Source: The Oregonian Contact: Pubdate: As shown below. Website: http://www.oregonlive.com/ Editors note: Our newshawk sent the following, all from the same source, as a collection, so I am posting them together. Thank you, Phil. The Oregonian, January 29, 1998 POLICE ACTED TO PRESERVE DRUG EVIDENCE The Smell Of Burning Marijuana Led Officers To Take Action, Triggering Portland Shootout By J. Todd Foster and David R. Anderson of The Oregonian staff Portland police officers caught in a fatal firefight Tuesday were waiting on a search warrant when a drug suspect forced their hand by burning marijuana plants, a court record states. The officers had every right to break down the door with a concrete stepping stone and confront suspect Steven Douglas Dons, legal authorities said Wednesday. A probable cause affidavit filed late Wednesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court indicates that five officers visited Dons' rental home twice before noon Tuesday. The first time, officers' knocks on the door went unanswered, the affidavit states. Then they smelled marijuana smoke at the house, a source said, and immediately sought a search warrant. The search warrant was on the desk of Multnomah County Circuit Judge Michael Marcus and waiting to be signed, a source said, when officers returned to the home at 2612 S.E. 111th Ave. about 11:38 a.m. "The officers both saw and smelled the odor of burning marijuana from the chimney of the residence," Deputy District Attorney James McIntyre wrote in the affidavit. ". . . The officers then attempted entry into the residence to halt the destruction of evidence." Just inside the door, Dons allegedly fired at least 10 shots, said homicide Detective Sgt. Duane Wentlandt. Dons used a cheap semi-automatic SKS rifle capable of firing 30 rounds a minute. Officer Colleen Waibel, 44, was struck above and below her protective vest and died quickly. Officer Kim Keist, 39, remained in serious condition after she was hit by two rounds, both possibly penetrating her vest. Sgt. Jim Hudson, 42, was struck in the hand. He returned to the crime scene Wednesday with his arm in a sling to help detectives with collecting evidence. Dr. Larry Lewman, state medical examiner, said Waibel's autopsy Wednesday showed she died of multiple gunshot wounds. He would not say how many or where they were. Wentlandt said it could take a couple of days to process the crime scene. Police continued to rope off Southeast 111th Avenue between Clinton and Division streets Wednesday. Investigators say they don't know exactly what happened during the gunfight because they've not interviewed the officers involved. In officer-involved shootings, officers get lawyers before they talk to investigators. "We don't have an absolutely clear picture yet," Wentlandt said. He would not comment on other aspects of the case, including how many guns the suspect had or whether marijuana was found in the blue, barnlike rental house Dons shared with Jeffrey Moore. One police supervisor who didn't want to be named said of the secrecy, "I don't think anyone's seen it this tight before." Dons, 37, who compiled an extensive criminal record in Las Vegas before moving to Portland in 1995, remains under guard and in serious condition at OHSU Hospital. He was charged Wednesday with two counts of aggravated murder, three counts of attempted aggravated murder and two counts of first-degree assault with a firearm. Police attached black ribbons to their badges Wednesday and continued to mourn Waibel's death, the first for a Portland policewoman. As if Tuesday weren't bad enough, Portland police shot and killed a 19-year-old man about midnight Tuesday after they said he shot at them. Aaron Rahmaan died early Wednesday at Legacy Emanuel Hospital from a gunshot wound to the head. Rahmaan was wearing body armor when police attempted to talk to him shortly before midnight on Albina Avenue, just south of Killingsworth, said Lt. Cliff Madison, a police spokesman. Madison would not name the officers involved or the circumstances. As the community grieved Wednesday, defense lawyers and prosecutors debated the wisdom of the bureau's drug interdiction policy called "knock and talk." When police don't have enough probable cause for a search warrant but have a reliable tip about drugs, they knock on a door and ask to speak to those inside. Under a voluminous body of case law nationally, police can break down doors and enter homes without a warrant if they have "exigent" or emergency circumstances. Those circumstances include saving someone's life or preventing the destruction of evidence by any means, including burning it or flushing it down a toilet, said Susan Mandiberg, a Lewis & Clark Law School professor and expert in criminal procedure. Mark McDonnell, a Multnomah County senior deputy district attorney who heads the drug unit, said knock and talks are valuable enforcement tools in the war on drugs. Defense attorneys said the technique is asking for disaster. The low-key approach doesn't bring the same firepower and backup as search warrants, they said. "For 10 years, we've been saying someone was going to be killed if the cops keep doing this," said Emily Simon, a Portland criminal defense attorney. Oregon City defense attorney Jenny Cooke, who handles many cases arising from knock and