Salem Political Snark

"Typogate" adds a twist to Proud Boys gun rally

If there's one thing I've learned from quite a few years of delving into goings-on at the City of Salem, it is that often what city officials claim to be true, actually isn't. 

Sure, sometimes that discrepancy can be attributed to a honest mistake. However, I know for a fact that sometimes City of Salem staff purposely shade the truth in a CYA (Cover Your Ass) fashion. 

Lying is a blunter term than "shade the truth," of course.

As I've written about in two previous blog posts (here and here), how the Salem Police Department handled a May 1 gun rally at Riverfront Park where the gun-toting violent right-wing insurrectionist Proud Boys provided "security" left a lot to be desired, to put it mildly.

A statement issued by the Police Department said "the City of Salem did not issue a permit for the event due to pandemic restrictions. Parks, however, remain open for public use on a first-come first-served basis."

Well, it sure seems that this excuse for why a permit wasn't issued isn't true. I'll explain.

Up until April 30, the day before the May 1 gun rally, a City of Salem web page said that permits are being accepted for outdoor events in parks occurring May 1, 2021 or after. But on April 30 the permit date was changed to May 31 -- taking away the need for the gun rally to have a permit.

Salem City Councilor Tom Andersen said in a post-rally KMUZ interview that the reason for this last-minute change was a "typo" on the web page. Namely, that a "3" was omitted from May 1, which should have been May 31.

UPDATE: A commenter on this post just left a great observation that I'd somehow missed. This seemingly puts to rest the "typo" explanation.

If it was truly a typo then why did they set the end of the “open use” period to April 30th? If it was a typo it should state no permit required through May 30th and on May 1 [typo should be 31st] permits will be required.

So that explanation, which I assume Andersen got from a city official, had nothing to do with pandemic restrictions. That makes the Police Department statement wrong, but not outrageously wrong.

Hey, I'm a writer.

I hate typos, though I make them frequently. I find typos on government web sites all the time, so at first resonated with that explanation for the April 30 change to the date a permit was required from May 1 to May 31.

However, I was curious how long this supposed "typo" had been hanging out on the City of Salem web page.

I decided to fire up the Internet Archive Way Back Machine. Below is a screenshot of how that City of Salem web page appeared on September 19, 2020 and March 27, 2021.

You can see that on September 19, 2020 the City of Salem said "Due to COVID-19, parks and other City facilities are not available for reservation."

 

But on March 27, 2021 the page had changed to say "Due to COVID-19, parks and other city facilities are not available for reservation through April 30, 2021. Reservations are being accepted for outdoor events in parks occurring May 1, 2021 or after."

 

Thus the Proud Boys gun rally should have reserved space at Riverfront Park for the May 1 event. There was plenty of warning about this requirement, since at least since March 27 the City of Salem web site said that after May 1 a reservation was needed for an event.

 

So the supposed “typo” that City officials are saying caused the change on April 30 had been in existence for over a month.

 

It sure seems like some people in Salem would have been inquiring about parks reservations during that time period, or that a City of Salem employee would have noticed the May 1 date, if on March 27 the city really had meant to only require permits after May 31.

 

Otherwise, we have to believe that no one applied for a reservation from March 27 to April 30, even though almost certainly summer weddings and other nice-weather gatherings were being planned at that time.

 

Someone in the Public Works Department, or City Manager Steve Powers, needs to explain how it is that the May 1 date was on the web site for over a month before it was changed the day before the gun rights rally.

 

You can see that the May 1 date occurs in two places on the March 27 page, so the “typo” was repeated twice. This makes it more unlikely that it was actually a typo.

 

I also noticed that whoever edited the March 27 web page changed "City" to "city" several times (correctly, in my opinion), which seems to show a certain carefulness and competence, further reducing the possibility that May 1 was a typo that somehow remained on the City of Salem web page for more than a month.

 

City Manager Steve Powers has some explaining to do.

Who authorized the March 27 change to the City of Salem web page saying that a permit/reservation was needed for a park event to be held May 1 or after? Is there documentation of what date was given to the web page editor, May 1 or May 31?

Who authorized the April 30 change to the City of Salem web page changing the effective date for a required permit/reservation to May 31? Is there documentation of why this change was made on that particular date, since it was the day before the Proud Boys gun rally on May 1?

Salem Police Department misleads about Proud Boys rally

I was already deeply irritated at the Salem Police Department, after learning that they stood by and did nothing on May 1 while armed members of the Proud Boys right-wing militia group forced people they didn't like to leave the public Riverfront Park, harassed journalists, and reportedly beat up someone who was taking a photo of them.

(See my previous post, "Salem police sit by as Proud Boys take over Riverfront Park.")

Now I've even more irritated at the Police Department after reading their attempt to make it seem like they did everything right and nothing wrong as the Proud Boys provided "security" at a gun rights rally that lacked a permit, so had no right to exclude either citizens or journalists from the rally area.

Here's the self-serving message from the Police Department that was released today. My comments and observations are interspersed in red. 

Good afternoon,

 

We understand that there is information circulating on social media that there was no police presence at Riverfront Park for the rally. That information is incorrect. The following is information we have updated to our FB timeline:

 

Several accounts of the police department response to the rally at Riverfront Park on Saturday, May 1, 2021 are circulating on social media.

 

More than several. And they're getting a lot of well-deserved attention. My humble little blog post has gotten about 7,000 page views so far. People are justifiably upset at the failure of the Salem Police Department to protect citizens from the Proud Boys.

