02-07-2025  12:19 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

Pastor Mark Knutson on Strengthening Sanctuary and Responding to Trump’s Threats

Augustana Lutheran Church is part of an interfaith network in Portland organizing to protect immigrants.

“Young Black Men Are ___”, A Multimedia Interactive Storytelling Project, Opens February 1

Word Is Bond partners with the 1803 Fund to explore Black identity.

PHOTOS: The World Arts Foundation Presents Lifetime Achievement Award on MLK Day in Portland

Bernie and Bobbie Foster, The Skanner News founders, were presented with the award.

Cascade Festival of African Films Celebrates 35th Year

The Cascade Festival of African Films runs from Jan. 31 through March 1, featuring more than 20 films from 14 countries

NEWS BRIEFS

Budget Committee Ranking Member Merkley: Vought Dangerously Unfit to Lead OMB

Merkley spoke on the Senate floor to kick off Democratic opposition to Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) nominee and...

Portland Trail Blazers Host First-ever Albina Rose Alliance Game

Game to highlight the Albina Rose Alliance – a partnership between Albina Vision Trust and the Portland Trail Blazers ...

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Launches Research on the Long-Term Impacts of Mentorship

“This new research proves what we’ve known for years— mentorship has an incredibly positive impact, not just to our Littles, but...

Rayfield Announces Initial Victory in Lawsuit Challenging Trump’s Illegal Federal Funding Freeze

Today a federal judge in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order in the lawsuit filed by Oregon and a coalition of 22...

Creative Homies & 1803 Fund to Open ‘Black, Black History Month’ Pop-up Experience

Monthlong exhibition to celebrate Black creativity, community spaces and more ...

Fresh lawsuit hits Oregon city at the heart of Supreme Court ruling on homeless encampments

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The small Oregon city at the heart of a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that allowed cities across the country to enforce homeless camping bans is facing a fresh lawsuit over its camping rules, as advocates find new ways to challenge them in a legal landscape...

Western Oregon women's basketball players allege physical and emotional abuse

MONMOUTH, Ore. (AP) — Former players for the Western Oregon women's basketball team have filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging emotional and physical abuse. The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in Marion County, seeks million damages. It names the university, its athletic...

Slaughter leads Missouri against No. 5 Texas

Missouri Tigers (12-10, 1-6 SEC) at Texas Longhorns (20-2, 6-1 SEC) Austin, Texas; Thursday, 9 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: Missouri visits No. 5 Texas after Grace Slaughter scored 31 points in Missouri's 78-77 victory against the Mississippi State Bulldogs. The...

Slaughter leads Missouri against No. 5 Texas after 31-point game

Missouri Tigers (12-10, 1-6 SEC) at Texas Longhorns (20-2, 6-1 SEC) Austin, Texas; Thursday, 9 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: Missouri visits No. 5 Texas after Grace Slaughter scored 31 points in Missouri's 78-77 win over the Mississippi State Bulldogs. The...

OPINION

Bending the Arc: Advancing Equity in a New Federal Landscape

January 20th, 2025 represented the clearest distillation of the crossroads our country faces. ...

Trump’s America Last Agenda is a Knife in the Back of Working People

Donald Trump’s playbook has always been to campaign like a populist and govern like an oligarch. But it is still shocking just how brutally he went after our country’s working people in the first few days – even the first few hours – after he was...

As Dr. King Once Asked, Where Do We Go From Here?

“Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall...

A Day Without Child Care

On May 16, we will be closing our childcare centers for a day — signaling a crisis that could soon sweep across North Carolina, dismantling the very backbone of our economy ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Trump consoles crash victims then dives into politics with attack on diversity initiatives

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday responded to the deadliest American aviation disaster in more than two decades by blaming diversity initiatives for undermining safety and questioning the actions of a U.S. Army helicopter pilot involved in the midair collision with a...

US Supreme Court rejects likely final appeal of South Carolina inmate a day before his execution

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Thursday what is likely the final appeal of a South Carolina inmate the day before his scheduled execution for a 2001 killing of a friend found dead in her burning car. Marion Bowman Jr.'s request to stop his execution until a...

Trump's orders take aim at critical race theory and antisemitism on college campuses

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering U.S. schools to stop teaching what he views as “critical race theory” and other material dealing with race and sexuality or risk losing their federal money. A separate plan announced Wednesday calls for aggressive action to...

ENTERTAINMENT

Book Review: Hunted by the FBI and Russian Oligarch, a hedge fund manager flees into the wilderness

Paul Brightman, a former hedge fund manager, has been keeping a low profile, changing his name to Grant Anderson and making a modest living as a boat builder in a small New Hampshire town. But Paul fears it’s only a matter of time before he’s found. The FBI is hunting him. The CIA...

