04-24-2024  7:37 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather
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NORTHWEST NEWS

The Drug War Devastated Black and Other Minority Communities. Is Marijuana Legalization Helping?

A major argument for legalizing the adult use of cannabis after 75 years of prohibition was to stop the harm caused by disproportionate enforcement of drug laws in Black, Latino and other minority communities. But efforts to help those most affected participate in the newly legal sector have been halting. 

Lessons for Cities from Seattle’s Racial and Social Justice Law 

 Seattle is marking the first anniversary of its landmark Race and Social Justice Initiative ordinance. Signed into law in April 2023, the ordinance highlights race and racism because of the pervasive inequities experienced by people of color

Don’t Shoot Portland, University of Oregon Team Up for Black Narratives, Memory

The yearly Memory Work for Black Lives Plenary shows the power of preservation.

Grants Pass Anti-Camping Laws Head to Supreme Court

Grants Pass in southern Oregon has become the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis as its case over anti-camping laws goes to the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled for April 22. The case has broad implications for cities, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. Since 2020, court orders have barred Grants Pass from enforcing its anti-camping laws. Now, the city is asking the justices to review lower court rulings it says has prevented it from addressing the city's homelessness crisis. Rights groups say people shouldn’t be punished for lacking housing.

NEWS BRIEFS

Mt. Tabor Park Selected for National Initiative

Mt. Tabor Park is the only Oregon park and one of just 24 nationally to receive honor. ...

OHCS, BuildUp Oregon Launch Program to Expand Early Childhood Education Access Statewide

Funds include million for developing early care and education facilities co-located with affordable housing. ...

Governor Kotek Announces Chief of Staff, New Office Leadership

Governor expands executive team and names new Housing and Homelessness Initiative Director ...

Governor Kotek Announces Investment in New CHIPS Child Care Fund

5 Million dollars from Oregon CHIPS Act to be allocated to new Child Care Fund ...

A conservative quest to limit diversity programs gains momentum in states

A conservative quest to limit diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives is gaining momentum in state capitals and college governing boards, with officials in about one-third of the states now taking some sort of action against it. Tennessee became the latest when the Republican...

Biden administration is announcing plans for up to 12 lease sales for offshore wind energy

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Biden administration is preparing to announce plans for a new five-year schedule to lease federal offshore tracts for wind energy production, with up to a dozen lease sales anticipated beginning this year and continuing through 2028. The plan was to be...

Missouri hires Memphis athletic director Laird Veatch for the same role with the Tigers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri hired longtime college administrator Laird Veatch to be its athletic director on Tuesday, bringing him back to campus 14 years after he departed for a series of other positions that culminated with five years spent as the AD at Memphis. Veatch...

KC Current owners announce plans for stadium district along the Kansas City riverfront

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The ownership group of the Kansas City Current announced plans Monday for the development of the Missouri River waterfront, where the club recently opened a purpose-built stadium for the National Women's Soccer League team. CPKC Stadium will serve as the hub...

OPINION

Op-Ed: Why MAGA Policies Are Detrimental to Black Communities

NNPA NEWSWIRE – MAGA proponents peddle baseless claims of widespread voter fraud to justify voter suppression tactics that disproportionately target Black voters. From restrictive voter ID laws to purging voter rolls to limiting early voting hours, these...

Loving and Embracing the Differences in Our Youngest Learners

Yet our responsibility to all parents and society at large means we must do more to share insights, especially with underserved and under-resourced communities. ...

Gallup Finds Black Generational Divide on Affirmative Action

Each spring, many aspiring students and their families begin receiving college acceptance letters and offers of financial aid packages. This year’s college decisions will add yet another consideration: the effects of a 2023 Supreme Court, 6-3 ruling that...

OP-ED: Embracing Black Men’s Voices: Rebuilding Trust and Unity in the Democratic Party

The decision of many Black men to disengage from the Democratic Party is rooted in a complex interplay of historical disenchantment, unmet promises, and a sense of disillusionment with the political establishment. ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Ancestry website to catalogue names of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The names of thousands of people held in Japanese American incarceration camps during World War II will be digitized and made available for free, genealogy company Ancestry announced Wednesday. The website, known as one of the largest global online resources of...

A conservative quest to limit diversity programs gains momentum in states

A conservative quest to limit diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives is gaining momentum in state capitals and college governing boards, with officials in about one-third of the states now taking some sort of action against it. Tennessee became the latest when the Republican...

Pro-Palestinian student protests target colleges' financial ties with Israel

Students at a growing number of U.S. colleges are gathering in protest encampments with a unified demand of their schools: Stop doing business with Israel — or any companies that empower its ongoing war in Gaza. The demand has its roots in a decades-old campaign against Israel's...

