Officers were dispatched to a cathedral in the 1700 block of NW Davis Street just before 3:30 a.m. after receiving reports someone was breaking things and throwing objects through windows from inside the church. Upon their arrival, PPB officers discovered a man holding a box cutter or type razor blade, yelling at one of the resident church pastors.
The pastor was unable to calm the man down and eventually fled outside to police who had surrounded the building by then. A K9 unit helped officers with searching the church and eventually the suspect tried to escape out an exit and was quickly apprehended and arrested
Judging by the nature of the event and the booking photo, I took it to be the act of a homeless lunatic, of which we have many.
Today Andy Ngo’s Post Millennial reports the perpetrator has been involved in antifa violence before and that it was a Catholic Church–something local news station KOIN left out (describing the rector there as a “pastor”)–that may have drawn attention for a demonstration described as an “exorcism” of the city’s political violence.
A cathedral in Portland was broken into and vandalized on Ash Wednesday by an armed intruder known for previously attending local Black Lives Matter-Antifa protests.
On Feb. 17 around 3:30 a.m., Portland Police responded to an emergency call regarding a burglary in progress at St. Mary’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in northwest Portland. A suspect identified as Christopher Lee Colletta, 44, was arrested. He’s accused of vandalism and throwing property outside the historic church’s smashed stained glass windows…
The Post Millennial can report that Colletta previously attended a BLM-Antifa riot in August last year where he was hit with a rubber munition by police at one point.
According to the police report, Colletta wielded a “box cutter type” of blade in the rectory, where a clergyman tried to speak with him. The rector at St. Mary’s Cathedral told the Catholic Sentinel about his interaction with Colletta.
Monsignor Gerard O’Connor says he was awakened by the sound of screaming and was joined by two Portland-area clerics who had spent the night at the rectory after losing power at their parish homes due to the heavy snow storm. He tried to calm the suspect but failed. He met police outside the church.
The PM fills in a bit more left out of the local report
Monsignor Gerard O’Connor says he was awakened by the sound of screaming and was joined by two Portland-area clerics who had spent the night at the rectory after losing power at their parish homes due to the heavy snow storm. He tried to calm the suspect but failed. He met police outside the church.
“The Portland Police get a lot of criticism, but they were uber professional and kind,” he said.
A police K9 unit assisted officers with searching the church and finding Colletta. The suspect allegedly tried to escape through a back exit but was arrested by officers stationed outside.
Colletta was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center on charges of felony burglary, felony criminal mischief, interfering with an officer and resisting arrest. Colletta was released the following day on pretrial supervision.ADs
During the height of nightly riots by BLM-Antifa in Portland last year, Colletta took to Facebook to complain that he was hit in the ribs with a rubber munition by police on Aug. 22. That night, hundreds of Antifa rioted outside a police station in southeast Portland and assaulted police.
Colletta was also convicted of felony criminal mischief for an unrelated break-in incident last year. He was only given 18 months probation.
St. Mary’s Cathedral is the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland. The cathedral’s clergy performed the rite of exorcism for the city last year in response to months of riots.
That rite may have of course drawn antifa attention.
I’ve seen some evidence antifa is turning their attention to local churches. One of their number recently tweeted they should be forcing churches to open their doors during cold weather. Recently one of the more “progressive” churches in the area (and that’s pretty damn progressive) has boarded up:
Virtually every church in the downtown area–and we have some lovely old churches–are now thoroughly down with the progressive vision, adorned in rainbow flags or black lives matter propaganda.
Portland District Attorney Mike Schmidt took office early in Portland’s summer of rioting. One of his first acts was to drop most charges against rioters.
Schmidt was surrounded by four Black leaders from Portland who are part of his 15-person transition team, a rare display of public collaboration between community members and a Multnomah County district attorney, especially one just days into his new job.
Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, leaning on a group of community representatives he called his transition team, announced Tuesday that his office will drop most of the charges filed against protesters in Portland…
His prosecutors won’t pursue demonstrators accused of interfering with police, disorderly conduct, criminal trespass, escape or harassment if the allegations don’t involve “deliberate’’ property damage, theft or force against another person or threats of force, Schmidt said.
He’s kept his word in only prosecuting the most egregious acts of violence.
In January 2019 Oregon passed Senate Bill 577 expanding the definition of “bias crimes” and requiring our Department of Justice to maintain a database of them along with recorded “bias incidents“, which, at the moment, aren’t illegal.
“Bias incident” means a person’s hostile expression of animus toward another person, relating to the other person’s perceived race, color, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or national origin, of which criminal investigation or prosecution is impossible or inappropriate.
“Bias incident” does not include any incident in which probable cause
of the commission of a crime is established by the investigating law enforcement officer.
One wonders if this includes giving someone the wrong look, which is after all an expression.
The first concessions to the police abolitionist rioters last summer included gouging the police budget and disbanding the city’s gun violence team for racial profiling. No debate regarding its effectiveness was even humored; it was enough the police were “targeting” black gunslingers. The subsequent increase in violence suggests it was in fact effective in taking the most violent off the street (and saving the lives of other, lesser thugs along with everyone else).
The other demand capitulated to immediately by Mayor Ted Wheeler was the removal of Portland cops from the Transit Division, which, along with other law enforcement agencies, patrols our mass transit. As with the gun unit, no debate around the effectiveness of the division; disparate impact was enough. Wheeler insisted the safety of passengers would not be compromised because crime victims can still “call 911”. Response times for 911 calls have gone up, of course, as police are increasingly understaffed due to budget cuts, demoralized cops taking retirement or leaving for other, less hostile municipalities or leaving the profession entirely and, no doubt, what Steve Sailer calls the “retreat to the donut shop”.
The present obsession of the abolitionist forces is the homeless and mentally ill; they seek to eliminate all contact between homeless and mentally and the police, and the city still operates under a US Department of Justice consent decree after a “pattern and practice” finding declared the police were violating the civil rights of the homeless (now described as “houseless”, which is somehow less offensive).
