OFFICER DOWN
<<A deputy was shot multiple times Wednesday morning while serving an eviction notice in Tualatin, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office said. He was taken to Legacy Emanuel hospital and is in critical condition.
The suspect barricaded themselves in an apartment after the shooting, resulting in a standoff during which the sheriff’s office urged the public to avoid the area near the Forest Rim Apartments off of Southwest Nyberg Street for several hours.>>
<<WCSO Detective Anel Ceric said Washington County SWAT officers found the suspect dead inside the apartment. The suspect was not shot by the SWAT officers, he said.
The incident began at about 9:30 a.m. at the apartment complex, located next to the Nyberg Woods Shopping Center east side of Interstate 5.
Deputies told dispatch at 10:21 a.m. that they were fighting with a person that they were attempting to detain inside an apartment.
Several seconds later, the deputies reported that the person had opened fire at them, hitting one of them multiple times. At least one of the deputies returned fire, but Ceric said he didn’t know if the suspect was hit. The deputies involved in the incident did not know ahead of time that the suspect might be armed, he added.>>
<<A Washington County deputy is in critical condition at Legacy Emmanuel Wednesday after being shot in Tualatin, according to authorities.
The deputy was shot “multiple times in his body”, according to Washington County Sheriff spokesperson Anel Ceric.>>
<<KOIN 6 News reporter Brandon Thompson, who arrived on the scene just after 11 a.m., says Washington County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived at the Timbers at Tualatin apartments in Tualatin to serve a civil eviction notice around 9:30 a.m. Around 10:20 a.m. according to deputies, a person opened fire.
Officials said that a deputy was hit and was Lifeflighted to a hospital where they are listed in critical condition and undergoing treatment.
Officials say at least one deputy returned fire. Witnesses told KOIN 6 News they heard “pops” right after deputies arrived. >>
https://www.koin.com/local/washington-county/wcso-deputy-injured-after-shooting-in-tualatin/
<<A Washington County deputy is fighting for his life after being shot while serving an eviction warrant at a Tualatin apartment complex.
Authorities said the shooter was found dead in that same apartment.>>
<<The Washington County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) said deputies were serving a civil eviction around 9:30 a.m. at The Timbers Apartments at Tualatin apartment complex. Less than an hour later, deputies said the situation escalated when someone shot at deputies.>>
<<Hours after it all happened, the community held a candlelight vigil at Sherwood Cannery Square Wednesday evening to show support for that wounded deputy who remains in critical condition.>>
PLYWOOD
<<A company hired by the city of Portland to board up burglarized and vandalized businesses violated its contract and over-charged property and business owners numerous times, city auditors found.
The city’s ombudsman, which operates under Portland’s Audit Services Division, found that 1-800-BoardUp–a company hired to board up buildings with plywood during emergencies–inappropriately profited by skirting its city contract and directly billing business owners and companies at much higher rates than it was supposed to. Findings from the ombudsman’s investigation were outlined in a report released Wednesday.
Investigators concluded a lack of oversight of the city contract resulted in multiple instances of wrongful billing and overcharging of Portland businesses, sometimes by hundreds of dollars.
he company was hired by the city to board up properties with broken windows or entryways, in cases of break-ins or other damage when the business or property owner couldn’t immediately be reached by a 911 dispatcher.
The ombudsman’s report noted repeat discrepancies in police request for services and invoices, but cited a lack of evidence to suggest police were involved in the contractor’s tactics.
After receiving a complaint from a nonprofit organization questioning a $541 invoice from 1-800-BoardUp, the ombudsman’s office investigated the company’s billing practices spanning 2019 through 2021. Investigators reviewed invoices, police records, and records from Portland’s Bureau of Emergency Communications (BOEC) dispatch system and determined the company either mistakenly or knowingly over-billed for its plywood placement services 982 times. In the nonprofit’s case, the $541 bill should have been $391. When the nonprofit organization didn’t pay the bill, 1-800-BoardUp threatened to send them to a collection agency.
Eventually, the company billed the city, as contractually required.
Investigators couldn’t pinpoint an exact amount of wrongful billing, but estimated the company likely pocketed anywhere from $21,000 to $131,000 more than it should have due to the discrepancies.
The ombudsman’s office recommended the city either hire an outside audit firm to further review the practices of 1-800-BoardUp, or end the contract. The company is owned by Kennedy Restoration Services. >>
<<According to the report, when police respond to a burglary or vandalism incident that leaves a business with a broken window or door, police will ask emergency dispatchers to try to contact the property owner or business owner. If they can’t reach them, dispatchers will request 1-800-BoardUp to cover any exposed areas with plywood. The company is then supposed to send a bill to the city, which then bills the business and adds a 15 percent administrative fee.
The city’s contract with 1-800-BoardUp included discounted materials costs that the city passed on to business owners, meaning invoices from the city would be cheaper than invoices directly billed to business owners from the contractor.
But many times, that billing process wasn’t followed, and 1-800-BoardUp billed clients directly, at an inflated rate.
“Specifically, the Contractor was directly billing and overcharging community members for City-initiated emergency board-up requests, in violation of its City contract, and the City was not providing sufficient oversight of the contract,” the report notes.
Company representatives refute the ombudsman’s findings, claiming they have two contracts with the city of Portland, one of which allows them to bill clients if the client prefers that.
“If in the morning, in the light of day, when the business owner shows up and sees they’ve had a break-in, they see the card and say ‘Hey, can I send this in to my insurance company?’ We say ‘yes’ and end up invoicing their insurance company,” Matthew Steimle, sales manager for Kennedy Restoration, told the Mercury.
“Our understanding is that right now there are two separate contracts that have two separate sets of rules and even within the city, there is confusion about the rules that govern our police department contract,” Steimle added, noting his company has responded to more than 4,000 requests for board-up services from police.
