By Aimee Green, The Oregonian, Jan. 30, 2012

David Allen Canterbury has been sentenced to jail for waving a pair of toy light sabers at customers in Toys R Us. No one was injured. (Photo: KPTV.com)

A 33-year-old man who struck customers with light sabers at the Toys R Us at Hayden Island has been sentenced to 45 days jail and possible mental-health treatment.

David Allen Canterbury told Judge Kenneth Walker that he is already seeking mental-health treatment. Canterbury also apologized to his victims.

Portland police said Canterbury swung the Star Wars sabers — one in each hand — at three customers on Dec. 14 at about 9:50 p.m. at the store at 1800 Jantzen Beach Center. He then carried the light sabers outside the store and swung at police. Officers tried to use a Taser to subdue him, but Canterbury successfully deflected one of the wires away.

Police eventually wrestled him to the ground before taking him into custody.

Today in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Canterbury pleaded no contest to fourth-degree assault and resisting arrest. The judge dismissed charges of interfering with a police officer, theft and disorderly conduct. The judge also sentenced Canterbury to two years of probation and a mental-health evaluation that could call for treatment.

Canterbury has been banned from Toys R Us. The judge did not give him additional time for violating the terms of his probation for a previous heroin-possession conviction.

From The Oregonian, January 30, 2012

Fairview police released the names of the two officers involved in the city’s first fatal police shooting on Monday, saying one of the officers had been attacked by the victim “brandishing a large knife” within moments of their arrival.

Officer Mike Morton, a 15-year-veteran of the department, shot at Larry McKinney three times shortly before midnight Friday, killing him in the doorway of his mother’s apartment. His partner, Joe Kaiser, had been attacked by McKinney, according to the statement.

Fairview Police Chief Ken Johnson declined to comment about the case until it goes before a grand jury late next week. The two officers have been put on paid administrative leave.

“It is anticipated that information from the Grand Jury will be released to the public so that all the facts and circumstance of the case can be clearly understood and speculation and false rumors can be corrected,” the news release said.

Sandra Kelley, 60, the victim’s mother, said she’s had a few calls from a Portland detective but no contact with the Fairview Police Department. The shooting is being investigated by the east county major crimes team, which includes the Multnomah County Sheriff’s office and Portland, Gresham and Troutdale police.

Two and a half days after the shooting, she is wracked with guilt, feeling like she’s responsible for his death.

If only she hadn’t decided to get tough. If only she hadn’t called police.

But she’s angry, too, about their reaction. She said they panicked and fired.

“I want the truth out there,” she said.

Kelley had never called the police before on her troubled 37-year-old son, who’d recently been released from jail and had a drinking problem. But this time she decided to lay down the law. He’d been drinking. He had to leave.

She called 9-1-1.

Minutes later, two police officers showed up outside her apartment building in Fairview.

Seconds after that her only son was dead, she said.

“It wasn’t even a minute,” she said on Monday, sobbing as she talked about the events leading up to the police shooting.

It started Friday evening in her apartment in the Wood Creek Village complex on Northeast Halsey Street near 203rd Avenue. For about the past week, he’d been crashing on her couch in her second-story two-bedroom apartment that she shares with her brother. He was on parole and was not supposed to drink. He’d just seen his parole officer that morning, she said.

This time, she hoped he would steer his life straight.

But when he called, she could tell he’d been drinking. She told him to stay away. No drinking. Those were the rules.

But he hopped into a cab and turned up anyway. She tried to get him to leave, pushing him out the door, but he refused. She went into her bedroom and locked the door.

He shoved it open. She picked up her cell phone and called emergency dispatch, saying she wanted police to get her son out of her apartment. No, she said, she was not worried about her own safety. She just wanted him to leave.

The dispatcher told her to stay on the phone and go downstairs to wait for police. She walked out the door and down the 14 steps to a patch of grass below as a patrol car drove up. Officers Joe Kaiser and Mike Morton got out and immediately drew their weapons, she said.

She was shocked.

“I don’t want you to shoot him,” she said she told them as they walked towards the bottom of the stairs. “I want you to make him leave.”

