Gov. Tina Kotek has reversed another denial of extradition and has now agreed to bring back to Oregon a suspect in a burglary that targeted Asian American households in the Eugene-Springfield area. Last month, Kotek made a similar reversal after twice denying the extradition of a woman charged with embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from Eugene Weekly.
Police suspect the ring was involved in 17 burglaries last year, according to Jensina Hawkins, a board member of the Asian American Council of Oregon and chairperson of the Eugene Police Commission. Hawkins says 13 of the cases involved burglaries in Eugene and four in Springfield.
According to the governor’s office, two suspects allegedly involved in the ring fled to Texas, and one of them will now be extradited to Oregon.
On April 3, the Lane County District Attorney’s office reached out to Kotek’s team to request the extradition of one of the suspects who had been charged in the string of local Asian American burglaries after fleeing to Harris County, Texas, according to Lane County District Attorney Christopher Parosa. Later that day, Kotek’s team denied the request with little information as to why.
On May 14, a second suspect was picked up in Harris County as well, to which the DA’s office submitted its second extradition request. Kotek’s office responded by saying that traditionally, when a fugitive is under an ICE hold, they allow the person to be deported, and the DA office re-issued a warrant for the individual in case they come back into the country.
Kotek’s office initially denied the first extradition request in April, but changed course on June 6 after news reports about the Weekly extradition reversal caught fire.
According to the Governor’s Office, the extradition didn’t move forward originally because one of the suspects was under an ICE hold and Parosa reported to the governor’s office that there were no extenuating circumstances that would warrant a change in procedure.
“Having that decision reversed and giving the district attorney the empowerment to be able to continue what he’s been elected to do has been amazing,” Hawkins says, “especially when we look at the volume of households that have been targeted.”
“We’re talking about 13 families who walk into their home every day now, knowing that it’s been invaded by somebody who targeted them for their race,” Hawkins says. “If that happened to me, I don’t know how I would feel if I was walking through my front door every single day.”
Parosa says the Eugene Weekly case was when his staff first noticed a pattern of denials for extraditions on suspects who impact the community in particularly egregious ways.
“It was after that public row when the media began that, ultimately, the governor’s office relented,” he says,. “I’m super pleased that the governor has changed course on those cases, but now the question becomes, the larger issue for my office and also for offices around the state, what are the standards?”
Parosa says his office has already significantly restricted the number of extradition cases requesting funding from the governor’s office, and that it seems like they have restricted what they’ll pay for more and more.
“We just don’t even know where the lines seem to be anymore. Are they only cases that involve some political consequence to the governor’s office that she’ll pay for, or what’s going on here?”
The extradition issue gained attention after Kotek denied extradition to Oregon from Ohio for the woman charged with five felonies for embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from Eugene Weekly over a five-year period, and then denied an appeal of the initial decision Kotek eventually reversed her decision after public outcry over the denial.
The Lane County DA’s office cited the burglaries targeting Asian American households to The Oregonian as another example of Kotek’s office turning down another extradition request. As with the embezzlement case, Kotek’s office claimed the cost of extraditing the suspect in the burglary cases was too expensive.
Jenny Jonak, Asian American Council of Oregon board member and founder of Jonak Law Group, says she’s glad the governor’s office took into account more than the cost.
“We’re looking at alleged crimes that have affected so many different households,” Jonak says. “We’re grateful that a few thousand dollars is not going to stand in the way of our local district attorney being able to follow up on this.”
According to documents obtained through a public records request, Oregon is one of five states — along with Washington, Montana, Idaho and Northern California — that participate in a regional shuttle program. The shuttle program is an arrangement between Northwest law enforcement agencies that allows for the transportation of fugitives across different jurisdictions. Within these jurisdictions, it costs less than $25 to extradite a suspect, while it costs over $1,750 to extradite an individual outside of the five states. Both of Kotek’s recent extradition denials have been from non-participating jurisdictions.
EW also asked for the criteria used to determine extradition and which extraditions were denied, which were granted and which were pending, but the governor’s office denied the request for those records.
“I’m pleased for these two cases that we’re going to get to be able to hold these people accountable,” Parosa says. “I’m just really concerned about what the future may hold for this.”
Jonak says the 17 cases represent a large number considering the size of the Asian community in the Eugene-Springfield area, and that many more households might have been targeted.
“It was a very big deal to the community, and I think also just hearing about it was a big deal, because if you know that, that is how people are being targeted; the community needs to have some awareness of that,” she says.
Jonak says news of the targeted burglaries has given some business owners pause. She says the Lane County diverse business directory allows businesses to indicate the ethnicity of their owners. “Knowing that,” Jonak says, “people have thought twice about whether that’s the way they want to be identified in a business directory.”
This story was developed as part of the Catalyst Journalism Project at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Catalyst brings together investigative reporting and solutions journalism to spark action and response to Oregon’s most perplexing issues. To learn more visit CatalystJournalism.uoregon.edu.