It is in this context I considered a recent conviction announced by Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt.
February 21, 2021
PORTLAND, Ore. – Today, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt announced that 51-year-old Thomas DeLong received an 18-month prison sentence for committing a bias crime.
This case was prosecuted by Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney BJ Park.
DeLong pleaded guilty to one count of bias crime in the first degree, one count of menacing, and one count of disorderly conduct in the second degree…
The victim of the bias crime is African American and works for TriMet as a transit supervisor. In addition to the prison sentence, DeLong will be on five years of formal probation and three years of post-prison supervision. Part of the probation conditions include having no presence on any TriMet property, having no contact with the victim, and undergoing a drug/alcohol/mental health evaluation.
Eight years in the system for a mentally ill man who happened to call someone the dread word “nigger” as he chased him.
“I’ve been in suspended animation for decades and I’m ready to get back to doing evil. First order of business, let’s gain control of the newspapers and television so we can take over America.”
“Done long ago sir. And wait til you hear about this social media thing–you’re going to love cancel culture.”
“Well then, let’s use these media weapons to contrive a plot involving Russians, computers and spies, so we can take over America.”
“We tried that. Blew up in our faces.”
“I’ve got it. We’ll create a global pandemic, crush the economy, loot the Treasury and take over America.”
“We’re already on it. Initially looked promising but the virus we released didn’t quite have the legs.”
“Oh hell, let’s just do what we always do, get the negroes angry, set them loose, hold the nation hostage and take over America. Okay? Good.”
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A domestic violence call in the early hours of Friday quickly escalated when the suspect allegedly used an infant as a shield after crashing his car and confronting Multnomah County deputies.
The incident began around 1:15 a.m. when a woman called for help after being physically assaulted at a home near Powell Butte Nature Park, officials said. The woman also said that in her effort to escape she left her 3-month-old baby behind and she feared for the child’s safety.
The suspect, Zaday Atenogenes Rojas, was believed to also have weapons, authorities said. Deputies was his red Ford SUV speeding away from the scene. As it did, he crashed into another car and a snowbank in the 17400 block of SE Franklin Court.
Rojas allegedly had the infant on his lap and refused to surrender. Instead he got out of his car and held the infant as a shield. Eventually, deputies were able to rescue the infant and arrest Rojas, the sheriff’s office said.
Some domestic violence calls will be taken over now by the city’s brand-new Portland Street Response Team, sending four social workers with a paramedic to mental health calls. The program is in its pilot phase in the Lents neighborhood, and is a first step in the police abolitionists’ goal of eliminating or taking over police functions.
The Portland Street Response team is now responding to calls, beginning in the Lents neighborhood after a month of training and walking the area to introduce themselves.
The team said they were dispatched to a report of a woman yelling in the street along with some other calls on Tuesday.
Mayor Ted Wheeler, Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and PF&R Rescue Division Chief Ryan Gillespie held an afternoon press conference to introduce the Portland Response Team and answer questions about it. Wheeler said the program is good for both first responders and the homeless community.
“They deserve our support and access to appropriate treatment. That means sending the right responders to the right place at the right time,” Wheeler said. “Others will benefit, too. Every time Portland Street Response is dispatched, fire[fighters] and police are freed up to respond to Portland’s other pressing needs.”
At the outset, the team includes 5 people: a program manager, a firefighter/paramedic, a mental health clinician and 2 community health workers. They’ll be available 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. A second team will be added to cover nights and weekends in 6 months. The program will continue to expand in 2022 to cover more of the city.
What could go wrong?
Gunplay is out of control since the summer riots and the city’s immediate abandonment of its Gun Violence Reduction Team. The GVRT is the same “gun” or “gang” unit model seen in other cities and coming under the axe wherever the abolitionists have the means, because they “target” the black community, by going where the crime is. Ted Wheeler tried resurrecting it but gave up quickly when he saw he had no allies in the effort–despite the clear connection between our new “reimagined” policing and violence. So our petty mandarins get away with citing Covid:
Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who was the driving force behind the vote to dissolve the Portland Police Bureau’s Gun Violence Reduction Team last July, also believes the increase in gun crimes is related to COVID-19. The GVRT came under fire for allegedly targeting members of the Black community. City councilors cut the GVRT, along with $15 million from the PPB’s budget for the next fiscal year.
Enhanced Community Safety Team (ECST). At the direction of Mayor Wheeler, PPB is implementing this plan to address gun violence in our city. The ECST is an investigative team which falls under the Investigations Branch of PPB. The team is composed of three sergeants, 12 officers and six detectives that will focus full-time on the investigation of shootings.
The assigned personnel will primarily be from the existing assault detail, so many of those on the team are experienced investigators and have been doing this work for months or even years. Before now, the Assault Detail has been investigating these shooting cases, making arrests and forwarding cases to the Multnomah County District Attorney (MCDA). The DA announced recently that his office is moving forward on 26 gun violence related cases, including two homicides ( https://www.mcda.us/index.php/news/district-attorney-mike-schmidt-announces-26-gun-violence-related-case-filed-in-the-first-18-days-of-february/ ).
This team also will work collaboratively with other partners including the MCDA, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Multnomah County Parole and Probation, the Portland Office of Violence Prevention, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and investigative units from neighboring law enforcement agencies.
The gang unit model arose from the realization a small hardcore of young men are responsible for the bulk of violence in their neighborhoods, at the center of the personal pride matrix that is the cause of most shootings. Taking the hardest heads off the street disrupts these idiot networks of offense.
The Portland Police Bureau hopes to narrow the investigative focus on repeat shooters who are responsible for many of these gunfire incidents. The goal is to take those responsible off the street and reduce the disturbing trend of gun violence in our neighborhoods.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — One man was arrested following an attempted burglary of a church in Portland Wednesday morning, according to the Portland Police Bureau.
