The latest news stories and stories of interest in the Willamette Valley from the digital home of Southern Oregon, from Wynne Broadcasting’s WillametteValleyMagazine.com
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Willamette Valley Weather
Today– Partly sunny, with a high near 62. Light west wind increasing to 5 to 10 mph in the afternoon.
Wednesday– A 40 percent chance of showers. Snow level 3000 feet rising to 3500 feet in the afternoon. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 55. Calm wind becoming west northwest around 6 mph in the afternoon.
Thursday– Partly sunny, with a high near 54. Calm wind becoming north 5 to 7 mph in the afternoon.
Friday– Mostly sunny, with a high near 59.
Saturday– Mostly sunny, with a high near 60.
Teenage Suspect Arrested in Eugene Shooting
UPDATE: The Lane County Sheriff’s Office said that Elijah Grinstead has been arrested in Douglas County.
According to LCSO, Grinstead was found in a home in the Roseburg area. He was arrested without incident and has been lodged at the juvenile detention center.
The suspect authorities are searching for after a shooting in Eugene has been identified as 16-year-old Elijah Grinstead.
Lane County Sheriff’s Office deputies searched for Grinstead following the incident, which happened just before 5 p.m. on Saturday in the 2400 block of Marjorie Avenue.
Authorities said Grinstead shot another juvenile he knew, hitting them in the arm, and went on the run. According to officials, the weapon used in the incident has not been located.
Anyone with information on the case should call the Lane County Sheriff’s Office at 541-682-4150, option 1.
Eugene Police Looking For Suspect Who Threw Acid on Woman Walking Her Dog
A suspect is still at large Monday night after splashing a woman with an unknown acid substance and fleeing the scene. The woman was walking her dog at the time of the incident.
She is receiving treatment for burn injuries and her dog was taken to an emergency veterinarian for evaluation.
Eugene police say so far into the investigation it is believed the assault could be related to the victim’s ethnicity.
Police say the incident happened just before 11:30 a.m. near Arthur Street and West 15th Court.
They were not able to give details on whether the woman and the suspect knew each other, if the incident was a random act, or if it was something that started with a verbal altercation.
Police describe the suspect as a white male, age 17 to 20 with dirty blond hair. He was last seen wearing a black surgical face mask, jeans, black boots and a black hoodie.
If you have any relevant tips, including home security or vehicle camera footage that may help investigators, you’re asked to contact EPD: (541) 682-5111
Missing Man’s Vehicle Found Near Vida
The Lane County Sheriff’s Office reported that a missing man’s vehicle has been found empty in the Vida area.
Eric Brazil, 34, was reported missing to Springfield Police by a friend earlier this month. He was last seen on March 14.
On Sunday, a passerby found the man’s vehicle in a wooded area near the end of Goodpasture Road. Deputies responded to the scene, and officials have been searching for Brazil in the area.
Brazil is described as being about 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing about 170 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes and could be wearing a maroon hooded sweatshirt, black Carhartt vest, black beanie hat, black pants and black shoes with white soles.
Deputies said Brazil may be suffering from mental health issues. Anyone with information is asked to contact Springfield Police at 541-726-3714 and reference case #22-1967.
Oregon reports 541 new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases, 39 new deaths
PORTLAND, Ore. — There are 39 new COVID-19-related deaths in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 7,074, Oregon Health Authority (OHA) reported at 12:01 a.m. today.
OHA reported 541 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 as of 12:01 a.m. today, bringing the state total to 703,132.
The 39 new deaths and 541 new cases reported today include data recorded by counties for the three-day period between March 25 and March 27.
The new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases reported today are in the following counties: Benton (23), Clackamas (39), Clatsop (3), Columbia (5), Coos (1), Crook (1), Curry (8), Deschutes (35), Douglas (9), Grant (2), Hood River (2), Jackson (24), Jefferson (1), Josephine (9), Klamath (3), Lane (62), Lincoln (3), Linn (14), Malheur (1), Marion (23), Multnomah (167), Polk (9), Tillamook (5), Umatilla (4), Wallowa (2), Wasco (3), Washington (79) and Yamhill (4).
Oregon reports 270 new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases on March 25, 155 new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases on March 26 and 116 new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases on March 27.
Oregon Funding Expansion of Wildfire Detection System
State lawmakers have awarded $4.5 million to the ALERTWildfire camera network system, which is run in part by the University of Oregon.
