A variety of news around Oregon and the Northwest
NEWS VARIETY
Suspect in Wash. mall shooting waives extradition
SEATTLE — A 21-year-old man accused of fatally shooting a teenager at a shopping mall in Tukwila, Wash., has waived extradition and will be returned from Oregon to King County.
Barry Lee Saunders is charged with murder and assault. The shooting last Saturday left one teen dead and a second wounded at the Westfield Southcenter mall.
Saunders was arrested Wednesday after police investigating a call about possible drug activity questioned him in a Portland hotel parking lot.
Travis Sewell, a deputy district attorney for Multnomah County, Ore., said Friday that Saunders’ decision means he won’t make a court appearance in Portland and will soon be transported to King County.
_____
Archdiocese documents offer no ’smoking gun’
By RYAN KOST
Associated Press Writer
PORTLAND — Documents released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland this week fall short of implicating higher-ups in trying to hide sexual abuse of young people by priests, a leading victim advocate said Friday.
Portland lawyer Kelly Clark said that while the documents revealed a certain amount of “stupidity or naivete,” they weren’t the “smoking gun” that would show church officials had covered up abuse, as advocates such as Clark had said they might be.
At a press conference Friday, Clark said additional documents released after pending litigation is complete might have such evidence.
A spokesman for the archdiocese did not immediately respond to calls for comment.
Clark again raised complaints about former Archbishop William Joseph Levada, who now serves as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the Vatican.
An employee at the Vatican told The Associated Press Friday night that nobody was available to comment.
Clark said he now understands that Levada and at least one other church official received “direct rumors, reports and allegations” about the improprieties of an Oregon priest, but Levada didn’t check the files on the priest.
Such allegations against Levada date back years. Clark said Friday he was unable to say whether his understanding was a result of the new documents or those previously released.
The archdiocese released a number of documents this week after U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan ordered it to do so as a result of the settlement in 2007 of about 175 lawsuits for $50 million, putting an end to the first bankruptcy filing in the nation by a Catholic diocese.
Clark represented more than 40 victims.
Under the judge’s ruling, the archdiocese did not have to release documents that pertained to priests whose conduct is the subject of ongoing litigation. However, as litigation ends, those documents can be made public.
_____
Paper mill restarting machines, re-evaluating customer demand
LONGVIEW, Wash. — Longview Fibre plans to restart four of its five paper machines at its Longview mill next week.
Fiber announced a shutdown in October to reduce inventory. One machine was kept running to keep the mill warm and prevent the cost of a full shutdown.
President Frank McShane told The Longview Daily News the company is still evaluating customer demand.
______
Nov. 28, 2008
Oregon couple in India tell friends they are safe
MEDFORD — An Oregon couple volunteering in Mumbai, India, have called friends in Central Point to say they were not harmed during the terrorist attacks.
Kathy McNeill of Central Point says Dolores Scheelen called her Wednesday from India. McNeill says the two have been friends for more than 30 years.
In a 10-minute conversation, Scheelen told McNeill that she and her husband, Bob Harleman, were living in a neighborhood with a “casual guard.” McNeill says her friend did not feel they were in immediate danger.
Harleman is a former director of the West Medford Family Center, and Scheelen is an autism expert.
The couple went to India in late October to volunteer at an autism clinic, and they plan to stay there for three more weeks.
_____
New maps show submerged Columbia falls are intact
PORTLAND — The massive horseshoe-shaped Celilo Falls were submerged by a reservoir after The Dalles Dam was built in 1957 — this much is true.
But the belief that government demolition teams blasted the falls and destroyed them? Not true, according to sonar maps released by the U.S. Army corps of Engineers.
Others thought the falls might have been silted over by the river in the years since the dam was built.
The maps show the falls, located about 10 miles upstream from The Dalles, are intact beneath the Columbia River’s surface. The main cataract of the falls stands out in a sonar image of the river bottom.
“The rumor was that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had in fact blown it all up,” said Elizabeth Woody, a writer and member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. “I actually cried, I was so relieved that it wasn’t destroyed.”
Those living in the village at Celilo Falls heard and felt blasts set off for excavations at the dam, Woody said, and believed the government had used dynamite to demolish the falls.
“People said the Corps had dynamited Celilo so no one would fight for the dams to come down,” Woody said.
In the years since the dam was built, a debate has surfaced over the removal of the declining, hydropower dams.
Col. Thomas O’Donovan, the Corps of Engineers’ Portland district commander who is now serving in Afghanistan, decided to look into the controversy.