Officers were dispatched to a cathedral in the 1700 block of NW Davis Street just before 3:30 a.m. after receiving reports someone was breaking things and throwing objects through windows from inside the church. Upon their arrival, PPB officers discovered a man holding a box cutter or type razor blade, yelling at one of the resident church pastors.
The pastor was unable to calm the man down and eventually fled outside to police who had surrounded the building by then. A K9 unit helped officers with searching the church and eventually the suspect tried to escape out an exit and was quickly apprehended and arrested.
Police charged the man with burglary. Though it sounds more like a demon infestation. Imagine the sight of a church with various religious implements crashing out the stained glass windows from inside.
A grocery store in Portland lost power during the recent snowstorm and tossed out its perishables as unsafe. The word went out to antifa on social media and a crowd soon descended on the dumpster. Portland Police Bureau:
On February 16, 2021, at about 4:00p.m., a call came in at a grocery store in the 3000 block of Northeast Weidler Street regarding a group of people arguing with employees and refusing to leave the property. The power was out and employees were discarding spoiled food. People in the crowd took exception to their work. Initially, no officers were available to respond.
At about 4:17 p.m., an employee called back because they felt the situation was escalating and feared there may be a physical confrontation. The crowd grew to about 20 people and the employee calling wanted police to remove the people from store property. At about 4:30p.m., North Precinct officers arrived and gathered information from the store representative.
The position of the employees of the store was that the food was spoiled and required to be disposed of due to lack of refrigeration. The food was unfit for consumption or donation. Officers also tried to explain this to the group of people. No subject in the crowd was willing to have an open dialogue with the officers and continued to shout insults at them and store employees.
As it was private property, the officers asked the group to leave store property or risk potential arrest for trespassing. People in the crowd slowly moved away. Officers’ interest in this call was to preserve peace, prevent violence, and restore order. Officers estimated the crowd grew to about 50 people.
Between about 5:05p.m. and 5:15p.m., there were the most officers on scene. One lieutenant, one sergeant, six officers, and three trainees (who were there with their training officers). Most were there for about 10 minutes. Three officers (plus one trainee) were there for the duration of the call, which lasted about an hour.
Antifa and most media outlets reported the scene as police “guarding a dumpster” of food, when in fact they were called by store staff because the mob was threatening employees who had been given that miserable task–trying to keep antifa scroungers from distributing spoiled food.
Apparently in Portland, now, you only get one distress call a night, if it involves antifa
Officers left the scene once they believed parties were separated and there was no longer any threat of harm. After officers left, employees called to report people in the crowd moved back onto store property and were confronting employees again. Store employees reported that people in the crowd were making threatening statements to them. Police supervisors decided that unless there was an imminent threat to life or threat of serious injury, police would remain away. Police did not return to the scene.
On Tuesday, February 16, 2021, a Portland Police officer assigned to Central Precinct took two burglary reports from storage units in northwest Portland. Through the officer’s investigation he zeroed in on a suspect, later identified as 35-year-old Travis J. Hendon.
On Wednesday, February 17, 2021, the same officer, accompanied by another officer, followed up on these burglaries. Their follow up led them to north Portland, where they spotted Mr. Hendon driving a white SUV in the Kenton neighborhood. Moments later, Mr. Hendon crashed the SUV into a small boat, parked near a house near North Hunt Street and North Drummond Avenue. Officers found Mr. Hendon on foot in a yard close to the crash, and arrested him.
A victim is in the hospital after a shooting in the Portsmouth Neighborhood.
On Thursday, February 18, 2021 at 1:35p.m., North Precinct officers were dispatched to a report of shots fired in the 3800 block of North Alaska Street. When they arrived they located evidence of gunfire. There was no victim found but they learned that someone may have been hurt and left the scene before officers were called.
At about 2:58p.m., officers were notified that someone with a gunshot wound was being treated at a hospital for a serious gunshot injury. It is believed to be related to the shooting call.
No arrests have been made.
Portsmouth remains in the pack well behind the heavy hitters with only 551 total offenses reported; Hazelwood continues to dominate, having reported 3,871 offenses to win the last year (Dec 2019 to Dec 2020). Nearby Lents (2,152; home of the Street Response program’s pilot efforts), Centennial (2,230) and Powellhurst-Gilbert (2,445) remain contenders for this year’s crown.
According to Prosecutor John Livingston, Doris had accused Lancaster, who is a pensioner in her 60s, of bumping her handbasket against her son’s head while inside the Tesco Express in nearby Warwick Way.
Livingston said Doris yelled at her:
“You’ve met the wrong woman, you white bitch.”
'Pimlico Pusher', 40, is spared jail for shoving female pensioner towards moving bus after Tesco Express row Amelia Doris, 40, was caught on CCTV attacking Linda Lancaster in May 2018 Attacked her in Vauxhall Bridge Road, central London, while with a small child pic.twitter.com/OSBELclmTz
A convicted sex offender allegedly raped a woman on Long Island before returning to her home two days later in clown makeup to commit burglary, prosecutors said.
Joseph Johnson, 33, of Wyandanch, was indicted Wednesday for his alleged crime spree last September, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy Sini.
Johnson is accused of first breaking into several cars near the Wyandanch train station last Sept. 19. Later that day, he allegedly broke into a home, raped and choked a woman and fled with stolen cash, prosecutors said.
The homeowner installed surveillance cameras, which captured Johnson back at the home two days later in clown makeup.
The surveillance system was also damaged that day, officials said.
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, Manhattan (WABC) — A man was arrested and charged Sunday in connection with a string of subway attacks that left two people dead.
Police say 21-year-old Rigoberto Lopez is charged with murder and attempted murder in four separate attacks on the A subway line.
Authorities say when they caught him, he still had a knife in his possession and was wearing the same clothing he was seen in on surveillance video.
Police said Lopez is likely homeless, his last known address is a homeless shelter in Brooklyn.
Deputy Chief Brian McGee said the attacks were unprovoked, and the victims did not initiate anything. He also said that Lopez was previously hospitalized for mental illness.
The crimes are just the latest in a string of violence in the subway across the city.