Investigators, who consulted with city attorneys, say the contract language is clear, and doesn’t allow for direct billing. The contract includes language that specifies all invoices need to be printed, numbered, and sent to the city within 90 days of services being rendered.>>
<<In some cases, 1-800-BoardUp would tell businesses that it was cheaper to pay them directly, rather than pay the city’s 15 percent administrative fee. Police also repeated that false information to business owners. It’s unclear whether BoardUp staff or police knew they were misinforming businesses, but the ombudsman’s report notes that 61 percent of BOEC dispatch calls for board up services weren’t invoiced to the city and at least 39 percent of calls reflected in police reports weren’t billed to the city as required.
The discrepancies raise questions about whether police knew about 1-800-BoardUp’s tactics.
Investigators noted one business owner said police officers who initiated the board-up request told her she may want to handle the bill directly through the contractor, rather than the city, because it would be more cost effective.
“This guidance contradicts the Police Directive, which states that, after ordering board-up services, Police Bureau members will ‘advise the recipient that the City will bill them for services rendered’,” investigators noted.
Investigators said they didn’t look into the possibility of any scheme or kickback system between 1-800-BoardUp and police, and had no reason to.>>
<<The report also questioned the legality of charging for services that were not requested or authorized by business owners.>>
THE FASH
<<A far-right activist who led the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, an associate and three of their groups must pay over $50 million in damages after a hospital in Idaho won a defamation lawsuit against them.
The lawsuit by St. Luke’s Regional Health accused Ammon Bundy and Diego Rodriguez of making defamatory statements against the hospital and its employees after Rodriguez’s infant grandson was removed from his family for several days and taken to St. Luke’s amid concerns for his health.
The emergency room physician, Dr. Rachel Thomas, testified that the 10-month-old baby’s stomach was distended, his eyes were hollow and he was unable to sit up, reminding her of severely malnourished babies she had treated in Haiti, according to the Idaho Statesman newspaper. Police said at the time that medical personnel determined the child was malnourished and had lost weight.
Bundy responded by urging his followers to protest at the hospital and at the homes of child protection service workers, law enforcement officers and others involved in the child protection case. Rodriguez wrote on his website that the baby was “kidnapped” and suggested that the state and people involved in the case were engaged in “child trafficking” for profit.
The hospital claimed Bundy and Rodriguez orchestrated a smear campaign against it.
Late Monday, a jury at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise agreed, awarding the hospital damages exceeding $50 million, the hospital announced.
A statement on behalf of the law firm representing the plaintiffs said Bundy, Rodriguez and their supporters had surrounded St. Luke’s hospital campuses in Meridian and Boise, forcing lockdowns and causing diversion of emergency patients, disruption of planned procedures and cancellation of hundreds of appointments.
“The jury’s decision imposes accountability for the ongoing campaign of intimidation, harassment and disinformation these defendants have conducted,” St. Luke’s said in a statement. “It also affirms the importance of protecting health care providers and other public servants from attacks intended to prevent them from carrying out their responsibilities.”>>
<<The jury’s verdict requires Bundy to pay the plaintiffs $6.2 million in compensatory damages and $6.15 million in punitive damages and Rodriguez to pay $7 million in compensatory damages and $6.5 million in punitive damages, according to Holland & Hart, the law firm, representing St. Luke’s. The remainder of the total $52.5 million in damages was assessed to the People’s Rights Network, Freedom Man Press and the Bundy campaign for governor.>>
<<Former Malheur Refuge domestic terrorist Ammon Bundy and a right-wing extremist pal have been ordered to pay a whopping $50 million (!!) to settle a defamation suit brought upon them by an Idaho hospital. After a severely malnourished baby was taken from its parents and brought in to the St. Luke’s Regional Health medical center for treatment, Bundy & pal started a smear campaign against the hospital, falsely accusing it of kidnapping and child trafficking. Naturally, a lot of gullible and dim-witted right-wingers believed it, causing all sorts of trouble for already beleaguered hospital staff. (Something tells me Bundy’s right-wing fleecing machine may have trouble coming up with the $50 mill—hee-hee-heeeeeeee.)>>
RIOT COPS
<< The Portland City Council approved a $95,000 settlement on July 26 with a man claiming that he was injured by a Portland Police Bureau officer during the 2020 summer protests.
Deputy City Attorney Beth Woodard told the Portland City Council that plaintiff Logan Colwell suffered a leg injury after he was pushed by PPB officer Nicholas Bianchini during the early morning hours of Aug. 15, 2020.
“Mr. Colwell participated in a demonstration near the north Lombard overcrossing of I-5,” Woodard said. “Portland Police Bureau declared an unlawful assembly and began dispersal of the remaining individuals.
During the dispersal, an officer pushed Mr. Colwell. Mr. Colwell fell and sustained injuries to his knee, which required surgical repair.”
The lawsuit, which was filed against Bianchini and the City of Portland in federal district court on Aug. 9, 2022, claimed battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and the violation of Colwell’s 4th amendment rights.
“Bianchini was present at the location dressed in full riot gear and equipped with a baton,” the suit reads. “As [Colwell] was walking east in conformity with the orders given to the crowd, Bianchini, without warning, provocation, or further command, charged and forcibly shoved [Colwell] to the asphalt with both [his] arms and baton. As a result of Bianchini’s conduct, [Colwell] suffered a patella tendon rupture to his right knee.”
The lawsuit states that Colwell had to undergo surgery and physical therapy to recover from the patella tendon injury. The court document goes on to state that the “permanent” injury has also increased Colwell’s susceptibility to future injury and degenerative disease.
Present City Council members unanimously approved the settlement per the recommendation of the City Attorney’s office. The settlement is one of many approved by the City of Portland following months-long clashes between protesters and law enforcement that occurred in 2020.
“The lawsuit has been investigated by Risk Management Services,” Wednesday’s city council agenda reads. “The investigation indicates there is risk the city may be found liable. Therefore, in order to avoid the risk of an adverse jury award, we feel it is prudent to compromise the lawsuit at this time.”>>
DRONES
<<Early Wednesday morning, an armed robber took a woman hostage on Portland’s Northeast 82nd Avenue and sexually assaulted her before she was able to escape and call 911 for help, police say.
