October 2006 Archives

Jim Jim was a member of the same loose-knit community of young people as me in the early 1980s, a lot of us creative, many of us smart, some of us more punk rock than others, a few of us a little messed up. What do you expect from an alternative school? (and an alternative era)?

(As an aside, I must confess that it was only when I was working in the field of education that I learned that "alternative" can mean "bad" -- I just thought we were different and weird and edgy ... you know, in a good way. And actually, I still think we were.)

But that's not why I'm going. I didn't know Jim Jim that well. He was older than me by a few years and, truth be told, a lot cooler. I was still focused on things like horses and fantasy books, didn't care very much about music, let alone local music, and certainly wasn't very fashionable. Jim Jim was a part of a crowd that was in bands (or at least knew a lot about them), wore cool clothes, and did crazy adventurous shit that, in retrospect, some of which was actually crazy. And I certainly wasn't in touch over the last twenty plus years. If Jim Jim had died peacefully, I probably never would have heard about it. Violent circumstances increase the impact of a death exponentially.

I asked my mother last night if she was going and she said, "I thought it was just people who knew him," and I said, no, I don't think so. I think that we are invited to attend Jim Jim's memorial for reasons beyond our individual connection to him, or even our connection to a particular cultural moment, and it's for those broader reasons that I'm going.

I'll be there to honor Jim Jim's memory, and to hear more about him from his friends and family. I remember Jim Jim as gentle and vulnerable and interesting. He wasn't a boring person. He wasn't a violent person. He didn't deserve to be killed, and he does deserve to be remembered.

I'll be there to show my respect and support to his family. I witnessed how my family, particularly my grandmother, worked to support and sustain my schizophrenic father. My grandmother lived to bury him, and although his death was peaceful, it broke her heart, and I think particularly so because he had remained dependent on her in his adulthood. I can only imagine what Jim Jim's mother and father must feel. I hope it's some comfort to his family to know that the people of Portland empathize and support them.

I'll be there to show solidarity with my community. In the face of an outrage, it's one thing to read newspaper stories and blogs and write letters -- there is some value to these. But for me, there's something organically compelling and, yes, empowering about standing together in a crowd.

I'll be there to show quiet outrage. I'm not naive; I come from a political, multi-racial family. (I've said it before, and it's true: I'm pretty much the whitest person in my family, if you don't count the Mormon branch.) I've always known that there are police who abuse their power, but even with my background, it wasn't something that was, I don't know, of pressing importance. Jim Jim's death has narrated this reality for me in a way that is immediate, real, and personal. I'm sorry now that I never showed up at a vigil for Kendra James, or any of the others who the police have abused or killed. Jim Jim's memorial gives me the chance to reflect on a broader injustice and show my opposition to it in a way that, for me, feels comfortable and appropriate (I'm not so excited about participating in rowdy spectacles these days). I'm grateful that his family has given us this opportunity to be together in a peaceful, respectful setting.

I'll be there to listen. The Portland Mental Health Association has given a tentative list of people who might be speaking at the memorial. Looking at the range of organizations and individuals, I'm looking forward to learning more about Jim Jim, the problems his death highlights, and possible solutions.

• Rev. Dr. Patricia Ross, First Congregational
• Rev. Paul Davis, First Congregational
• Jim and Pamela Chasse - family
• Mark Chasse - family
• Rev. Catherine Nelson, Trinity Episcopal
• Rev. Chuck Currie, Parkrose United Church of Christ
• Mike Lastra - friend
• Debbie Coppinger, Operation Nightwatch
• Kt and Kim Kincaid - friends
• Beckie Child, Mental Health Association of Oregon
• Martin Gonzalez, Justice for Jose Mejia Poot Committee
• Jason Renaud, Mental Health Association of Portland
• X J Elliott - friend
• Avel Gordly, Oregon State Senator
• Dr. T Allen Bethel, Maranatha Church of God
• Eva Lake - friend
• Steve Doughton - friend

Maybe I'll see you there tonight.

Friday, October 27, 2006 7:00 PM
First Congregational Church
1126 SW Park Ave

Multiple failures, no doubt, but another insult is just in.

The police who beat him to death have been let off the hook. KATU would have us believe that they have been exonerated but that's unlikely for most of us.

It's just sickening. I'll be keeping my ears and eyes open for what I can do next.

Update
by way of Mental Health Association of Portland.

In Memory of James Chasse Jr.
community information
EVENT: MEMORIAL VIGIL
"LOVE ONE ANOTHER"
A candlelight memorial vigil for James Chasse Jr.

Friday, October 27, 2006 7:00 PM
First Congregational Church
1126 SW Park Ave

Friends, family, and concerned community members will gather to remember James Chasse, Jr. on Friday, October 27, 2006 at 7:00 PM at Portland's First Congregational Church in a memorial vigil titled "Love One Another." Chasse, who died in Portland Police custody on September 17, is remembered as a peaceful man who wished no harm on anyone. People attending the vigil are asked to honor the family's wishes for a respectful event. Messages to be communicated apart from memories of James should be focused on simple, positive phrases such as "Justice," "Love," and "Remember James Chasse, Jr."

The event is being co-coordinated by members of the Chasse family, the Parkrose Community United Church of Christ, Portland Copwatch (a grassroots group promoting police accountability through citizen action), the Mental Health Association of Portland, and others. For more information call Portland Copwatch at 503-236-3065.

Please note that this event was originally scheduled for Thursday the 26th and has been moved to Friday.

For information about James Chasse, see www.mentalhealthportland.org

On shore, these things look like they might be breast implants that fell off a container ship on its way to Terminal 4, but the other day I saw this one floating in the water, and it looks like it might be an actual jellyfish -- but what do I know. This in the Willamette River, at the McCormick/Baxter Superfund site beach.