 

Primary claims seem to be concerning the lack of police presence and allowing individuals to be assaulted or removed from the park by members of the Proud Boys group.

 

True. But you forgot another concern -- the fact, not a claim, that at least one journalist, and maybe more, was harassed by Proud Boys who told him that he couldn't report on the rally even though he had a perfect right to be there in a public park.

 

The rally was attended by approximately 150 to 200 people, including families with children. A stage was set for guest speakers and several tents were set up for the sharing of food and items.

 

Approximately 30 individuals dressed in Proud Boy attire were observed lawfully carrying pistols. No rifles were seen carried in the public space. No individuals counter-protesting were present.

 

Salem Police officers, some highly visible and others less visible, were present throughout the entire rally and actively monitored the event. Officers patrolled the area checking for violations of alcohol use in the park. No violations occurred.

 

I've read numerous Facebook comments from people who were at Riverfront Park and saw no visible police presence. So please provide photographs of uniformed Salem Police officers in the immediate vicinity of the rally -- the stage and auditorium-like seating. If you can't do that, I'll continue to believe the people who say no Salem police were present at the rally.

 

The dispatch center received only two calls for service at the park during the event and officers immediately responded to each.

 

This doesn't mean there weren't more incidents of Proud Boys trouble-making. For example, Les Margosian, one of those forced to leave the rally area by a group of Proud Boys, had no cell phone with him, so he wasn't able to make a call for service. And since he saw no Salem police around, Margosian couldn't go up to an officer and complain about how the Proud Boys were abusing him.

 

Dispatch also received two separate false reports. One caller reported intoxicated individuals terrorizing people near the carousel. The second caller reported Proud Boys group members with clubs, chains and knives attacking people in the middle of the park. Officers were in each area at the time of the calls and no such activities were occurring.

 

OK. So officers were in parts of the park away from the rally. My point remains: why weren't they at the center of Proud Boys harassment, the rally itself? Also, is the Salem Police Department denying the accuracy of a Reddit post by someone who says they were beaten by Proud Boys in the park, called the police, and was interviewed at their home by an officer who downplayed the beating?

 

We have also learned through social media commentary after-the-fact that two or three individuals may have been escorted out of the park by Proud Boys or their affiliates. We encourage anyone who experienced such actions to please contact the police department (503-588-6123, option 1) to file a police report.

 

"May" is an affront to the people who were forced out of the park by Proud Boys. There's a video of a man being escorted out of the park by a group of Proud Boys. Les Margosian, mentioned above, is a 78 year old man who was threatened by Proud Boys and forced to leave the rally area. Stop with the "may" and face reality, Salem Police Department.

 

We will investigate all reported incidents. Please remember, in any emergency circumstance where there is an immediate danger to person or property, call 9-1-1 when it is happening.

 

Lastly, the City of Salem did not issue a permit for the event due to pandemic restrictions. Parks, however, remain open for public use on a first-come first-served basis.

 

Untrue. Citizen activist Jim Scheppke has shown that a permit was required for the event up until the day before, when someone at the City of Salem changed the permit requirement date to begin at the end of May. So this was a conscious effort by city officials to accommodate the gun rights rally and Proud Boys by not requiring a permit for the gun rally.

 

Please remember, the City of Salem cannot stop constitutionally protected activities, nor can the Salem Police Department.

 

No one, or at least hardly anyone, was calling for this. So stop with the "please remember." The gun rally isn't the issue. Not requiring a permit for the rally is one issue. The bad behavior by Proud Boys with no evident police presence is the other issue.

 

We understand the concerns of those who read the social media commentary. We share those concerns because officers were in the area, and if those circumstances were occurring, any criminal behavior could have been addressed with immediacy.

 

To repeat, I'm not aware of a single report from anyone who was in Riverfront Park on May 1 that there were uniformed Salem Police officers in the immediate area of the gun rally. It appears that officers may have been elsewhere in the park, but not in the area where the Proud Boys were harassing people. So how could bad behavior be addressed if no officers were around to witness it?

 

For additional information about protests, rallies and assemblies in the city of Salem or for police response to such activities, visit https://bit.ly/protests-faqs.

 

Also, the Salem Reporter has a story out today, "Salem leaders say they're constrained by the Constitution when handling far-right events." 

As noted above, the headline is accurate, but the sentiment is a bunch of crap. People understand the Constitution. Free speech and carrying a gun isn't the issue here.

The issue is that a violent extremist group, the Proud Boys, were allowed to cause trouble at the gun rights rally with no attempt by the Salem Police Department to protect the rights of journalists, citizens watching the rally, and by one account, a person who took a photo of Proud Boys and was then beaten by them.

Here's an excerpt from the story.

Margosian, 78, sat down at the amphitheater to listen to the event’s speakers. He said 15 minutes later he was accosted by four men wearing Proud Boys attire, black shirts with a yellow “PB” on the chest and armed with handguns.

“They came and sat down next to me and said, ‘We’re going to escort you out of here. You cannot stay any longer,’” he said.

Margosian said he asked what would happen if he didn’t leave.

He recalled one of the men saying something to the effect of, “You can do it your way, or we can do it ours.”

Margosian took that to mean he would be assaulted if he didn’t leave.

He left the park feeling angry and “kind of a hopeless feeling.”

“Angry at City of Salem for allowing things to get to this point. Angry that people had kicked me out of my own city park,” he said.

As of Monday afternoon, Margosian said he hadn't pressed charges but planned to.

