On this day, August 22, 2002, President George W. Bush proposed to end the government's "hands-off" policy in national forests and ease logging restrictions in fire-prone areas.
Also on this day, August 22, 2014, the State of Oregon filed a $200 million suit against Oracle Corp. and several executives over the company's role in creating the troubled website for the state's online health insurance exchange.
Also on this day, August 22, 2020, demonstrators faced off in Portland with the two sides -- one aligned with a "Back the Blue" rally and the other a Black Lives Matter counter-demonstration -- reportedly largely ignoring police warnings. Ultimately, Department of Homeland Security officers deemed the gatherings unlawful and moved through the plaza, forcing the crowd to disperse.
Occured at Deer Ridge Correctional Institution
On September 11 at around 10:00 p.m., male adults in custody (AICs) at Deer Ridge Correctional Institution
(DRCI) left their housing units to protest emergency conditions put in place by the Oregon Department of
Corrections (DOC) in response to state wildfires. Approximately 200 male AICs refused to follow direction
and return to their housing units from the yard. All but 12 AICs returned to their housing units by 2:00 a.m.
on September 12. DOC’s Crisis Negotiation Team was deployed, and no force was used to clear the yard.
The remaining 12 AICs were placed in special housing and transferred to another institution. No employee
or AICs required medical treatment.
There are two facilities on-site at DRCI – one minimum security and one medium security. As of September
10, the DRCI AICs were being housed in the medium facility and needed to be transferred to the minimum
facility to accommodate the multi-custody level evacuees from Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (CCCF).
Before this move, the minimum facility was vacant.
At this time, the men do not have access to traditional phones because the minimum facility had not been
in use since 2016 and phones could not be set up with such short notice. DOC employees had been working
to provide the men in the minimum facility with phone calls via employee work phones. DRCI is
collaborating with our AIC telephone provider to install ten new AIC phones in this facility. Because the
CCCF AICs were moved into the active facility, they have access to phones, video calls, and tablets.
The protesting AICs demanded changes to emergency operations, citing the poor air quality from wildfires,
temporary lack of access to phones, and other disruptions caused by the CCCF evacuation. DRCI employees
will continue to communicate with AICs as the state battles historic wildfires across Oregon. An ongoing
investigation is being conducted to determine the cause of the incident.
Deer Ridge Correctional Institution (DRCI) is located four miles east of Madras in central Oregon. DRCI is a
multi-custody prison that currently houses 947 minimum-custody incarcerated adults. DRCI provides a
range of correctional programs and services including education and trades programs, mental health
treatment, cognitive and parenting programs, and institution work crews. Construction began in October
2005 with the first minimum-security adults in custody (AICs) arriving in September 2007. DRCI is the
largest minimum-custody facility in the state and Oregon’s fourteenth prison.
--Ben Fisher| Post Date: 2020-09-12 12:07:53 | Last Update: 2020-09-12 12:21:46 |