In Saturday’s violence, officials investigated four total incidents, two of which were fatal, of stabbings and slashings that occurred on A line subway trains in less than 24 hours between Friday at 11:20 a.m. and Saturday at 1:28 a.m.
Officials say a man was found with numerous stab wounds to his neck and torso onboard an A train around 11:30 p.m. Friday night stopped at the Mott Avenue subway station in Far Rockaway, Queens.
EMS arrived and pronounced the unidentified victim dead at the scene.
A registered sex offender from Philadelphia has been arrested in connection with human body parts that were found in the back of a U-haul truck and inside a burglarized home, including deep-fried hands and feet.
Taray Herring, 47, was arraigned on Saturday on abuse of a corpse and burglary charges, as well as counts of criminal trespass, theft, and evidence-tampering. He was ordered held without bail…
Although the victim has not been officially named, neighbors have identified him as 70-year-old Peter Gerold, who they say ran a massage therapy practice out of his home on Sanibel Street.
Police said that on Wednesday, someone from a out of state called them, asking to perform a welfare check on Garold. Officers arrived at the residence but did not force their way inside because the home seemed secure and there were no signs of a break-in.
After interviewing Herring, police found body parts inside Garold’s unattached garage and evidence that someone had tried to burn the remains.
Neighbors described Garold as a kind person who shared honey from his beehives with them, and who was known for offering work to random people seeking to make some money.
They said they had not seen him for about a week and had grown concerned for his well-being.
‘He helped out a lot of people, so you know it was somebody that he probably helped out at one point that came back and did this to him,’ one neighbor told CBS Philly.
Prentice Earl Sanders, first black police chief of San Francisco, died last month. Appointed by Mayor Willie Brown, his term failed to rise to its historical promise
…most people associate with Earl Sanders’ brief and generally un-noteworthy 14-month tenure as the city’s top cop is the Fajitagate scandal. He and most of his command staff were indicted for — and later absolved of — covering up a police probe of a 2002 street brawl, allegedly over a bag of fajitas, involving three young off-duty cops. Obstruction of justice charges were later dropped and Sanders obtained a rare factual finding of innocence from a Superior Court judge. Fajitagate wasn’t his only problem at the time. The year after the scandal broke, a U.S. District Court judge released two African-Americans that Sanders and an old partner in homicide allegedly framed for murder. By the time he retired in September 2003, after six months of medical leave, his reputation was in tatters. He’d been trashed in the local press. Detractors openly mocked the leave as a sympathy ploy despite his having suffered a minor stroke. Even his one-time patron, and the man who appointed him, former Mayor Willie Brown, asked him to quit.
One of the drunken cops, who beat and robbed a pair of citizens for their fajita order, was the son of the mayor’s newly appointed assistant chief of police.
The case may have been botched by District Attorney Terrence Hallinan when he used it as a pretext to go scorched earth on the cops. From a New Yorker interview with Jeffrey Toobin:
When the cases started to fall apart, Hallinan tried to portray the case as that of a runaway grand jury. But he seems to have been pretty enthusiastic about the case until the court pointed out that there was precious little evidence. In one of the more bizarre scenes I’ve ever recounted, Hallinan gave the grand jurors a partially blank indictment and let them fill in the names of the people they thought should be charged. So the grand jury added the chief of police, Earl Sanders, and six other high-ranking cops. With at least a wink and a nod, Hallinan seems to have supported the grand jury’s action. But Hallinan’s case against the higher-ups quickly fell apart, and he seems to have failed rather dramatically to make the case that there were many rogue cops in the department.
Notably someone like Toobin was still allowed to be objective and reasonable regarding the police in this 2007 interview, in a way we may never see allowed again:
Is this a department that has traditionally had problems with brutality, or with corruption, or with nepotism? In other words, was this systemic?
Almost certainly not. The S.F.P.D. is known as a rather laid-back police department, not surprisingly, given the history of San Francisco. It does not have a history of brutality, like the Los Angeles Police Department, or a history of corruption, like the New York Police Department. There was a small, rogue tradition in the S.F.P.D., which apparently coincided with the popularity of the Dirty Harry movies. (Movie buffs will recall that Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan was a San Francisco detective.) One reason everyone was so shocked by this story is that there is not much history of corruption or brutality within the S.F.P.D.
The allegation was that Alex Fagan, Sr., the assistant chief of the department, and his colleagues at the top were trying to protect his son, Alex, Jr., who was one of the three assailants at the bar. The District Attorney tried to make the case that there was cronyism and nepotism in the department, and I think it’s safe to say that he failed rather completely in this effort.
Hallinan the District Attorney in the case, who passed away in 2020, was a fist-fighting radical who also served on the city council, losing his first election to Harvey Milk in 1977 and his last, for DA, to Kamala Harris in 2004.
Harris herself felt the years-after reverberations of one of Sanders’ more serious scandals in her campaign for president.
Notoriously, one of her final acts as San Francisco DA was to send the case of Caramad Conley, now 50, back to trial after he had been cleared of the 1989 double murder of Charles Hughes and Roshawn Johnson…
When Harris finally left to take up her position as California’s Attorney General, her successor’s first act was to release Conley from jail.
Conley’s was one of two murder convictions later overturned because of misconduct by then-detective Earl Sanders and his partner; their other 298 murder convictions I’m sure were entirely on the level. Chief Sanders got out of Dodge with the third biggest pension in the state upon retiring in 2003. The city settled two of his wrongful conviction lawsuits and lumbered on under a federal consent decree for a discrimination lawsuit in which Sanders was instrumental (see below). The Conley Case made the list of purported prosecutorial excess that helped sink Harris’ presidential run:
A judge vacated Conley’s conviction in December 2010 after “voluminous” evidence that the witness had lied was presented. At the time, Harris was San Fran’s district attorney and her office sought to retry the case.
A month after she left to become state attorney general, Harris’ former office dropped its effort and he later received $3.5 million in settlement money from the city for being wrongly convicted.