Margosian has said that the Proud Boy who told him he had to leave is the same man I featured in a screenshot of a video made by another person forced to leave the park by Proud Boys.

He should be pretty damn easy to find, since he wasn't wearing a face covering. Hopefully if Margosian does file a complaint, the Salem Police Department will locate this guy and hold him accountable for what he did.

Lastly, I found a quote from a Police Department spokesperson, Lt. Treven Upkes, in a Statesman Journal story, "Salem police respond to complaints of inaction at Riverfront Park Second Amendment rally," way off-base.

I want Police Chief Womack to confirm that it is department policy that telling people to leave a public park is perfectly fine. If this is true, that policy needs to change. Excerpt from the story:

Community members expressed concern the Police Department was showing favoritism by not having a heavy presence at the rally. 

Those concerns were further compounded by rumors that the Proud Boys' security teams were telling people to leave, escorting people out of the public park and had even assaulted someone for taking photos of the event. 

...Upkes also pointed to the nuance of whether escorting people out of the park was illegal. Simply telling someone to leave the public area — and even walking with them — isn't necessarily a crime. But pairing that order with the threat of violence, menacing or harassment is, he said. 

Salem police sit by as Proud Boys take over Riverfront Park

Today the Proud Boys, a violent right-wing militia group, provided "security" for a gun rights rally at Riverfront Park here in Salem.

The City of Salem allowed the rally to go on without a permit, as I reported a few days ago. So members of the public had just as much of a right to be at the park as the Proud Boys and other people attending the rally.

But as you'll see below, the Proud Boys forced people to leave the park if they objected to someone being there.

Meanwhile, apparently there was nobody from the Salem Police Department or the City of Salem on site to ensure that the rights of everybody were maintained. Instead, the Proud Boys were free to bully Salem residents.

This photo is a screenshot from a video by "Behind Enemy Lines," a guy who, I gather, used to be close to the Proud Boys. No more, since his video shows him being escorted from the public park by a group of Proud Boys who ordered him to leave for reasons that aren't entirely clear.

The same thing happened to other people. Here's a post on a private Facebook group that I belong to by someone I know and consider highly credible. 

Just took a stroll through our Riverfront Park which Republicans and other fascists had commandeered for their meeting. A large number of men, mostly with sidearms, in Proud Boys uniforms, mainly military belts and camouflage, and also American flags and Trump paraphernalia.

 

The most noticeable aspect, which was my main reason for checking this out, was that there was absolutely no Salem Police present. Not only in the Park itself but also on the periphery, along Front Street. Not a one.

 

As I ambled through the venue I was accosted by a woman who demanded to know why I had a mask on. Then she demanded that I not take photos, and then insisted that I tell her my name. Turns out she was one of the "organizers".

 

After that I sat in the amphitheater area and listened to speakers, mostly Republicans. The atmosphere of hatred and blind, ignorant fury was unbelievable.

 

I was going to stay until Representative Nearman gave his speech but before we got to that part of the program four heavily armed and uniformed Proud boys sat down next to me and said they were going to escort me out of there, saying the "organizers" didn't want me there.

 

I naturally complied and as we were walking out I asked the one who seemed to be their spokesman what would happen if I didn't agree to leave as told, would they forcibly evict me. He said we could do it either way it was up to me.

 

Most of us, quite understandably, don't want to stay up at night worrying about these characters but at least believe that they have a serious agenda that involves violence and attacks on our governmental institutions. And the police will not be on our side.

The man who wrote that post is quite old, late 70s or early 80s, I believe. I can completely understand why he left the area when four armed Proud Boys demanded that he do so. But he was sitting in a public park watching a rally put on by people who, again, had no more of a right to use the park than he did.

It's disgusting that the Salem Police Department and City officials allowed the Proud Boys to intimidate citizens with zero police officers or parks staff at the rally to make sure rules were followed.

Like, not kicking people out of the auditorium/stage area just because the rally organizers or Proud Boys didn't like their looks.

Here's another post from one of my Facebook friends. SPD stands for Salem Police Department. MCSO stands for Marion County Sheriff's Office.

So the proud boys came to Salem to intimidate the folks enjoying our beautiful Riverfront Park. The SPD nor MCSO offered any security services. Citizens enjoying the park, or were looking to see what was going on were escorted from a city park by the Proud Boys.

And here's some Twitter tweets about the rally. The first one is from a journalist. UPDATE: Tim Gruver, the journalist, wrote a story for The Center Square, "Far-right groups hold gun rally in Oregon park, threaten media." Here's how the story starts out:

A weekend gathering billed as a Second Amendment rally in Salem led to far-right groups tied to the Jan. 6 Capitol invasion taking control of a public park.

The Saturday event, promoted online as "May Day 2A Rally," saw 100 to 200 attendees at Salem's Riverfront Park in a show of support for their Second Amendment rights. The Proud Boys, a "western chauvinist" group who have violently clashed with members of the anti-fascist movement, provided "security" and co-sponsored the event. 

Some carried semi-automatic pistols or rifles and "closed" the public park to media, though they had no authority to do so. The armed attendees threatened reporters, forcing them to leave the immediate area and report from a distance. 

UPDATE: This Reddit post just came to my attention. 

Just got attacked by a group of the proud boys in the river front.

