Serious Juggling

In the latest troubling allegation of mistreating mentally and physically ill suspects, the Portland Police Bureau faces a lawsuit by a man who claims he was Tasered, beaten and had his leg broken by cops after he had a seizure. In a suit filed Sept. 28 in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Don Shepard Jr. says he was driving to work at Freightliner on Sept. 29, 2005, when he got dizzy and pulled over on the I-84/I-5 interchange. According to the suit, Shepard had a seizure, lost consciousness, and was awakened by Officer Christopher Verbout, who removed him from the car and Tasered him. The suit also alleges that several other officers arrived and drove Shepard away, pulling over to beat him, breaking his leg. The city attorney’s office declined comment on the suit, which seeks $226,000.

Serious Juggling on Southeast Division Street made an unexpectedly distant sale recently. Ben Schoenberg, co-owner of the small juggling shop, got a call from Guantánamo Bay seeking 25 boxes of balls last month. Schoenberg says he doesn’t know why his Portland business got the call all the way from Cuba, but he first thought maybe detainees were “being told to juggle or something strange” while being photographed. The balls’ real destination: an elementary school for soldiers’ families living near Gitmo. Still, Schoenberg says he felt guilty about the $90 sale and decided to make “karmic offsets” by donating $90 to Oregon Democrat Steve Novick’s U.S. Senate campaign.

Former OLCC director Pamela Erickson, now with the drug prevention nonprofit Oregon Partnership, isn’t happy with Superbad . “i]Superbad[/i] is Superbad for Underage Drinking ,” Erickson wrote in her Oct. 1 “action alert” about the teen comedy replete with alcohol and attempted sex. But it wasn’t just the booze that bothered her: “Girls are treated as devices for ‘scoring’ with the idea that you need to get a girl very drunk to ‘score,’” she wrote. Did she see the same movie as Murmurs? One character, Seth, tries to ply a girl with alcohol. Turns out, his crush doesn’t drink. Seth recognizes his folly. His buddy Evan winds up in bed with another girl. Given that she’s puking, he refrains from “scoring,” and his chivalry is rewarded. Says Erickson: “I suspect that this is definitely a guy’s movie.” (P.S.: She says her husband did like the movie .)

Commissioner Sam Adams passed up one last tasty, nutrient-free drop of free press speculation last Friday by blowing Portland’s worst-kept secret. He pre-announced he’ll announce his candidacy for mayor Wednesday, Oct. 3. Taking a cue from Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s successful re-election in 2006, Adams will limit individual contributions to his 2008 primary campaign to $500. While that keeps him in line with the campaign budgets of his publicly financed, charity-case opponents, it’s still 20 times the $25 cap that Mayor Tom Potter set for himself in 2004. Unless Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock jumps into the mayor’s race, the rush to fill Adams’ vacant council seat should be the most interesting City Hall contest next spring. Charles “Duck Tours” Lewis and Chris “Streetcar” Smith have already filed. Who’s willing to step up and represent fixie bikes or freegans?