“Alertwildfire.org is a set of mountaintop pan-tilt zoom cameras for early fire prevention and suppression,” said Doug Toomey, a earth sciences professor at the university.
It’s an online network of cameras allowing you to see or even spot fires in real time.
Toomey said the ground the cameras cover will be expanding thanks to the millions of dollars on the way to the program.
“What it’s going to go towards — it’s approximately 35 camera sites. It’s a very amazing system; it allows people to see what’s happening in real time. In fact, there was a fire in California that was almost reported by someone in New Zealand because they were watching the cameras.”
Toomey said considering the recent fire seasons and how dry it has been this year, the timing of these funds could not have come at a better time.
“It takes time to put up cameras; it will probably take us a year or more to go through these funds. I anticipate the major build will probably occur next year. But we are going to pull out all the stops to get up as many as we can as quickly as we can,” Toomey said.
You can access the cameras by going to https://www.alertwildfire.org
Prineville Woman Arrested For Fentanyl Trafficking
A Prineville woman faces controlled substance trafficking charges as the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team continues to pursue sources of fentanyl that have been flooding the region.
On March 13th, 2022, at approximately 7:00 PM, the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team concluded a long-term investigation with the arrest of Bryanna Nelson, age 26, of Prineville, Oregon.
During a concurrent investigation, drug Agents identified Bryanna Nelson as fentanyl traffickers in the central Oregon area. The initial investigation alleges Ms. Nelson have been importing large quantities of fentanyl pills from the Portland area into central Oregon where she distributes it primarily in the Prineville area.
After a multi-day surveillance operation throughout the metropolitan Portland area, CODE Detectives, the assistance of Oregon State Police Troopers, stopped Bryanna Nelson on Highway 26 between Madras and Prineville. She was detained at the scene with an un-involved male passenger and toddler. The male passenger was later released without charges. The toddler was released to Oregon DHS-Child Welfare.
Based on the investigation, CODE Detectives applied for and obtained a Search Warrant for her home and her Nissan Rouge.
A subsequent search of Nelson’s Nissan Rouge located a commercial quantity of counterfeit Oxycodone tablets made of fentanyl. These counterfeit tablets have been linked to an ongoing overdose epidemic in Central Oregon and contain fentanyl or methamphetamine and can be deadly to an unsuspecting user. In addition to the fentanyl, drug agents seized a large amount of currency that was also seized.
Ms. Nelson was lodged in the Crook County Sheriff’s Jail with the following criminal charges.
Unlawful Possession, Manufacture, and Attempted Distribution of a Schedule II Controlled Substance (Fentanyl)
Child Neglect I
Crook County District Attorney, Kari Hathorn, provided the following comment, “My office supports a public safety surge to address the alarming increase in the availability of these fentanyl-laced fake pills. It is the Crook County District Attorney’s Office goal to work with our law enforcement partners and the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team to protect the safety and health of our Crook County community from the harm, crime and overdoses driven by these criminal drug networks.”
Criminal complaints contain only charges; defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
CONTACT FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Sgt. Kent Vander Kamp, 541-550-4869 or kentv@deschutes.org
The Central Oregon Drug Enforcement (CODE) team is a multi-jurisdictional narcotics task force supported by the Oregon-Idaho High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program and the following Central Oregon law enforcement agencies: Bend Police Department, Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, Redmond Police Department, Prineville Police Department, Crook County Sheriff’s Office, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Madras Police Department, Oregon State Police, Sunriver Police Department, Black Butte Police Department, United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Warm Springs Tribal Police Department, Deschutes, Crook, and Jefferson County District Attorney’s, and the Oregon National Guard.
The Oregon-Idaho HIDTA program is an Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) sponsored counterdrug grant program that coordinates and provides funding resources to multi-agency drug enforcement task forces to disrupt or dismantle local, multi-state and international drug trafficking organizations.
Salem Police Arrest Driver in Homeless Site Crash
Salem Police arrested 24-year-old Enrique Rodriguez, Jr. who they said is the driver involved in a crash at a homeless site early Sunday morning. The crash happened around 2 a.m. in the area of Front and Division Streets NE.
Police said four people were killed as a result of the crash. Two people sustained life-threatening injuries, according to police.
Rodriguez is lodged at Marion County Jail facing multiple charges including first-degree manslaughter, DUII and reckless endangerment.
Tillamook Rock Lighthouse For Sale
The Tillamook Rock Lighthouse off the northwest coast of Oregon is for sale for $6.5 million.
