A CITIZEN who watched a cop illegally park, then walk into an Asian restaurant to wait for his food, has issued the officer a series of citizen-initiated parking violations. Eric Bryant says he was sitting in the SanSai Japanese Grill on NW 21st and Hoyt on March 7 when he witnessed Officer Chadd Stensgaard pull […]
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OFFENDER LIST GROWS There are now 427 people on City Commissioner Randy Leonard’s “Project 57” list. According to the new head of the program, Bill Sinnott, these people are targeted for felony convictions and enforced drug treatment if they’re arrested downtown for things like having a crack pipe containing drug residue. Sinnott, the former boss […]
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Big Brother’s Little Brother
Cop Cites Videographer for Recording Investigation
A FREELANCE videographer plans to challenge the Portland Police Bureau in court after a cop confiscated his camera and cited him, in apparent retaliation for videotaping the cop as he searched a suspect in the street. Mike Tabor, 47, has been videotaping police activities for the last two years with his Sony Handycam, as a […]
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Scooting under the Influence
Prosecutors Run down Handicapped Veteran
VIETNAM VETERAN John Wayne Ruff struggled to Multnomah County Circuit Court last Friday, March 14, to defend himself against a five-year-old driving under the influence (DUI) charge, originally received while crossing the street on his electric handicapped scooter. “This is ridiculous. The judge dismissed the case five years ago,” Ruff, 60, exclaimed in frustration. His […]
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NO CHARGE The district attorney’s office has decided not to prosecute a sheriff’s deputy for his alleged role in having coerced one jail inmate to stab another in the eye with a pencil. Deputy District Attorney Josh Lamborn made the decision not to prosecute late last week, after reviewing an internal sheriff’s office investigation into […]
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In the Shadows
Dying Hard
The man in Room 220 of the Multnomah County Courthouse reminds me of Bruce Willis in Die Hard. He’s about 35, white, dressed in a thick navy coat with a high collar, and his hair is closely cropped. When police brought “Willis” to Emanuel Hospital five days earlier, he was agitated, disorientated, and delusional, telling […]
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Commitment Issues
Chasse Death Cited in Involuntary Detention
Multnomah County’s commitment court ruled at the end of 2006 that an allegedly mentally ill woman should be locked in a psychiatric hospital, because it would be safer than wandering the streets like James Chasse—where the person risked being “beaten to death” by cops, according to the judge. The Oregon State Appeals Court overturned the […]
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Appeal and Repeal
Anti-Gay Activists Appeal Federal Judge’s Ruling
ON MARCH 5, the group that earlier lost a court battle to block Oregon’s domestic partnership re-emerged, filing an appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The documents filed so far don’t say much, other than the plaintiffs—folks who signed a referral measure aimed at putting the domestic partnership law […]
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POTTER SEIZES COP REVIEW Mayor Tom Potter took control of the Independent Police Review (IPR) back from City Auditor Gary Blackmer last Friday, February 29. Blackmer, along with his colleague, former IPR Director Leslie Stevens—who recently took a job with the police bureau—is now absolved from responsibility for fixing problems cited in an independent consultant’s […]
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CAMPAIGN SMEAR An anonymous IRS complaint alleging tax fraud landed on the Mercury news desk last week, alleging that city council candidate Charles Lewis “has expolited [sic] the work of Ethos Music Center, a nonprofit organization which he founded and directs, for the promotion of his bid for elected office.” The supposed evidence? A November […]
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Not Social Workers
At the Multnomah County Courthouse, the fourth floor elevator door opened to a scene one doesn’t witness every day: A man with a lolling jaw and the vacant stare of heavy meds walked past a group of three sharp-suited district attorneys in frantic discussion, I think, about one of their divorces. Next to them an […]
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Domestic Problems
Oregon’s Domestic Partnership Law Runs into Murky Waters
When Sally Sparks and her partner, Heather Dugas, registered as domestic partners at the Multnomah County Building the day the new state law took effect on February 4, Sparks was overdue with their second child. “It was a good feeling that [the law] went through and we were going to walk into the hospital as […]