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni get March 2026 trial date for her 'It Ends With Us' lawsuit

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge set a March 2026 trial date on Monday and moved an initial conference from mid-February to next week as the public feud between Blake Lively and her “It Ends With Us” costar and director Justin Baldoni continued to grow and accelerate. And in a...

Movie Review: Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon collide in comedy 'You're Cordially Invited'

Are you with the bride or the groom? Hold on, scratch that. Are you with Reese Witherspoon or Will Ferrell? “You're Cordially Invited,” a new comedy directed by Nicholas Stoller, brings together two stars whose movie worlds are nearly as divided as wedding guests on separate sides...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

By Sabrina Shankman, Propublica

A federal grand jury indicted two New Orleans police officers today for lying and obstruction of justice in connection with the shooting death of Danny Brumfield Sr., a 45-year-old man shot in the back by police in the days after Katrina.
Police said they fired a single blast from a shotgun at Brumfield after he jumped on the hood of their squad car and made a lunging motion with a "shiny object" through the passenger window. According to the police version, a pair of scissors was found near where Brumfield fell to the ground. The presence of the "shiny object" and the threatening manner with which it was wielded, gave the officers justification to shoot, an NOPD investigation into the shooting found.

But in today's indictments, the grand jury said the officers had perjured themselves when they testified about the shooting in a 2007 civil lawsuit brought by the widow of Brumfield, and that Brumfield had been waving his hands -- not an object -- at the officers immediately before the shooting occurred.

According to the six-count indictment, Brumfield was attempting to flag down the police and then "either jumped on the hood of the car or was hit by the car and landed on the hood."
Officer Ronald Mitchell offered the official version

http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/deposition-nopd-ronald-mitchell

when he testified in 2007 about the shooting. But the indictment said he "well knew" that Brumfield did not "jump off of the hood of a patrol car and lunge at him with a shiny object."
The indictment said that Officer Ray Jones lied under oath in 2007 when he testified that the officers stopped the car to assess the condition of the wounded man. Jones "well knew" that this did not occur.

The grand jury heard testimony from Kevin Diel, a former New Orleans police officer who said that when he arrived upon the scene on Sept. 3, 2005, he was told by colleagues that Brumfield had been wielding a gun.
"They told us, you know, the guy jumped on the hood of the car, tried to shoot the passenger, the officer that was sitting in the passenger seat," Diel said in an interview conducted as part of an investigation by ProPublica, the PBS program Frontline and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
"They said that he had pointed a chromed revolver at him through the window, after jumping on the hood, and the passenger officer had fired a single shot from a shotgun and shot and killed him," Diel said.
Then an officer in NOPD's second district, Diel was assigned to the Convention Center on the night that Brumfield was killed. Thousands of displaced New Orleans residents swarmed outside the Convention Center on Sept. 3, 2005 -- just five days after Hurricane Katrina hit.
Diel said he noticed several NOPD cars leaving as his unit arrived, just after dark. But beside that, he said, it was fairly quiet. The crowd was less angry, less chaotic than he imagined it would be, given the conditions.
"It absolutely was not some crazy mob of people," Diel said he told the grand jury. "They were obviously irritated, but overall it was not a threatening crowd... We felt safe enough that we were taking turns taking naps on the hood of our patrol car in the crowd."
Diel's account of the mood of the crowd contradicts the official version in which officers Jones and Mitchell said the crowd was unruly, they were being shot at, and had to immediately retreat to a safer area.
The killing of Danny Brumfield is one of at least nine investigations that the federal Department of Justice has opened into the New Orleans Police Department, the majority of which focus on the days immediately after Katrina.
U.S. Attorney Jim Letten would not say he chose to focus on perjury and obstruction of justice rather than the officers' actions in shooting Brumfield. "The indictment that we sought and received is driven by the evidence that we have in the case," Letten said.
The 2007 lawsuit, brought by Brumfield's wife, resulted in an out-of-court settlement of $400,000 settlement, which was paid out by the city in 2008. Because the case never went to trial, neither the officers' testimony nor the details of the subsequent NOPD investigation were made public.
One aspect of the lawsuit that was made public, however, was that NOPD homicide detective DeCynda Barnes had neglected to look at Brumfield's autopsy when she was conducting her follow-up investigation into the shooting. In her report, she wrote that Brumfield had been shot in the shoulder, when in fact he was shot in the back.
Attorney Eric Hessler, who represents Officer Jones, previously dismissed Diel's account as rumor. He could not be reached for comment today. Officer Mitchell's lawyer, Kerry Cuccia, said he had no comment.