A tort claim notice filed this spring by the city’s fired chief administrative officer—filled with allegations of defamation, botched due process, and racial discrimination—likely won’t be headed to court after all. The Portland City Council on Wednesday, August 27, is expected to approve a $40,000 settlement with the former CAO, Jack Graham. That sum, according […]
Denis C. Theriault
Denis C. Theriault is the Portland Mercury's News Editor. He writes stories about City Hall and the Portland Police Bureau, focusing on issues like homelessness, police oversight, insider politics, and civil liberties. Before arriving in Portland, Denis wrote and edited for the San Jose Mercury News, covering the California Legislature and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as the city of San Jose—a real-live million-person town.
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The National Guard, ordered into Ferguson, Missouri, at the height of clashes between protesters and tear-gas-lobbing local police officers, has been ordered to stand down now that things have stayed quiet for another night in the St. Louis suburb, almost two weeks after a police officer shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown. Just seven […]
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Census Data: White Police Officers Less Likely to Live in Portland than Black Officers
The racial tension boiling over in Ferguson ever since a white cop in the Missouri town shot dead an unarmed African American teenager has helped fuel some productive journalism in the past couple of weeks—in that it’s forced reporters to confront some of the institutional issues in play not only in Ferguson, but also in […]
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This is what a quiet night looks like in Ferguson. The clashes between protesters and military-outfitted police that had defined much of the past week seemed to subside for the night, following a day that saw Attorney General Eric Holder blow into town, sit down with community members, and talk about his own very personal […]
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Hall Monitor
We’re Ferguson, Too
The clamor for police accountability and racial justice still echoes in Portland.
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One Small Step
Hales Embraces Tiny Houses as Potential Remedy for Homelessness
Charlie Hales has embraced “tiny houses” as a potential homelessness remedy.
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Portland Police Say They Haven’t Used Military Surplus Program for “Many, Many Years”
Most of you, by now, have seen the photos from the first few nights of the daily protests in Ferguson, Missouri—the ones showing Midwestern suburban police officers dressed up—and firing grenades and gas canisters—like soldiers sent to pacify sectarian violence in Fallujah. Those pictures are the most visceral and mainstream reminder yet that police agencies […]
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The name of the police officer who shot and killed Ferguson’s Michael Brown last weekend was finally released early this morning: Darren Wilson, a Ferguson cop for six years. Ferguson’s police chief also unveiled a previously unseen investigative report contradicting what witnesses and even police have said so far about the shooting. The report alleges […]
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Portland and Ferguson and Race and the Police
Last night’s daytime arrest of Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery—slammed into a soda machine by riot cops at the McDonald’s that that national reporters covering Ferguson had claimed as a wifi-friendly bureau office—came close to overshadowing the story Lowery had filed before he was roughed up yesterday. It was about the Ferguson police department’s longstanding […]
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The police have declared war in Ferguson. Once again this week, military-suited cops from the suburbs of St. Louis fired tear gas into residential neighborhoods and wooden pellets and rubber bullets and piercing sound cannons at peacefully assembled protesters seeking something like a humane response to the highly dubious police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old […]
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Hall Monitor
This Didn’t Have to Take So Long
Public outrage, not just conscience, leads to limits on juvenile arrests.
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Deeper into the Doghouse?
Citizen Panel Urges Discipline for Cop Who Pepper Sprayed Campers
Citizen panel, in rare vote, seeks more punishment for cop who pepper sprayed campers.