I was walking past the fisherman statue towards the carousel with one of the kids I support when we saw a group of them walking by, so we cut through the grass towards the front of the carousel. I snapped a picture to post to snapchat and they started following me, yelling "give me that phone fucker." They started getting closer so we started hurrying to the gates. I had to stop when I got separated from the kid I support. They started shoving me telling me that I needed to go. One grabbed a hold of me so I tried to stabilize myself and one of them held me while a couple others started swinging at me. It felt like four or five were there but it was more likely only two or three of them involved in the scuffle. They smacked me in the head a couple times and got my ribs and back before throwing me on the ground. They wouldn't let me go back to the kid I support while she was still in the park so I had to walk along the train tracks and she had to follow me on the opposite side of the fence. She was being followed by somebody wearing a ballistic vest and holding a pistol at their side. We ended up back together at the parking lot by the gilbert house and they stopped following her.

Please be safe you guys

(after someone asked if they called the police, this comment was added by the person attacked)

I did. Police came by the house I'm working at and asked me questions. Dude spent the entire time basically trying to ask whether or not I was agitating them. Officer said "It's not normal for them to do that unprovoked, but you're not the first person they've thrown out today." almost verbatim. I don't expect anything to come of it

Patriot Prayer holding May 1 rally in Salem's Riverfront Park

The right-wing wackos are coming back to Salem!  

Well, judging from this notice, most never left our area, they've just been silently cooking up fresh conspiracy theories to keep their reality-denying minds firmly at home in Crazy Town.

Newsweek had a story about the rally yesterday, "Far-Right Patriot Prayer Plans Oregon Return Alongside GOP Rep. Mike Nearman." 

The far-right group Patriot Prayer is planning a return to Salem, Oregon, in May to hold a gun rights event.

The rally is being promoted online by the group's leader Joey Gibson and is scheduled to take place on May 1 at Riverfront Park.

...Oregon state Rep. Mike Nearman and Jo Rae Perkins, a prominent QAnon supporter who was the Republican Senate nominee in Oregon before losing to Democratic incumbent Jeff Merkley in November, are among those listed as attendees at the May 1 event.

Patriot Prayer, along with fellow extremist group Proud Boys, has held frequent rallies and demonstrations in Salem and Portland, Oregon, down the years.

On December 21, far-right demonstrators, including Patriot Prayer members, forced their way into the Oregon Capitol while protesting coronavirus restrictions in the state.

An investigation was launched into Rep. Nearman after surveillance footage showed him allowing extremists to gain entry to the Capitol building.

In January, Nearman was stripped of his committee responsibilities and told he must give 24 hours notice before coming to the Capitol building as part of a number of restrictions imposed on him over his role in the breach.

You'd think that given the problems Patriot Prayer members have caused in the past, the City of Salem would be reluctant to give a permit for the May 1 rally. 

Think again.

Apparently City officials still are allowing groups to use Salem parks as they wish without a permit, a controversial practice that's been in effect since the Covid pandemic struck last year.

And the Salem Police Department is being decidedly non-transparent about the rally. Here's a screenshot of the uninformative post about the event on the City of Salem Facebook page.


Ooh! A message for the Salem community. I could hardly wait to click on the link and see what sort of rally at Riverfront Park is expected Saturday. 

This is what I learned.

The Salem Police Department is aware of a rally which is being advertised for Saturday, May 1, 2021, at 12:00 p.m. in Riverfront Park.

Wow, thanks for nothing, Salem Police Department. No mention of what sort of rally. No mention of who is sponsoring the rally. No mention of the right-winger/QAnon names headlining the rally.

Since this is a Second Amendment event, I'm guessing quite a few attendees will bring their assault rifles and dress up in their best militia costumes.

The forecast for Saturday is mostly sunny with a high of 63 degrees. Great day to take the kids to the park. 

Or, it would be if the City of Salem wasn't allowing Patriot Prayer types free rein to do whatever they want in Riverfront Park at a gun rally that day.

Unfortunately, there's a pretty good chance that counter-protesters also will show up on Saturday, which could make the situation even worse.

I'm all for free speech. What I'm not for is City officials using a lame Covid excuse to justify allowing any and all groups to use Salem's parks as they wish with no permit required.

NAACP calls on Kari Zohner to end her school board campaign

The Salem-Keizer NAACP is calling on a candidate for the Salem-Keizer school board, Kari Zohner, to drop out of the race after she trashed the memory of George Floyd following the conviction of the police officer who murdered him, Derek Chauvin.

The NAACP issued its statement Wednesday night.

“We understand and support the First Amendment right to free speech. However, this hateful rhetoric is founded in racism and has no place in the auspices of the Salem-Keizer School board or any elected office. We must hold our leaders accountable and make clear that this behavior will not be tolerated in any form. The Candidate for School Board Zone 1 must rescind her candidacy immediately,” the statement said.

It was Zohner's comment on an Oregon State University Facebook post that got her in trouble.

That's a really nasty comment for anyone to make. Yet Zohner isn't just anyone, she wants to guide the education of many thousands of students from a Zone 1 school board position. 

UPDATE: Just got this screenshot of a Facebook comment from a former West Salem High School student who has some serious accusations about bad behavior from Zohner when she was a coach at the school. The student also asks Zohner to give up on running for the school board.

Zohner's lack of compassion and racial insensitivity should cause voters to cast their ballot for a much better Zone 1 candidate, Osvaldo Avila. 

Here's Avila's background. 

Osvaldo is the son of Mexican immigrant farmworkers who had few opportunities in life. His father had to drop out of school in the third grade. Growing up, teachers dismissed Osvaldo’s potential, and called him “a future ditch digger.”

Yet, he believed in his education, and ultimately earned a Master’s in Educational Leadership and Policy from PSU. He has had an 18-year career in Higher Education, focusing on helping Latinx students gain access to and succeed in college.

