Death Foretold

...and quickly forgotten

By now you have probably read the coverage, kicked off by the Oregonian, followed by the Tribune and—most notably, most courageously—by KGW, of the murder—the slaughter—of Rachael Angel Abraham.

Just another murder in Portland.

While the Oregonian was bizzy-bizzy sending a reporter to Bend to salivate over a mini-mass killing of two people in a Safeway store, the editors treated this as an afterthought…

…Portland police said three people were killed and nine injured in shootings and other assaults over the weekend, including a ride-share driver held at gunpoint and a dangerous street-racing incident involving 'hundreds of people and cars that impeded officers who were responding to a call about a man who’d been wounded by gunfire [and who later died]…

So it wasn’t that hard for Oregonian’s police-blotter reporter, Austin De Dios (“…a public safety reporter with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion”) to kiss off the woman’s murder with a routine story…

Woman killed at Portland’s Powellhurst-Gilbert apartment after history of domestic disturbances, neighbors say

Just another day in Felony Flats.

Except it wasn’t.

It remained for the O’s cop-shop reporter, Maxine Bernstein to spot a few details that the earlier story missed—which leads one to suspect Bernstein was tipped-off by an outraged courthouse type.

It turned out—as you no doubt know—that Ms. Abraham’s killing involved an entire flock of chickens coming home to roost: a clueless DA, a shadowy non-profit, a bamboozled judge, people who didn’t do their homework…the usual cast of crazies with too many lofty ideals and not a lick of sense.

The killer—a maniac named Mohamed Osman Adan, had stalked, tormented, and tortured the mother of his three children for years and had frequently escaped through our permeable “social justice” system. His rap sheet probably weighed ten pounds; maybe that’s why many people didn’t read it. Re-arrested once again, a kindly non-profit, Portland Freedom Fund, bailed him out for $2-grand and, in effect, sealed Ms. Abraham’s fate.

In the wake of Mr. Adan’s final, savage denouement, the Fund said that…

….we were in contact with Mr. Adan throughout the time between his release and re-arrest and did not receive any indications for concern…

…a statement that must go down as a new low in damage-control; it won’t come in handy when the civil suits commence. As for the “re-arrest,” it was for murder in the second degree. No bail this time.

The Oregonian’s brilliant editors treated the story below-the-fold on the front page; they had bigger fish to fry with a story about…

Charter change ratchets up

Likewise their dead-weight web site floated the story down, down, down…beneath its lede (last we checked) about a shortfall of freshman students at the University of Portland.

It was left to the city’s TV news outfits to follow up, with KGW leading the way with what amounted to a howl of protest leavened with blunt truth. Their questions—unasked by print media (and a couple of other TV newsrooms) had all-too-obvious answers. They transcended the print media’s stolid recital of “fact” and got a little, well…angry. Maybe it was for show. Maybe not.

As legacy media seemed awkwardly surprised at the story’s impact, KOIN beat the Oregonian on the follow-up…

Portland Freedom Fund asked to pay $18K after bailing out accused murderer

But nothing could beat KGW’s outrage over the story’s obvious moral dimension; its sense of a society out of whack. It’s worth watching.

Then the CYA began. All three candidates for governor expressed outrage, with Tina Kotek leading the way by not saying what she would (or could) do about stopping this kind of nonsense; District Attorney Mike Schmidt dropped off a press release, duly reprinted in the O’s story…

“Our prosecutors aggressively pursued a high bail amount in this case,” Schmidt said in a statement.

…and left it to the Tribune to quote the Freedom Fund’s shadowy co-founder, Amanda Trujillo, to remind the DA about his November campaign promise…

…if I am elected District Attorney, I plan to advocate for getting rid of cash bail and stop penalizing defendants for being poor.

Now the DA seems to have changed his tune, offering a Law 101 lecture…

When a judge imposes bail, the defendant's ability to pay is among the factors they consider. The action taken by the Portland Freedom Fund circumvented this, with tragic results.

Let us predict that this will not be the last time the DA’s “set ‘em free” social justice/Sorosian philosophy meets the real world.

Mr. Adan certainly punched the race card, which we’ll get to in a moment, and he certainly couldn’t afford the $2-thousand bail, being employed by a non-profit handing out air conditioners under one of Portland’s climate give-aways (and which failed to get all of the expensive AC units distributed for the annual heat wave).

The stories also alluded to the fact that the busy Mr. Adan had repeatedly sawed-off the 24-7 ankle monitors used by the court to track his whereabouts (which are supposed to be a way that DA Schmidt can avoid asking for bail); and the O touched, lightly on that…

Amie Banta of the county’s Close Street Supervision Program that monitors defendants on pretrial release, said in court papers that Adan “violated multiple conditions of his release ultimately resulting in his alleged involvement in the death of the victim of his pending domestic violence cases.”

