On the night of her death, Nicole Catsouras took her father’s Porsche without permission and was driving at dangerously high speeds. She hit another vehicle then crashed into a toll booth. The damage was so extensive that the Catsouras family was not allowed to view Nicole’s body following the accident. Soon after photos began to appear online.

The Catsouras family sued the California Highway Patrol for invasion of privacy. At first the lawsuit was dismissed because it was believed nothing illegal had taken place, but in 2010 the decision was reversed. The Catsouras family recently settled the lawsuit and is still working to get the photographs off the Internet, a likely impossible task.

For more on this story, see this article.

The original post is titled Auto accident, family nightmare , and it came from Paulson Coletti - Portland Oregon Law Firm .

The Portland City Council agreed to the premium pay as part of union negotiations, but now council commissioner Dan Saltzman hopes to rescind the pay until police officers are actually tested for physical fitness. The original plan was for officers to take an actual fitness exam, but negotiations hit a snag when the police union voiced concerns about officers having to take the exam during off-duty hours with no overtime pay. The biometric screening then became an option.

I don’t know about you, but I would certainly like Portland Police officers to be physically fit. If they are out of shape, how are they going to chase down criminals? For more on this story, see this article.

The original post is titled Portland Police and Physical Fitness , and it came from Paulson Coletti - Portland Oregon Law Firm .

Owens was fired not long after the shooting for a number of reasons, including his failure to fix the supposedly faulty gun safe. To complicate matters, an investigation into the matter found that Owens placed the blame for the accident on his 11-year-old stepdaughter and made her say she was supposed to be watching the toddler but fell asleep.

Owens is now suing the sheriff’s department and asking for $1 million and his job back. He claims the police targeted him because he became very vocal about gun safes and wanted the police to test safes in the homes of deputies.

For more on this story, see this article.

The original post is titled Shot in the Dark , and it came from Paulson Coletti - Portland Oregon Law Firm .

Plenty of other police forces around the country include steroids in their random drug testing, but the local union is against it and has even filed a grievance against the City of Portland to try to stop the drug testing.

Yvonne Deckard, director of Portland’s Bureau of Human Resources, says the union delayed negotiations, and finally, at the end of December, Deckard notified the union the city would proceed with random drug testing in 2012.

Daryl Turner, president of the local union, says concerns over testing of steroids stems from the fact that officers could test positive for steroids by, say, ingesting over-the-counter supplements that include chemicals or other substances that illegally contain steroids. Such a situation, says Dr. Linn Goldberg of OHSU, is not plausible.

So, we shall see what happens. Under the new testing policy, 55 officers per month will be tested. I wonder how many of them will test positive for steroids?

For more information, see this article.

The original post is titled Step away from the steroids , and it came from Paulson Coletti - Portland Oregon Law Firm .

Reister’s trial will begin on February 1. He was arraigned on December 13, 2011, and plead not guilty. Reister has been on paid leave since the shooting on June 30. He has been wiht the Portland Police for fifteen years. The Portland Police Association has voiced its support of Reister and issued a statement disagreeing with the indictment.

For more information, see this article.

The original post is titled Portland Police: From beanbags to court , and it came from Paulson Coletti - Portland Oregon Law Firm .

The 73-year-old, Othon Cortes, was flying from Spain to New York and then on to his home in Miami. He ingested the in-flight meal on the flight from Barcelona to New York and soon was plagued by stomach pain and nausea. He continued to feel ill on board the flight from New York to Miami, and the plane had to make an unscheduled landing in Norfolk, Virginia, to tend to his medical needs. Cortes died shortly after landing.

Cortes’s family claims the chicken he ate was contaminated and made him ill. The family also believes the airlines was negligent and should have provided medical care to Cortes earlier. They think he should not have been allowed to board the flight to Miami, since he was in medical distress, and that the airplane delayed its emergency landing too long. The family is asking for more than $1 million.

Food poisoning generally does not come on suddenly, but there are exceptions to the rule. It is unclear whether others on the flight were sickened by the same chicken. In fact, this story brings up a lot of unanswered questions.

For more on this story, see this article.

The original post is titled Death by poultry? , and it came from Paulson Coletti - Portland Oregon Law Firm .

Riders reported that Hendren, nicknamed “the monster” by some of her riders, repeatedly yelled at passengers for such offenses as talking on cell phones, listening to iPods, or having conversations with fellow passengers. Also, the 67-year-old driver had previously yelled at other parents of crying children. Complaints allege that Hendren would stop the bus and refuse to continue until her demands were met.

TriMet says they addressed Hendren’s excessive complaints with training and coaching, but it is pretty clear that tactic was unsuccessful. It took public shame and worldwide publicity for TriMet to take action–since word got out that Hendren kicked the mother and child off her bus, Hendren was put on unpaid suspension for two weeks. TriMet has also hired a trainer who will concentrate on assisting drivers with high complaint numbers.

For more on this story, see this article.

The original post is titled Don’t mess with the TriMet driver , and it came from Paulson Coletti - Portland Oregon Law Firm .

Reister has been with the Portland Police for 15 years. He apparently did not realize he had loaded live shotgun rounds until after he shot and and hit the assailant, William Kyle Monroe, two times. This wasn’t the first time Reister made the mistake of incorrectly loading a weapon.In 2006, during a training session, Reister mistakenly loaded and fired a live smoke round when he shouldn’t have. For that error Reister received a letter of reprimand.

Reister has been on paid leave since the June shooting. This is the first time in the county that a grand jury has voted to indict a police officer for using force while on duty. Monroe is still recovering from his injuries and may not regain normal walking abilities.

For more on this story, see this article.

The original post is titled From beanbags to bullets to trial , and it came from Paulson Coletti - Portland Oregon Law Firm .

Tapia spent a week in the hospital to recover from the Taser attack. He believes the Chicago police mistook him for someone else with a similar name, someone who had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. The police claimed Tapia resisted and fought back and thus charged him with aggravated battery and resisting arrest. That case went to trial, and Tapia was found not guilty just last week. Tapia and his lawyers believe the police brought the charges against Tapia to cover up the Taser use and to create justification for the Taser attack.

For more on this story, see this article.

The original post is titled Don’t tase me, bro , and it came from Paulson Coletti - Portland Oregon Law Firm .

Henry Gordy, according to the CPSC, knew about the defect in spring of 2006 but didn’t report it. Henry Gordy had learned of an 8-year-old choking to death on a toy dart at that time, and in the summer redesigned the toy and included a warning on its packaging. In early 2007, however, another death occurred, and then in the fall of 2007 a third death took place. By the time Henry Gordy reported the hazard to the CPSC, it was May of 2009, and the company did not disclose information about the first death or mention the resulting redesign of the toy.

Also in May of 2010 Henry Gordy refused to issue a recall of the toy, so the Family Dollar Stores and CPSC launched the recall. It included some 1.8 million toy sets. Unfortunately, about a week after the recall, another child choked to death on a dart.

For more information, see this article.

The original post is titled Toy guns that kill , and it came from Paulson Coletti - Portland Oregon Law Firm .