Sanders resurfaced in San Francisco in 2007 promoting a memoir (link added):
The Zebra Murders, co-written with TV and film scriptwriter Bennett Cohen, purports to set the record straight about the investigation into a series of racially motivated serial killings in 1973 and 1974 that are among the most horrific — and least talked about — crimes in San Francisco history. But even his friends acknowledge that the book is also an attempt by the city’s first and only African-American police chief to set his own record straight.
Sanders, it turns out, had been assigned to the Zebra Murders detail briefly, doing nothing of significance. The book pads that with Sanders’ history as an activist cop and his association with a landmark ruling establishing affirmative action for the city’s police, and boilerplate about racism’s ultimate responsibility for it all. The cover blurb was shameless:
On October 20, 1973, in San Francisco, a white couple strolling down Telegraph Hill was set upon and butchered by four young black men. Thus began a reign of terror that lasted six months and left fifteen whites dead and the entire city in a state of panic. The perpetrators wanted nothing less than a race war.
With pressure on the San Francisco Police Department mounting daily, young homicide detectives Prentice Earl Sanders and his colleague Rotea Gilford—both African-American—were as- signed to the cases. The problem was: Sanders and Gilford were in the midst of a trail-blazing suit against the SFPD for racial discrimination, which in those days was rampant. The backlash was immediate. The force needed Sanders’s and Gilford’s knowledge of the black community to help stem the brutal murders, but the SFPD made it known that in a tight situation, no white back- up would be forthcoming. In those impossible conditions—the oppressive white power structure on one hand, the violent black radicals on the other—Sanders and Gilford knew they were sitting ducks. Against all odds, they set out to find those guilty of the Zebra Murders and bring them to justice. This is their incredible story.
Sanders was roused to right historical wrongs by an aspiring screenwriter.
Sanders’ involvement with the book came about as the result of an unsolicited phone call from Cohen in 2002 while he was assistant chief of police. As a Los Angeles scriptwriter and occasional producer, Cohen was looking for a true-crime story to pitch as a feature film. He contacted Sanders on a hunch after recalling the Zebra killings, which had occurred when Cohen was a young UC Berkeley drama student.
Cohen says that almost everything he had read about the murders suggested that there were no black detectives involved in solving the cases, something he thought to be odd considering the black-on-white nature of the crimes. An Internet search turned up the names of Sanders and Gilford.
The call was music to Sanders’ ears.
That music goes ca ching.
“I always wanted to set the record straight and put the entire period of racial unrest in a context that’s been missing whenever the subject of the murders gets brought up,” says the former police chief.
But Sanders wasn’t a writer. Then, just as it seemed he would never get his chance to “set the record straight,” he got the call from Cohen out of the blue. In Cohen, who had set out looking for an African-American protagonist for a movie project, Sanders found the perfect writing partner. In Sanders, Cohen discovered a legendary black cop with a great back story.
And someone who, as police chief of San Francisco, had access to the Zebra Murders case files. Sanders entered office having already contracted with Cohen and he set to work, on the book.
After being appointed chief in July 2002, Sanders had eight boxes of materials related to the Zebra killings removed from police archives and brought to his office in the Hall of Justice. The boxes constituted an untapped treasure. They contained material the cops had assembled about the murders but that the district attorney’s office did not require in prosecuting the three Zebra killers it brought to trial, including material related to several suspects who were never charged for lack of evidence.
But Sanders says he and Cohen never got to examine most of the boxes.
During his hectic first months as chief there wasn’t time, he says. In November 2002, as he and Cohen were preparing to dig into the boxes, the Fajitagate scandal erupted. Upon his retirement in September 2003 (at which point, due to the medical leave, he hadn’t been to the office in six months) the SFPD packed up Sanders’ personal effects and shipped them to his home in Folsom.
Cohen the drama school student managed to sell rights to the script to Mandate Pictures (soon after bought by Lionsgate). The Zebra project was listed as “announced” on IMDB in 2007 shortly after the book’s release. Dreamworks was mentioned vaguely; Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B was said to be interested; Jaime Foxx, fresh off of Django Unchained, was suggested for the lead.
None of this means the film was anywhere near being made; IMDB explains terms:
Announced: Films in early development based on confirmed details released by the studio and/or production company. There’s a reasonable expectation more information about the talent and crew will be known in the future. However, many in the industry believe about one out of every 30 projects announced gets made.
Mandate listed it for a time as “untitled Matthew Carnahan Crime Project”; Carnahan’s a screenwriter whose more successful brother Joe makes tough guy films like Narc,Smokin’ Acesand The Grey.
Carnahan described it as a “great, little story” that got “lost in the miasma” of the sixties:
“The two cops that were instrumental in catching these six guys were African American themselves, in the middle of being as infuriated and frustrated and pissed off for all the same reasons and all the same causes these guys from the Nation of Islam were.”
I read about this all at the time almost welcoming the film’s unlikely escape from development limbo, and now I wonder if it, lurking out there in a Lovecraftian fashion, may be released by the current spirit of Racial Reconciliation.
B movie director William Girdler produced a film so loosely based on the murders it was alternately named “Combat Cops” and “Panic City”, casting the killer as a white man in blackface hunted by a black hero; the poster quotes him appraising a murder scene: “black men don’t kill like this”.
As a young police recruit Sanders did well on his entrance exams and rose quickly through the ranks despite, more likely because of, his early political activism. He and his first partner both became Willie Brown cronies, though Brown soured on Sanders before the wheels came off during his tenure.
Willie Brown was plaintiff’s attorney in the case that would make Earl Sanders’ career. Sanders, who would eventually work as a professional witness in criminal cases played that role in the landmark discrimination lawsuit brought in 1973 against the city by a group of black cops calling themselves Officers for Justice. San Francisco’s police union joined the city’s defense against OFP’s suit.