Michael Story, 53, was chased through the streets of East Portland by police cars, a plane and a drone before being surrounded in a parking lot, where he shot himself. He died at the hospital, according to an account of the incident distributed by the Portland Police Bureau.
Story had previously been convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison for raping an 81-year-old woman in her Happy Valley mobile home in 2000.
The use of a drone in the manhunt was mentioned in passing by the bureau in a statement, but WW inquired with further questions. This is the second time this week Portland police have used their new drones to hunt down a suspect in a violent crime.
They used the “Small Unmanned Aerial System” to pursue two teenagers and 18-year-old Julius Whitehurst through East Portland after cops believed they were under fire from the trio. Whitehurst was eventually found in a backyard with an AR-15 and charged with attempted murder.
The drone program was unveiled earlier this year and launched a little more than a month ago with 16 certified pilots. The drone in this morning’s manhunt was piloted by the Metro Explosive Disposal Unit and is used “during tactical events upon request of Critical Incident Commander,” a police spokesman confirmed.>>
https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2023/07/26/portland-police-drone-used-in-manhunt-for-kidnapper/
<<Gresham is the first city in Oregon to take part in a program that uses drones as first responders.
One of the goals of the “Drones as First Responders” program is to cut down on response times and even clearing officers from calls they aren’t needed for. Gresham police says in some instances those drones have proven to be more efficient to send out before officers.
“We’re able to respond to calls quicker than an officer can get there in a vehicle,” said Nina Vetter, Gresham City Manager. “So we have eyes on situations faster than we ever could within our two-mile radius.”
Currently, the drones are responding to calls within a two-mile radius of Gresham City Hall.
The drones are operated by a software program until they arrive to the scene they were dispatched to. Once they arrive, a remote operator takes over.
Soon, those operators may not be needed either.
Gresham police say soon officers will also be tapping in to a network of cameras that identify manned aviation flying near their drones, signaling them to move. That technology will make the remote operator on scene no longer necessary, which means those drones could be operating 100% autonomously.
Another feature of the drones is that they can cast live video feed from above directly to officers on the ground.>>
https://www.kptv.com/2023/07/26/gresham-take-part-drones-first-responders-program/
<<Gresham has rolled out its new drone program, the city manager announced at a city council meeting last week.
The $85,000 “Drones as First Responders” pilot program is already sending the unmanned, autonomous flying machines to crime scenes and fires. Right now, it’s responding to “exigent circumstances,” like a traffic accident or missing person, within a 1-mile radius of City Hall.
The city hopes to expand the program in the future, a spokeswoman tells WW.
The city is working with the Austin-based software company Drone Sense to train officers on how to pilot the drones. “We’re able to respond to officers quicker,” says city manager Nina Vetter. “We have eyes on situations faster than we ever could before.”
The program is designed to “offset police staffing shortages,” according to planning documents reviewed by WW. It’s the sixteenth program of its type in the country, Vetter says.
Similar programs have proved controversial, and experts say it’s still unclear whether they’re effective. A community newspaper sued the California beach town Chula Vista, which has the nation’s longest-running drone program, after it refused to turn over camera footage taken from its drone first responders.
The Portland Police Bureau announced a much more limited drone program earlier this year, which will send drones to collect aerial photographs of crime scenes and traffic crashes.>>
https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2023/07/25/drones-are-responding-to-911-calls-in-downtown-gresham/
DENIED ACCESS
<<In a scathing motion filed earlier this month, a public defender demanded her client be released from jail after officials denied her repeated requests to speak with him, citing behavioral issues.
Erin Suggs says she made eight failed attempts to call or visit her 45-year-old client, a homeless man who was caught sneaking into an empty apartment during a snowstorm and later arrested after fleeing a traffic stop. Citing “ongoing violations of his constitutional rights to assistance of counsel,” Suggs demanded his immediate release.
In her motion, Suggs listed her failed efforts over two weeks to reach her client. At one point, she overheard a corrections deputy say “he did not appreciate” how her client had been acting, and denied her request.
Later, on July 14, Suggs took a doctor to the jail to perform a mental health evaluation. They were denied access, without explanation, the motion alleges.
“[The jail] does not have the authority to determine which incarcerated people deserve access to their attorneys based on individual staff members’ subjective assessments of their behavior,” Suggs wrote, and demanded his release given her inability to speak to her client.>>
<<Suggs’ motion comes as Multnomah County jails face multiple crises, including a string of recent inmate deaths and staffing shortages stretching back years. In 2021, an independent review panel warned that “the lack of adequate staffing has led to a vicious cycle of corrections staff burnout.” The five deaths inside the jails in 2023 appear to be an all-time record for a full year, let alone seven months.
Meanwhile, public defenders hardly have time to waste calling the jail day after day fruitlessly attempting to contact clients. They say they’re already stretched too thin, and are refusing at times to accept new clients amid rising caseloads.
Circuit Judge Kelly Skye weighed the motion in a hearing last week.
“This does present a concerning problem,” Skye said, and directed her staff to resolve it.
But she denied Suggs’ request, noting that her client is also facing charges of shoplifting at a JCPenney in Clackamas County and, if released, would simply be transferred to jail there.>>
PRISON RAPE
<<A former Oregon Corrections nurse has been found guilty of sexually assaulting nine female prisoners, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office – District of Oregon.
Tony Daniel Klein, 38, of Clackamas County, Oregon, was convicted Tuesday of 17 counts of depriving his victims of their constitutional right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment by sexual assault and four counts of perjury.
According to court documents, between 2010 and 2018, Klein was working as a nurse at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, interacting with female prisoners seeking medical help. Officials say Klein used his position to sexually assaulted or engaged in nonconsensual sexual conduct with people who were supposed to be patients.
In a release Tuesday, the D.A.’s Office added Klein was often alone with his victims and created reasons to be alone with women working in the medical unit like medical rooms, janitor’s closets, or behind privacy curtains – supposedly reiterating his power over them.
