9/9/2023 News Roundup

HATE CRIMES <<Sean Milligan said he was on a walk with his dog near a restaurant in Northwest Portland’s Slabtown district when he heard a man shout “I hate Asians!” at a group of Asian people who had just scurried inside. The man followed that up by throwing patio chairs, dishes and drinking glasses at …

8/18/2023 News Roundup

SHOOTING <<A grand jury dismissed charges against a Portland police officer involving a fatal shooting in November 2022. Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt announced on Thursday that a grand jury returned a ‘not true’ bill and found the force by Portland officer Chris Sathoff that resulted in the death of Immanuael Jaquez Clark-Johnson, 30, …

8/17/2023 News Roundup Part 2

SPEEDY TRIAL <<Court cases across Oregon are taking longer and longer to resolve. This has a variety of consequences, including the fact that pretrial defendants are spending more time behind bars. It’s a particularly acute problem in Multnomah County, according to Oregon Judicial Department reports reviewed by WW. Less than half of criminal cases in …

8/10/2023 News Roundup

REVIEW BOARD <<A proposal for a new police oversight panel approved by voters almost three years ago will come before the Portland City Council on Aug. 31. Council members are already signaling it may be in trouble. After the George Floyd protests, 82% of Portland voters in November 2020 approved the creation of a new …

8/4/2023 News Roundup

JAIL DEATHS <<Advocates are calling for an independent investigation into the deaths of eight inmates at Multnomah County jails within the past 12 months. Five of those have occurred in just the past three months. It is an unusually high number of deaths, and the sheriff’s office announced a plan of action on Thursday that …

8/3/2023 News Roundup

SHOOTING <<Police are investigating an officer-involved shooting that happened at a mobile home park in Kelso Tuesday morning. At about 7 a.m., officers responded to a hit-and-run investigation involving multiple vehicles in the South Kelso area. Police say the investigation led them to the Three Rivers Mobile Home Park at 914 South 12th Avenue. Police …

7/28/2023 News Roundup

TASER <<While scuffling with a suspected shoplifter in late May, Vancouver Police Department Officer Andrea Mendoza allegedly pulled a man’s pants down and threatened to charge a Taser onto his exposed penis. The man had already said he was “done” resisting by that point, body camera footage shows. But she threatened him again and held …

7/20/2023 News Roundup

NOT COPS <<Dozens of Portland nonprofits, businesses, advocacy groups and state lawmakers are urging the city’s elected officials to fully fund and expand Portland Street Response, the city program that sends mental health workers — instead of police — to 911 calls related to people having behavioral health crises outside. The coalition released a petition …

7/1/2023 News Roundup

POLICE SHOOTINGS <<A man fatally shot by police after firing at them in a Vancouver Safeway parking lot in May was carrying a 9mm handgun and a handwritten robbery note and had a wig, burglary tools and a pipe bomb in his car, investigators said Friday. James Wilson, 43, had active warrants for his arrest …

6/22/2023 News Roundup

STREET RESPONSE <<Portland Street Response is both widely popular and politically embattled, thanks to a city commissioner, Rene Gonzalez, who’s reducing its funding and a firefighters’ union that remains unfriendly to it (“Flame War,” WW, May 31). But the dispute over involuntary holds shows other tensions that threaten the program’s long-term prospects. WW reviewed correspondence …