talks, said police use the procedure to avoid getting warrants. If they find drugs, they can seize the person's home and assets under civil forfeiture proceedings. That gives them a financial incentive, Cooke said. "This was an awful tragedy. But I can't say I'm surprised." Marcus would not discuss the case but said knock and talks are useful, cost-effective and generally safe. Domestic disturbances and felony car stops are far more dangerous, he said. "From my perspective, it's not something that's inherently risky as far as police work goes," Marcus said. Other information emerged Wednesday about Dons, a high school dropout who attended at least four Northern California high schools and was discharged from the U.S. Air Force in 1979 after two years. The military would not say whether the discharge was honorable, but most Air Force hitches are at least three or four years. Dons moved to Portland in the early to mid-1990s and lived off and on with Moore, whom he met in the mid-1980s in Las Vegas, said Moore's ex-wife, Chelle Moore. She said she is cooperating with Portland police. Jeffrey Moore, 44, has been a computer network specialist at Mt. Hood Community College since February 1993, college officials said. He has not been charged with a crime. He did not return several phone calls or respond to a message left at his office Wednesday. Chelle Moore said Dons baby-sat her two children several times in early January while they visited their father, Moore. At one point, Dons handcuffed her 7-year-old boy to a chair after he complained about the chicken soup Dons fixed, she said. He also handcuffed the same boy to a door knob another time when he wouldn't calm down, the woman said. "Steve is a very violent, angry person," she said. "He didn't like rules." Carolyn Testerman of Bend grew up with Dons in the Menlo Park area south of San Francisco. Their birthdays were four days apart, and they lived near one another. He called her nearly every birthday, she said. Testerman remembers in the late 1960s or early 1970s when Dons and his brother, Donald, located a marijuana plant and were pictured in a newspaper as heroic youngsters who notified police. Other than that day, "He was a troubled little kid," Testerman said. "He was the neighborhood rock thrower. He had an aim that could hit anything," including the foreheads of playmates. "The other kids weren't allowed to play with him," she said. "I had a soft spot for him because I felt sorry for him." Reporters Jennifer Bjorhus, Scott Learn, Michele Parente and Stuart Tomlinson and researchers Margie Gultry and Gail Hulden of The Oregonian staff contributed to this report. - ------ The Oregonian, January 28, 1998 DESK VETERAN HIT STREETS WITH ENTHUSIASM Colleen Waibel, Shot To Death Tuesday, Spent 20 Years In Law Enforcement, The Past Six As A Sworn Officer By Pete Farrell of The Oregonian staff Portland Police Bureau Officer Colleen Waibel, 44, spent years in police desk jobs before hitting the streets six years ago. Waibel liked street patrol work and took on a neighborhood liaison assignment with the East Precinct. She was helping a drug and vice task force with a raid Tuesday when she died from fire from an automatic weapon. Waibel had been in law enforcement about 20 years, starting with the Washington County sheriff's department before joining the Portland Police Bureau to work in the records division. After 11 years in that job, she became a sworn officer six years ago. She was married to Sgt. Mark Fortner of East Precinct, who had taken a sick day Tuesday and was notified at home about his wife's death. She had two sons by a previous marriage. Colleen Waibel's parents live in Hillsboro. She came from a large Washington County family that includes reporter Janice Waibel of KPTV (12), who is the dead officer's first cousin. As an officer in Portland, Colleen Waibel was known for being active in neighborhood matters and had been a responsive neighborhood liaison officer in the Madison South neighborhood in the area around Rocky Butte. "She was a wonderful person, and I don't know how to describe how much it hurts this time," said Rosanne Lee, East Precinct crime prevention specialist, who had worked with Waibel in her earlier assignments and saw her often at East Precinct, where Lee has her office. After a condolence visit to East Precinct, where officers did not want to be interviewed, City Commissioner Charlie Hales said he could only repeat what he had been told: "She was hard-working, diligent, loved her work. Always ready to do her job." Early in her career, Waibel worked as a secretary to Washington County Sheriff Bud Barnes. One officer who met her when he joined the department in 1975 remembered her Tuesday as upbeat and easygoing. "She was friendly and real hard-working," he said. "And as far as I know, she was very capable." Waibel grew up on a farm in a rural area outside Hillsboro. One of her cousins works for the Cornelius Fire Department. Janice Waibel was covering the story of the shooting for KPTV when her office learned the identity of the dead officer. Waibel called her mother to make sure she knew what had happened, learned that the family had been notified, and then went back to covering the shooting. "She wanted to stay on the story" despite being upset, said John Sears, the station's