At the time of the Zebra killings the leader of the OFP was Nation of Islam member and cop Jesse Byrd. During the investigation Byrd led efforts against the frank program of racial profiling the city attempted and had to abandon under legal challenge–stopping all black males fitting a description and even handing out cards clearing them once they’ve checked out. Humorously, it was a thoroughly “racist” ploy by the cops that eventually broke the case; one of the lead detectives had a police artist sketch an average-looking black guy and then released it as a wanted suspect. One of the suspects thought it looked like him and panicked, turned himself in and identified the “Death Angel” serial killers operating out of Nation of Islam Temple 26.
During the investigation Jesse Byrd even approached one of the lead detectives and tried to get the location of that snitch–something Sanders brushed off in his weird book as innocuous. In Clark Howard’s Zebra, the only genuine history of the murders, he describes that as well as a scene where detectives hustled their suspect out the back of a motel as NOI members closed in. Nobody seems to have bothered Byrd about it.
Sanders’ no doubt coached role testifying to the department’s “racism” problem, almost fifty years ago, will be recognized instantly as the language and technique still being deployed today, spinning tales of racist flyers and jokes, ethnic-themed costume debauches and the necessity therefore to turn things inside out.
Despite this being the role that launched his career, Earl failed hilariously and miserably. No one outside the trial seemed to notice at the time, and the settlement came quickly despite it all, as if the trial were a formality. History, too, intervened.
The lawsuit was filed in April 1973, barely six months before the Zebra killings started. It began as a slam dunk for OFJ, with U.S. District Judge Robert Peckham issuing a preliminary order setting hiring quotas for minorities and ordering the Civil Service Commission to redress problems with its testing for police department hiring and promotion. (An unrelated lawsuit, affecting the San Francisco Fire Department, had just concluded with similar results.0
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As an articulate, experienced trial witness in police matters who had put himself through Golden Gate University to earn a master’s degree in public administration while serving as a homicide detective, Sanders was carefully chosen by Gnaizda to be the lead witness when the OFJ case, after years of pretrial wrangling, finally got its day in court.
As things turned out, he was OFJ’s only witness.
In testifying for parts of three days, Sanders told a compelling story of personal mistreatment while describing an atmosphere of epidemic racial intolerance among SFPD’s mostly white officers. The OFJ legal team had brought in a bulletin board from the homicide bureau where Sanders worked. It contained photos and drawings posted by officers portraying African-Americans and other minorities in unflattering ways. One such item, depicting Sanders, bore the caption, “Purse Snatch Detail.”
Cross-examined by then-Deputy City Attorney Ken Harrington, Sanders was asked if he had ever engaged in ethnic teasing while in the bureau. “No, sir. I don’t take part in that sort of thing,” he said. Pressed, Sanders responded, “No, sir. It is my policy not to engage in ethnic jokes, ethnic ribbing, with mixed [racial] company, because it has been my experience in the police department and throughout life that if you engage in those kinds of things, you leave yourself open to other people.” At the suggestion that such teasing was part of ordinary police camaraderie, Sanders shot back, “It is not part of the camaraderie that I participated in.” [page]
But there was a bombshell.
After Sanders’ first day on the stand, a patrolman phoned Harrington to say he had some items the deputy city attorney might be interested in. They were photos of racially provocative skits presented at an off-hours police soiree in the early ’70s. The bash had been put together by a group of cops who called themselves the Second Platoon, to commemorate their participation in helping to quell the 1968 student riots at San Francisco State University.
Among the photos was one of Sanders dressed in drag, as a black woman wearing a blond wig and playing the role of the wife in an interracial marriage. In another skit he was done up as an African witch doctor, holding a spear with a skeleton on the end, and with a tiger skin slung over his shoulder.
Whatever usefulness his earlier testimony may have served appeared to evaporate. Back on the witness stand, Sanders acknowledged that, as a member of the event’s entertainment committee, he had helped create the skits relying on racial and ethnic humor of the kind he had earlier criticized under oath. Court records reveal that other skits depicted an African-American male employed by the “Black Hand Janitorial Service,” and a lazy Latino male sitting under a cactus drinking tequila. In another, a Japanese-American cop provided an unflattering imitation of former SFSU President (and later, U.S. senator) S.I. Hayakawa.
“Sanders was absolutely destroyed” as a witness, says Harrington, now in private practice. He and Philip Ward, another deputy city attorney involved in the case, insist that the judge (who is now deceased) expressed as much in chambers after Sanders’ testimony and before placing the trial on an already planned recess. (It’s a recollection that Gnaizda does not share.) As best people can remember, Sanders’ courtroom meltdown didn’t attract a lot of media attention, perhaps because of something else that happened. The day he took the stand, the Jonestown massacre, the murder-suicide in the Guyana jungle that claimed the lives of hundreds of devotees from San Francisco’s Peoples Temple, dominated headlines.
During the break in the trial, newly resigned Supervisor Dan White slipped into City Hall and shot and killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, leaving the city in further turmoil. In early December, Peckham halted the proceedings. Citing the need for the city to heal its divisions, he urged the sides to settle the lawsuit. The result, months later, was the consent decree.
If Earl Sanders does get his movie, it should be a dark comedy.
In the heat of Portland’s 2020 summer of rioting a local activist named Bev Barnum, out of outrage or ambition or both, created the “Wall of Moms”, and the press gushed
In the flurry of videos and social media posts that have emerged from the protests in Portland, Ore., activist moms are everywhere. They sing lullabies. They link arm–in–arm, forming a human barricade between protesters and federal agents. Some wear respirators, gas masks and helmets. Some hand out sunflowers…
The “Wall of Moms,” as the group calls itself, formed after Beverley Barnum, who goes by “Bev,” 35, a mother of two in Portland, scrolled through social media posts one night in bed and saw videos of federal agents placing protesters in unmarked vehicles. Through a Facebook group, she rallied a few dozen moms who then showed up at a demonstration on the night of July 18.
Since then, the Wall of Moms has continued to protest nightly in Portland, with hundreds of women dressed in yellow to identify themselves as participants turning out. A Wall of Dads has also joined the front lines of the protests, many carrying leaf blowers to redirect the tear gas that federal agents have deployed.
