This is fascinating stuff. New City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero has gone to the Oregonian with allegations against former Police Chief Mike Reese and police union President Daryl Turner, after the mayor’s office and other city officials swept her concerns aside. Hull Caballero’s beef stems from what she says amounts to bullying of Portland’s Independent Police Review—a team of investigators housed in her office—at the hands of cops. Among her claims, Caballero says Reese might have shared confidential information about an IPR applicant’s background with Turner. And she says Turner has been dismissive and intimidating with IPR investigators. The situation has become tense enough that IPR investigators now work in pairs, the O reports. Reese’s response to the paper’s questions is a study in straight-faced irony if the accusation against him is true: “I don’t have any comment on personnel matters.”
So something exploded out near Mount Hood yesterday? But no one’s really sure what? Just that one person (still unidentified) is dead, and the feds are very interested in a house in Northeast Portland.
This guy spent more than 2.5 years in Washington County Jail, just so prosecutors could make him testify against his son. That testimony, delivered yesterday, was not super helpful to the state. And now Benito Vasquez-Hernandez is a free man!
She won’t say it, so I’ll do it for her. Cylvia Hayes appreciates you paying for her legal defense.
Portland sucks diversity-wise. We all know this. BUT, a new Gallup survey suggests we’ve got the second-highest rate of LGBT residents in the country after San Francisco—edging out Austin, New Orleans, and Seattle. Those results are maybe influenced by the fact people here feel more comfortable telling their sexual orientation to a strange pollster than they would in other parts of the country. Either way, good news.
“Instead of seasoned senators guiding policy, the two often seem more like aging uncles fighting at the family dinner table over who put too much garlic in the potatoes while the rest of the guests sit sullenly waiting to eat.” Your United States Senate, everybody.
Ugh. I guess you can read about House Speaker John Boehner’s one-man diplomatic mission to Israel here, if you need to.
A Scottish cardinal has been stripped of his power after it emerged he’d made sexual advances toward other priests. That’s messed up, except that Keith O’Brien has a staunch anti-gay record where church matters are concerned.
New emails show the United Nations held off on calling the Ebola emergency an “emergency,” largely for political reasons.
Spring is here! And it’s gonna rain! Eventually!
NIMBYism takes many nefarious forms. None more so than this, a protest over the specter of density in Lake Oswego. Steel yourselves.
Dirk, Y’all have posted that Heart of LOL video before. But it’s still a good one.
I think the PPB needs a good shaking up, starting with firing Turner and Reese. Then outfit the cops with body cameras, and make them accountable for their actions, both on and off the job.
But, I don’t think Hales has enough guts to do this.