news director. Colleen Waibel started working for the sheriff's office in the mid-1970s and stayed for about five years. She was leaving, she told friends at the time, to take a job in the Portland Police Bureau's records department. A friend from the sheriff's office unexpectedly ran into Waibel and her husband last summer in Frenchglen, the remote high desert burg near Steens Mountains in Harney County. Waibel and her husband apparently were on a car trip through the area and stopped for the night at the Frenchglen Hotel and had dinner with her old Washington County friend and his wife. "She said that probably 10 years ago she started trying to get on patrol," said the friend, who asked not to be identified. "She liked patrol." David Anderson, Jim Long and Don Hamilton of The Oregonian staff also contributed to this report. - ----- The Oregonian January 28, 1998 SUSPECT IS SAID TO HATE POLICE, SCORN WOMEN Former Co-workers Say Steven Douglas Dons Also Bragged About His Criminal History And His Access To Guns By Stuart Tomlinson of The Oregonian staff Former co-workers said Steven Douglas Dons bragged a lot, broke easily under pressure and appeared at times to hear voices. Others described 37-year-old Dons, accused of killing a Portland police officer and wounding two others Tuesday, as a man who liked to boast about how "well connected" he was when it came to procuring handguns or machine guns. He also commented on how he hated police and didn't respect women. "He said he could get me anything I wanted - 9-millimeter, machine gun, you name it," said Dave Shaddon, station manager at Astro Gas and Carwash at Southeast Division Street and 112th Avenue, less than a block from the scene of Tuesday's shooting. The station hired Dons in May 1995 as a pump attendant for $4.75 an hour and promoted him six months later to assistant manager at $6.75 an hour. "He was a big mouth . . . kind of a know-it-all," Shaddon said. "But he worked out fine. . . . They wanted him to be a manager." By February 1996, Dons was promoted to manager and transferred to the Astro station at Northwest 21st Avenue and Marshall Street, where he earned about $12.50 an hour plus commissions. He quit that job after a month, Shaddon said, because he said he just didn't like it. In the months after he quit, Dons would stroll by the Division Street station, drop in and chat with Shaddon and his crew. He occasionally asked Shaddon to hire him back. Other times, the talk turned to guns or a boast about Dons' criminal history, which included arrests in Las Vegas, including some charges of resisting or obstructing police. During Tuesday's standoff, Portland police asked Shaddon to stand by in case they needed him to talk with Dons by phone, but Shaddon's services never were needed. Instead, Shaddon and his co-workers fielded phone calls from worried Astro managers, juggled school pickup times for their children, and chain-smoked cigarettes while Tuesday's drama played out. When the shooting started, they were close enough to hear the gunshots and see the smoke from the gunpowder. "We heard a bunch of popping - it was a ripping sound," said one Astro pump attendant, Francis Stewart. "You know the sound a whole pack of firecrackers makes - it was like that." Moments later, a swarm of police cars descended on the station, blocking traffic and closing the business. Until Shaddon walked across Division Street to buy fried chicken for co-workers, less than an hour after the shootings occurred, he had no idea his former employee was the man police said had shot three officers. "I can't believe it. . . . I know this guy," Shaddon told his workers, huddling in the small brick office of the large yellow and blue station as camouflaged police officers patrolled nearby. Shaddon's wife, Shannon, an assistant manager at the station, said Dons frequently commented on how much he hated police and that women should be barefoot and pregnant. "I didn't like him at all," she said. "He didn't think women should be working. He didn't have any respect for women." - ------ The Oregonian January 28, 1998 MORE EQUALITY IN RANKS BRINGS WITH IT MORE RISKS Portland Has Long Been In The Vanguard When It Comes To Women Police Officers, And That's Been Both Good And Bad By Erin Hoover of The Oregonian staff In the world of law enforcement, they generally are not called ladies. They are sometimes called women. But more often, they are called females. Female police officers' approaches to their work are no doubt as varied as any other group's. But some women in policing will tell you that success has meant finding a balance between being a woman and behaving like a man. " 'Female' is a gender. 