The affective power of the mothers’ group singing lullabies and standing before the police relies on white women’s innocence and the sancitity of white motherhood as its driving force. It’s like, appropriating the discursive/social/political potency of the 14 Words for good. https://t.co/JO05TLmc3d
“When it first started we just thought—we didn’t know it was gonna get so big and everyone overwhelmed us with volunteerism,” says Jaclyn Pritchard, who is listed as secretary on the Wall of Moms legal paperwork. “So Bev and I just gave everyone who wanted to work on Facebook [admin] rights. And that was a huge mistake.”
Portland Wall of Moms, a group formed in recent weeks and quickly recognized as a staple of nightly downtown protests, was accused publicly Wednesday of “anti-Blackness” by leaders of an existing, Black-led community group.
Wall of Moms, whose members said they aimed to support and protect other Black Lives Matter protesters near the fence in front of the federal courthouse, announced Friday that its white leadership had rescinded their positions to allow women of color to be in charge. New leaders announced Friday include Teressa Raiford, executive director of Don’t Shoot Portland, Demetria Hester and Danialle James.
But less than a week later, Don’t Shoot Portland took to Instagram to urge people against supporting the Wall of Moms, saying that it was no longer working with the moms group…
The Wednesday post alleges that Wall of Moms founder Bev Barnum filed for business registrations without consulting the newly instated Black leaders and that the safety of Black members at the nightly protests in downtown Portland was overlooked.
The post said that issues of Black mothers’ safety have only come to light in the past 24 hours.
Barnum appeared to file three business registrations on Tuesday including one that makes The Wall of Moms a 501c3 nonprofit. Don’t Shoot Portland interpreted the filings to mean that Wall of Moms goal was to get federal officers out of Portland — not to support Black Lives Matter, according to the Instagram post. The newly instated Black leaders were not told about the registrations, according to the post.
Yesterday the scheme’s originator took to Twitter to say she’s being threatened by local blacks and is threatening to spill the beans.
Will somebody in the media contact this woman please?
Officers pull woman from bedroom window after she was shot multiple times in NE Portland
A woman was shot multiple times early Tuesday morning in Northeast Portland, police said.
The woman called 911 at 3:16 a.m. and told dispatch she woke up to gun fire coming into her bedroom at her home in the 5200 block of Northeast 91st Avenue. She said she’d been shot five times and was in her bed but couldn’t move. She also told dispatch that she had two pit bulls in the house.
Because of the dogs and because they had little time to act, the officers went into the victim’s bedroom through her window and removed her from the room so she could receive medical treatment. She was taken to the hospital. Police said they don’t know her medical status.
Portland police spokesperson Derek Carmon said already throughout January there had been about 100 shootings, including more than 27 non-fatal injuries and six gun-related homicides.
Drone on. Hillsboro police used a drone to capture a suspect hiding on a roof.
On 2-3-21 at about 2:50pm HPD officers arrested Alejandro Jaimes-Radilla / 33yrs. old who was wanted on felony charges. With the assistance of HPD K-9 Blazer and a drone from the Washington County Sheriff's Office we were able to locate Alejandro on the roof. @CityofHillsboropic.twitter.com/GfIxFUewDD
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A woman who was grabbed from behind when she got into the driver’s seat of her own car managed to escape, and her alleged assailant was quickly found and arrested by Tigard police.
Shortly after 7 p.m. Thursday, authorities said, the woman unlocked her car in a business complex in the 15300 block of SW Sequoia Parkway.
Once she got in a man, hiding inside her car, grabbed her from behind and covered her nose and mouth with his hand, police said. She got the door open but the man grabbed both her arms but she was able to break free and ran off.
She flagged down a passing driver and told what happened, and that driver called 911.
Officers rushed to the scene and spotted a man fitting the description and arrested him. The man, later identified as Achitoi Hallucky, had also allegedly stolen the woman’s cell phone.
The 25-year-old is now facing charges of kidnapping, robbery and strangulation.
A man is on life support after being shot by police in Clark County Washington. His photo didn’t clearly enough reveal his sacred black blood quotient, and the local community here was likely squinting at the computer screen to determine just how outraged they are.
Police haven’t revealed the circumstances of the shooting yet.
On Thursday night, four Clark County deputies were conducting a traffic stop at about 7:40 p.m. near NE 68th Street and NE 2nd Avenue in Hazel Dell. During the stop, one deputy shot a man later identified as 30-year-old Jenoah Donald.
Details surrounding what sparked the subsequent shooting have not yet been released. Authorities said the “involved deputies” were placed on critical incident leave per standard protocol. In addition, the investigation into the incident will be handled by the Regional Independent Investigation Team.
Maybe the NAACP gave him the paper bag test and determined he was not in fact “colored”; they’ve asked antifa to stand down.
The NAACP Vancouver Branch has released a statement asking there be no demonstration held protesting the incident.
“To our white allies: We are grateful for these brave Americans leveraging power and privilege for the continued cause of Black freedom and equity,” the group said in a release. “However, the theme of Black History month this year is the Black Family. We ask you to listen to the needs and wants of the family of this Black man.”
“Any public demonstrations done at this time would be in direct violation of this family’s wishes,” the statement further read. “The best and only way to support at this time is to pray and you can contribute to the family’s Gofundme.”
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A man was hospitalized with serious injuries Saturday night following a shooting and crash in Portland’s Centennial neighborhood.
The Portland Police Bureau was dispatched to the area of 170th Avenue and SE Haig Street just before 10 p.m on reports of shots fired. Responding officers discovered a car had crashed into a vacant travel trailer. Medical personnel determined the driver had been shot before crashing the vehicle.
The victim was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where he remains in critical condition, police said.
This is the second time in recent memory someone was shot in their vehicle before crashing in Portland’s east. This was in the raucous Centennial neighborhood. Clownworld Fantasy league players take note. Look out Hazelwood!