Finding that records did not turn up any evidence that the Corps of Engineers had demolished the falls, he asked for a detailed sonar survey of the area in April 2007, said Dan Proudfit, who heads the Corps of Engineers’ survey section.
O’Donovan’s team cruised the surface in a boat equipped with a multi-beam sonar scanner, which bounces sound beams off the river bottom to create images of its contours.
For thousands of years the falls were a fishing site for American Indians and their ancestors. They also were the center of a major tribal trade network that brought traders from tribes as far away as the Midwest and south California.
Stone Age tools and salmon bones unearthed by archaeologists show people fished at Celilo Falls more than 10,000 years ago.
Louie Pitt Jr., a Warm Springs tribal member, was 6 when the dam was built. Before the falls were submerged by the reservoir, he said, his family made a living by selling the salmon caught there.
He remembers singing, dancing and playing near the falls, and believes his tribe and others in the area will see the Celilo Falls again.
“Someday those dams will be gone,” Pitt said. “When that day comes the falls will return. Indians will be waiting.”
_____
Bum turn for skiers: First it snows, then it melts
BEND — The snow gods are teasing Oregon skiers this season.
Enough snow fell in the fall to raise hopes of a Thanksgiving opening.
Then it turned warm. Now the snowpack is reported to be only about a fourth as deep as average for the time of year.
Most Oregon resorts don’t expect to open for at least another week, although lifts are running to a perennial snowfield above the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood.
At Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort, workers have been scraping snow from the parking lots to help build up their tubing run and a rail slide area for the weekend.
Resort executives say they can still have a good season even if they don’t open for a few weeks after Thanksgiving.
_____
One bank sues another in Oregon after loan goes bad
PORTLAND — Northwest Bank of Lake Oswego has filed a lawsuit against lender MBank of Gresham to recover more than $2.6 million from a real estate deal.
Homebuilder Beacon Homes Northwest Inc. borrowed $5.3 million from the banks in March 2006 to build a subdivision in Washington County.
When the loan was made, the property had an appraised value of $7 million.
After the housing market plummeted, the builder couldn’t pay off the loan and property values dropped 21 percent.
Among Northwest Bank’s several allegations in the lawsuit is that MBank mismanaged the loan.
_____
Man dies in Astoria, Ore., fire
PORTLAND — Authorities say a man has died in an overnight fire in a downtown Astoria building built in 1922.
Officials say the victim may have been living in the building, which held a shuttered flower shop, a bank office, two restaurants and another business.
The building was constructed after a fire in downtown Astoria.
Firefighters were called about 10:50 p.m. Thursday. They say the fire may have started in the flower shop.
Astoria Fire Lt. Bob Johnson says dozens of firefighters from as far as Seaside helped.
_____
U.S. seeks $5M in assets in S. Oregon drug ring probe
ROSEBURG — The man who prosecutors say led a drug ring started by high school buddies three decades ago in Roseburg has been ordered to give up land in three states, two boats, vehicles and financial assets.
In all, the government is seeking $5 million in assets derived from drug sales as it proceeds against Kent Jones in U.S. District Court in Idaho.
Federal agents said the operation began with marijuana sales, branched out to smuggling cocaine and methamphetamine, and took in more than $20 million over the years.
Jones has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana and money laundering. He faces up to 35 years in prison. Sentencing is Jan. 7.
Two other men were sentenced this week in Boise on charges related to the operation.
_____
Boat capsizes off Ore. coast, 1 swims to safety
PORTLAND — Two men remained missing Friday along the Oregon Coast after a 42-foot crab boat capsized near the north jetty at Tillamook Bay, authorities said.
The U.S. Coast Guard said one man managed to swim to shore and was picked up by the Coast Guard and fire crews from Rockaway Beach and Garibaldi.
He was treated at Tillamook County General Hospital and has been released, said nursing supervisor Otto Gonzalez. He was not immediately identified.
The man who swam to safety was the only one among the three who was wearing a life jacket, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Shawn Eggert.
The boat, the Network, was from Garibaldi. The Coast Guard said helicopter and boat crews continued searching for the two missing men.
“There has been no word on when and if they’ll suspend the search,” Eggert said.
Coast Guard casualty and pollution investigators have also been sent to the site.
The pollution investigators are looking at a sheen spotted near the area where the crab boat capsized.
Eggert said about 400 gallons of diesel fuel were on board. The Coast Guard said reports show the diesel spill will do minimal environmental damage.
The boast capsized at about 7:40 a.m. Friday.
_____
Judge gives go-ahead to wrongful death trial in Oregon
PORTLAND — A federal judge has cleared the way for a civil trial in the case of an unarmed Portland man fatally shot by police in Clackamas County in 2005.