She said they asked if there were any weapons in her home, and she said no.

They took a few steps to the bottom of the stairs, their guns drawn, and her son walked out onto the landing. He was holding a slicing knife with a blade about an inch wide and six inches long.

She told him to put the knife down.

The cops told him to put weapon down.

McKinney stared and said nothing, she said, and then — bam, bam, bam — the cop on her right — Morton — fired three times.

She saw her son slump into her entryway.

“They shot him so fast — it happened before I could breathe,” she said. “They didn’t Tase him. They didn’t use rubber bullets. They just shot him down.”

Gerald Kelley, Kelley’s brother, was watching television in the living room at the time. He said his nephew was shot about seven seconds after he walked out onto the landing.

McKinney has a long rap sheet dating to 1993. He has been on and off probation and in and out of jail, mostly convicted of misdemeanors though he also was sentenced for assault, harassment and drug charges.

He has three children — daughters 3 and 9 and a 10-year-old son — with his longtime partner.

“He has a family who loves him,” said Cynthia Champion, his half sister.

From The Oregonian, January 29, 2012

Detectives are investigating Friday’s shooting by Fairview police, as the mother of the man killed disputes the police account.

Larry McKinney 12.21.2012

Shortly before midnight Friday, two officers responded to a 9-1-1 call to Wood Creek Apartments near the corner of Northeast 203rd Avenue and Halsey Street. There, one or both officers fired their weapon, killing Larry M. McKinney, a 37-year-old with a lengthy criminal history who lived in an apartment with his mother, Sandra Kelley.

Fairview police say McKinney attacked them while brandishing a large knife. Kelley, who was there, said Sunday that McKinney never advanced on the officers, instead standing about 20 feet away.

“I want the truth to be told,” said Kelley, 60, adding that she stood a few feet away from police. “My son did not move an inch: he didn’t talk, he didn’t threaten no one.”

Kelley had called 9-1-1 because McKinney came home drunk, and refused to leave when asked, she said. Based on past experience, she feared he would play loud music, and she fears being evicted.

“My rule is you don’t drink at my house, and you don’t come home buzzed or drunk,” she said.

She waited outside. When the officers arrived, her son came to the door of their second-story apartment, at the top of 14-step staircase, holding a kitchen knife, 8 to 9 inches long. At the bottom of the stairs, officers unholstered weapons, she said.

Larry McKinney 10.30.2012

“I said ‘Put the knife down, Larry,’ and they go, ‘Drop the weapon! Drop the weapon,’ and then they shot him three times. It happened that fast.”

Sgt. Bernie Meyer of the Fairview Police Department confirmed Sunday that Kelley was there, but declined to name the officers, or say how many fired weapons. Nor would he address the mother’s specific claims.

“The officers felt they were threatened, and that’s why they reacted the way they did,” he said. “We are trained to stop the threat.”

Meyer said officers are trained in “the 21-foot rule” that a knife-wielding suspect can cover 21 feet before officers can draw weapons and fire.

The officers involved are on leave pending an investigation by the East County Major Crimes Team, which includes the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and Portland, Gresham and Troutdale police.

McKinney has been booked in Multnomah County jails 62 times since 1993, according to jail records. According to his mother, his early troubles stemmed from drugs, leading to a state prison sentence for assault. His more recent arrests had to do with drinking and related issues, such as probation violations, she said.

But she said he was no threat to police. “They knew him,” she said. “A lot of them liked him.”

Gerald Kelley, McKinney’s uncle, was inside the apartment watching television when he saw his nephew step outside to confront police.

Larry McKinney 10.02.2010

“I go, ‘Oh quit it, Larry put the knife down, don’t be stupid,’ because he does stupid stuff when he’s drunk. I thought he might threaten to kill himself, because you know he’s got a lot of mental problems. I thought he was just screwing around.”

“I heard (Sandra Kelley) say ‘Put the knife down, Larry!’ and it couldn’t have been more than three or four seconds,” he said. “All I heard was ‘pop-pop-pop.’”

