Remember the Portland Police officer who accidentally loaded live shotgun rounds into his beanbag shotgun then shot a man several times? It happened in SW Portland this last summer. Well, a Multnomah County grand jury decided Dane Reister should be held accountable for his mistakes. After hearing testimony from dozens of witnesses, the grand jury voted to indict Reister on third-degree assault, which is a felony, and fourth-degree assault, a misdemeanor. Reister will also be charged with “negligent wounding,” which is typically only used in hunting cases.

A Chicago man recently filed a lawsuit against the Chicago police, claiming he was wrongfully identified and tased unnecessarily. Josue Tapia was pulled over by police in May of 2010 for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign, but he was allowed to go soon aftewards. He didn’t make it very far, however, before he was stopped by police again. The police claimed Tapia had violated other traffic laws then, according to Tapia, they pushed him to the ground and tased him nearly a dozen times in less than 5 minutes. Tapia claims the attack was unprovoked.

Toy manufacturer Henry Gordy International, Inc. has agreed to pay a $1.1 million penalty in an agreement with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) over a toy gun set that allegedly caused several deaths. An investigation by the CPSC found that Henry Gordy knew about the defect in its “Auto Fire Target Set” but chose not to report it. The gun set, which sold in Family Dollar Stores across the nation from 2005 to early 2009 for about $1.50 a set, included a toy gun, soft plastic darts, and a target. The darts were found to be choking hazards.

Yup, it’s yet another food recall, and this time it is romaine lettuce from True Leaf Farms of Salinas, CA. The farm voluntarily recalled the romaine, which was thought to be tainted with listeria. The recall involved 90 cartons and affected three states, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Since then, however, the recall has been increased to some 2,500 cartons and affects 19 states as well as Canada.

So what happened? The farm says the 90 cartons of bagged lettuce went to retail sales. The bulk of the lettuce, that would be the 2,000+ cartons, went to commercial institutions, including restaurants. So far no related illnesses have been reported, but the farm recalled the romaine after food safety inspectors discovered listeria in a sample. The source of the listeria is still unknown.

You know, between the Portland Police and TriMet, there are plenty of stories to share. The most recent TriMet story concerns a bus driver who allegedly kicked a woman and her infant off her bus because the baby was crying too loudly and the mother could not make the baby stop. This took place on a route in Hillsboro around 8pm last week.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration just issued a warning not to eat raw oysters from Washington State. Apparently a number of oysters from Hood Canal’s “growing area 4″ have been associated with a bacteria, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, to be exact, that causes illness. The oysters were distributed across 23 states.

The “outbreak” in question affected, so far, three confirmed cases and two possible cases. The tainted oysters were delivered between August 30 and September 19. The illness associated with the bacteria often includes diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea. The victim can get sick within a few hours after eating the oysters or up to five days later.

This is kind of a funny story. We often find fault with TriMet, our local transit authority, but apparently TriMet thinks very highly of itself. When a U.S. News & World Report article rated Portland as “the nation’s best city for public transportation,” TriMet interpreted that to mean the agency was the nation’s top transit agency and took the ball running. TriMet spent some $8,000 on signs for its buses and trains that proclaimed “#1 Transit.”

Unfortunately for TriMet, U.S. News & World Report changed its mind, or rather, a correction noted that the original article had been incorrect, and just like that Portland dropped from #1 for public transportation to #5.TriMet plans to take down all 168 signs.

Seven weeks ago a Bend teenager riding a bicycle was killed when he was struck by a vehicle driven by Erik Mackenzie Conn. Conn claims he had been glancing at the speedometer and thus did not see the rider, who was riding a bicycle with his friend. Conn’s story may not hold up, as he was just arrested on a number of charges, including reckless driving, criminally negligent homicide, and second-degree manslaughter.

Last year the president of the Portland Police Association (the union) was involved in two road-rage incidents, oddly with the same vehicle but in different parts of the city and on different days. Scott Westerman allegedly was the instigator of the encounters, on both occasions yelling at the driver of a smart car. I guess it was bad luck for Westerman that he targeted the same car. The driver of the smart car took down Westerman’s license plate and filed a report, but the license plate was labeled as “unable to locate.”

We’re always hearing about salmonella outbreaks and the like and the investigations to narrow down the culprit(s), but this is something new: Del Monte Fresh Produce plans to sue William Keene, Oregon Public Health’s senior epidemiologist, for, well, dissing its canteloupes. The company filed an ethics complaint and tort claim alleging Keene made misleading statements about the cantaloupes and Del Monte Fresh Produce’s Guatemalan farm, which produced the cantaloupes. Del Monte Fresh Produce is also suing the Food and Drug Administration, which issued a recall of the cantaloupes.