Antifa in Portland capped off 2020 with a remarkable victory over police, chasing them from and taking over a street they would occupy for days
Between 7 and 9 am on Dec. 8, a large crowd of individuals started to build after they got the news about the eviction. And it grew and it grew. The police were slowly drawing down. That crowd came through the backyard of an adjacent house, and they were throwing bottles and rocks and bricks and paint balloons at the police and screaming at them and threatening them about the eviction.
Police backed down the hill because they were outnumbered by the number of protesters. They pushed the police down into the street, down by the Mississippi Triangle, and they surrounded them.
I thought they were going to beat the cops in the street, and it was one of the scariest things I’ve seen in real life. I had never seen anything like that in America. At that moment, I was like: This is completely spun out of control, and this is really dangerous.
Then the large group went back to the Red House, and more people came in and they began to rip down the fence on the property. They went inside the house themselves and started pulling stuff out to build the barricades. They started carrying out refrigerators and washers and dryers.
They blocked the alleys and they blocked the side street of my house. They wouldn’t allow us to move our cars because they had fully barricaded us in. They said they had basically claimed the area and we weren’t able to leave.
On Saturday last week, an individual went around and broke the Ring cameras off of people’s front doors, on their doorbells, with a crowbar.
Mayor Wheeler apologized for the affront and made the surrender official. There was talk of selling the home at the center of the dispute-what antifa calls an “eviction defense”.
But the family had already been evicted; cops had come back to clear out squatters in the house and occupying a lot next door. Throughout the summer the “Red House on Mississippi” was an antifa base and ongoing festival. The neighborhood had endured this before it all blew up in December. When antifa quickly dismantled their barricades after the vague agreement was made, it seemed to me they knew how to quit when they were ahead, and were wisely taking their winnings.
The owner of the apartment building next door is suing the owners of the vacant lot for the squatters the city can’t or won’t clear out. The owners of the lot are trying to donate it to local black grifters
Bryan McLean, owner of the empty lot, said he had not read the lawsuit. He said he and his brother “have done everything reasonable that we can under the circumstances.”
He said they have on three occasions had trash cleared from the parcel. He said neighbors have asked for the land to be cleared of debris.
He said the deal to donate the lot is going to be taken up by the directors of Self Enhancement Inc. on Friday and is expected to be finalized soon.
“Meanwhile, we are trying to do everything that we can,” he said. “It’s a very sensitive situation.
The city meanwhile has surrendered the street and the monopoly on violence to antifa
Multiple neighbors, who declined to be identified out of fear for their personal safety, said they continue to be harassed by people staying on the property and at the red house.
One frustrated neighbor said the city has offered no timelines to resolve the situation and has failed to come up with a “clear plan” since the barricades came down.
“Every conversation we have with the city basically consist of them apologizing, admitting something should have been done months ago, acknowledging that people’s health and safety is in danger, then pointing the finger and saying they don’t have the authority or resources to resolve this,” the resident said in a text message to The Oregonian/OregonLive.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Portland is in the midst of dealing with a rash of gun violence, with one neighborhood having the highest number in 2020: Hazelwood.
According to Portland Police Bureau data, there were 893 shootings in the city in 2020 — a record by far — and is 500 more than the number of shootings that occurred in 2019. More than 200 of those 2020 shootings resulted in at least one injury, and close to half of all shootings in 2020 occurred in East Portland.
Hazelwood had the highest number of shootings of any Portland neighborhood in 2020, with 79 reported shooting incidents. Hazelwood had 25 shootings where injuries occurred, also more than any other neighborhood in that data set…
even the police won’t mention the riots and subsequent disbanding of the gun unit
When asked whether there was a reason for there being a higher number of shootings in Hazelwood as compared to other neighborhoods in 2020, Portland Police’s Sergeant Kevin Allen said, via email Friday, “there’s no clear reason why Hazelwood has been suffering by gun violence more than others.”
…we’re working with law enforcement at the federal level, at the state level, with our partners at Multnomah County and of course here in the Portland Police Bureau. We have 11 officers that are now detailed specifically toward gun violence. We’re also working with a consultancy called the California Partnership. They’re helping us to create a comprehensive strategy to reduce gun violence in Portland and I believe that will have a significant impact…
while declaring any attempt at its eventual restoration futile
At all levels of government, from the state, the legislature, the county, local, the push for the last 10 years has actually been to decriminalize and reduce sentences, not go the other way. So my calls for increasing sentences for repeat offenders engaged in criminal destruction, it pretty much has gone nowhere. At some point I just have to acknowledge that it’s no longer worth the energy to keep rolling that rock uphill. It’s not gonna go anywhere.
Fact check true. Wheeler acquiesced to the rioting and demonization of police, joining in to oppose federal intervention after antifa, perhaps anticipating the controversy, turned their attention to the federal courthouse; his appeasement strategy culminated disastrously with his ceremonial humiliation and tear-gassing. Ted stood before rioters assaulting the federal courthous and declared the police response excessive–then beating feet before they could thrash him. All to no avail, of course.
Wheeler represents the moderate faction in Portland politics–not that he moderates between left and right, rather that he moderates the excesses of the left. There is no one to his right. As a neoliberal technocrat he’s been allied with the several movements coming together under this new dispensation–Clownworld. The incoherent passions of the psychologically damaged, socially alienated and just plain dumb that his ilk have been harnessing to bring forth this vision are now out of control. Do they know?
Ted needs to be protected from them now. Coming from a timber fortune he has money for private security. Must be nice.
I have never wanted to have security. I think it’s not the best use of public resources. I will probably never use Portland police officers because there’s already a shortage of officers in the community and I don’t think it’s fair for me as an elected official to lay claim to those resources. So I’ve used pepper spray. But I am now being strongly encouraged by our city’s legal team and others that I should at least use private sector security when I’m out in the community. I will do so. I will do so only when necessary, but unfortunately we’ve come to the point where that’s necessary. I wish it wasn’t but it is.
untethered 