And this is my first youtube entry, in honor of the much ballyhooed google purchase. Next time I'll make the captions bigger.

The Mental Health Organization of Portland which is closely tracking the James Chasse/Jim Jim case has some good suggestions, including writing a letter to Potter. Here's what I said in my letter to him.

October 8, 2006

Office of Mayor Tom Potter
1221 SW 4th Avenue, Suite 340
Portland, Oregon 97204

Dear Mayor Potter:

I am writing you about the James Chasse case for three reasons: First, I knew him as Jim Jim when he was a young man. I was not close to him, but I knew him as a gentle, nutty young man. It is very difficult to know that he died so brutally and senselessly. Second, my father, now deceased, was schizophrenic. My father, like Jim Jim, did not want for family love and support. Nonetheless, because of his illness, he was at many times marginalized, lonely, and vulnerable. With our current system, it takes no stretch of my imagination to imagine him meeting Jim Jim’s fate, had he been at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. Finally, my vision for Portland is that we are caring and protective of our most vulnerable members. Jim Jim’s death on the streets by a police beating shows a far cry from this vision.

I have recently enjoyed positive interactions with Portland Police, specifically in the person of Officer Christensen, who is a liaison to our neighborhood association (Portsmouth). Having the understanding and support of a police officer when you are attempting to solve community problems is a wonderful thing, and I’m very glad to have experienced it. I see Officer Christensen’s work and style as a result of a kind of policing that you have personally championed in the past, the kind of approach that gives people confidence that police can be trusted with power, and that they are caring partners in seeking solutions.

I cannot rightly speculate on the motives, training, or temperament of the three grown men who beat to death a man who weighed less than I do; a man who, by all accounts, had committed no great offense, if any. But whatever their motives, Jim Jim’s death is a failure. It is the fatal failure of these individuals, who must be held accountable in order for us to believe that our system has integrity. And the fact that these individuals were allowed on the police force is a failure of the system itself, thus we must look for substantial changes to that system.

I look to you for leadership given your position and your background. I hope that the individuals who killed will be held responsible for their actions. I would also like to learn more about what the City of Portland is doing, and will do, to provide the training and resources to police officers who are trying to do their job, and what it is doing to ensure that individuals with a tendency to violence, anger, and frustration are not recruited or allowed to remain in the police force. I have read that you have formed a committee to research the issue of services for the mentally ill in Portland. Thoughtful research and analysis is a positive step, but it must be accompanied by action and commitment of resources. And your framing of the issue as one that goes beyond the police is accurate, but we must not lose sight of what actually killed Jim Jim: Certainly, the criminal justice system should not be the primary care-giver for our neighbors and friends who are mentally ill, but by the very nature of their work, police will often encounter people who are sick, vulnerable, confused, or otherwise not right in their heads, be it because of mental illness, stress, or intoxication. Their problems may not start with the police, but in this case and many others, it will end with them. Please do what you can to see that those ends are not final.

And as far as “cleaning up downtown” goes, I’d rather have piss in the streets than blood.

I thank you for your work for our City in the past, and look forward to your work in the future.

James Chasse, Jr., known to many of us as Jim Jim, was beaten to death by police on September 17, as many Portlanders know by now. He was a visible member of the Portland scene or community (or whatever you want to call it) in the 1980s. I didn't know him that well, but he was closer to friends of mine and we went to the same school, hung out in the same crowd, so this is seeming especially strange and awful and infuriating.

I remember Jim Jim as gentle and nutty. Rachel remembers: "crazy or no, he really was a gentle, loving, sweetiepie sort of guy." The Oregonaian quotes Jason Renaud describing him as, "cute and charming and cuddly and quiet and careful and sprinkled with pixie dust." He believed in magic and fairies and stuff like that and once gave me elaborate instructions on a ceremony he wanted me to perform. I think he struck a lot of us, even then, as vulnerable. Linea reminded me of how, when he was hospitalized at Dammasch (a state mental hospital that was closed in 1995), someone wrote, "Free Jim Jim" graffiti -- there was a perception that his hospitalization was a form of imprisonment. Of course, these days, we don't put the mentally ill in hospitals that seem like prisons -- we just put them straight into prison.

Jim Jim was schizophrenic, and his death at the hands of police reminds me that the powerful victimize the most vulnerable (first), and that all of us can be vulnerable at the right time and place. My father was also schizophrenic, and died peacefully on a couch at his parent's home, but I can easily imagine a more tragic end had he encountered the police on the streets in one of his more psychotic states. (It should be said that, from witness accounts, it doesn't appear that Jim Jim was in the midst of a psychotic episode at all. He was tackled by police when he ran away. They were chasing him because they thought he might be peeing in public.)

Police brutality is often perceived as an issue for people of color -- which it most certainly is -- but Jim Jim's death is a reminder to me that there are many ways to become vulnerable and powerless: mental illness, certainly, but also poverty, being drunk, being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't want to over-simplify the issue or demonize individuals: maybe the police involved in this case weren't arrogant, steroid-driven jocks who get off on picking on people weaker than themselves. Maybe they were under-trained, frightened and overwhelmed by the problems we ask them to solve without the resources or education to do so and resorted to the only tool they know how to use -- their fists. Either way, it's a tragic and avoidable problem, and Jim Jim died because of it.

Here's some coverage of the story:

A comprehensive index of media coverage by the Mental Health Association of Portland.

Oregonian article on his death.

Oregonian coverage of the autopsy

Portland Cop Watch (that website seems a little out of date, but you can see a statement they issued on the Chasse case here.

Other places where people are commenting on Jim Jim's death:

Comments and memories at PortlandIndyMedia.

Memories from a friend.

Political commentary on police brutality.

Political commentary on police brutality.

Political commentary on the lack of care for the mentally ill.