Murmurs: Multnomah County Leaders Kept Shooting Threat Quiet

In other news: The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office says it has released more than 160 inmates since July.

Thousands of Portlanders protested gun violence on March 14, 2018. (Aubrey Gigandet)

County Leaders Kept Shooting Threat Quiet: Leaders in the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice failed to inform staff or the public for weeks after a 16-year-old boy threatened to "shoot up" the Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Center, where the county houses teenagers held on criminal charges. Emails obtained by WW show that leaders within the agency knew about an FBI investigation into the threats as early as Feb. 2, but did not immediately inform staff. The county says DCJ leaders informed three staffers singled out by name in the threats on Feb. 15, but did not notify other staff working in the detention center. The incident raises questions about management at the county department responsible for incarcerated youth and adults on parole and probation. Director Scott Taylor announced his retirement March 14, giving no explanation for his sudden departure.

Cambridge Analytica Aided Oregon Candidate: The Washington Post reported March 25 that Cambridge Analytica—the London political consulting firm that allegedly harvested private data from tens of millions of Facebook users to boost the Trump campaign—helped advise Oregon Republican congressional candidate Art Robinson in 2014. Cambridge Analytica's task, according to a company document? "Rehabilitating Dr. Robinson's image with voters by presenting him as a sympathetic family man and serious scientist rather than as the extremely right-wing, unstable 'mad scientist' caricature created by the opposition over the previous two campaigns." The report raises new questions about foreign nationals working in American campaigns. Robinson, who lost to U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), says he paid Cambridge Analytica $20,000. "I didn't know the citizenship of the people working on the campaign," Robinson tells WW. "They didn't appear to be foreigners."

County Jails Release Prisoners: The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office says it has released more than 160 inmates since July because of overcrowding in the two jails it runs. In 2016, county commissioners voted to close several dorms in Inverness Jail—reducing the number of jail beds available to the county. The board put in place a process to release individuals if the newly shrunken jails got too full. The sheriff's office says the jails have been near capacity since November. The sheriff's office disclosed the numbers after a request by WW. Sheriff's officials have been discussing these numbers with county leaders for the past week, as the department gears up to request money to reopen a closed dorm in its proposal for the 2018-19 budget.

Wyden Gets Traction for Hemp: U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has picked up an unlikely but influential ally in his crusade to remove hemp from the list of federally controlled substances: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). McConnell announced March 26 that he will sponsor the Hemp Farming Act of 2018, which would allow hemp—a biological relative of cannabis—to be sold as an agricultural commodity. Wyden will co-sponsor the bill. Wyden pledges "to build even more support for our farmers to grow industrial hemp on American soil."

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