McKinney spent some time working at Precision Castparts and on an Alaskan fishing boat, but had his fingers crushed on the boat, and has been unemployed ever since. He spent two weeks in jail earlier this month, split between a Multnomah County probation violation and a drunk-driving conviction in Umatilla. He was slated to go into a treatment program in the coming weeks, Sandra Kelley said.

He is the father of two daughters, 3 and 9, and a 10-year-old son. His children’s mother has custody, but McKinney remained close to them, his mother said. “He’s a great father. He cooks for them, he plays with them, he dances with them. He’s a big kid himself, basically.”

By Kelly House, The Oregonian, Friday, January 27, 2012

BENJAMIN BRINK/The Oregonian
Mark "Ivan" Kolyvanov (from left), 19; Talilo Marfil, 22; Chip Sloan (at the controls); and Leticia Castaneda, 21, edit film at Digital One in Southwest Portland.

“He said a lot of cruel things to me that really hurt me, but it’s OK because I know he’s sorry,” Cantrelle says, pacing her words to match the lip movements of the actor on screen. Cantrelle, 23, is re-dubbing the scene after a passing car drowned out the dialogue during filming.

The original cut isn’t a complete loss, but Cantrelle wants perfection on Monday when she debuts the film to a live audience.

She and 13 other homeless or formerly homeless youth from Outside In’s Guerilla Theatre have spent three weeks producing, directing and acting in original films based on their personal experiences with issues including domestic abuse, violence, classism and physical and mental health.

Their work — which includes short films, documentaries, a music video and poetry — will debut Monday during “Outside the Frame,” a free public showing at the Gerding Theater at The Armory, 128 NW 11th Ave., with renowned director Todd Haynes (of “I’m Not There” fame) serving as emcee. A documentary chronicling the teens’ filmmaking process will also be shown.

Cantrelle’s “Flowers” culminates in a tragic end to repetitive domestic abuse. A rap video chronicling the downward spiral of drugs and violence ends with redemption. Another film depicts a day in the experience of a young homeless Portlander.

Heavy subject matter, but it’s not surprising. The youth have been through a lot.

Cantrelle dropped her surname and lost contact with her family after they shunned her transgender identity.

Mark “Ivan” Kolyvanov, 19, has been homeless for a year. He spends his days wondering where he’ll sleep at night. Sometimes it’s a shelter, other times a friend’s couch. Often it’s outdoors.

“It varies,” he says. “I go and stay in a shelter sometimes, sometimes I camp, sometimes I couch surf.”

Outside In is a local organization aimed at providing health care, support and resources to homeless youth.

Nili Yosha, director of the Guerilla Theatre, which partnered with Portland Youth Media to sponsor “Outside the Frame,” says youth who use Outside In come from tumultuous situations. If anyone stands to benefit from the healing qualities of artistic expression, it’s them, she says.

“A lot of things are said about and on behalf of homeless youth,” says Yosha, 29. “This is them saying what they think and what they need and what the problems are and what they think the solutions are. That’s what art is supposed to do — be the joker in the town square that alerts everybody.”

Yosha says the Guerilla Theatre offers an outlet for such expression. Each of the youths involved in the film project was awarded a competitive internship to complete the three-week project.

“Because artists should be paid for their work,” she says, the teens got a stipend to come to work every day. Such a common routine, but a task as simple as arranging transport to work can be a huge challenge if you’re homeless and penniless, Yosha says.

“At times, it was frustrating, and they worked through it,” she says.

They were required to show up at every shoot, every editing session, and work together even when personalities and ideas clashed. In return, the kids found a positive outlet for their ideas and passions.

“It was challenging, but I’m up for a challenge,” Kolyvanov says.

On Monday, they’ll get the payoff. They’ll see the finished films for the first time on the Gerding’s big screen, with a hotshot Hollywood director in the room. Noted cartoonist Bill Plympton, whose sister works at Outside In, has also drawn artwork for one of the films, a documentary on Type 1 diabetes.

It’s a big deal for the kids, many of whom had never touched a video camera before “Outside the Frame.” Given their limited knowledge of filmmaking, the students managed to produce work that is heartfelt, visually and mentally engaging, and often heartbreaking.

