11-12-2024  8:15 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

In Portland, Political Outsider Keith Wilson Elected Mayor After Homelessness-focused Race

Wilson, a Portland native and CEO of a trucking company, ran on an ambitious pledge to end unsheltered homelessness within a year of taking office.

‘Black Friday’ Screening Honors Black Portlanders, Encourages Sense of Belonging

The second annual event will be held Nov. 8 at the Hollywood Theatre.

Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson Wins Governor’s Race in Washington

Ferguson came to national prominence by repeatedly suing the administration of former President Donald Trump, including bringing the lawsuit that blocked Trump’s initial travel ban on citizens of several majority Muslim nations. 

African American Alliance On Homeownership Turns 25, Honors The Skanner Cofounder Bernie Foster

AAAH's executive director Cheryl Roberts recalls how the efforts of Bernie Foster led to an organization that now offers one-on-one counseling for prospective home buyers, homebuyer education, foreclosure prevention services, estate planning, assistance with down payments and more.

NEWS BRIEFS

Janelle Bynum Statement on Her Victory in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District

"I am proud to be the first – but not the last – Black Member of Congress from Oregon" ...

Veterans Day, Monday, Nov. 11: Honoring a Legacy of Loyalty and Service and Expanding Benefits for Washington Veterans

Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs (WDVA) is pleased to share the Veterans Day Proclamation and highlight the various...

Nkenge Harmon Johnson honored with PCUN’s Cipriano Ferrel Award

Harmon Johnson recognized for civil rights work in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest ...

Volunteers of America Oregon Announces Retirement CEO, Kay Toran

Toran's tenure at VOA Oregon is marked by decades of dedicated public service in the State of Oregon and unwavering commitment to...

Family of security guard shot and killed at Portland, Oregon, hospital sues facility for M

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The family of a security guard who was shot and killed at a hospital in Portland, Oregon, sued the facility for million on Tuesday, accusing it of negligence and failing to respond to the dangers that the gunman posed to hospital staff over multiple days. ...

Ex-Duke star Kyle Singler draws concern from basketball world over cryptic Instagram post

Former Duke star Kyle Singler’s cryptic Instagram post saying he fears for his life has drawn an outpouring of concern and support from former teammates and others. Singler, 36, spoke slowly and was shirtless in the short video, which was posted Tuesday morning. “I...

Grill makes 8 3s, scores career-high 33 points to lead Missouri over Eastern Washington 84-77

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Caleb Grill matched a career best with eight 3-pointers and scored a career-high 33 points to lead Missouri to an 84-77 victory over Eastern Washington on Monday night. Grill, who missed Missouri's final 23 games last season with a wrist injury, shot 10 of 13...

Missouri hosts Eastern Washington following Cook's 25-point game

Eastern Washington Eagles (1-1) at Missouri Tigers (1-1) Columbia, Missouri; Monday, 7 p.m. EST BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Tigers -18.5; over/under is 155.5 BOTTOM LINE: Eastern Washington visits Missouri after Andrew Cook scored 25 points in Eastern...

OPINION

Why Not Voting Could Deprioritize Black Communities

President Biden’s Justice40 initiative ensures that 40% of federal investment benefits flow to disadvantaged communities, addressing deep-seated inequities. ...

The Skanner News 2024 Presidential Endorsement

It will come as no surprise that we strongly endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president. ...

Black Retirees Growing Older and Poorer: 2025 Social Security COLA lowest in 10 years

As Americans live longer, the ability to remain financially independent is an ongoing struggle. Especially for Black and other people of color whose lifetime incomes are often lower than that of other contemporaries, finding money to save for ‘old age’ is...

The Skanner Endorsements: Oregon State and Local Ballot Measures

Ballots are now being mailed out for this very important election. Election Day is November 5. Ballots must be received or mailed with a valid postmark by 8 p.m. Election Day. View The Skanner's ballot measure endorsements. ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Chinese hackers target Tibetan websites in malware attack, cybersecurity group says

BANGKOK (AP) — A hacking group that is believed to be Chinese state-sponsored has compromised two websites with ties to the Tibetan community in an attack meant to install malware on users' computers, according to findings released Wednesday by a private cybersecurity firm. The...