He is now a Talent, Innovation, & Equity Administrator with the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission. To learn more go to: https://www.osvaldo4skboard.com/.

By contrast, here's the full statement from the Salem-Keizer NAACP about Kari Zohner.

Salem-Keizer NAACP Condemns School Board Candidate Statement
Equating the Honoring of Justice for George Floyd to the Eulogizing of a Criminal

The Salem-Keizer NAACP condemns the recent remark made by School Board Candidate Kari Zohner that equated the memorializing of George Floyd, in the wake of the rare moment of justice in the conviction of his killer, to that of eulogizing a criminal. It is critical that we as a community make a clear and unambiguous statement denouncing these hateful remarks and call on this candidate to step down from the race for Salem-Keizer School Board.

In comments, since deleted, made on an Oregon State University Facebook post April 20, 2021, Candidate for School Board Zone 1, Kari Zohner, remarked “And now I’m no longer following you. My Alma Mater. Eulogize a criminal..great.” Candidate Zohner then proceeded to reply to individuals responding to her remarks by belittling them, such as a reply to an educator with the remark, “ah.. an educator. Shocking that you have such an eloquent stance.”

We understand and support the First Amendment right to free speech. However, this hateful rhetoric is founded in racism and has no place in the auspices of the Salem-Keizer School board or any elected office. We must hold our leaders accountable and make clear that this behavior will not be tolerated in any form. The Candidate for School Board Zone 1 must rescind her candidacy immediately.

Derek Chauvin conviction just small step toward police reform

I'm glad that I was in my car, listening to CNN, when the judge read the jury verdict in the Derek Chauvin case.

As I heard the judge say "guilty of second degree murder," "guilty of third degree murder," "guilty of manslaughter," my right arm made the same happy motion upward as the arms of the women below.

But right next to this Washington Post headline story was a disturbing story of a police killing of a 16 year old girl in Columbus, Ohio, "Ohio police fatally shoot teen girl just before Chauvin verdict: 'This stuff just never ends.'"

This happened about the same time as the Chauvin verdict was being read.

Paula Bryant told 10TV that her daughter was 16 years old, “a very loving, peaceful little girl.” Hazel Bryant, who identified herself as the victim’s aunt, told the Columbus Dispatch that her niece got into a fight with another person at her foster home on Legion Lane. Bryant said the victim had a knife but had dropped it before an officer shot her multiple times.

There's something horribly, terribly, shockingly, inexcusably wrong with policing in the United States. Too many police officers are incompetent cowards who shouldn't have a badge, nor a gun.

A 16 year old girl who has dropped a knife shouldn't be killed after being shot four times. More: a 16 year old girl who hasn't dropped a knife shouldn't be shot by police.

If a police officer can't handle a 16 year old girl with a knife, especially if she has dropped it, that officer should never have been allowed to join the force And he or she deserves to be charged with manslaughter, and maybe even murder, as Derek Chauvin was.

The whole approach of policing has to change in this country. So let's do this in Salem.

Police Chief Womack needs to institute an iron-clad policy that use of force is the last resort when dealing with citizens, not the first resort. Deescalation has to be Job #1 for every Salem police officer. If force is used, it had damn well better be completely justified, or the officer who applies that force should be severely disciplined.

We have to do away with the idea that police officers are special people.

Actually, they are ordinary people who carry a gun and can arrest others. We also have to stop viewing police work as especially dangerous. It isn't, being the 22nd most dangerous profession. 

How dangerous is it to be a police officer? Working as a police officer is about 4.1 times as dangerous compared with the average job nationwide, based upon the workplace fatality rate. Police officers have a workplace fatality rate similar to maintenance workers, construction workers, and heavy vehicle mechanics.

Being a crossing guard is much more dangerous, ranking #12.

So the next time you encounter a crossing guard, say "Thank you for your service." Say that much more loudly than you'd tell a police officer the same thing, because a crossing guard is putting their life on the line to a considerably greater extent.

We need police. But we don't need the kind of policing that we have now. 

As noted in a recent blog post, the Salem police department budget should be cut by several million dollars to pay for a crisis response team that would handle a fifth or so of current calls that a police officer is sent out on. And that team would do a better job.

There also is little or no need for Salem police to be making routine traffic stops. A Washington Post opinion piece makes the case for this in "Traffic enforcement is broken in the U.S. Here's how we can fix it." This is one idea.

First, we can take much of traffic enforcement out of the hands of police. Some places are shifting traffic enforcement to unarmed traffic safety experts. Relatedly, we can make better use of transportation design and technology. There are legitimate concerns about where red-light and speed cameras are placed, but I’ve never seen one pepper-spray a motorist or show a strange proclivity for targeting Black drivers when it was light enough to see skin color. This shift would reserve police stops for immediate threats — such as drunken driving — that arguably require a police response.

What Salem and our nation as a whole needs is a smaller, better trained, and more professional police force. The focus should be on public safety, not on policing. Policing is only one way to ensure public safety, and arguably not the most important way.

The Salem City Council can help bring about this shift by closely scrutinizing the police department budget instead of assuming that, of course, it needs to be raised every year.

Actually, there are good reasons to markedly reduce the police budget, with that money being reallocated to better ways of fostering public safety.

Police budget should be cut to pay for crisis response team

City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke is pushing for Salem to have a crisis response team similar to the CAHOOTS program that has been successfully used in Eugene since 1989. 

