A 25-year-old black woman, whose family immigrated to Portland from South Sudan, was returning home from grocery shopping with her companion and their two children when a drive-by shooter blasted their vehicle, killing her.
These things happen.
Adau Duop’s death was overshadowed by another shooting the day before. June Knightly, a 60-year-old white woman, was killed while participating in one of Portland’s never-ending social justice protests, this one at Normandale Park.
My colleague, Richard Cheverton, laid out those events in “The Knee Jerks.”
Let’s consider Duop. Her companion, who is from Somalia, was seriously wounded and has remained hospitalized. Their two little boys, ages 1 and 5, were wounded and have been released to a family member.
The Oregonian made an effort to put a face on Duop, noting that she worked as a caregiver and quoted a friend saying “She’s not just another statistic.”
That depends. Who shot her?
Unless the shooter was a white guy with right-wing tendencies, Duop might be reduced to a statistic.
For Knightly’s killing, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt joined in a press conference where he got to be tough on crime for a change. He is filing charges against Benjamin Smith on behalf of the tribe that elected him DA – progressives who don’t believe in policing or prosecution unless one of their kind is the victim.
Five days after Duop was killed at Southeast 128th Avenue and Southeast Foster Road, there was a drive-by shooting in the area of Southeast 119th Avenue and Southeast Oak Street. At least six bullets hit nearby buildings, and the rear window of a victim’s vehicle was shattered.
Officers later spotted a vehicle matching the description of the shooter’s. When they tried to pull him over, he took off. (Why not? The Oregon legislature is making it harder for cops to initiate traffic stops of all drivers to reduce racial profiling.)
Portland Police via air support followed the vehicle to Southeast 128th Avenue and SE Foster Road – where Duop was killed. Two persons bailed from the vehicle, which turned out to be stolen.
Officers captured a 15-year-old male and recovered a gun. He was booked into the juvenile detention center on outstanding warrants. The person with him got away.
The next day, shots were fired in the parking garage at Lloyd Center in Northeast Portland, and cops found a dead male.
And on Sunday, a man was found shot in the Parkrose neighborhood and later died in the hospital.
What does any of this have to do with the shooting of Duop? This is the Portland that no one is protesting, unless the killers belong to the wrong political tribe.
Even the state Legislature's Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) Caucus released a statement condemning the killing of Knightly. Not a word about Duop and her companion, although BIPOC Caucus Chair, state Sen. Kayse Jama (D-Portland) is from Somalia.
Like Duop's South Sudan, Somalia is riven with tribal warfare. Is this to become an acceptable feature of life in Portland?
Whoever shot Duop and her family probably wasn’t worried about getting caught. They don’t have to read the news to know what’s happening with criminal justice reform. Word gets around on the street. The cops are being reformed. Prosecutors are being reformed. Criminals are not.
Look at these typical Portland activities in the days following the drive-by shooting of Duop’s family:
– On Tuesday, the Portland Committee for Community-Engaged Policing, one of the city’s various police oversight groups, had their monthly meeting. What was the topic of utmost importance? Committee members are still fixated on a slide deck used in a police training video that included a cartoon-like drawing making fun of hippies smelling of patchouli and getting hit over the head by police.
Committee member Ann Campbell grilled City Attorney Robert Taylor on what he knew, and when did he know it.
By Campbell’s calculations, Taylor had information on the slide deck in September and kept it from the public until January.
“I’m concerned about your process of deciding things … I don’t think you’re building trust here,” she said.
Taylor groveled: “Thank you for giving me an opportunity to build trust.”
Committee members feel slighted that Mayor Ted Wheeler has not attended their meetings recently. They want him and city commissioners to make amends at their March meeting.
– On Wednesday, the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication held a Portland screening in Old Town of “Public Plea,” a documentary by professor Ed Madison on Oregon’s voter-approved Measure 11 law, which set minimum-mandatory sentences for violent crimes. Under Measure 11, juveniles 15 years or older were tried as adults for offenses such as murder, kidnapping, rape and assault.
Three years ago, the Legislature, overruled the voters and removed juveniles from Measure 11. However, the change wasn’t retroactive.