The island’s isolation, impossible boat landings and extreme weather as well as the lighthouse crews’ dislike of their months-long stays where they were cold, wet and constantly reminded of their dangerous job, earned the tower the nickname “Terrible Tilly.”
Investors had paid $50,000 in 1980 to buy the deteriorating lighthouse, Oregon’s only offshore light station. The structure sits a mile from Tillamook Head between Seaside and Cannon Beach.
The owners converted the structure, which has been brutalized for a century and a half by crashing waves, into the Eternity At Sea columbarium. About 30 funeral urns were interred there before the columbarium’s license was not renewed in 1999 by the Oregon Mortuary and Cemetery Board.
The private Tillamook Rock property, which is part of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, can only be reached by helicopter with the owners’ permission.
The Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, designed to guide ships on their treacherous ocean journey to the Columbia River, played a critical role in the development of the Pacific Northwest and World War II shipbuilding.
High Desert Museum to Welcome This Thursday Three Indigenous Artists of “Imagine a World”
BEND, OR — Entering the High Desert Museum’s original exhibit Imagine a World, visitors are greeted by two life-size, brightly painted astronauts hovering over a mural with blue bison running over a moonscape and flying saucers in the sky above. The display is the artwork of Frank Buffalo Hyde (Onondaga Nation Beaver Clan and Nez Perce).
The Museum will welcome Hyde as well as two other Indigenous artists featured in Imagine a World–Camas Logue (Klamath, Modoc, Northern Paiute) and Brutis Baez (Wasco, Paiute, Warm Springs)—for the panel event “A Future That’s Indigenous” on Thursday, March 31 at 6:00 pm. Doors will open at 5:30 pm.
The three Native artists will explore a concept called Indigenous futurism and discuss their artwork in Imagine a World. Indigenous futurism envisions alternative worlds and recognizes the ways that cosmology, science and futurism have long been part of Indigenous worldviews and oral traditions. Artwork imagines Native people well into the future, including in the realms of science fiction and outer space.
Frank Buffalo Hyde was born in Sante Fe, New Mexico and raised on his mother’s Onondaga reservation in New York. Hyde returned to New Mexico to attend the Santa Fe Fine Arts Institute and Institute of American Indians Arts. His artwork, he says on his website, combines modern culture and technology with Indigenous themes and tradition using “overlapping imagery to mimic the way the mind holds information: nonlinear and without separation (sic). I don’t need permission to make what I make. Never have… no artist should.”
Camas Logue is a weaver, carver, fine woodworker, painter, illustrator, printmaker and musician who lives in the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community in northwest
Washington with his family. Logue’s artwork has been shown at the Portland Art Museum, Northwest Marine Ironworks and Abrons Arts Center in New York City.
Brutis Baez hails from California and Warm Springs, Oregon and has created music since 2002. In 2015, he released “More Than Music,” an autobiographical DVD. His short film Indians on the Moon featured in Imagine a World was also on exhibit in The Museum at Warm Springs 26th Annual Tribal Member Art Exhibit.
The original exhibit Imagine a World will be open at the High Desert Museum through September 25. It examines efforts over the decades to create ideal societies throughout the Western United States from the glass domes of Biosphere 2 to Rajneeshpuram. Learn more at highdesertmuseum.org/imagine-a-world.
Tickets for “A Future That’s Indigenous” are $10 (members receive 20 percent discount) and can be purchased online at highdesertmuseum.org/future-thats-indigenous.
ABOUT THE MUSEUM:
THE HIGH DESERT MUSEUM opened in Bend, Oregon in 1982. It brings together wildlife, cultures, art, history and the natural world to convey the wonder of North America’s High Desert. The Museum is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, is a Smithsonian Affiliate, was the 2019 recipient of the Western Museums Association’s Charles Redd Award for Exhibition Excellence and was a 2021 recipient of the National Medal for Museum and Library Service. To learn more, visit highdesertmuseum.org and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Klamath County Sheriff’s Office Asks for Public’s Help in Search For Trucker Suspect
The first real clue to come in on all the missing person cases in the area. Help Klamath Falls Oregon Sheriff Office ID this trucker. He was the last to see this woman alive and could be the key to not only solving this woman’s disappearance but a number of the hundred other women missing in PNW. IF you have any information, please call (541) 883-5130
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Have-You-Seen-Me-Southern-Oregons-Missing-People-161249961222839/posts/