French farmers protest EU-Mercosur deal that will increase South American imports

PARIS (AP) — French farmers protested Tuesday against a trade deal that would increase agricultural imports from South America, saying it hurt their livelihoods. The European Union and the Mercosur trade bloc, composed of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia, reached an...

Panel advises Illinois commemorate its role in helping slaves escape the South

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, fearless throngs defied prison or worse to secretly shuttle as many as 7,000 slaves escaped from the South on a months-long slog through Illinois and on to freedom. On Tuesday, a task force of lawmakers and historians recommended creating a full-time...

ENTERTAINMENT

Movie Review: In Andrea Arnold's 'Bird,' a gritty fairy tale doesn't take flight

“Is it too real for ya?” blares in the background of Andrea Arnold’s latest film, “Bird,” a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent. The song’s...

After 20 years of acting, ‘My Old Ass’ filmmaker Megan Park finds her groove behind the camera

Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs. She didn’t set out to make a tearjerker with “My Old Ass,” now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young...

At an art festival in Dakar, artists from both sides of the Atlantic examine the legacy of slavery

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A whirlwind of color and art at the opening of this year's Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art in the Senegalese capital stood in stark contrast to the serious topic of slavery featuring in the artworks of guest artists from the United States. The U.S....

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Israeli strikes kill 46 people in the Gaza Strip and 33 in Lebanon, medics say

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed at least 46 people in the Gaza Strip in the past day,...

Trump spends first week as president-elect behind closed doors at Mar-a-Lago

WASHINGTON (AP) — For a man who loves the spotlight, Donald Trump has been conspicuously out of view since his...

Welcome to China’s underground raves, from street techno to quotes from Chairman Mao

CHANGCHUN, China (AP) — Crouch through the small metal door and walk down the dark tunnel, and even before you...

Head of UN nuclear watchdog: 'Dire straits dynamic' with Iran's nuclear program amid Mideast wars

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Tuesday he's hopeful that...

US says it will not limit Israel arms transfers after some improvements in flow of aid to Gaza

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Tuesday that Israel has made some good but limited progress in...

UN force says Israeli work on Syrian frontier saw 'severe violations' of cease-fire after AP report

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — United Nations peacekeepers warned Tuesday that the Israeli military has...

Jacques Billeaud the Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) -- The federal government issued a scathing report Thursday that outlines how Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office has committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including a pattern of racial profiling and discrimination and carrying out heavy-handed immigration patrols based on racially charged citizen complaints.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its release, is a result of the U.S. Justice Department's three-year investigation of Arpaio's office amid complaints of racial profiling and a culture of bias at the agency's top level.

The Justice Department's conclusions in the civil probe mark the federal government's harshest rebuke of a national political fixture who has risen to prominence for his immigration crackdowns and became coveted endorsement among candidates in the GOP presidential field.

Apart from the civil rights probe, a federal grand jury also has been investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009 and is specifically examining the investigative work of the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad.

The civil rights report said federal authorities will continue to investigate complaints of deputies using excessive force against Latinos, whether the sheriff's immigration efforts damage trust with the Hispanic community and a large number of sex-crimes cases that were assigned to the agency but weren't followed up on or investigated at all.

The report took the sheriff's office to task for launching immigration patrols, known as "sweeps," based on complaints that Latinos were merely gathering near a business without committing crimes. Federal authorities single out Arpaio himself and said his office, known as MCSO, has no clear policies to guard against the violations, even after he changed some of his top aides earlier this year.

"Arpaio's own actions have helped nurture MCSO's culture of bias," wrote Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division, adding that the sheriff frequently gave such racially charged letters to some of his top aides and saved them in his own files.

"MCSO is broken in a number of critical respects. The problems are deeply rooted in MCSO's culture," he said Thursday.

