Yes, poor Americans today undeniably have it “better” and “easier” than their poor counterparts of yesteryear. But stopping the conversation there, as Republicans would prefer in an assault against social programs and a minimum wage hike, utterly misses the point. Economic data shows that while consumer goods like phones and TVs have grown impossibly cheaper, […]
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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Report Details Police Watchdog’s Investigation into Retaliation Claim Against Controversial Captain
Captain Mark Kruger said he’d already known for a few days, last May, that Portland’s Bureau of Human Resources had cleared him of scathing harassment claims filed by a former subordinate—a case so hot, thanks to text messages mentioning Kruger’s well-publicized shrine to Nazi-era German soldiers, it shook up the Portland Police Bureau’s command staff. […]
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More Drama in the Cop Shop
Lieutenant’s Legal Claim Is Fourth Since Winter 2013 for Reese
A police lieutenant’s legal claim is the command staff’s fourth since winter 2013.
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Hall Monitor
A Mother’s Plight… Heard?
City hall finally agrees: Let’s discuss the arrest of a nine-year-old girl.
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Good Morning, News!
Russia has offered a deal—a deal for “peace”!—in the face of shoulder-hunching tension and war drills and military clashes in eastern Ukraine. It goes like this: Boot out the nationalists who’ve camped out in Kiev, dear friends in Ukraine, and we’ll magick away the pro-Russian demonstrators who’ve been taking over your towns along our border. […]
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Better News for Portland’s Budget: Surplus Grows Back to $9 Million
A month or so after warning that Portland’s projected budget surplus had dwindled to $6 million and might even fade into nothing—”There is the possibility that there will not be any excess ongoing or one-time resources for FY2014-15,” the budget office wrote—the tireless bean-counters at the Portland Building have some good news. The city’s expected […]
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Good Morning, News!
Cliven Bundy has become a Fox News folk hero thanks to his standoff with the feds over illegal cattle grazing, a real “patriot” lauded by the types of Republican leaders who like to see themselves on TV. He’s also astonishingly racist. At one of his daily news conferences he held forth about “one more thing […]
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Portland Police Lieutenant Files $300,000 Civil Rights Suit Against Chief Reese
A Portland police lieutenant filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Chief Mike Reese and North Precinct Captain Chris Davis this afternoon, lobbing harsh claims about retaliation over a misconduct investigation she led against the captain nearly a decade ago—punishment, she says, that included capricious discipline and culminated in an unfairly denied promotion last year. […]
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Hall Monitor
Playing the Race Card
The Jack Graham saga could prove costly for Portland.
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“It’s Not Rocket Science”
Maybe Portland Should Ban Cops from Handcuffing Children?
Maybe Portland should ban its cops from handcuffing children?
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Cop in Fatal Police Shooting: “I Hear a Pop. Then, Um, I Felt My Hand Get Hit.”
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office has released transcripts from its grand jury investigation into the March 12 fatal police shooting of Kelly Vern Mark Swoboda—a wanted felon sought in a brutal kidnapping and more recently accused of creeping past middle school girls in Southwest Portland. John Romero, the officer who shot Swoboda, was cleared […]
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Oregon’s Gay Marriage Coalition Announces Love from Prominent Racial Justice Groups
Opponents of same-sex marriage have known this all along. But the rest of us noticed something curious in the aftermath of California’s Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that took away marriage rights from our southern neighbor just months after its state supreme court bestowed them. Minority voters tended to support the marriage ban more […]