“Tony Klein used his position of authority to prey on women in custody who were in a uniquely vulnerable position. He further led his victims to believe they had no power to resist or report his abuse,” said Natalie Wight, U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon. “This verdict would not have been possible without the courage and resolve of these women and the dedication of our partners at the FBI and Civil Rights Division.”>>
https://www.kptv.com/2023/07/25/oregon-prison-nurse-charged-with-sexually-abusing-multiple-inmates/
<<A federal jury found Tony Klein, a former nurse at Oregon’s only women’s prison, guilty of sexually abusing nine women in custody.
Klein, 38, faces the possibility of spending life in prison after jurors found he deprived the women of their constitutional right to not face cruel and unusual punishment while they served sentences at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility.
Seventeen women who testified during a two-week trial told jurors that Klein touched them inappropriately during medical appointments or as they worked as orderlies cleaning the prison infirmary. Some testified that Klein either forced oral or vaginal sex even if they protested.
Others said they believed they could face discipline if they refused his advances.>>
<<At trial, federal prosecutors offered no forensic evidence. And Klein chose not to take the stand in his own defense.
In the end, the case was about who to believe: women with criminal convictions who recalled their assaults often through emotional and compelling testimony or a medical professional who denied sexually assaulting anyone.
Patrick O’Halloran, the jury foreman, said Tuesday after court that jurors reached a unanimous verdict “after careful consideration.”>>
<<Accountability in cases like this is rare.
As OPB has previously reported, there were 2,229 substantiated incidents of staff sexually assaulting or harassing people in custody, nationally, between 2016 and 2018, according to a U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics report released in January. Prison employees were arrested in about one-third of the cases brought against them. But just 6% of cases led to a legal punishment like a guilty plea, a conviction or even a fine.
Klein’s defense suggested he was the victim, the fall guy of a plot by women in custody to set up a prison employee as a way to get a financial settlement from the state.
Throughout the case, defense attorneys McHenry and Thibeault reminded jurors that some of the women received financial settlements after filing civil lawsuits against the Department of Corrections over Klein’s conduct. They also repeatedly pointed out that all of the women bringing accusations had been convicted of crimes.>>
<<Klein worked at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville from 2010 until he officially resigned in early 2018 amid the sexual abuse allegations and a criminal investigation by Oregon State Police.
The Washington County District Attorney’s Office reviewed the criminal investigation into Klein, but in August 2018 decided against bringing charges saying the “allegations are unsupportable.”
In February, OPB reported that only a portion of the criminal investigation into Klein made it to local prosecutors, meaning they never considered some of the same evidence jurors heard this month during trial.
Numerous women filed civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse against the Department of Corrections and Klein starting in 2019. The state settled 11 lawsuits and paid out a total of $1.87 million, while admitting no wrongdoing.
The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Klein in March 2022, following an investigation by the FBI.>>
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/07/25/oregon-prison-sexual-assault-nurse-tony-klein/
HOSPITAL SHOOTING
<<On the morning of July 22, a suspect allegedly killed a security officer and injured a hospital employee in a shooting at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center in Northwest Portland, according to the Portland Police Bureau (PPB).>>
<<Sequence of events:
10:55 a.m. – 911 dispatchers receive threat calls from the suspect who was making “physical threats to staff” at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center in Northwest Portland.
10:59 a.m. – Two Portland Police Bureau officers and a sergeant were dispatched to the medical center. Officers are aware that hospital security were with the suspect making “physical threats to staff.” A partial description of the suspect was provided by security.
11:04 a.m. – First responding officers arrive at the medical center.
11:10 a.m. – A hospital security officer is “down,” according to dispatch broadcasts.
11:11 a.m. – Officers seek resources to lock down all entrances and exits.
11:13 a.m. – Officers gain a solid, full description of the suspect.
11:16 a.m. – PPB Sergeant requests citywide police response.
11:17 a.m. – Officers head towards location on the fifth floor near the birthing center of the medical center where the hospital security officer is “down.” Noted as a shooting scene, they have not seen or heard of an active shooter/active threat incident indicators.
11:18 a.m. – Portland police’s Special Emergency Reaction Team and Crisis Negotiation Team are activated.
11:20 a.m. – The victim, the hospital security guard, receives emergency medical care.
11:23 a.m. – Dispatch broadcasts shots fired calls and cites information received from people inside the hospital. Dispatch also receive details that the suspect was spotted leaving the hospital on a “moped’ headed southbound on Northwest 21st Avenue.
11:26 a.m. – Hospital security review security footage showing the suspect leave the hospital eight minutes prior to what was reported.
Footage confirms the suspect left around 11:18 a.m.
11:29 a.m. – Police said they responded to the Stadium Fred Meyer at the corner of Northwest 20th Avenue near Providence Park after a tip that the suspect might have gone inside.
11:31 a.m. – Police resources shift towards the Stadium Fred Meyer and evacuate the store.
11:35 a.m. – Officers finish reviewing hospital security footage and are able to get an updated description of the suspect including his clothes.
Images from the footage are shared with all PPB members.
11:41 a.m. – A PPB public information officer sends a news release alerting the community of the shooting, tactical teams response and hospital lockdown. The release also states that the suspect left the hospital and PPB shut down Northwest 23rd Avenue, Northwest 21st Avenue, and Northwest Northrup to Northwest Lovejoy Street. The release is also posted to police social channels.
11:45 a.m. – PPB members start investigating possible locations the suspect may be headed towards.
11:53 a.m. – Media staging location is set.
12:09 p.m. – Hospital security guard, identified as Bobby Smallwood, 44, died due to his injuries and PPB Homicide Detectives are called to respond.
12:13 p.m. – Friends and family members of hospital staff and patients arrive in area near hospital for reunification at Northwest 22nd Avenue and Northwest Northrup Street.
12:29 p.m. – Officers review security footage from Fred Meyers confirming that the suspect has not been caught and never entered the store.