The filmmakers say they want audience members to leave the theater with fewer prejudices, a greater understanding of the issues faced by today’s youth, and a more positive attitude toward street kids. The best part of the experience, though, says Leticia Castaneda, 21, will be seeing her peers’ finished creations in larger than life size.

“Yeah, I’m a little bit stoked when I see the credits ‘Makeup and wardrobe: Leticia Castaneda,’” she says. “But I’m more excited to see everybody’s work recognized and have other people who aren’t their friends tell them this is something kind of rad.”

By Kate Mather, The Oregonian, Saturday, January 28, 2012

Emergency responders wait outside the Henry Building Apartments, 309 S.W. Fourth Ave., as negotiations seek to save a man on a ledge over a Starbucks cafe.

Several members of the Portland Police Bureau‘s Special Emergency Reaction Team and paramedics also responded to the Henry Building Apartments, 309 S.W. Fourth Ave., said Sgt. Pete Simpson, a police spokesman.

Simpson said the 30-year-old man, who lives in the building, had a history of mental illness. A neighbor called 9-1-1 after seeing him on the ledge.

Negotiators spoke with the man for more than two hours. They persuaded him to step back into his room just before 11 p.m., Simpson said.

Once he was in the room, SERT officers entered and took him into custody.

The man was transported to an area hospital for a mental health evaluation.

Some streets in the area were blocked off during the incident, but all have reopened, Simpson said.

One man dead after officer-involved shooting in Fairview, KATU.com, January 28, 2012

Man shot, killed by officer in Fairview, KOIN.com, January 28, 2012

Police are investigating an officer-involved shooting in Fairview that left one man dead Friday night.

Police said officers responded to a disturbance call at 11:47 p.m. at the Woodcreek Apartments at Northeast 203rd Avenue and Halsey.

Officers arrived to find a 37-year-old man with a large knife, according to Police Chief Ken Johnson. The man, who has not been identified by police, attacked one officer, who opened fire.

The man died at the scene, Johnson said.

“This is the city of Fairview’s first officer involved shooting in the history of the agency, so it’s very shocking,” said Fairview Police Spokesman Bernie Meyer. “Unfortunately, that’s the type of environment we’re beginning to live in now.”

The man’s mother spoke with KATU News Saturday. Sandra Kelley says her son’s name is Larry and police lied about what happened Friday night.

Kelley says she was the one who called police because her son was drunk.

She says Larry did hold up a knife when police arrived, but he did not attack the officers.

Kelley says both she and police told him to put the knife down and the next thing she knew, officers were shooting.

“My son did not make one move,” Kelley said. “They didn’t even give him time to think before they shot him and he hadn’t even moved a muscle.”

“I started screaming, I said ‘oh my god you didn’t need to shoot him, you shot him,’” said Kelley. “It was a very bad shock, very bad shock, because I didn’t think that was going to happen.”

Kelley said officers shot Larry 3 times and pushed her to the ground, asking if she had a weapon. She’s upset police did not use non-lethal force to subdue her son.

The officers involved in the shooting are now on administrative leave, police said.

Man shot, killed by officer in Fairview, KOIN.com, January 28, 2012

Man killed in Fairview officer-involved shooting, KGW.com, January 28, 2012

Fairview police fatally shoot a man after he attacks officers with a knife, Oregonian, January 28, 2012

Fairview officer shoots man during confrontation, Gresham Outlook, January 28, 2012

Fairview police identify man killed in officer-involved shooting, Oregonian January 29, 2012

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian, Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Associated Press
A Portland police officer investigates the police-involved shooting on the roof of a downtown parking garage.

The officer-involved shooting, which will be reviewed by a Multnomah County grand jury, has already raised questions among some in the rank-and-file and in the mental health community as to whether the bureau would be better suited returning to its old model of having a Crisis Intervention Team of specialized officers available at moment’s notice for such calls. They’d be on patrol, scattered through the three shifts in each of the precincts.

Morgan had called 9-1-1 at 3:17 a.m. Wednesday, saying he had committed a robbery at knifepoint and was going to jump off a downtown parking garage. An officer and sergeant in the bureau located Morgan. They called for police negotiators and Project Respond mental health workers to help talk the man down. But before the assistance arrived, the officer and sergeant started to talk to Morgan atop the garage.

