
done.
State police also may seek
additional money from the
state to reinstate the unit, said
Brown’s spokesperson.
The agency quietly dis-
solved the team in late 2020, a
casualty of staffing shortages.
Retired state Senior
Trooper Dan Swift worked
on the unit and said doing
away with it was a mistake.
“This was something Or-
egon was doing right,” said
Swift, who worked out of the
agency’s Salem field office
and retired in early 2020. “It’s
actually kind of a model. We
can make a difference using
the laws we have.”
The unit formed seven
years ago by then-Gov. John
Kitzhaber in the aftermath of
the 2014 shooting at Reyn-
olds High School in Portland.
A 15-year-old freshman,
Jared M. Padgett, shot and
killed a 14-year-old student,
wounded a teacher, then fa-
tally shot himself. Padgett
used an AR-15 rifle that he
had taken from home.
See Background / A3
U.S. senators reach
deal on gun safety
By aLan FRaM
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Sen-
ate bargainers on Sunday an-
nounced the framework of
a bipartisan response to last
month’s mass shootings, a
noteworthy but limited break-
through offering modest gun
curbs and stepped-up efforts
to improve school safety and
mental health programs.
The proposal falls far short
of tougher steps long sought by
President Joe Biden and many
Democrats. Even so, the accord
was embraced by Biden and
enactment would signal a sig-
nificant turnabout after years
of gun massacres that have
yielded little from Congress.
Biden said in a statement
that the framework “does not
do everything that I think is
needed, but it reflects import-
ant steps in the right direction,
and would be the most signif-
icant gun safety legislation to
pass Congress in decades.”
See Guns / A3
WHAT’S GOING UP? | DRIVE-THRU AND ICE CREAM PARLOR IN SOUTH BEND
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
Chris Selby operates an excavator while working on the construction of a 6,040-square-foot, multiple-tenant building at Pinebrook Boulevard and Third Street in Bend.
Bulletin staff report
owner: JKC BEND LLC
Tenants: The UPS Store, Handel’s Home-
made Ice Cream and a drive-thru restaurant
General Contractor: Kellcon Construction
architect: STEMACH Design + Architecture
details: A 6,040-square-foot building for mul-
tiple tenants, including a drive-thru restaurant,
is in development at 61165 S U.S. Highway 97
in Bend, where a Sonic restaurant was formerly
located.
The name of the restaurant has not yet been
disclosed, but according to the developer, Jeremy
S. McPherson, it’s a national chain with an exist-
ing location in Bend and thousands of locations
nationwide.
The other two tenants include a UPS store
and Handel’s, an ice cream parlor.
Handel’s was founded in 1945 and makes its
ice cream on site by hand. McPherson said the
Handel’s franchisee owns three other locations in
the Portland metro area and has plans to open a
second Handel’s location in Bend.
Construction on the main building of the devel-
opment is expected to be completed by early fall.
The development is under the same owner-
ship as the project completed in 2021 on Bend’s
east side with Hablo Tacos and Bangers & Brews.
According to McPherson, the same develop-
ment group is working on another “commercial
neighborhood node” near Nels Anderson Road
and Third Street. It’s in the design phase.
IDAHO
31 Patriot Front members arrested
By MaRTHa BELLISLE
Associated Press
COEUR D’ALENE — Authorities
arrested 31 members of the white su-
premacist group Patriot Front near an
Idaho Pride event Saturday after they
were found packed into the back of a
U-Haul truck with riot gear.
The men were standing inside the
truck wearing khakis, navy blue shirts
and beige hats with white balacla-
vas covering their faces when Coeur
d’Alene police stopped the U-Haul and
began arresting them on the side of
the road.
“They came to riot downtown,”
Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White
said at a news conference.
All 31 were charged with conspir-
acy to riot, a misdemeanor, White
said. The men were going through the
booking process Saturday afternoon
and are scheduled to be arraigned on
Monday, he said.
Based on evidence collected and
documents, authorities found that the
group was planning to riot in several
areas of downtown, not just the park,
White said.
Police found riot gear, one smoke
grenade, shin guards and shields in-
side the van, White said. They wore
arm patches and logos on their hats
that identified them as members of Pa-
triot Front, he said.
See arrests / A3
TODAY’S
WEATHER
Cool, some clouds
High 56, Low 39
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RIGHT: authorities arrest members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front near an Idaho pride event Saturday after they were
found packed into the back of a U-Haul truck with riot gear. Georji Brown/AP
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