Here's a description of CAHOOTS, courtesy of the White Bird Clinic.

31 years ago the City of Eugene, Oregon developed an innovative community-based public safety system to provide mental health first response for crises involving mental illness, homelessness, and addiction. White Bird Clinic launched CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) as a community policing initiative in 1989.

The CAHOOTS model has been in the spotlight recently as our nation struggles to reimagine public safety. The program mobilizes two-person teams consisting of a medic (a nurse, paramedic, or EMT) and a crisis worker who has substantial training and experience in the mental health field.

The CAHOOTS teams deal with a wide range of mental health-related crises, including conflict resolution, welfare checks, substance abuse, suicide threats, and more, relying on trauma-informed de-escalation and harm reduction techniques.

CAHOOTS staff are not law enforcement officers and do not carry weapons; their training and experience are the tools they use to ensure a non-violent resolution of crisis situations. They also handle non-emergent medical issues, avoiding costly ambulance transport and emergency room treatment.

In 2017, the most recent year shown on the White Bird Clinic web page, CAHOOTS teams answered 17% of the Eugene Police Department's call volume. Yes, 17%. 

That's a big savings, given the much lower cost of CAHOOTS staff compared to police officers. This chart shows that in 2017 CAHOOTS diversions saved the Eugene Police Department $12 million, with the department budget being $51.3 million in that year.

Steve Powers, the City Manager for the City of Salem, is proposing a $50.5 million budget for the police department in FY 2022 -- almost exactly what the Eugene Police Department budget was in 2017.

Eugene is about the same size as Salem. The CAHOOTS budget is about $2.1 million a year.

So it sure seems like one way to pay for a CAHOOTS-style crisis response team here would be to take a couple of million dollars from the Salem Police Department budget. 

Even if the initial savings from a Salem crisis response team was only 1/6 of the savings Eugene had in 2017, a Salem CAHOOTS costing $2 million a year would pay for itself.

Unfortunately, so far City Manager Powers isn't putting any money in his proposed budget for a local CAHOOTS. So says a Salem Reporter story, "Salem residents call for a crisis response team in city budget."

As Salem begins putting together its budget, city residents have a clear request: fund a crisis response team.

City leaders have previously voiced support for a local program modeled after Eugene’s CAHOOTS, where a crisis worker and EMT respond to low-level 911 calls for people having mental health crises, rather than police. But there’s no funding for such a program in the draft city budget City Manager Steve Powers presented Wednesday to the city council.

During Wednesday’s Budget Committee Meeting, a couple people testified in support over Zoom, and another 81 wrote in favor of allocating money toward such a program in public testimony. One man even wrote a poem.

However, the City Council has the final say on the City of Salem budget. Hopefully money for a local CAHOOTS program will be in the budget for the next fiscal year.

Since the program would markedly reduce the number of calls Salem police officers would need to respond to, it makes sense to fund a crisis response team out of the Salem Police Department budget.

This is the sort of reimagining police work that needs to happen if police departments are to regain the community trust that's been diminished recently. 

Few CAHOOTS calls require an armed police officer. Less than 1% in Eugene (150 out of 24,000, or 0.6%).

Trained mental health workers are going to handle suicidal people and others in crisis much better than police officers. So not only will a Salem CAHOOTS save millions of dollars, it will improve the quality of service to people in distress.

 

No-notice tree removals make Salem resident angry

It hurts to see a tree company truck pull up in front of your house, then watch workers remove a beloved street tree -- all with no communication from the City of Salem about why the tree needed to be destroyed.

This happened to Heather Cohen, a resident of the Morningside neighborhood. The tree that was removed is the middle one in the photo below. 

Cohen told me in an email, "Survived the wild fires, survived the ice storm, didn't survive the City of Salem."

Here's an email that Cohen sent to Mayor Chuck Bennett on April 13.

Yesterday the city of Salem took down the beautiful maple tree which shaded my house as well as other neighborhood trees. My maple had a few slightly damaged branches from the ice storm but was far from diseased. There were no power lines in proximity.

 

I called the Forester and emailed the city of Salem pictures and have not received any communication back. They took down five trees (see images attached) on two streets (Anneka Loop and Chaparral Dr) in my Morningside neighborhood. It seems statistically unlikely there would be five irreparably damaged trees on two city blocks.

 

For a city that supposedly values its trees, they seem to be cutting them down indiscriminately if they have any minor issues that require maintenance. That and the lack of communication with the community is very unprofessional.

 

Almost three years living in my house, I’ve never received any communication from the city until they mow down a cherished maple tree without even a notification or a reason.  I understand the city is under a lot of stress since the ice storm but I do think there are a lot more stories like mine that are very disturbing.

 

I find it ironic that I cannot trim a city tree without being fined, but the city can mow them down without a second thought or a word to the neighbors. I would’ve gladly taken ownership and paid maintenance fees for the maple that the city killed. The city should not be in charge of our trees.

Thank you,
Heather Cohen

l feel Cohen's pain. It hurts to lose a tree that means a lot to you. It hurts even more when the loss isn't due to a natural event, but happens without notice from the City of Salem. 

This shouldn't happen. But it did. A sad stump speaks silently about what happened.

Here's a message Cohen shared with me that she got from the Urban Forester, Milan Davis. 

Heather, I am sorry to hear that you are upset with the city over our management of trees.  There are six full time staff of the Urban Forestry Division and every one of us care deeply about the trees in Salem. 