A Portland police sergeant drives by a few of the possible locations the suspect might have fled to based on his previous police contacts. When the sergeant arrives at one location near Northeast 138th Avenue and Northeast Sandy Boulevard, the sergeant spots a person matching the suspect’s picture and description hiding in some bushes. The sergeant requests backup since the suspect may have been potentially armed.
The sergeant witnesses the suspect get into the passenger side of Jay Freedman’s old medical transport van and the van drives off. Freedman told KGW exclusively that he’d met the suspect a few years ago on the streets when they were both homeless. The suspect offered him $20 for gas in exchanged for driving him to his father’s house. Freedman said he was completely unaware that the police were actively searching for the suspect at the time. But as the pair made their way out toward Gresham, he started realizing that something was off.
Freedman said they got to the suspect’s dad’s house off of 122nd Avenue and Sandy, but his dad wasn’t home. Freedman said he noticed that the sergeant was following him and thought that it was due to a problem with his van, so he turned onto 181st Avenue and Glisan, preparing to pull over for what he thought would be a traffic stop. By the time the Portland police car turned on its lights, at least one Gresham police vehicle had started following as well.
The sergeant followed Freedman’s van and provided updates to supporting police until the van stops outside a U.S. Bank parking lot in Gresham on Northeast 181st Avenue.
Freedman said he pulled over and turned off the car, and the officers asked him to get out. He said he told the suspect to comply with the police, but he didn’t listen.
Officers handcuffed Freedman and put him in the back of the patrol car, but didn’t tell him what the suspect had allegedly done. The suspect refused to leave the van, and Freedman said he watched from the back of the patrol car as more police continued to arrive, including a SWAT team. He said he didn’t see the point where the suspect got out of the van, or when police shot and killed him.
During the stop, the suspect was shot and killed after officers opened fire. No officers were injured.
Gresham police later confirmed the suspect’s identity as PoniaX Kane Calles, previously known as Reginald Kane Jackson>>
<<Court documents obtained by KGW reveal that Calles had a history of mental illness and violent behavior.
The suspect, Reginald Kane Jackson, changed his name in 2019 to PoniaX Kane Calles. According to court documents obtained by KGW, Ashley Heil has three children with Calles: two young daughters, ages eight and one, and a newborn son whom she gave birth to last week at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center. She was still in the hospital two days later when Calles allegedly shot and killed the hospital security guard, Bobby Smallwood. >>
<<Court documents reveal the 33-year-old man who opened fire inside Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center Saturday had a history of mental illness and violent behavior.
The gunman, Reginald Kane Jackson changed his name in 2019 to PoniaX Kane Calles. According to court documents obtained by KGW, Ashley Heil has three children with Calless; two young daughters, ages eight and one, and a newborn son whom she gave birth to last week at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center. She was still in the hospital two days later when Calles shot and killed the hospital security guard, Bobby Smallwood.>>
<<Court documents show Heil had been in a relationship with Calles since 2012. She filed a restraining order against him on April 21, 2023. In June, that order was dismissed after she failed to appear in court, meaning she did not have an active restraining order against Calles when he opened fire in the Legacy maternity ward on Saturday.
The documents show Heil suffered from domestic violence. In the April restraining order, she said Calles threatened to punch the baby out of her stomach. Another time she said he put her in a chokehold and grabbed her arm leaving a bruise. Child Welfare Services was also involved with their children after allegations that Calles physically abused their 8-year-old daughter. Heil even filed for temporary custody of their children.
Heil said Calles had “anger problems” and asked the court to prohibit him from possessing or purchasing any guns, and to have him move out.
She said he had two handguns and a rifle.
The allegations against Calles go back even farther. Court documents show that in 2019 another person filed a stalking protective order against him. He was homeless at the time. They said Calles threw explosives outside their home and pointed a gun at them. This order was dismissed by a judge three months later.>>
DRUGS
<<A man surrounded by his homeless friends lay on the sidewalk off Northwest 5th and Davis in Old Town. He had just overdosed on opioids and Portland firefighters were helping to revive him while trying to talk him into going to the hospital. It was 4 p.m. on a Monday. The scene was heavy, but one these firefighters now see every day.
“It’s hard to see people in that state,” said Portland paramedic firefighter David Friedericks. He’s been with Portland Fire & Rescue for 13 years. For the last five he’s worked at Fire Station 1 downtown, the busiest fire house in the city — especially when it comes to overdoses.
“At this point I’m kind of calloused but we just go on these calls, and they become routine. It used to be kind of a big deal to go on an overdose.”
Not anymore. In June alone, firefighters from Station 1 responded to 300 overdoses.
Portland police data shows that back in 2020 nearly 90 people died from overdoses. The number jumped to 135 in 2021, then to 159 in all of 2022.
So far this year there have been 151 deaths, all in less than seven months. Police expect that number to be around 300 by year’s end.
Portland firefighters are responding to more overdoses than fires — and when they do respond to a fire, it’s often-homeless camp related. When a KGW crew was riding along with Station 1 firefighters, three OD calls dropped in a matter of 25 seconds. They headed to one under a bridge in Southwest Portland.
“He hit some strong fetty and he just fell out and he was grey, turning grey, and his eyes were rolling back in his head. We just narcaned him and he came back,” said a drug user whose friend had just overdosed.
By “fetty,” she meant fentanyl. Before KGW got there, his friends were able to revive him with Narcan, an opioid overdose reversal medication.>>
<<Not long after that call, two more OD calls came in. The fire crew headed to one off Northwest Naito under the Steele Bridge, in a notorious homeless camp called The Pit.
“My friend just overdosed on fentanyl and uh, yeah, he literally died right here … he was purple, we had to give him CPR, Narcan him. I literally had to breathe into him until I felt him come back to life,” said one drug user, rubbing the back of her friend who had just overdosed.>>
<<It’s rare for crews to show up to an overdose where Narcan hasn’t already been given. They fear the accessibility of Narcan gives drug users a false sense of security and in some ways could be making the crisis worse, even though it saves lives.
