What’s interesting about your article “Fiery Protest” (EW online, 5/30) is the fact that you seem to concentrate more on skin tone and how illegitimate the protest was rather than why anyone was protesting. I’m not going to read it again, but I think I counted four different references to melanin levels in protesters. Why is that important to you, Eugene Weekly? For a national response to police brutality, why is melanin level important?
The other great part is that you make sure to get an interview with Chief Chris Skinner to get his views on the anti-police-brutality protests. Good job. Then you have a quote from a random person saying that there are no police shootings in Eugene, but you fail to mention that EPD killed Eliborio Rodrigues barely six month ago. Police stopped him for walking down the street. Ten minutes later he was dead. Of course you didn’t run a story about it because he was just a homeless man who won’t help you get more art galleries downtown and probably never played pickleball.
Thanks for letting us know where you stand on the issue of police brutality.
Alex Gilliam
Eugene
Editor’s note: We mention skin color when it is relevant. In this case the looters were mainly white and those trying to stop them were people of color. You are correct, we should have clarified there has not been a recent police shooting of a black person, but there have been others, including Eliborio Rodrigues and Brian Babb.
A Note From the Publisher
Dear Readers,
The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.
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Listening to readers has always been at the heart of Eugene Weekly. This year, that meant launching our popular weekly Activist Alert column, after many of you told us there was no single, reliable place to find information about rallies, meetings and ways to get involved. You asked. We responded.
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Thank you for standing with us!
Publisher
Eugene Weekly
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