The family of Fouad Kaady filed a wrongful death lawsuit in U.S. District Court in 2006, hiring high-profile attorney Gerry Spence to argue it.
The suit names the city of Sandy, Clackamas County and individual officers. It seeks monetary damages — to be determined at trial — for civil rights violations, excessive force and wrongful death.
The trial is scheduled to start April 28, The Oregonian newspaper reported.
Kaady was 27 when Officer William Bergin of the Sandy Police Department and Deputy David Willard of the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office shot him a total of seven times.
When the officers encountered him, Kaady was unarmed, naked and bleeding after smashing his car on a rural road.
The suit claims officers should have spoken calmly to Kaady, letting him know medical help was on the way. “The law enforcement officers instead treated him in a hostile manner, ordering him to lay on the hot pavement on the burned skin that was hanging off his torso, shooting him in the back with the high charges of electric shock from the taser weapons,” the lawsuit states.
After being stunned, Kaady started running around, eventually to the top of a patrol car, where he reportedly yelled at officers.
“When it appeared he was going to jump off the car at me, I fired,” Willard said, according to a transcript of an interview he gave to investigators in 2005.
In the official police report, a detective said Kaady’s behavior before the shooting may have been caused by “excited delirium,” a condition associated with illegal drug use, mental illness or injury.
Kaady’s family thinks his behavior was caused by the shock of being badly burned.
A grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing on the part of Bergin and Willard.
Bergin, in an unrelated matter, resigned from the force last month, shortly before he was indicted on charges of identity theft, official misconduct and misuse of a license.
_____
As economy tanks, Ore. Army recruiting gets easier
By ZACK HALL
The (Bend) Bulletin
BEND— The military recruiting station near the Bend River Promenade should not be confused with the hustle and bustle of a department store on Black Friday.
But the U.S. Army, the largest branch of the armed forces, is seeing more traffic at its office these days than when the economy was humming and violence in Iraq was peaking.
Helped by declining violence in Iraq and an economic downturn that has driven up the Central Oregon jobless rate, Army recruiters appear now to be ahead of their recruitment goals.
“We had a hard time throughout Oregon and California” before the downturn, says Charles Glenn, a civilian advertising and public affairs specialist for the Army’s Portland Recruiting Battalion.
“Command as a whole has been making their (recruiting quotas) pretty regularly. But it was certainly much more difficult a year or two ago than it is now.”
Bend recruiters have signed up 17 Central Oregonians to the regular Army or Army Reserves during the last two months, meeting their quotas each month, Glenn says.
And the Portland Battalion will likely meet its quarterly recruitment goals well before the quarter ends, Glenn adds.
It should not be a surprise. The military historically has had an easier time recruiting in times of recession.
“Things have been improving gradually since last summer,” Glenn says. “There are two schools of thought about that, but generally the one that seems to be the most accurate, year in and year out, is that the economy really is the driving force behind it. We generally do better in times when ... the economy is in this kind of state. The more options people have, the more chance that they are going to do something else.”
Glenn also credits the Army’s marketing efforts. The Army has put a heavy emphasis on job training it offers, which is applicable to more than 150 career routes.
Job training is what interested Lane Tucker, a 19-year-old from Redmond who graduated from Redmond High School in 2007.
Tucker, a criminal justice major at Central Oregon Community College, is seriously considering joining the military because it will help him pay for college when he has finished his military service and help train him for his planned law enforcement career.
Through the military’s GI Bill, a veteran can receive money for tuition and fees up to the most expensive in-state public university, a monthly housing allowance, as well as money for books and supplies. How much depends on how long a veteran served in the military. But if someone serves at least three years, the military covers 100 percent of all expenses.
“(Enlisting) has always been in the back of my mind,” Tucker said. “But when I found out how much it helps in becoming a law enforcement officer, I made the decision to explore my options in the military.”
The local recruiters for the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy have had an easier time than the Army making their goals in recent years.
The U.S. Marine Corps’ Portland Recruiting Station, which includes Bend, has met its recruiting goals for 130 consecutive months, says Marine spokesman Sgt. Chris Berryman.
“We have not yet (seen a boost in recruiting) at this level, but (a boost is) what is being reported from the Pentagon level,” says Berryman, adding that because the Marines count only recruits who pass boot camp, their recruitment data tend to lag by about three months. “We’ve been meeting our quotas for quite a long time, so the downturn hasn’t really affected us at this level,” he said.
The Navy has reached its nationwide recruiting goals every year since 2000, says Elizabeth Allen, a public affairs officer for the Navy Recruiting District Portland.
