KATU briefly covered my Jamal Green story from earlier this week last night. Didn’t give credit, despite having called up on Thursday asking for pictures of the young man and congratulating us on the coverage. Still, I’m glad it’s getting wider play—even if KATU isn’t our official “news partner” like it is WW‘s.
As usual, Katu’s commenters are charitable as all hell:
“Well, the problem was, the cops can’t read minds and don’t know if a person is dangerous or not. Maybe Granny should put a sign on him? ..I know that’s mean, but I think with his impairment, he shouldn’t have been alone, as it’s obvious that he doesn’t have good reasoning abilties.”
“Maybe the dude isn’t playing with a full deck, who knows? Either way, great way for granny to score some bingo jack. Send your disabled grandson to the wilderness of Portland, allow him to make contact with the cops. Get zapped, get paid.
Considering the state of the economy many people might be considering smack talking a cop, draw a zapp, slip in the bathroom near Sammy the Sodomite, or take a dive in front of a deep pocket vehicle.”
Enough to renew one’s faith in humanity, reading those.
Well Matt…
If you were a REAL news organization like the WW maybe you could get a REAL news partner like KATU/KGW/KPTV/KOIN! But you aren’t, so keep having fun on KBOO and public access you idiot!
Matt-
Real question here- Do you expect cops to put themselves in even MORE danger than they already do, just “in case” someone is actually “mentally ill” and not “criminal?”
Last time I checked, a crime is a crime, whether or not a person is “ill.”
I love this excuse that police “were just following training”. Hey guess what, I was trained to.. oh never mind.
I wouldn’t single out KATU for the quality of its commenters. If you live in a glass house, you know…
Blogtown has, by far, the best comments section in Portland, however sad that may be.
This comment thread is like waking up in a train car to learn that it’s been detached from the rest of the train. And there’s stuff burning in barrels outside.
It’s like the end of “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” you mean?
people keep trying to lay the blame for all this Rogue Cop behavior on their so-called “training” as if that has to be the reason.
OK, have it your way…but do recall that the man who headed up the State’s Agency that was responsible for police education, standards, certification, and TRAINING was John Minnis, a former PPB cop who became legislator (Rep & Senator) and then triple-tippered to head up agency he helped create while in legislature, plus man most responsible for the outlandish laws that allow Oregon cops to hide behind such silly lamebrained excuses for murdering a fellow-citizen that are source for all the unnecessary drama besetting our community today…was himself ousted from office a few months back because he wasn’t as much the real deal as he preached himself to be.
It stands to reason if the main man for the laws we have now that are bogus was found out to be bogus, then his notions on TRAINING had to be bogus as well. duh!
As this character has faded into history, so should we unite and force his laws and efforts into giving cops a free-pass on citizen-killing be history by rewriting what we want…not what rightwing nutjobs want us to have. GET IT?