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Why Facebook didn’t try Bend Walden cries foul on ‘sleight What’s the worst of hand’ BUSINESS, C3
that could happen? Whatever it is, the Deschutes County sheriff says it’s worth the time and money to train a second SWAT team to deal with it
Rob Kerr / The Bulletin
Members of the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office Special Operations Team prepare to enter a mock jail cell during a training exercise on Wednesday in Bend. The team, made up of corrections and patrol deputies, will respond to high-risk situations at the jail and in Deschutes County.
By Erin Golden The Bulletin
I
nside the jail cell, the inmate shouted and banged on the wall with a makeshift weapon crafted from a towel wrapped around a padlock. Outside, four Deschutes County sheriff’s deputies wearing bulletproof vests, helmets and gas masks lined up behind a riot shield and tried to defuse the situation. “Put the weapon down!” ordered one deputy. “Come on, Joe,” said another, crouching outside the door with a gun loaded with small balls of pepper powder. “I will use the PepperBall to
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Vol. 107, No. 79, 66 pages, 6 sections
gain compliance.” As the shouting continued from inside the cell, the deputies decided to make their move. One positioned the pepper gun through the meal slot in the cell door and fired a few rounds at the back wall. A few seconds later, the deputies slid the door open and ran in. The activity was all a drill, held in a mock jail cell with a deputy in a heavy padded suit playing the role of the inmate. It was one of the last days of training for the Sheriff’s Office Special Operations Team, a 19-member group poised to become Central Oregon’s second SWAT team. Sheriff Larry Blanton said the team has been
in the works for nearly two years, requiring hundreds of hours of training and more than $45,000 of equipment. He said it’s not meant to compete with or replace the Central Oregon Emergency Response Team, the regional SWAT team that responds to high-risk incidents like hostage situations, suspects who have barricaded themselves inside a building or major drug busts that could turn violent. CERT has never had to call in outside SWAT help, but Blanton said there are enough complex situations in Deschutes County to warrant a second team. See SWAT / A7
Democrats say it’s the substance of the health bill that matters, not their tactics in trying to pass it By Keith Chu The Bulletin
WASHINGTON — Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood River, and other Republicans this week ramped up their attacks on the “sleight of hand shenanigans” and procedural maneuvers Democratic leaders have floated to nudge a massive health care overhaul bill across the finish line. Oregon’s four Democratic congressmen, meanwhile, differed on their opinion of their party’s tactics. But they agreed that the legislative tactics their party HEALTH uses are less important than the CARE substance of the health care bill, which would expand insurance REFORM coverage to an estimated 32 million people. What Walden and Republicans Inside have worked up is a complicated • The latest legislative maneuver called a selfon the executing rule, also known as health bill, “deem and pass” or the “SlaughPage A2 ter strategy,” after Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. The details are something only a parliamentarian could love, but in a nutshell, it will combine a vote on the U.S. Senate health care bill with a vote on the ground rules for considering a package of amendments to the bill. The House would then vote on the changes and send the bill to the president. In a news conference with high-ranking House Republicans on Tuesday, Walden tore into the strategy, saying it denies members a right to debate the substance of the health reform bill on the House floor. “If we’re going to slaughter democracy, we might as well do it in public,” Walden said. See Procedure / A6
Lax training? How hard should young docs work By Ian Shapira The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — A few months ago, Glen Silas, 40, an obstetrics and gynecology doctor at George Washington University Hospital, wanted a young resident to observe a sophisticated procedure in which a renowned laparoscopic surgeon was operating on a uterine tumor. Silas was certain the resident would eagerly embrace the opportunity. But as doctors gathered in the staging area, the resident told Silas, “I am at the end of my shift anyhow, so I will see it another time.” See Doctors / A6
Recession resisters: the top 4 U.S. cities
Haitian mental care — from bad to horrid
By Christopher S. Rugaber
By Deborah Sontag
The Associated Press
New York Times News Service
WASHINGTON — Call them the Final Four: The four large cities that have made it through the Great Recession with the smallest increases in unemployment. Minneapolis, Buffalo, Oklahoma City and Rochester, N.Y., don’t have much else in common. But a government report shows they’ve had the smallest increases in joblessness over the past two years among cities with at least 1 million people. None of the four relies on heavy manufacturing industries, such as autos or steel, which have been hit hard by the downturn. And all have avoided the extremes of the housing boom and bust that devastated much of California, Florida and Nevada. See Cities / A7
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Inside this city’s earthquakecracked psychiatric hospital, a schizophrenic man lay naked on a concrete floor, caked in dust. Other patients, padlocked in tiny concrete cells, clutched the bars and howled for attention. Feces clotted the gutter outside a ward where urine pooled under metal cots without mattresses. Walking through the dilapidated public hospital, Dr. Franklin Normil, the acting director, who has worked there for five
Damon Winter / New York Times News Service
A patient reaches out to his mother as he pleads with her not to leave the Mars and Kline Psychiatric Center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. “Clearly, mental health has never been a priority in this country,” says Dr. Franklin Normil, the center’s acting director.
Inside • ‘Lawyer’ from missionary incident is arrested, Page A8 months without pay, shook his head in despair. “I want you to bear witness,” he told a reporter. “Clearly, mental health has never been a priority in this country. We have the desire and the ability, but they do not give us the means to be professional and humane.” See Haiti / A6