Police have not said whether the two officers walked up to the man or where they were standing during the conversation.

Within 15 minutes, both officers fired multiple shots at Morgan when they said he pointed a black handgun at them, according to police. The gun turned out to be a fake.

Police would not say if the sergeant and officer had been interviewed.

In a news release on Wednesday’s shooting, the Police Bureau noted that officers had called for Project Respond and officers from the bureau’s Crisis Negotiation Team, formerly known as the Hostage Negotiation Team. But the shooting occurred before they got to the scene.

“All Portland Police Bureau officers are trained in Crisis Intervention; however, CNT and Project Respond bring additional experience and equipment,” the release said. “Both Project Respond and CNT are on a call-out basis and are 25-30 minutes away at a minimum.”

Even if a Project Respond crisis worker had arrived, he or she likely wouldn’t have been able to approach the scene since police had information that Morgan may have been armed, said Jay Ausland, Project Respond director.

In 2007, Portland police switched from a voluntary crisis intervention training program for a select group of officers, led by an officer or sergeant, to mandatory training for all officers. The switch came after the controversial 2006 death in police custody of James P. Chasse Jr., who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. He was tackled by police and died from blunt force trauma to the chest.

Retired Sgt. Karl McDade, who was Portland’s first Crisis Intervention Team coordinator, argues that the old approach is more effective. “Yes, they would respond much quicker and be pretty well trained. It might turn out better. I think the odds are that it would.”

But McDade said, in these situations, “There’s no guarantee that anything you do is going to turn out well. When someone points something that legitimately looks like a gun, you don’t have much of a choice, other than find cover and back off.”

Advocates of the former CIT model say all officers don’t have the judgment, maturity level, experience or interest that makes crisis intervention training effective.

But Chief Mike Reese disagrees. He’s defended the current approach, saying the mandatory crisis intervention training for all officers lays a needed foundation for the entire force. He has argued that the mandatory training, coupled with the bureau’s one-car mobile crisis unit – which pairs an officer with a Project Respond worker — and the bureau’s negotiation team, which helps on calls involving armed or suicidal people, provides an innovative “layered” approach.

“Reverting to only a few officers having specialized mental health training would be a step in the wrong direction,” said police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson on Thursday.

Central Precinct’s mobile crisis car was not operating early Wednesday. Its hours are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday.

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian, Thursday, January 26, 2012

The scene of the Portland officer-involved shooting Wednesday, atop the SmartPark garage at Southwest Morrison and Fourth Avenue.

A second bullet tore through Morgan’s jacket and sweater and exited without hitting his body, Lewman said.

The shooting remains under investigation and will be presented to a Multnomah County grand jury.

The shooting occurred after Morgan had called 9-1-1 at 3:17 a.m., saying he had committed a robbery at knifepoint and was going to jump off a downtown parking garage.

Morgan also talked about shooting someone, and replied to a dispatcher when asked if he had a gun, “possibly.”

Officer David Scott, who joined the bureau 9 years ago, and Sgt. John Holbrook, a 15-year veteran, located Morgan atop the SmartPark garage at Southwest Fourth Avenue and Morrison Street.

Police had called out Project Respond mental health crisis workers and members of the bureau’s Crisis Negotiation Team (formerly ‘Hostage Negotiation Team’) to respond to help talk Morgan down.

But before they arrived, Scott and Holbrook began talking to Morgan. At 4:01 a.m., police said the officer and sergeant saw Morgan pull out a black handgun and point it at them. Both fired shots.

Police said the handgun turned out to be a replica firearm that doesn’t fire anything.

Scott and Holbrook remain on paid administrative leave, as the investigation proceeds.

Police have not released how many shots were fired by police, or where the officer and sergeant were standing when they fired the shots.

Two bullets were located at least a block away – one inside a building on Southwest Fifth Avenue, and another found by a pedestrian in a crosswalk on Southwest Fifth Avenue.

The Portland police said they would release no further details until after a grand jury ruling.