If the sheriff's office doesn't turn around its policies and practices, the federal government could pull millions of dollars of federal funding.

Arpaio's office did not immediately respond to AP requests for comment.

The report will require Arpaio to set up effective policies against discrimination, improve training and make other changes that would be monitored for compliance by a judge. Arpaio faces a Jan. 4 deadline for saying whether he wants to work out an agreement. If not, the federal government will sue him and let a judge decide the complaint.

Arpaio, the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America, has long denied the racial profiling allegation, saying people are stopped if deputies have probable cause to believe they have committed crimes and that deputies later find many of them are illegal immigrants.

Arpaio has built his reputation on jailing inmates in tents and dressing them in pink underwear, selling himself to voters as unceasingly tough on crime and pushing the bounds of how far local police can go to confront illegal immigration.

The report also said he and some top staffers tried to silence people who have spoken out against the sheriff's office by arresting people without cause, filing meritless lawsuits against opponents and starting investigations of critics.

One example cited by the Justice Department is former top Arpaio aide David Hendershott, who filed bar complaints against attorneys critical of the agency along with bringing judicial complaints against judges who were at odds with the sheriff. All complaints were dismissed.

The anti-corruption squad's cases against two county officials and a judge collapsed in court before going to trial and have been criticized by politicians at odds with the sheriff as trumped up. Arpaio has defended the investigations as a valid attempt at rooting out corruption in county government.

The civil rights report said Latinos are four to nine times more likely to be stopped in traffic stops in Maricopa County than non-Latinos and that the agency's immigration policies treat Latinos as if they are all in the country illegally. Deputies on the immigrant-smuggling squad stop and arrest Latino drivers without good cause, the investigation found.

A review done as part of the investigation found that 20 percent of traffic reports handled by Arpaio's immigrant-smuggling squad from March 2006 to March 2009 were stops - almost all involving Latino drivers - that were done without reasonable suspicion. The squad's stops rarely led to smuggling arrests.

Deputies are encouraged to make high-volume traffic stops in targeted locations. There were Latinos who were in the U.S. legally who were arrested or detained without cause during the sweeps, according to the report.

During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city - in some cases, heavily Latino areas - over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office since January 2008, according to figures provided by Arpaio's office.

Police supervisors, including at least one smuggling-squad supervisor, often used county accounts to send emails that demeaned Latinos to fellow sheriff's managers, deputies and volunteers in the sheriff's posse. One such email had a photo of a mock driver's license for a fictional state called "Mexifornia."

The report said that the sheriff's office launched an immigration operation two weeks after the sheriff received a letter in August 2009 letter about a person's dismay over employees of a McDonald's in the Phoenix suburb of Sun City who didn't speak English. The tip laid out no criminal allegations. The sheriff wrote back to thank the writer "for the info," said he would look into it and forwarded it to a top aide with a note of "for our operation."

Federal investigators focused heavily on the language barriers in Arpaio's jails.

Latino inmates with limited English skills were punished for failing to understand commands in English by being put in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day or keeping prisoners locked down in their jail pods for as long as 72 hours without a trip to the canteen area or making nonlegal phone calls.

The report said some jail officers used racial slurs for Latinos when talking among themselves and speaking to inmates.

Detention officers refused to accept forms requesting basic daily services and reporting mistreatment when the documents were completed in Spanish and pressured Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms that implicate their legal rights without language assistance.

The agency pressures Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms by yelling at them and keeping them in uncomfortably cold cells for long periods of time.

The Justice Department said it hadn't yet established a pattern of alleged wrongdoing by the sheriff's office in the three areas where they will continue to investigation: complaints of excessive force against Latinos, botched sex-crimes cases and immigration efforts that have hurt the agency's trust with the Hispanic community.

Federal authorities will continue to investigate whether the sheriff's office has limited the willingness of witnesses and victims to report crimes or talk to Arpaio's office.

"MCSO has done almost nothing to build such a relationship with Mariciopa County's Latino residents," Perez wrote.

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