AltWeeklies Wire
A Portland Cop Says a Complaint About His Boss's Dirty Dance Stifled His Careernew
Officer Tom Brennan says his career as a Portland cop hit a dead end the night a superior officer ground his crotch against Brennan’s wife at Dixie Tavern.
Willamette Week |
James Pitkin |
03-11-2009 |
Crime & Justice
Smartpark, Dumb Enforcement?new
Tom Dehen didn’t know he could be threatened with arrest for walking on Portland city property with a camera and a sketch pad.
Willamette Week |
Joshua Bolkan |
03-11-2009 |
Civil Liberties
Tags: civil liberties, Portland
The Killing in Room 515new
Three weeks after fatally stabbing his neighbor, Melvin Earl Parker is back in his apartment.
Willamette Week |
Beth Slovic |
02-25-2009 |
Crime & Justice
He Joined the Gang When He Was 13, Now He Can't Get Outnew

Membership in one of the nation's most notorious criminal gangs can have its benefits: money, girls and a ready cadre of friends. But it may also be a dead end with no easy exit.
Willamette Week |
James Pitkin |
02-18-2009 |
Crime & Justice
Horse Race: Portland City Bureaus Jockey for Money Amid a Grim Budget Forecastnew
City agencies in Portland must make even deeper cuts than expected, city commissioners say. In some cases, that means bureaus will be slashing more than 5 percent from their budgets for the next fiscal year.
Willamette Week |
Beth Slovic |
01-21-2009 |
Policy Issues
Portland Shelter for Victims of Forced Prostitution Would be First in the Countrynew
By March, James Pond hopes to open a high-security safe house in Portland with 16 to 20 beds for girls recently freed from sex trafficking. It will be the first shelter of its kind in the country, and one that's badly needed in Portland, where the city’s police find three to five cases each week of girls under the age of 18 who are victims of forced prostitution.
Willamette Week |
Katie Gilbert |
11-05-2008 |
Crime & Justice
Are Portland Students Buying P.E. Credits?new
More than 100 high-school students in Portland Public Schools will opt out of their state-required physical-education classes this year. Instead, many of them will earn their P.E. credits from an alternative operation called Quest Schools, based in Tigard.
Willamette Week |
Beth Slovic |
09-03-2008 |
Education
Why Can't Khadija Go to Mosque?new
Khadija could be a star spokeswoman for Muslims if they wanted to show off Islam's teachings of peace and acceptance. Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, the imam of Masjed As-Saber, won't let Khadija back in his Southwest Portland mosque because Khadija is transgendered.
Willamette Week |
Byron Beck |
08-20-2008 |
LGBT
No Car, No Problem: One Portland Family Gets Onto Their Bikesnew
When you're joyful that gas has dropped to about $4 per gallon, it’s not hard to figure out why people are giving up on driving. But how easy is it to get rid of owning your car for good?
Willamette Week |
Lillian Hogan |
08-06-2008 |
Transportation
The Queer and the Qur'an: One Man's Struggle with Being a Gay Muslimnew
Ali stays in the shadows, because if he were to come out as a gay Muslim, he would lose things dearer to him than his own life: family, community, identity.
Willamette Week |
Byron Beck |
08-06-2008 |
LGBT
Activists Want Portland to be a Sanctuary for AWOL Soldiersnew
A coalition of activists called PDX Peace is gathering signatures to make Portland America's third "Sanctuary City" for military deserters, along with San Francisco and Berkeley. And they want the City Council to adopt an ordinance that would protect war resisters by blocking Portland police from acting on federal orders to arrest AWOL soldiers.
Willamette Week |
Beth Slovic |
07-23-2008 |
War
Tags: Iraq, AWOL, Afghanistan, soldiers, Portland, deportation, war & peace, Sanctuary City, PDX Peace
An Unpaid Intern's Guinea Pig Guide to Inexpensive Portland Health Carenew
Despite the big downside of living in a wonderful dream town: It is fucking impossible to find a well-paying job. So while Portland may have one of the nation's highest densities of college grads and a progressive approach to health care, a vast 40 percent of Portlanders between ages 21 and 24 still don't have insurance.
The Portland Mercury |
Sarah Mirk |
07-17-2008 |
Science
The Death of a Landlordnew
Plenty of people want to kill their landlord. Not many are accused of actually doing it, hacking him to pieces, offing a roommate at the same time, then dumping both bodies 30 miles away in the sticks.
Willamette Week |
James Pitkin |
06-11-2008 |
Crime & Justice
Meet a Professional Rat Catchernew
Tim TenBrink has run Critter Control in Portland for 10 years. He moved here from Michigan, after deciding he didn't want to teach high school science there any more because the job wasn't as fulfilling as he'd expected. So he got a part-time job in Portland doing pest control, and stayed.
The Portland Mercury |
Matt Davis |
05-29-2008 |
Business & Labor
Why Build Another Bridge Between Portland and Washington?new

Portland-area pols say global warming is a dire threat -- but they want to spend $4.2 billion on a project that makes driving easier.
Willamette Week |
Nigel Jaquiss |
05-21-2008 |
Transportation