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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (May 30, 2018)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2018 HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3 NEWS Standoff ends with arrest of suspect Man sought in shooting held off police for 4 hours By PHIL WRIGHT STAFF WRITER Alex Ahumada A Boardman man, sus- pected in a recent shooting, is in custody Thursday after a long standoff with police. Local and Oregon State Police worked together to bring in Alex Luis Ahumada after he barricaded himself Wednesday inside a Board- man home. Police wanted to ques- tion Ahumada, 33, about the May 19 shooting of Carlos Ramirez. Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston said Thursday that Ahumada is no longer a person of interest — he’s officially a suspect. “Ahumada did not want to talk to us, which is fine,” Edmiston said, because his department will compile evi- dence and reports for prose- cutors to charge Ahumada. The moves that led to the capture began after an anonymous caller at 2:49 p.m. told the Boardman Police Department that Ahu- mada was at the residence at 70072 Kunze Lane, just outside the Boardman city limits, according to a writ- ten statement from the Mor- row County Sheriff’s Office. Boardman police immedi- ately alerted the sheriff’s office because the loca- tion was in county jurisdic- tion. The sheriff’s office in turn told Hermiston police, according to Edmiston. The sheriff’s office Local districts discuss sexual harassment policies By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN STAFF WRITER As Oregon’s largest school district deals with fallout from a sexual abuse scandal, other schools explained their own poli- cies and the cultures in their districts. Portland Public Schools have recently come under scrutiny for the way they have handled sexual harassment complaints, with a report revealing that for decades, the district ignored or didn’t properly deal with complaints about teacher Mitch Whitehurst sexually abusing students. Many local administra- tors said they feel their pol- icies adequately address reporting and complaint procedures. David Marshall, Herm- iston School District’s human resources direc- tor, said the district investi- gates every complaint they receive. “Typically, it will start with the principal,” he said. “They’ll kind of do an investigation. If a com- plaint like that comes in, everything else gets dropped.” He said one of the first things the district will do is determine if they need to involve law enforcement. If so, they will let officers con- duct the investigation, and the district will step back. “If charges are pressed, it’s pretty straightforward,” he said. “But if law enforce- ment doesn’t do anything, we review it.” He said sometimes, even if the complaint doesn’t rise to the level of law enforce- ment, the district will dis- cipline the staff member according to its own policy. He said all staff receive annual online training about sexual harassment, both a general training and one specific to grooming, and reporting other staff members. Umatilla School Dis- trict Superintendent Heidi Sipe said the district keeps investigatory files for- ever, for both founded and unfounded com- plaints. Complaints are col- or-coded based on the dis- cipline enacted. “Staff can request (by contract) that items be removed from their per- sonnel file,” Sipe said via email, noting that file is separate from investiga- tory files. “However, I’ve never removed, nor ever been asked to remove, any- thing related to discipline for a situation regarding a student.” Stanfield Schools Super- intendent Beth Burton said that as per House Bill 2062, upon hiring a new staff member, the district requests information about whether the person was ever the subject of a sub- stantiated report of child abuse or sexual misconduct in their previous jobs. She said all staff are also required to take sev- eral annual trainings online, which range from general safety issues and manda- tory reporting, to trainings specifically about sex- ual harassment. Staff are tested on the subjects, and required to pass. “We actually provide paid time to complete the trainings, because they are important and staff mem- bers need the information,” Burton said in an email. Additionally, she said, students are given instruc- tion about the school’s sex- ual harassment policies. Burton said the district has not been compiling complaint numbers on a yearly basis, but may begin doing so to better review complaint practices and procedures. John Larson, a former Hermiston teacher who is now the president of the Oregon Education Asso- ciation, issued a statement last week condemning the inaction of Portland Public Schools, and encouraging other schools to revisit their own policies. Larson said the OEA itself does not set policies, and that is up to individ- ual school districts. He said districts typically also offer their own trainings about sexual misconduct and mandatory reporting. The Teachers Standards and Practices Commission has an online database of all the complaints