But Allen says the Navy has seen an uptick in Central Oregon.
“Our recruiting numbers in Central Oregon have shown a slow, steady rise over the last year, but in Oregon as a whole, they have stayed basically the same,” Allen says.
Bend’s Air Force recruiters could not be reached for comment.
Recruiters expect to be selective about the potential recruits they accept.
The Army, for example, wants people who have passed a physical test, meet certain moral requirements, score well on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery — a test every military recruit must take, have no criminal convictions and have earned a high school diploma.
“It’s not just number of recruits but reaching its number of high-quality enlistees,” Glenn says. “Those are the guys and girls we are going after, first and foremost. And right now, this battalion is on track to meet our mission for the quarter before we get to the end of the quarter. We are doing quite well.”
Enlisted members of the military earn base salaries between $1,246 per month to start (Army privates, and Air Force E-1s) and nearly $1,600 for an Army private first class. And all four major branches have allowances for room and board, and medical benefits are not included in those base salaries.
But with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military can still be a dangerous way to make a living.
That’s why the Army has stepped up its efforts to include family members in the decision-making process, says Maj. Michael Firmin of the Portland Army Recruiting Battalion.
“We want to make sure that parents understand the decision that their young adult is making,” Firmin says. “That is what we are really focused on. The Army is a big decision. We offer the career training and everything else, but we want to make sure that families are involved in the process.”
____
Arizona ruling revives lawsuits over research
By PAUL DAVENPORT
Associated Press Writer
PHOENIX — A court ruling issued Friday revives lawsuits filed by Havasupai Indians who allege that university researchers misused blood samples taken from members of the northern Arizona tribe whose isolated village lies deep in a gorge off the Grand Canyon.
Overturning a judge’s 2007 ruling dismissing the cases, a split Arizona Court of Appeals panel said the Havasupai and other plaintiffs had provided enough information to proceed toward a trial.
The cases stem from research conducted with blood samples taken from more than 200 tribal members for diabetes research in the 1990s. That research, which had been requested by a tribal member, concluded that diabetes among Havasupai was not related to genetics.
However, Arizona State University and University of Arizona researchers also used the blood samples for research into schizophrenia, inbreeding and ancient population migration.
Tribal officials complained in 2003 after learning of the additional research. They filed pre-litigation claims and then lawsuits after they didn’t get satisfaction when they met with university representatives.
The Havasupai claimed that the additional research was conducted without permission and that university officials and researchers invaded tribal members’ privacy, betrayed the tribe’s trust and misrepresented what researchers had done with blood samples and subsequent research results.
As a result, some tribal members now worry about violation of their religious beliefs and fear seeking medical attention, attorneys for Havasupai have argued.
Attorneys for the university system and individual researchers have argued that tribal members supplied the blood samples voluntarily and that there is legitimate public interest in data that can advance disease research.
They also have argued that the claims didn’t provide enough information to allow the 2004 filing of lawsuits against the state and its sub-units under Arizona law.
Lawyers for the Havasupai argued that they provided as much information as they could. They said some damages remained unknown when the claims were filed because university officials had stonewalled requests for details of all that was done with the blood samples and subsequent research.
However, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge in 2007 ruled that the plaintiffs’ claims fell short of what was required. The judge granted motions for summary judgment filed on behalf of the university system and researchers.
But the Court of Appeals panel said in Friday’s 2-1 ruling that the claims either had enough information for the lawsuits to go to trial or at least enough to go forward in trial court pending further proceedings.
The purpose of the claim requirement is to put the state or its subdivision on notice so public officials can reasonably gauge the state’s potential legal exposure and knowledgeably consider whether to accept or reject a settlement offer, the court’s ruling said.
“The injury that naturally flows from the purported invasion of privacy invasions set for in the tribe’s two notice-of-claim letters is necessarily subjective, deeply personal and may not be quantifiable except by a jury,” Judge Diane Johnsen for the two-judge majority. Judge Ann A. Scott Timmer joined in Johnsen’s opinion.
Judge Jon W. Thompson dissented, writing the pre-lawsuit claims didn’t provide enough information on the damages sought.
“The notices do not say what worries, fears and distress were suffered by whom and to what degree these harms were suffered,” he wrote.
The tribe asked for $50 million in its pre-litigation claim. The claim for individuals who filed the other separate lawsuit sought $10 million.
———
The cases are Havasupai Tribe vs. Arizona Board of Regents, 1 CA-CV 07-0454, and Tilousi vs. Arizona Board of Regents, 1 CA-CV 07-0801.
