Good morning, Portland. Here are those links you've been waiting for.
This week's feature story, out in print yesterday, is about queer dance nights Blow Pony and Bearracuda getting kicked out of Euphoria Nightclub and landing at Bossanova Ballroom. Read it here.
ICYMI: Cops and prosecutors are embracing a radical idea: not filing drug possession cases.
In coming months, Portland’s set to become the latest city to experiment with an innovative strategy called Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) aimed at easing legal consequences for drug users.
Pioneered in Seattle in 2011, LEAD gives cops new leeway when they come across someone holding small amounts of meth, cocaine, or heroin. Rather than booking that person into jail, or turning a blind eye, police in LEAD cities can opt to get them help, ushering offenders to social services workers who can offer resources like job placement, counseling, and housing—all without a criminal charge ever being filed
"A Multnomah County judge tossed a lawsuit against Mayor Charlie Hales' months-old camping policies this morning, but that doesn't mean the issue's resolved,"we reported yesterday. "Instead, Judge Marilyn Litzenberger dismissed a case brought by the Portland Business Alliance (PBA), Central Eastside Industrial Council (CEIC), Overlook Neighborhood Association (OKNA), and other entities with an understanding another will be filed in its place—this time with more specifics."
In the Oregonian this morning, some big news about police oversight in Portland. The two Chicago-based consultants leading the Community Oversight Advisory Board no longer want to be apart of it, saying that "their relationship with the community board is so damaged that it 'prohibits restoration,' following more than a year of 'ambiguity, disrespect and willful undermining' of their authority to run the board."
Also in the Oregonian, reporting from the trial of Josh Ward, accused of attempted murder and a host of other charges:
Sheena Brown thought she was going to die as she stood in a secluded area of an Estacada park late one rainy night last February, wearing nothing but her socks and facing her boyfriend and his .380-caliber pistol.
Joshua Ward had driven her and her friend to McIver Park on Feb. 26, the 32-year-old testified Wednesday in Clackamas County Circuit Court. Ward suspected she had been talking to an ex-boyfriend earlier, Brown said, and became angry after she hung up on him. He pistol-whipped her, then used a stun gun once he had her in the car, she testified.
Soon after they stopped in the park, and Ward told her to get out and "get rid of everything," Brown said. All she had was her clothes.
He pulled the trigger, she said, but the gun didn't fire. Ward made two more attempts, Brown said, racking the pistol between each try, to no avail. He later showed her and the friend the dented bullet that jammed the pistol and told her she was lucky.
PSA: Don't leave LSD around for babies to find. "A 1½-year-old child who accidentally ingested a substance believed to be LSD at a campground near the Oregon Country Fair earlier this month appears to have since recovered from the potential overdose, according to the Lane County Sheriff’s Office,"the Register-Guard reported." Just after 4 p.m. on July 4 — four days before the fair officially began — the parents of a 19-month-old boy found him with a piece of tinfoil that had dots on it, resembling LSD, according to the sheriff’s office.
An electrical fuck-up delayed a bunch of TriMet MAX Orange Line users this morning
The speaker list for the upcoming Republican National Convention was just released...
Night 1: A Benghazi focus, followed by border patrol agents and Mr. Shaw, whose son was killed by an undocumented immigrant. Senator Cotton, Mr. Giuliani, Melania Trump, Ms. Ernst and others.
Night 2: A focus on the economy: Mr. White, president of the U.F.C.; Asa Hutchinson, the governor of Arkansas; Michael Mukasey, the former United States attorney general; Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a vice-presidential possibility; Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader; Tiffany Trump; Donald Trump Jr. and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
Night 3: Ms. Bondi; Ms. Collins; Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker; Senator Ted Cruz of Texas; Eric Trump; Ms. Gulbis; and the nominee for vice president.
Night 4: Mr. Tebow; Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee; Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma; Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman; Gov. Rick Scott of Florida; Mr. Thiel; Mr. Barrack; Ivanka Trump; Donald J. Trump.
A powerful floor speech by Tim Scott, a black Republican senator from South Carolina, who says he was pulled over by police in D.C. seven times in one year.