…which begs just one question, which you Dissenters are smart enough to ask.

And now we arrive at the errant do-gooders of the Portland Freedom Fund.

They’re a relic of the progressive summer of arson, looting, and riot, fueled by goofy progressives to get revolutionary kiddies out of the slammer. Funds here, funds there…and no one really seems to know where all that money went. In some cases, surprise! into the pockets of the non-profiteers.

The Portland outfit, which got in on the bonanza in 2019, is unknown even to the Guide Star web site that tracks non-profits, which notes that it…

…has not provided GuideStar with a mission statement.

…or any other data for that matter.

It may (or may not) have provided the IRS with what’s known as a 990 Form, but that agency is having trouble compiling data much after 2019—so your guess is as good as anyone else’s.

The Fund is registered with the IRS at 15033 SE Linden Ln., Portland, OR 97267, which is actually (if Google maps are accurate) in Milwaukee.

A KGW reporter knocked on that front door in pursuit of Ms. Trujillo. No one answered.

She (or whoever) was doing her talking on the web, where the non-profit’s views were clear…

…and where one of the “co-founders” left up a video talking, not about Mr. Adan’s misadventure, but a plea for money. An attached “statement” about the unhappy incident cleared its throat with the usual blah-blah (eerily similar to the pol’s reactions)…

Our thoughts are with the families and communities affected by this tragedy, particularly the children who have effectively lost both parents.

…but the tell was buried a couple of meandering grafs later…

Factors that may play a part in our decisions include but are not limited to ability to afford bail amount, health factors, pregnancy, impending loss of job, housing or shelter bed, drug/alcohol treatment opportunity, community support, race, gender status, separation of families.

Perhaps the “not limited to…” is “probability to re-offend and kill someone based on his record.”

As the media circled the story, the kimono flashed open and, briefly, showed the interconnections and back-scratches within the non-profit borg. Example, buried deep in the O’s yarn…

…the [Freedom] fund is supported through donations and grants and its fiscal sponsor is Northwest Alliance for Alternative Media and Education.

Fascinating group, if anyone bothers to DuckDuck them…

The organization’s mission is to amplify the work of alternative radio, print, film, and strategic media makers in the Pacific Northwest.

Primary activities include cultural programming for underserved youth, alternative media events, conferences, independent media content, speakers bureau and fiscal sponsorships.

Springing liable-to-offend types out of jail is nowhere mentioned. Nor will you find any reference to Portland Freedom anywhere on its web site. Probably just as well.

Meanwhile, The Freedom Fund, with the help of the Oregonian, did some blame-shifting…

The African Youth & Community Organization wrote a letter to the court in support of Adan…

…and added…

Mohammed Yahya, identified as the group’s victims advocate coordinator, said Adan was delivering air conditioners to community members, and the group had “seen improvement in him, as well as his situation.”

…and left it at that. So did the rest of the media scrum.

The African Youth & Community Organization, AYCO, is in a whole different league than the Freedom Fund: it’s shopping for an architecturally-distinguished new headquarters building on the east side ($5-million will seal the deal), and made a serious bid to be the cutout charity for the massive new public housing project in Montavilla (which we regarded with skepticism here), although it was outmuscled by Catholic Charities.

Rummage around on the web and you’ll find (miraculously!) their 2020 Form 990. Short version: there’s a lot of money pumping through the organization—just over $1-million in 2020, versus a mere 158,567 the year before. Jackpot!

So the question one might ask is: why the handoff of Mr. Adan from AYCO to the penny-ante Freedom Fund? Did the AYCO “victims advocate coordinator” read the man’s rap sheet?

Don’t wait for big media to ask the question.

A total cynic might come up with a slightly different premise. It’s something that no one around town can say out loud without getting deplatformed, or ripped up by the media’s enforcers of orthodoxy….but here goes.

There’s too much money and political patronage at stake to let this sordid story get out of control. The media will fly 10-thousand-foot cover.

The DA will keep Mr. Soros happy; if you want to restore justice, get your checkbook out. Non-profits will proliferate; got to give the university graduates with their DIE diplomas a paying job; better than slinging sour beer and rotating through dead-end jobs.

Ms. Abraham and her six orphans? Casualties—but equity, diversity, reimagining, dismantling is what counts. Grieve and move on, folks.

In the words of the Portland Freedom Fund…

We currently only post bail for Black, Brown and Indigenous folks in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties.

Give us your tax-deductible dollars, but we aren’t interested in anyone who isn’t the right color. Which we get to define.

This town’s government, its media, its educational monopoly has our backs, so shut up. We have power and we’re not about to share it. Don’t like what’s on offer? Hit the road.