“Their heart stops working and everything shuts down, their brain stops working — and without Narcan, they’ll die,” Friedericks said.>>
<<The fingerprints of ongoing addiction are hard to miss in downtown Portland.
“The blues aren’t strong enough for me anymore,” said one man. He’s turned to smoking powdered fentanyl instead of the ubiquitous blue faux-oxycodone pills, the ones usually stamped with “M-30.”
Tools to smoke this deadly drug, it turns out, are just as accessible as the drug itself — more so, perhaps, because they come free of charge.
“There’s the exchange and then they set up at PSU park blocks and other parts of the town,” said Jade Wielder, who sat on a street corner zipped into the same sweatshirt as her boyfriend. She said it’s easy to find free tin foil and straws for smoking fentanyl, her latest addiction.
Housing programs like the one at Central City Concern also hand out smoking supplies. But often, substance users just turn to each other.>>
<<Drug users also find these supplies at Portland’s needle exchange programs, like the one run by Outside In in Southwest Portland.
“Our whole goal is to engage with the community, bring people in, provide them a safe space to be, ask questions, learn about drug use, for options to not use drugs and have the tools that they need to stay healthy and safe,” said Haven Wheelock, Outside In’s harm reduction manager.
She said they hand out smoking supplies like glass pipes, tin foil and straws, along with the overdose reversal drug nalaxone. They’ve been practicing this method of harm reduction since 1989 — one of the older harm reduction programs in the country. It’s in an effort to prevent the spread of disease that can come from sharing. It’s also a way they build relationships with people on the streets.
One man waiting in line outside the needle exchange Tuesday told KGW he was there to pick up a bubble and a meth pipe. “Just to get the things I need for my addiction,” he said. He’s also been connected with treatment services through the needle exchange program.
“The longer we can keep people smoking the safer they’re going to be,” said Wheelock. “We know that injecting drugs is much more dangerous than smoking them.”
Meanwhile, Portland is seeing a record number of overdoses from people using fentanyl. Mayor Ted Wheeler spoke out against this approach to harm reduction on Monday after Multnomah County started handing out the same tools.
“I don’t see how handing out tin foil clean dirty or otherwise is going to prevent the spread of disease,” said Wheeler. “What it’s going to do is encourage people to come to Multnomah County and smoke fentanyl.”
But people committed to harm reduction, like Wheelock at Outside In, just don’t agree. To them, substance users are going to use — they’re already using. So it’s best to keep them as safe as possible, and keep them in touch.
“We hear the enabling argument a lot,” Wheelock added. “You know we enable people to be as healthy as possible with wherever they are in their addiction. We enable people to stay alive.”
The county abruptly halted its harm reduction plans at the urging of County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson pending further analysis.
Vega Pederson put out an updated statement on Tuesday, underlining that she halted the county health department’s plans primarily because of a breakdown in procedure:
“My decision to suspend Multnomah County’s distribution of smoking supplies was based on a lack of communication and poor due diligence by the Health Department. Neither my office nor our chief operating officer were alerted that this program would begin on July 3. As a result, this process lacked robust community engagement, a communications plan, and a system to track outcomes. We are also expanding our legal review, as the legality of the program starting on that date is in question.
“I am committed to efforts designed to reduce harm associated with the use of controlled substances, including fentanyl, and believe that they save lives. But outreach, accountability, and proper implementation are also key to our success in addressing the fentanyl and polysubstance abuse crisis.”>>
<<If you want to buy fentanyl in downtown Portland, the choice spot is the corner of Southwest 6th Avenue and Harvey Milk Street. The market opens at 6 pm, after cops and commuters go home to their families.
The sellers are Honduran kids who wear black ski masks and look barely old enough to drive.
On any given evening, this downtown intersection, ringed by some of Portland’s swankiest hotels, is manned by a half-dozen dealers peddling the most dangerous drug in America.
Buyers smoke “fetty” in the stoop of the nearby Three Kings Building, the former bank and historic landmark that is now nearly vacant.
Dealers chat with passersby on the corners as lookouts stand watch behind. Some carry guns, which they’re known to occasionally fire skyward in battles over turf. Men roll by on bicycles, hawking groceries and consumer electronics. Trash sweepers tasked with cleaning the sidewalks push rolling bins, filled with collected needles and tinfoil, down the sidewalk.
For the past month, WW has been observing this corner, which is now ground zero for Portland’s fentanyl crisis. Here, a drug manufactured by Mexican cartels is sold for small bills. When pure, it’s 100 times more powerful than morphine. This intersection, and the people who frequent it, are at the center of a myriad of crises facing not only Portland, but the nation: an epidemic of addiction and homelessness, understaffed and beleaguered first responders—and a staggering number of deaths.
Overdoses have surged in Portland over the past few years. Last year, the Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office recorded more than 350 overdose deaths involving opioids, nearly triple the number only three years earlier, an increase driven by fentanyl. Oregon has the highest rate of drug use disorder in the country, and the fastest-growing fatal overdose rate among teenagers.
The sale and use of opioids in downtown Portland is a perennial story, featured on the cover of WW since the 1970s, when the Rose City became a heroin hot spot. What’s different about the fentanyl market is the potency of its product.
What’s now being sold on this corner is a drug so powerful and unpredictable that observers can watch its victims collapse within feet of obtaining it. Unlike with heroin, every hit can be a potential overdose. The people who use it choose between risking their lives with each injection, or smoking it, which often means brutal withdrawal symptoms within hours, making daily life a constant battle to stay “well.”
Ryan Lufkin, who prosecuted drug crimes for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office a decade ago, says the roots of Portland’s fentanyl problem go back more than 10 years to when pharmaceutical companies flooded the county with powerful prescription opioids like OxyContin. Once people became addicted, they turned to a cheaper alternative, heroin.
In 2009, there were 94 overdose deaths in Multnomah County. Lufkin was alarmed by the rising number. But it was just the first stage of an opioid crisis.