ENTERTAINMENT

What to stream this weekend: Conan O’Brien travels, 'Migration' soars and Taylor Swift reigns

Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver” landing on Netflix and Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” album are some of the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as...

Music Review: Jazz pianist Fred Hersch creates subdued, lovely colors on 'Silent, Listening'

Jazz pianist Fred Hersch fully embraces the freedom that comes with improvisation on his solo album “Silent, Listening,” spontaneously composing and performing tunes that are often without melody, meter or form. Listening to them can be challenging and rewarding. The many-time...

Book Review: 'Nothing But the Bones' is a compelling noir novel at a breakneck pace

Nelson “Nails” McKenna isn’t very bright, stumbles over his words and often says what he’s thinking without realizing it. We first meet him as a boy reading a superhero comic on the banks of a river in his backcountry hometown in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia....

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Blinken begins key China visit as tensions rise over new US foreign aid bill

SHANGHAI (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has begun a critical trip to China armed with a...

The Latest | Germany will resume working with UN relief agency for Palestinians after a review

Germany said Wednesday that it plans to follow several other countries in resuming cooperation with the U.N....

Pro-Palestinian student protests target colleges' financial ties with Israel

Students at a growing number of U.S. colleges are gathering in protest encampments with a unified demand of their...

More deaths in the English Channel underscore risks for migrants despite UK efforts to stem the tide

LONDON (AP) — Five more people died in the English Channel on Tuesday, underscoring the risks of crossing one of...

Moscow court rejects Evan Gershkovich's appeal, keeping him in jail until at least June 30

MOSCOW (AP) — Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will remain jailed on espionage charges until at...

UK puts its defense industry on 'war footing' and gives Ukraine 0 million in new military aid

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The U.K. prime minister said Tuesday the country is putting its defense industry on a...

Lisa Loving, Special to The Skanner News

Portland police last week handcuffed and arrested a 12-year-old girl in the office of Beaumont Middle School -- two weeks after an alleged fight between her and another student.

Police said the other student’s family filed charges of misdemeanor assault against the child, which were referred by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office and they were forced to arrest her.

The unidentified child was taken to the Donald E. Long Home, the county’s only juvenile detention center.

Multnomah County is currently facing scrutiny for recent use-of-force statistics showing Black inmates in county facilities are far more likely to face violence from sheriff's’ deputies, especially when they are first booked into a correctional facility.

Neither the child arrested last week nor her family has been publicly identified and the family’s race has not been disclosed.

The incident is reminiscent of the last time the police arrested a child. In that case an African American nine-year-old was arrested on her porch in her bathing suit almost a week after an alleged conflict she had with another student at an after school program.

The story was first reported by the Portland Mercury.

"They put the handcuffs on her," the girl's mother, Latoya Harris, told the Mercury. "And everybody saw my daughter get perp-walked to the car. What stood out was the expression on my daughter's face. The fear and the sadness. We still have to see these officers in our community."

The outcry after that incident forced Portland Police officials to create a policy that they would only arrest  children age 12 or older – like the child they arrested last week.

Police say that now they only arrest children aged 12 years and older if they get “special permission” which can only come from the  Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office and a judge.

In the current case, spokesperson Pete Simpson told a reporter the girl lashed out physically as officers were trying to handcuff her. Simpson told The Oregonian, "For lack of a better term, she chose to have a tantrum."

Simpson told the newspaper that "mom was very much like her daughter," as officers prepared to drive the daughter to the detention center.

Portland police and Portland public schools officials have arrested, shot or tasered several children and teenagers over the past 15 years. The circumstances vary widely.

 

Kids Arrested, Shot or Tasered by Portland Police

  • March 16, 2016 - High school student is arrested after threatening to bring a gun to school, is charged with attempted assault and attempted unlawful use of a weapon.
  • March 1, 2016 - Portland Parent Union creates Change.org petition on behalf of a Black female student charged by Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office with “offensive physical contact” after punching a blonde, affluent student who racially bullied her at Lake Oswego High School.
  • September 15, 2014 - Unarmed Roosevelt High School student, Thai Gurule, is viciously beaten, Tasered and arrested on cellphone video. A circuit court judge later finds him innocent of resisting arrest, chastises police bureau.
  • May, 2013 - Nine-year-old girl arrested over alleged fight at after-school program six days earlier.
  • May 17, 2011 - Student arrested after threatening to bring a gun to school.
  • October 4, 2004 - Portland Police Taser an 11-year old student in a mental health crisis at Buckman Elementary School.

The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast