Rosemary Anderson High School Shooting: Victim Ties with Gun Control Advocates

By Lou Saboter (developing)

Could the school shooting at Rosemary Anderson High School have been staged to bring attention to gang violence and foster gun control at the same time?


One victim was identified as Lebraye Franklin, and he had close ties with Portland Mayor Charlie Hales. Franklin has previously spoken out publicly about gang violence. A kick-off for the intern program was also  attended by Sen. Ron Wyden (d). Wyden is a strong supporter of gun control. At the kickoff, Hales told Franklin he might have to " get down in the dirt" to help stop gang violence.

According to one report, the ATF and the FBI arrived on the scene.

Back in June there was another school shooting in Portland at Reynold HS which fit the usual model, with the shooter ending his own life. In this case the shooter, who had 2 men with him, escaped.

Authorities report 4 victims and that this shooting was caused by a "dispute". Portland Police Sgt Pete Simpson said they had information that it was gang related, but the reasons for this were not immediately given when reporters asked how he knew.

This photo is from a link at the Rosemary Anderson High School website. It shows all the sponsors of an event called "We've Got Your Back". It has raised close to $200,000 in donations, and is seeking $500,000 for backpacks. These are also for Rosemary Anderson East, which is at a different location than the shooting. Either way, sounds like a lot of backpacks.

These sponsors include Boeing, East Metro County Gang Enforcement (EMGET), and the Multnomah County Sheriff.

The EMGET has been conducting readiness exercises for school shootings, indicated by at the summit held by Gresham's Mayor in October of 2013. Rosemary Anderson East is mentioned on the page. However, there was no mention of a shooter drill, but other tactics including increased presence.

Police Sgt Bill Smith of Gresham of EMGET

Gresham police Sgt. Bill Smith was helping to track gang activity, and it was noted that schools were possible targets, and he works with School Resource Officers (SROs).

Back in 2010, he was at an Multnomah County Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC) Meeting where a program called “violence interrupters” which "uses volunteer ex-gang members to access high level gang members – the “trigger pullers” – who are difficult to contact." He expressed concerns about future funding, and school shootings were a primary concern.

A possible approach cited by Rob Ingram, Director of the Office of Youth Violence Prevention
at the meeting was the "Vortex" program, described in a New Yorker article as a "radical solution" to gang violence. It included implementation of "zero tolerance" policies, with the noted drawback of making the public fearful of police. This lead to a change to the Northside Taliband method which used "social-network-analysis software to identify and target only key players in the gang" and can also be used "to map interpersonal dynamics in anything from business organizations to infectious-disease outbreaks and terrorist groups, represents people as nodes and assigns numeric values to their connectedness".

The LPSCC meeting was headed by Peter Ozanne, who now works with the Crime and Justice Institute. Their mission: "Providing nonpartisan policy analysis, consulting, and research services to improve public safety throughout the nation." They are part of Community Resources for Justice, a social engineering project that began as New England Society for the Supression of Vice, established in 1878.

Interestingly, one of the links on this page leads to East Metro Gang Enforcement Team which is linked to the Multnomah County Sheriff's Team.