🪖 Judges limit tear gas use at Portland ICE building

One Family’s Struggle To Prevent Tragedy

An Oregon resident, Kelli Caldwell, has penned a personal story of trying and failing to keep guns away from her mentally ill mom, who has multiple diagnoses. One example: Oregon’s Red Flag Law isn’t strong enough to label her as a threat, even after her mother’s involuntary stays in mental health wards mean she’s barred from buying weapons. She has inherited guns, borrowed them, and even received them as gifts. The final safety check against her mother’s delusions: Caldwell has repeatedly taken her mom’s guns — on the advice of police officers — even if it wasn’t quite legal to do so. [Marshall Project]

F for Oregon’s Online Gambling Safety

A national nonprofit gave Oregon an F in its report card on states’ effectiveness at protecting people from online gambling addiction. The Center for Addiction Science, Policy, and Research ranked Oregon among the bottom 10 states, because Oregon doesn’t allow gamblers to self-report to the state to be banned from gambling for a set period of time. DraftKings, Oregon’s sports betting vendor, allows that, but there’s no way for gamblers to report themselves to the state to be barred from other games. [Oregon Journalism Project]

• Related: There are 88,000 Oregonians with gambling disorders, according to state estimates. [Oregon Health Authority]

Leach Botanical Garden Saved

Leach Botanical Garden will remain open, after donors stepped up with $275,000 to help make it through June. The garden’s backers hope to secure city support by the beginning of July. Support arrived in many forms: 3,000 people visited in February — more than four times the number that visited during the same period last year. [OPB]

In recent rulings, two federal court judges have sided with protesters and residents in limiting U.S. Homeland Security officers from the use of tear gas and other kinds of force outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland.

In the most recent ruling — on Monday — U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon found that federal officers have “an unwritten policy to use excessive force on nonviolent protesters,” OPB reports. That amounts to an assault on the First Amendment.

• You can see some of the video evidence the judge reviewed. [Oregonian / YouTube]
• Simon wrote in his decision that the videos were “both unambiguous and disturbing.” [OPB]
• You can read the judge’s full decision here. [OPB]
• The decision came after three days of hearings last week that featured testimony from the Portland Chicken and other protesters. The ACLU of Oregon filed the suit last year on behalf of the protesters as well as journalists. After federal agents tear-gassed a largely peaceful protest on Jan. 31 that included families with kids, the judge initially ruled in early February. [OPB]
• After Simon’s most recent ruling, officers are expressly forbidden from firing even nonlethal munitions at a person’s head, neck, and shoulders — unless the officer could (legally) justify the use of deadly force. And they also cannot use pepper spray or other aerosol spray unless a person is actively resisting. [Oregonian]
• Officers also can’t dispense tear gas or other chemical munitions, except when they’re afraid for their lives. [OPB]

In a separate lawsuit, brought by residents of a nearby apartment building, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Baggio ruled Friday to limit the use of tear gas and other chemical munitions until the legal case is settled. Again there’s an exception when officers are afraid for their lives. [OPB]

• Notably, she wrote that her ruling was “an extraordinary remedy,” but the tear gas had made it “difficult or impossible for (tenants) to eat, sleep, or simply breathe normally while in their own homes.” [OPB]
• The plaintiffs in this suit are the tenants of Gray’s Landing, which is kitty-corner to the ICE building in South Waterfront, as well as the nonprofit that manages the building — REACH Community Development. They filed suit in December. [KGW]