Madison is black, and he believes this is unfair. His story focuses on a black Portland teenager named Ricky Gaters. The film skirts over details of an assault that Gaters has committed. Instead, it uses a re-enactment to show how an officer pressed his knee into Gaters’ back when trying to arrest him, and how an officer may have failed to properly give him his Miranda warning.
The film uses frequently-quoted supporters and opponents of Measure 11, but one woman was a surprise: Ronita Sutton, a black mother whose son was shot and killed by a gang member named Michael Gill. Her son Christopher was a few weeks away from starting college and was sitting in his car when Gill mistook him for someone else and shot him.
Nobody talks about the previous crimes that guys like Gaters get away with, Sutton said.
“I do think they have to be incarcerated to figure it out,” she said, wiping her eyes. “He has a victim or victims out there.”
Following the screening, there was a Q-and-A between Madison and the audience. A young white woman told Madison that Sutton’s appearance didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the narrative.
No, it didn’t. Sutton was brutally honest. “Public Plea” wants us to feel sorry for all the Ricky Gaters on our streets. Should the drive-by shooter who killed Duop be under 18 years old, if convicted he will be free by age 26 – with no record.
– On Thursday a Police Accountability Commission subcommittee met to fine-tune the creation of still another Portland police oversight group. This one will have a budget and paid staff and can subpoena and discipline officers.
Forty-two minutes into the meeting, during a discussion about which identity groups are over-policed, subcommittee member Charlie Michelle-Westley, who belongs to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, started crying. She had been at the march and shootings in Normandale Park.
“I’m going to go,” she said, excusing herself.
The others wished her love, then later took up some suggested language she wanted included in the formation of the new police oversight group: “We will hold police accountable not only for reducing the harms currently caused but also for repairing past harms and preventing future harms.”
Subcommittee member Eric Hunter, who is black, wasn’t sure how that would work in practice. They might be setting a goal that cannot be attained, he said.
They postponed consideration until Michelle-Westley can present her case to the full commission.
– On Friday, more outrage. A Portland police sergeant sent out a mass email to officers in the downtown Central Precinct seeking overtime volunteers. He included a graphic of a red hat with yellow letters mimicking former President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan: “Make Central Great Again!”
An officer reported it to the chief’s office. The chief has turned it over to internal affairs for an investigation. The sergeant has apologized.
Black witnesses are not expected to cooperate with police on shootings and other acts of violence because of slave memories on their DNA, but all cops are supposed to be snitches now.
So far this year, the Portland Police Bureau has had at least seven more resignations.
It would appear many have remembered everything but have learned nothing. I had considered Duop, and her companion, and the two children.
I also considered what little coverage has been given to her murder and to the attendant maimings and mayhem.
It puts me in mind of a hospital billboard I see when going over the bridge to Vancouver. It shows some mushy and bespectacled ginger guy with the slogan: Think with your heart.
Which translates to don't think, feel. Which is the formula that has given us what we have today, leaderlessness, slaughter, and an unnecessary slide further into the abyss. It is what legitimates CRT, Hannah Jones' loopy but vicious history, catch and release criminality, neighborhood squalor, Soros DAs, drug deaths, the mad and the dope addicted crowding our streets and school perimeters, and on and on.
I used to ticket park goers who let their dogs run wild. Of especial concern were the nature parks where, say, the Pacific Giant Salamander among the many flora and fauna native those parks were being destroyed or compromised by lazy, careless, or determined dog owners.
It should have a good opportunity for all progressive Portlanders to practice locally the stewardship of nature that they demanded globally. But, I never met an off-leash dog owner who didn't come off with bitter snark when the leash law was mentioned. When a dog owner was cited she showed up to appeal, sniffled a bit about how unfair was the citation and how it made her feel. The fines were then reduced or eliminated. He who had issued the ticket was not well regarded by either the arbitrator or the dog owner
The damage to the over used or heavily abused parks was and is incalculable.
Portland's approach to law and order seems to be much like its approach to enforcing public welfare statutes in the parks. Do not enforce the law but do think of the feelings of others. Mostly bipoc others, but white others if they live in a tent.
As a notable American racist of years passed observed: "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
We shall not stand much longer. Not as a city, not as a nation.