I can assure you we are taking steps to protect and retain as many trees as we can that have been damaged from the storm.  As for your tree I did not make the inspection report for removal, but the determination was made that the two trees adjacent to that tree would have a better chance to thrive and live longer if the damaged tree were removed.

The tree closest to the driveway will now have an opportunity to grow with a central leader and develop in to a much more stable an[d] uniform tree.  Had the two trees continued to compete, with the damaged tree not having a central leader many of the secondary branches could have contributed to future problems for that trees. 

As for the other trees removed in your neighborhood, two of the birches were in very poor condition and had bronze birch borer infestations and the maple tree was a hazard considering it had lost a large lead and was susceptible to failure and should not be retained.  I attached pictures of the trees we removed.

Please let me know if you have other concerns.

Cordially,

Milan Davis
Urban Forester, Parks Supervisor III
City of Salem | Public Works Department

Cohen responded this way.

Aren’t you supposed to post a notification before removal? There was no warning and no communication with the community.

I would like to see the report documenting that the removal of five trees in a two block area was necessary. As for the tree across from me with an unstable lead[er], it was damaged more by previous trimming attempts by the city of Salem, not by the ice storm itself. 

 

There is supposed to be a process here and there was none. 

I'm siding with Cohen. Here's why. 

Section 86.090 of the Salem tree ordinance says: (dbh means diameter at breast height, 4.5 feet from the ground.)

(1) Where the City proposes to remove a City tree smaller than ten inches dbh, no posting shall be required.

(2) Where the City proposes to remove a City tree larger than ten inches dbh, the City shall post notice of the removal as near as practicable to the tree to be removed for a period of 15 days prior to the removal.

From a photo above, it sure looks like the tree that was removed had a rather large diameter. If it wasn't 10 inches at four and a half feet above the ground, it must have been darn close. 

Regardless, this was a substantial tree, not a sapling. 

City employees in the Urban Forestry Division should recognize that removing a generally healthy tree from in front of someone's house is a big deal to the resident, even though it may be business as usual for the employee.

It would have been easy for a City of Salem employee to contact Heather Cohen and other neighbors before the trees were removed. A little communication goes a long way. 

Explain why the tree removals supposedly are necessary. Listen to the response from neighbors. Allow them to contact a licensed arborist for a second opinion if they want to pay for this. 

It only takes a few minutes to cut down a tree. It takes many years for a replacement tree to grow to the same size. The City of Salem should err on the side of caution when removing street trees.

In this case, the Urban Forester acknowledged that the maple wasn't a danger or diseased. It had a few problems, as many trees do, and was growing close to two other trees.

So why not take a bit of extra time and reach out to nearby neighbors, rather than letting the roar of chainsaws be how the neighborhood learns five street trees are being killed?

Let's stop talking about "accidental" police shootings

Another day, another black man "accidentally" shot and killed by a police officer. 

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — The suburban Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot a 20-year-old unarmed Black man during a traffic stop Sunday apparently meant to fire a Taser but instead made an “accidental discharge” from her gun, the police chief said Monday.

This is stretching the meaning of accidental beyond the bounds where the word makes sense.

An accidental discharge of a gun would happen if, say, it was lying on a table during an earthquake with the safety off, fell, hit the floor, and somehow the trigger was pulled from all the shaking.

By contrast, this police officer acted in a way that wasn't at all accidental, given her experience and, one must assume, her training.

The officer was identified Monday evening as Officer Kim Potter, who has been with the department for 26 years. She remains on administrative leave, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension announced.

Ah, administrative leave. This is the initial consequence, and sometimes the only consequence, when a police officer kills someone who is unarmed. 

Officer Kim Potter gets to spend time at home, working on her excuses for why she killed Daunte Wright, while Wright doesn't get to do anything, having had his life snuffed out at the age of 20 after being pulled over for a traffic violation.

Daunte Wright

Let's take a look at the dictionary definition of "accidental." 

Was Wright's killing unexpected or by chance? Sadly, no.

Police killings of unarmed black men and women are distressingly frequent, so not unexpected. A spinning roulette wheel ends up in a certain position randomly. That isn't the case with a police officer pulling out their gun and firing it at someone. So not by chance.

Words both illuminate and disguise. That's the nature of words, decidedly imperfect abstract reflections of a complex reality that defies simplistic categorizations.

English is in love with nouns. This produces a more static thing-oriented view of reality than other languages, such as classical Chinese, that view reality as processes, actions, movement.

So we say, the shooting was an accident. Or, the car crash was an accident. 

This leads to a viewpoint that downplays all of the moving parts of reality that led to the shooting or car crash. Instead, "accident" places the focus on a static happening divorced from a larger span of time and space.

As many commentators much more knowledgeable than I am about systemic racism and police maltreatment of BIPOC individuals have pointed out, our outrage at specific episodes of police brutality needs to take place in a broader context.

The lawyer for Derek Chauvin, who murdered George Floyd, is pointing to details in the prosecution's case that, he hopes, will lead to the acquittal of his client.

If Officer Potter is charged with negligent homicide or manslaughter, the same microscopic attention to what happened with the Daunte Wright traffic stop tragedy will occur.

Which misses the most important point: policing in the United States is massively screwed-up.

So the killings of black men that attract the most attention are the tip of a much larger Failure of Our Justice System iceberg.

We jail a much higher proportion of our population than other countries. Once incarcerated, we treat prisoners badly, focusing on harsh punishment rather than compassionate rehabilitation. Our police departments have become excessively militarized. Too many police officers are unfit to carry a gun, being prone to escalate encounters with citizens in a macho fashion rather than engage in deescalation.

