April 27, 2004
(Updated) Getting Ready On The Eve Of The Inquest
How Various Parts Of This Will Play Out
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
Tomorrow morning, the jury of inquest into the shooting death of James Jahar Perez gets underway at the Multnomah County Courthouse. Late this afternoon KGW posted an item providing a bit of what to expect:
Officer Jason Sery is expected to testify on Friday during the public inquest into the fatal police shooting of James Jahar Perez.
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The six-member inquest jury will determine the name of the deceased, and where, when, and how Perez died. Testimony taken during the inquest won�t be used in criminal or civil proceedings against Sery.
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About 40 eyewitnesses are expected to speak during the public inquest.
Of those forty (at least this is what we heard last week) anywhere from one-third to one-half will be testifying out of the courtroom, in another room at the Courthouse -- because they do not wish to testify where they can be seen due to concerns they've expressed for their safety and well-being.
Presuming the technical details got worked out over the past couple of days, their testimony will be piped into the courtroom, and also be available to the media outlets pulling the video feed of the inquest.
In addition, at some point there will be a Powerpoint presentation during the testimony of the medical examiner which is also expected to be included in the video feed. Also, jurors will one evening be taken to another location to go through a simulation program that officers themselves go through. This process will be recorded and the foootage presented probably the next day.
Those wishing to follow the inquest live can do so either via an OregonLive audio stream which will be available. And KGW told us earlier today that their website will be video streaming the inquest (the link will likely be prominently placed towards the top of the site).
If the inquest is being aired in its entirety on television, we have not yet heard any announcement, but interested readers might want to check the various cable acess channels tomorrow morning.
As previously-reported, Ethan Lindsey will be reporting live from the courtroom via OregonLive's breaking news "weblog" throughout the inquest.
We plan to watch the proceedings from the ease and comfort of PORTLAND COMMUNIQUE headquarters, and it's likely that we will be camped out all day and engaging in a little off-site friendly competition with Lindsey.
As it stands now, the intention is to post a new item at the top of every hour, and then post updates within that new item over the course of that hour. In essence, rather than having a new item for each new interesting bit of the inquest, we will have seven to eight inquest-related posts over the course of the day.
Update
One advantage we have here over the OregonLive model is reader comments. So be sure to weigh in over the course of the day during our inquest coverage.
Comments (1)
Josh Berezin on 28 Apr 2004
The inquest will be broadcast live, starting at 9:30 a.m., on Northwest Cable News (49) and the audio will be on KBOO (90.7), according to today's Oregonian.