The latest escalation is fentanyl, which is commonly found in counterfeit pills, called “blues,” that mimic the appearance of the prescription opioid they replaced.>>
<<As recently as last year, Portland’s drug market was centered in Old Town. Drug deals were a daily nuisance, recorded in reports from occasional police stings that describe the nearby bus mall and its surrounding environs as “crack alley,” a parking lot called the “boneyard,” and the “benzo benches.”
Spurred by complaints, Mayor Ted Wheeler and the neighborhood association agreed in March 2022 to a crackdown, marked by an increased police presence and subtle streetscape shifts. The notorious wooden benches along Northwest 5th Avenue disappeared.
Thus began a game of whack-a-mole, migrating southward. First, the drug trade moved to the parking lot outside Dante’s. Then to Washington Center, a vacant office complex at the busy corner of Southwest 4th Avenue and Washington Street. And when the center was boarded up earlier this year following WW’s reporting on the state of its surrounding sidewalks, the fentanyl market moved west, to Southwest 6th Avenue.
The shift of Portland’s drug market toward the downtown core coincided with the arrival of a new group of dealers: Hondurans.
They arrived downtown over the winter, on standup scooters wearing matching backpacks. Portland police believe they are dispatched from suburban safe houses, distributing fentanyl produced with Chinese chemicals in superlabs operated by Mexican drug cartels and shipped up the Interstate 5 corridor.>>
<<Why don’t police break up the drug market? In fact, they do make arrests. One recent afternoon, the Central
Precinct’s bike squad pulled up to the corner. Officer Eli Arnold, who’s made a specialty of spotting dealers, was watching the action from a neighboring building. Cops arrested 36-year-old Rey Maudiel, who told police he had just arrived in town after meeting a man in Los Angeles who recruited him to sell dope in Portland. Maudiel said he commutes downtown on the MAX from Gresham. A warrant was out for his arrest on drug charges in San Francisco.
The four-member bike squad, tasked with addressing livability problems in Portland’s downtown core, has become the city’s de facto street drug enforcement team.
Spotting dealers has gotten easier, Arnold says. “After [Measure] 110, everyone started doing drugs out in the open without even trying to hide it. Suddenly, it became super productive. You can wait 10 minutes and see a drug deal. I started doing it all the time because it was working.”
He set up shop in a vacant office building overlooking Southwest 5th Avenue. Thanks to Arnold’s binoculars, he says, the squad arrested more than 20 dealers early this year. But the numbers have dropped off since.
The bike squad works only the day shift, which ends at 5 pm. “They know when we leave,” Officer David Baer says.
The Central Precinct once had a street crimes unit that patrolled downtown after the bike squad went home. But the Portland Police Bureau, facing staffing shortages, disbanded it years ago.
Even with the reshuffling, the precinct still routinely operates with staffing at a minimum, sometimes significantly so. The precinct requires 17 officers on patrol to safely respond to 911 calls during the afternoon shift, the Police Bureau says. On one recent afternoon that WW was downtown, there were 12.
The result: The Hondurans roll in at 6 pm and sell in peace.>>
<<As the sun goes down that night, first responders rush from overdose to overdose.
At 8 pm, cops administer Narcan to a man passed out in front of the Hi-Lo Hotel on Southwest 3rd Avenue. His name is James.
Nineteen minutes later, there’s a call a few blocks away on 1st Avenue.
As the ambulance arrives, screams can be heard from an encampment under the Morrison Bridge. Another victim lies in his own vomit on the stairs, wearing nothing but a pair of overalls. A man living in a nearby tent, Endoe Parra-Cisneros, calls over the paramedics. He’s already administered Narcan.
Parra-Cisneros says he’s seen 60 overdoses in the few months he’s been unhoused.
At 9 pm, outside Washington Center, a half-dozen cops and paramedics surround an elderly man lying face up beside an overturned wheelchair on the sidewalk. His name is Gary. It takes four doses of Narcan to revive him. A piece of tinfoil and a lighter lie on the sidewalk.
The paramedics pull Gary into his wheelchair, wrap a thin white blanket around his shoulders and then leave. He is briefly alone on the sidewalk. One of Gary’s legs has been amputated. His scalp is covered in lesions—a common consequence of long-term opioid use.
At 9:21 pm, another overdose on 6th Avenue. Officer Stephen Pettey was driving his squad car to a report of gunfire on the corner when he saw a man passed out in the street.
According to data provided to WW by Portland’s Bureau of Emergency Communications, overdose and poisoning made up 6.1% of all medical calls in the first half of 2023. That’s a jump from 3.9% in the later half of 2021, the oldest comparable data due to a shift in BOEC bookkeeping.
Portland firefighter Mike Fullerton is often first on the scene to an overdose. “It’s all we do,” he says.>>
<<Oregon Health & Science University researchers reported last year that Oregon has half the drug treatment beds it needs. The state lost nearly 150 during the pandemic—a “staggering” number, a top official admitted last year. Before that, in early 2020, Portland lost its only sobering center, where cops could drop off people intoxicated on booze or narcotics. City, county and state officials have failed, despite years of discussions, to open a replacement.
The result is the situation on the streets, says Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland. “Right now, if someone wants to get clean and sober, there’s no door for them to do that.”>>
<<But more than 40% of the people who wait in line at Central City Concern’s detox facility are turned away for lack of room. And methadone clinics are notorious for their long waitlists.>>
https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/07/26/on-portlands-fentanyl-corner-a-dance-with-death-sells-for-20/
<<Mayor Ted Wheeler[:] “We are constantly working to enforce drug distribution laws with the resources we have.
“The Central Bike Squad and Central Neighborhood Response Team, for example, have arrested 35 drug dealers downtown since Feb. 1, 2023, but nearly all of which were immediately released from custody (and many have not been prosecuted). As such, we are working with our criminal justice partners to increase system capacity and strengthen the impact of our arrests.