All that doesn't excuse bad behavior by police officers.

But zeroing in on what Derek Chauvin or Kim Potter did, as outrageous as what they did was, can distract from the urgent need to reform policing in ways that, over time, will markedly reduce unnecessary police killings.

No chief of police should ever call a killing "accidental."

Officer Potter wouldn't have needed to pull out a Taser, much less a gun, if she had been operating within a policing environment that viewed the use of force as a last resort, not the first thing that came to mind when she saw Daunte Wright get back in his car after an attempt was made to handcuff him.

Let Wright drive away. Potter and the other officers knew who he was. Probably he was going home. There was no need to Taser him. And there damn well was no need to kill him.

School board chair Chandragiri insults student journalist

Hard to see how this action by Salem-Keizer School Board chair Satya Chandragiri is anything short of flat-out outrageous. 

Eddy Binford-Ross is editor-in-chief of South Salem High School's paper, the Clypian.

After getting national recognition for covering Black Lives Matter protests last year, she spent months researching and writing a tell-all expose of how screwed-up the school board is, "Scandals, Special Interests and Dysfunction Plague School Board."

Binford-Ross won a richly deserved 2021 Oregon High School Journalist of the Year award. She was set to be recognized at the April 13 school board meeting.

But Chandragiri decided to put off the recognition of Binford-Ross until after the May school board election, conjuring up a highly dubious excuse in an attempt to disguise his disdain for how Binford-Ross revealed the sleazy, stinky mess that calls itself the Salem-Keizer School Board.

A Salem Reporter story has a right-on headline.

Excerpt from that story:

The board had Binford-Ross’ recognition on a draft agenda for Tuesday following a planning meeting earlier this week, said Chandragiri.

He said the article largely recapped existing information about the board and that he didn’t take issue with it. But Chandragiri said after the agenda was drafted, a community member sent him a screenshot of a March 24 Facebook post by the Salem Democratic Socialists of America. 

The page shared Binford-Ross’ article, saying “This in-depth article shows why we need (to) take back our school board!” and endorsing the liberal slate of school board candidates in the May election.

Chandragiri said that made him concerned that honoring Binford-Ross now would be seen as endorsing the board candidates mentioned in the post. He said he didn’t want politics to detract from Binford-Ross’ recognition and intends to spotlight her after the May election.

“If there is a controversy in these weeks before the election that would really distract us,” he told Salem Reporter. “Our board should be only focused on students.”

Hey, Chair Chandragiri, you've just manufactured a much bigger controversy than going ahead with recognizing Eddy Binford-Ross at next Tuesday's school board meeting would have created.

What Chandragiri has done is make it even more abundantly clear why the conservative cabal of school board members factually criticized in Binford-Ross' expose needs to be tossed out of office.

A Statesman-Journal story contains an astoundingly hypocritical and misguided quote from Chandragiri. 

"Is there a risk that (the) district will be perceived as actively endorsing the democratic socialist of America party?" Chandragiri wrote in an email. "I would like our public schools to remain non partisan and stay focused to what we should be doing. Even the appearance like conflict of interest can be misinterpreted."

What a bunch of B.S.

Chandragiri supposedly is worried about the school board looking like it has a conflict of interest because -- don't try to follow the logic here, because there isn't any -- a socialist group cited the Binford-Ross expose in calling for a fresh slate of school board candidates to be elected in May.

No one on the school board, including Chandragiri, has called into question the accuracy of what Binford-Ross wrote about the school board.

This includes the fact that "In 2019, Chair Satya Chandragiri received over $11,500 from Oregon Right to Life and the Oregon Right to Life PAC for his school board campaign."

Also, "Many of the current school board directors ran for the school board after they failed in political campaigns for public office at the state level. Chandragiri ran for and lost the Republican primary for Oregon House of Representatives District 19 in 2018, right before his bid for school board."

So Chandragiri should be mocked for his ridiculous assertion that the school board can't recognize Eddy Binford-Ross because it needs to remain non-partisan.

Actually, the Salem-Keizer School Board already is highly partisan.

Chandragiri and other members accept big bucks from Oregon Right to Life, a hugely partisan special interest group. And Chandragiri tried to be elected to the Oregon legislature as a Republican, an obviously partisan political party. Binford-Ross documents other partisan activities of school board members in her expose.

It seems clear that Chandragiri is punishing Binford-Ross because she did what all good journalists do: speak truth to power.

Chandragiri doesn't like that truth coming out before the school board election because it threatens his ability to keep promoting his right-wing views along with the current conservative majority on the board.

Christy Perry, the Superintendent of Salem-Keizer schools, saw through Chandragiri's game. 

Chandragiri texted Salem-Keizer Superintendent Christy Perry Friday saying he wanted to pull the item from the agenda and delay it until after the election.

...Perry responded that she and communications director Sylvia McDaniel would notify Binford-Ross and her principal.

“This feels really wrong. I just need you to know that,” Perry said in her message.

I'll end by pointing out that the Salem Democratic Socialists of American group wasn't alone in publicizing the Binford-Ross expose and calling for a new slate of school board members.

A link to the expose was shared on the Salem Resists Pacebook group. I shared the expose on three Facebook pages that I manage. So Chandragiri was just making stuff up when he claimed to be upset that the Democratic Socialists post would somehow taint the upcoming election.

Again, what Chandragiri has done is draw attention to what he doesn't think deserves attention. Which is why I'm sharing a screenshot of that post.