by Erin Ergenbright Ever since the creation of the Citizen Review Committee (CRC) two years ago, there has been a near-constant struggle with the Independent Police Review (IPR) for the upper hand in matters of police accountability. CRC is filled with citizens, while IPR is staffed with city employees–a distinction some believe neuters IPR’s willingness […]
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Get Off the Bus, Gus!
Citizens Try To Remove Savage From Tri-Met Ads
On a daily basis, Michael Savage spews venom at liberals, immigrants and, in his words, “sodomites.” It is a public flogging listened to by millions–locally on KXL 750, “the home of the Oregon Ducks.” Earlier this year, Savage attempted to leverage this radio fame into a national TV show on MSNBC, but after he lambasted […]
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Paint It Exclusive
Street Artists Fight Back Against Police and Elitism
By John Dooley Although Pearl District galleries throw open their doors the first Thursday of every month, some artists are complaining that the event is becoming increasingly restrictive. It is not a new complaint. A few years ago, the Urban Art Collective (UAC) received permits to carve out an area in order to accommodate those […]
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Death in the Family
Portland’s Music Scene Suffers Another Tragedy
Early last Sunday morning, around 6 am, Adam “Baby” Cox, 23; Jeremy “Kid Killer” Gage, 21; and Matthew “Matt Lock” Fitzgerald, 20, of local band the Exploding Hearts were killed in a car accident. After playing a show at San Francisco’s Bottom of the Hill, the band members were returning to Portland, along with their […]
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A Lesson in Bad Math
City Solves Housing Crunch… for the Rich!
By Anna Simon It’s the last frontier in Portland for housing: an industrial swath of undeveloped riverside land stretching south from the Macadam Bridge. Gritty, uninhabited and hidden from view, the 130 acres won’t remain untouched for long. In spectacularly ambitious blueprints, the area is designated as the city’s next phase of “smart-growth” development. With […]
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Sloppy Syphilis
A Rise In Syphilis Cases Indicates Portland’s Poor Sex Habits
by J.B. Rabin Called “The Great Imitator” for its ability to mimic other diseases, syphilis, according to health officials, is making an insidious comeback in Multnomah County. Reflective of a nationwide trend, the disease is marked in its primary stage by a small, painless sore that often appears on or inside the mouth, vagina, or […]
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Covering Up a Cover-Up
Why are Missing Police Records Being Ignored?
By Erin Ergenbright Add Portland’s police department to Enron and the heap of corporations who’ve lost or shredded possibly incriminating records. Last Friday’s Portland Tribune revealed that the police department has “lost” records relating to 34 cases of police shootings and in-custody deaths between 1997 and 2000. Moreover, even though Oregon law requires homicide records […]
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40 Ounces of Prevention
Neighborhood Tries to Ban Forties!
Prevalent in Snoop videos and marketed relentlessly to African American males, brands of 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor–like Olde English and 211 Steel Reserve–became icons in the ’90s. For a buck-fifty, one 40-ouncer packs about the same wallop as five whiskey shots. But if the St. Johns Neighborhood Association has anything to do with it, […]
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Bored to Death
Would It Kill the Cops to Say “We’re Sorry”?
By Joshua Cinelli Last Tuesday evening, more than 500 people packed Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in North Portland for the first opportunity to directly question police since the May 5 shooting of Kendra James. But after five hours of testimony and fierce questioning, most attendees left feeling even more frustrated and angry. In May, Mayor […]
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Supreme Satisfaction
High Court Sodomy Ruling Could Be the Start of Something Big
Just my luck. The day the Supreme Court strikes down Texas’ anti-gay sodomy laws–and by extension anti-gay and anti-straight sodomy laws in 13 other states–I’m in Boston, thousands of miles away from my boyfriend, the only person I’m interested in sodomizing these days. So while other American queers marked the occasion by going to celebratory […]
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A Critical Tragedy
Bikers’ Fatalities Bring Attention to Lax DUII Laws
Late on Tuesday night of last week, a drunk driver killed two bicyclists in Southeast Portland and critically injured a third. It was the second fatal accident this summer involving a drunk driver hitting bicyclists. The driver in Tuesday’s tragedy, Lindsey Llaneza, is a repeat offender. Three months ago, Llaneza plead guilty to drunk driving […]
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Republicans Get Emotive
The Far Right Tries to Dig Into Grassroots
By Theresa Reed If Matt Lewis has his way, Oregon will witness the return of the “compassionate conservative” and a rise in successful Republican political campaigns and candidates. This self-identified “wacky, ultra conservative” cheerleader for the Far Right has been proclaimed a “rising star of politics” by Campaigns and Elections Magazine and is Director of […]