“We are also eagerly awaiting the governor’s signature on House Bill 2645, which will help reduce barriers to additional fentanyl distribution arrests. In the meantime, the Central Bike Squad issues approximately 10 Measure 110 tickets daily. Officers hand out resource cards with those tickets to help those individuals seek treatment. In addition to tickets, cited persons are often arrested for outstanding warrants. This added presence from police has helped break up large groups of users congregating on sidewalks and eases the impact on local businesses.”>>
PROSECUTORS
<<Big money is starting to roll into the Multnomah County district attorney’s race 10 months before next May’s primary.
This week, challenger Nathan Vasquez reported contributions of $71,280 from downtown property owner Greg Goodman, $25,000 from Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle, and $10,000 from the Gresham Police Officers’ Association. Those checks dwarf the maximum check—$568—that candidates Julia Brim-Edwards and Ana del Rocio could accept from individuals in their May runoff for an open seat on the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners.>>
<<Multnomah County voters approved strict campaign contribution limits for county races in 2016. Various legal hurdles stopped the limits from going into effect until last year.
But those limits don’t include the office of Multnomah County district attorney because, despite the name, the holder of that office—currently Mike Schmidt—is not a county employee.
“Although Oregon’s DAs are elected by and accountable to the people in their respective counties, they are considered state officers whose salaries are paid by the state,” the Oregon Blue Book explains. (Some counties augment their DAs’ salaries.)
Jason Kafoury, a Portland lawyer who helped pass contribution limits in the county and the city of Portland, laments that loophole and hopes to pass statewide ballot measures in 2024 that would impose contribution limits on state races. Oregon is one of only six states that have no limits on campaign contributions.
But in the meantime, Kafoury will play by the rules that exist: The law firm he’s part of has given Schmidt $10,000 this year. (Schmidt’s largest contributor to date is former state Sen. Chip Shields [D-Portland], who has contributed $16,000 to Schmidt’s reelection campaign.)
In the early going, Vasquez, a senior deputy district attorney in Schmidt’s office, has raised $151,000, while Schmidt has raised $89,000.>>
<<CHALLENGER FOR MULTNOMAH COUNTY DA GETS FREE OFFICE SPACE: Nathan Vasquez, the county prosecutor challenging Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt for his job next year, has received a sizable donation from a major Portland real estate developer. According to a filing with the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office, Vasquez received a $71,280 donation from Greg Goodman in the form of “office space rent” on July 22. Goodman has also given Vasquez a $25,000 check, he tells WW.
(If this sounds familiar, discounted rent given by real estate owner Jordan Schnitzer to City Council candidate Rene Gonzalez became a contentious issue in the November 2022 election.) Goodman has been a longtime critic of Schmidt’s, blaming his policies for the rise in vandalism and property crime downtown. “Mike Schmidt is the single biggest problem we have,” Goodman says. “He’s not enforcing the laws.”
Vasquez has been aggressively raising money in recent months, asking supporters to organize house parties to solicit contributions. In fundraising speeches, he criticizes Measure 110, the state ballot measure that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of hard drugs, and accuses Schmidt of allowing crime in Portland to get out of control.>>
HOMELESSNESS
<<A federal judge in Oregon ruled on Wednesday that the city of Bend may resume its plans to clear encampments along Hunnell and Clausen roads.
Three people staying at the encampments had sought a temporary restraining order, alleging the city would be violating several constitutional rights by seizing people’s property and possibly arresting them if they refused to leave camps.
The lawsuit named the city council and Bend City Manager Eric King as defendants.
A similar effort to halt the camp clearings was denied in Deschutes County Circuit Court earlier this month. In her order on Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken noted that legal precedence doesn’t allow the plaintiffs, in this case, to bring essentially the same lawsuit to federal court after losing at a state court level.
Aiken also said Bend has a camping code that allows people to sleep outdoors as long as they move every 24 hours. She said that undermined the plaintiffs’ claims that they’d be irreparably harmed if the city enforced its camping measures.
“It is in the public interest to regulate public streets in a way that could allow all to use the roads,” Aiken wrote.
In a statement, the city said it planned to resume its efforts to clean the encampments on Thursday.>>
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/07/26/bend-homeless-camp-proposal-/
AUTO THEFT
<<CAR THEFT HITS TWO-YEAR LOW: The monthly number of stolen vehicles in Portland has hit a two-year low after steadily decreasing this year.
There were 607 in June, according to data published by the Portland Police Bureau earlier this month. It’s welcome news in a city that earlier this year ranked fifth in the nation in car thefts per capita.
But it’s unclear what’s behind the decline. “I think our analysts would say it’s too soon and not enough data to analyze or speculate on any trend at this point,” says PPB spokeswoman Terri Wallo-Strauss. A variety of recent developments may be playing a role. The bureau has been conducting targeted stings over the past two years, but recently refined its methods with help from Oregon Health & Science University researchers. And just this month, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office announced it had dedicated a task force to prosecuting the crime. Kia and Hyundai models, both manufactured by the same South Korean conglomerate, remain the most popular targets, thanks to a defect that allows them to be easily started with nothing more than a USB dongle. The decline corresponds to the release of a software update by the manufacturer in February that fixed the bug by requiring that the key be inserted in the ignition for the car to start.>>
TREE VS COP
<<The Clark County deputy who lost a leg when a snow-covered tree fell onto his patrol car in February returned to full duty Tuesday.
On February 22, Deputy Drew Kennison was traveling on Washougal River Road when the upper portion of a large tree broke and fell onto his car where the windshield meets the hood.
Several other officers who traveled with Kennison at the time of impact said the collision caused his car to push off the roadway against another tree. Emergency workers had to use heavy tools to remove him.
Kennison was rushed to a trauma center, where his left leg was amputated.>>
<<Kennison underwent 5 months of rehab and on Tuesday he returned to duty to the applause of his co-workers in the sheriff’s office.>>
https://www.koin.com/local/clark-county/clark-co-deputy-who-lost-leg-when-tree-fell-returns-to-duty/