'Woman' is gender plus a sense of femininity, and we have a tendency to put a certain amount of our femininity in the locker when we put on the uniform," said Det. Sgt. Erin Kelley, a cop for 25 years, 21 of those with the Portland Police Bureau. Women have strode closer and closer to equality with men in policing since this nation's first woman police officer was hired - Lola Baldwin, at the Portland Police Bureau in 1905 to keep employment-seeking young ladies out of the hands of madams. No longer are female officers expected to work in a Women's Protective Division wearing dresses and donning hats and gloves when they leave the office, their Smith & Wessons tucked in their purses, as they did in the 1960s in Portland. Now women populate virtually every department in urban police bureaus, including the SWAT teams - or the Special Emergency Reaction Team - though not always in front-line roles. In the Portland Police Bureau, 16.2 percent of the 964 sworn personnel are women. Of the bureau's criminalists, 23.5 percent are women, 17.1 percent of the sergeants are women, 7.7 percent of the lieutenants are women, and one of the three assistant police chiefs - Lynnea Berg - is a woman. Penny Harrington, who spent 23 years as a Portland Police officer, became Portland Police chief in 1985, the first woman police chief of a major metropolitan police department. She served 18 months before resigning. But along with the pride of getting closer to equality among the ranks of police have come more women officers in the line of fire. On Tuesday, a Portland Police officer became the bureau's first woman to be shot and killed in the line of duty. Colleen Waibel, 44, was also one of the first women officers killed in the line of duty in Oregon. Alice Mae Moran, a matron with the Josephine County Sheriff's Office, was killed in the line of duty on Nov. 17, 1971, according to Craig W. Floyd, chairman of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund in Washington, D.C. Matrons were generally women who handled women prisoners in the jails, Floyd said. He was unable to say how she died. Nationally, 119 women officers have been killed in the line of duty, from gunshot or stab wounds, traffic accidents or other causes, since the end of 1997, Floyd said. He said of the 700,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officers, 10 percent are women. Tuesday's shooting in Southeast Portland also injured another woman officer, Kim Keist, 39 - and two male officers - marking only the second time a female Portland Police officer has been shot and not killed. Jeanne L. Stevenson, 28, was shot in the leg in 1990 during the arrest of a drunken-driving suspect. And with the honor of approaching equality in life comes the recognition of equality in death: "It was a loss of an officer," said Kelley. "It doesn't matter to me if it was male or female, black, white, Hispanic or Asian. It was an officer in a blue uniform." - ----------------------------- The Oregonian January 28, 1998 LIVE TV COVERAGE ANGERS CITY, POLICE OFFICIALS Police Chief Charles Moose Accuses Local Stations Of Endangering Police With Aerial Shots Of Their Positions By Pete Schulberg of The Oregonian staff Saying that live television coverage Tuesday afternoon endangered police officers by showing strategic positions during the Southeast Portland standoff, city officials are seeking to crack down on news helicopters. "You put our officers in danger and continued to do that," said a livid Portland police Chief Charles Moose, whose comments were broadcast live following the standoff. The police shooting and 2 1/2-hour standoff were carried live throughout the afternoon by KATU (2), KGW (8), KOIN (6) and KPTV (12). During the siege, much of the video originated from helicopters whose stabilizing, long-lens cameras showed police special response team positions and other police activity. "It's time to call them on it and make them have some sense of responsibility," said Jeffrey L. Rogers, attorney for the city of Portland. Police were concerned that the suspect, Steven Douglas Dons, 37, was watching TV and able to see officers surrounding his house. Several times during the siege, commanders at the scene radioed 9-1-1 dispatchers and asked them to call TV stations to move back helicopters and stop showing live shots of police moving into position. Dons, who had been shot in the initial contact with police, came to the door of his house after either seeing on TV or hearing on radio that an Oregon State Police armored vehicle had driven to his doorstep. Rogers has been asked by Sam Adams, chief of staff for Mayor Vera Katz, to determine if the city has any legal recourse to limit live telecasts from crime scenes. "Every time the police asked us to do something, we'd pull away," said John Sears, KPTV news director, echoing his competition. "Nobody wants to have a SWAT officer shot by a suspect who is watching their news." Mike Rausch, KGW news director, said, "We are very aware of our role in the safety of police officers and did not overstep any journalistic bounds to get the story." KGW started the local TV chopper competition when it introduced "Sky 8" three years ago. During the coverage, Adams called general managers at Portland's stations to express his dissatisfaction. While station executives said they were complying with police requests, video of officers on the ground was shown. Following Moose's angry denunciation, KATU anchorman Paul Linnman told viewers, "Our helicopters went out (away from the scene) when they were ordered to do so; our reporters stayed back. We played by the rules bringing you this story." Portland police officers had called for a Federal Aviation Administration regulation which requires aircraft to steer clear of airspace above an emergency situation on the ground. "We comply with all regulations," said Kerry Oslund, KOIN news director. "We would welcome an investigation. We have our obligations, too."