that have been substantiated against teachers, dating to at least 1997. In 2018 so far, six teacher licenses have been revoked statewide. Of those, four had to do with sexual harassment or abuse of a student. The incidents had all taken place in pre- vious years, but the license revocations were not enacted until 2018. reported it confirmed Ahu- mada “was barricaded inside the residence at the Kunze Lane address.” Edmiston said Morrow County law enforcement arrived first and secured the area, and Hermiston police at about 4 p.m. sent its two general detectives, the drug task force detective and Randy Studebaker, the investiga- tive lieutenant. Edmiston said Ahumada had a felony parole violation warrant and 15 arrests and 43 citations to his name. And he was not alone in the residence. The sheriff’s office therefore asked Ore- gon State Police to send its By JADE MCDOWELL STAFF WRITER Hermiston’s new farm- ers market was buzzing with activity on opening day. The Maxwell Market — with a new name, new man- agement, new date and new location — opened Thursday under a large shade canopy on the corner of South First Place and West Locust Ave- nue. About 16 vendors were there when it opened at 4 p.m., selling produce, flow- ers, crafts, jewelry, meat, cheese and other items. Some of them were first- time farmers market ven- dors. Teresa Horn of Eastern Oregon Mobile Slaughter, selling specialty smoked meats, said she had been thinking about coming for years but never done it. “It’s already been worth coming,” she said about half an hour into the market. “We’ve sold several pack- ages and people seem to like it.” The farmers mar- ket almost didn’t happen. Mitch Myers, who had been approached by the city about taking over the mar- ket, briefly canceled the event after a dispute with the city caused a delay in the opening of a permanent shade structure that was to be the market’s new home. But after the city offered to host the market downtown instead, Myers put together a new plan to host it on a dif- ferent site. Teresa Engbretson of Pat- erson, Washington, was sell- ing fresh flowers Thursday through her business My 1-844-533-9173 FREE TOWING TAX DEDUCTIBLE STAFF PHOTO BY KATHY ANEY Hermiston Farmer’s Market vendor Chris Finley, of 3rd Generation Farms, holds out a bunch of radishes Thursday night for her customer to see. Garden Overfloweth. She said the switch from Satur- day to Thursday was a little tricky for her since she has a major market to attend Fri- day mornings, but she loved the new location. “There seems to be a lot of traffic along here,” she said. The addition of a mas- sive shade tent was a new development that was a big hit with vendors and shop- pers as temperatures reached near 90 degrees. HWY 395, HERMISTON • 541-567-4305 Mon-Sat 8am-6pm • Sun 12pm-5am www.cottagefl owersonline.com “I’m in love with this,” said Rod Frerichs, point- ing upward. “This is totally nice.” Frerichs’ booth was called Homemade Happi- ness, featuring home decor by him and sewing crafts from his wife. He said he had a booth on the last day of the farmers market last year and decided to commit to the entire summer this year. He said he had liked the market being in the heart of down- town and on a Saturday, but he could also see the benefits of the new arrangement, par- ticularly since some vendors had commitments to larger markets on Saturdays. “I’m optimistic,” he said. Live music was sched- uled to start around 5 p.m. but by 4:30 p.m. the market was already busy. The Walchli Farms booth was doing steady business selling bundles of fresh asparagus for $1.50 apiece. Like many of the pro- duce stands, as the growing season progresses the farm plans to add more produce options such as watermelon. Shoppers Jeanie Blood- sworth and Sherry Thomp- son said they were looking forward to more produce as the season goes on, but were excited for the mar- ket’s opening. Thompson was waiting on a bouquet of flowers from My Garden Overfloweth. “I always get some for me and some for Mom,” she said. Bloodsworth said she thought the shade tent on a busy corner of First Place was the “best location so far” for the farmers market. “I saw them putting up the tent the other day and thought, ‘That’s so nice,’” she said. 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DONATE YOUR CAR Candy Bar Bouquets Balloons • Gift s & more! hours, the sheriff’s office reported, before the SWAT team arrested him. Turner said he did not want to talk about the tac- tics the team used, but Ahu- mada came out on his own. Edmiston said the team was there to ensure the safety of everyone involved. State police booked Ahu- mada into the Umatilla County Jail, Pendleton, a little after midnight Thurs- day, but police remained at the Boardman home until almost 3 a.m. Edmiston said the Uma- tilla County District Attor- ney’s Office should get the case by Friday morning. Market gets a makeover Imagine The Difference You Can Make Gift s for Graduates SWAT team to help. Lt. Mike Turner, com- mander of state police out of Pendleton, said about 20 team members responded. 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