This is KGW news at sunrise after a
2 year process. Salem police will soon
start wearing body cams. This technology
is just another tool in that
plan around these ideas of
transparency and accountability, how
the department will roll them out,
and how soon officers will have
access to the bodycam footage
coming up in our top story.
Also, dinner reservations are hard to
come by this close to Valentine's Day,
so we skip straight to dessert
coming up this morning.
Some great places to stop by and
get sweets for your sweetheart.
This guy looks like he's moving.
Yes. You have faith he's gonna get
out of the way pretty quickly. No.
OK, so how many times have you been stuck
waiting at a freight train crossing?
It is so annoying, right?
To say the very least,
you sit there, tough it out.
Do you try to find another way around?
In another installment of Driving Me Crazy,
Chris McGinnis explains
there may be some hope on the
horizon for Portland drivers.
That is coming up at 5:15.
It is a Thursday morning
here in the Sunrise show,
Christina's present.
Friend is president.
Rodney is president as well.
I mentioned the rod.
It's actually national pizza day.
Ohh. And we have no pizza.
Domino pizza. Yeah,
I apologize for that up front.
I'm gonna apologize again.
What kind of question is that?
An operation is this. Ohh.
So that's me putting this in a down note.
Your chance to put us on a high
note with today's forecast.
I wore a yellow tie because it's
gonna shine. Thank you. Brenda Braxton.
I'm tracking with you. Give that girl
up. We don't have any pizza. Sorry.
Here's a look at our. Officers,
this morning it's partly cloudy out.
We will begin with sunshine.
Once that sun pops up.
There are some frosty fog pockets.
Sherwoods down to 32 and Salem is
now dropped all the way down to 30.
But despite the cold start,
confidence is high.
We will warm.
I have a sunny and 50 at noon today.
Up into the mid 50s for a high temperature.
It's still looks like
very quickly this evening.
Clouds come back and we could
have rain showers in Portland as
early as 8:00 o'clock tonight,
but during the day
it's going to be great.
And that's your forecast.
All right, rod.
We'll have more from Rod.
Coming up here in a few minutes,
but right now our top story it's the
Salem Police Department launching its
body Cam program this coming Monday.
It's been a two year process to
equip officers in the state capital
with body cams with budget approval
coming from Salem City Council.
kW Brian Clerkley talked to officers
and the chair of the Police Review
Board about this new program.
This technology is just another tool
in that plan around these ideas of
transparency and accountability.
All officers with the Salem Police
Department will begin wearing
these body cams starting on Monday.
The department has been testing
the cameras ahead of this launch,
as you can see in this example,
an incident where a dog was
caught by his collar on a fence.
It's been a long road for the
department to get these devices.
It's taken two years of planning,
even as many other police
departments have used.
Body cameras for years,
Salem police had to set a budget,
work with stakeholders,
select the vendors,
then test the cameras.
That included testing in the field and and
stress conditions like weather conditions,
low light conditions,
physical how well the equipment stays on.
The officer's patrol cars will also get
in car video along with body cameras.
This process will be complete by
the end of summer when an officer
goes out in the community they tap
their cameras on for any incident.
After that, they would turn off
their camera once they've separated
from that incident and then
they could immediately view it.
It's Bluetooth connected
for the 1st 60 days.
If an officer forgets to turn
their body camera video on,
there's a grace period.
If they deliberately deactivate their
cameras, they will be disciplined.
According to Salem police officials,
officers will be allowed to review
the footage before writing a report.
We just look at this as another
tool to help officers document very
well in their reports what occurred.
David Reinholt is the chair of the city
of Salem Community Police Review Board.
He says there's been some logistical issues,
which is why the Police Department has
taken so long to get the body cams.
But this is a step in the right direction.
I think it's a good thing for
the city as a whole,
both from the citizens of Salem
and also for the Police Department.
The officers that I've talked
to are they're very happy about
having the body cameras and and.
You know, most of the citizens that
I've talked about are happy as well.
Bryant, Clerkley, KGW News
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek is asking
several people who hold top spots in the
Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission to
resign due to alleged ethics violations.
The OCC regulates marijuana and alcohol,
which is Oregon's third largest revenue
generator, The Oregonian reports.
A departing employee submitted a complaint
last April alleging executives and managers.
Would request specific liquor bottles
be set aside for personal use,
specifically something called
Pappy Van Winkle.
The Bourbon is produced in limited
quantities each year and can fetch
thousands of dollars on the illegal market.
The complaint launched an
internal investigation,
which then found that it happened
often involved the Commission's former
executive director, Steve Marks.
So in a statement released yesterday,
Governor Kotek said, quote,
this behavior is wholly unacceptable.
I will not tolerate wrongful
violations of our government.
Ethics laws Kotek has asked the Board of
Commissioners to remove the executive
director and other leaders and is asking
the Attorney general to investigate.
Take a look at the scene in
Newberg last night around 11:15.
Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue
tweeted out these pictures of
an accident on Springbrook Rd.
Newburgh police were also on scene.
There you can see crews working
to get the car off its side.
Someone was actually stuck inside,
but this morning we learned rescue
crews were able to get them out
and get them to a nearby hospital.
Officials did not give us
information though on their
condition or what caused that crash.
A lot of speeding around here,
a lot of speeding and a lot of like drive.
People driving fast.
Bikes do not travel in their flow of
traffic, so when we leave a street
we could have an oncoming bike,
but they're going the wrong way.
Improvements are finally coming
to a dangerous section of Rd.
in East Portland.
The federal government is giving the
city $20 million to make 120 2nd Ave.
Safer. Pbot says.
This street is in the top 5% of the
most dangerous roads in Portland.
It has about five crashes a
week and three in every 100.
And in death or serious injury,
it's a street that we is one of
our most dangerous in the city and
that we have known is really needs.
Upgrades to it for some time now,
this is one of more than 500 projects
the US Department of Transportation
is paying for nationwide.
On top of that,
PBOT is throwing in another
$5 million for the project.
From Sandy to foster,
crews plan to put in new pedestrian
crossings, protected bike lanes,
speed reader boards,
raised medians and extra St.
lighting.
Pbot says construction,
though, won't start for a couple of years.
The Super Bowl is just a few days away,
and the majority of Americans will
tune in this Sunday to see the
Chiefs and Eagles Duke it out.
And if they're not tuning in for the game,
it'll be maybe for the ads or
Rihanna's halftime performance.
With talk of who's watching and who's not,
there are claims out there that last year's
Super Bowl was the most watched ever.
Brandon Lewis, with our verify team,
looked into it.
Verify here with your fast fact
the Super Bowl is this Sunday.
If it's anything like last year,
a majority of Americans will be watching.
But was last year's game the
most watched Super Bowl ever?
These are our sources.
In 2022, rating analytics company Nielsen
estimated more than 101 million people
watched the Rams beat the Bengals.
That was about 5,000,000
more people than in 2021.
However, it was not the most
watched ever the viewership.
Record was set in 2015,
when more than 114 million people
tuned in to watch the Patriots
narrowly beat the Seahawks.
The NFL argues those ratings don't
include all the people who watch the
game together at bars or friends homes.
The league commissioned a study that
estimated more than 200 million people
really watched last year's game with you,
a fast fact.
I'm Brandon Lewis,
all right,
we all know who Rod Hill is
rooting for on Sunday,
and we know who
I'm rooting for on Sunday. Eagles. Yeah,
I haven't decided. Really.
Really. You haven't decided
haven't decided on American.
Brenda isn't it? Come on. I'm with
you Brenda. I'm undecided.
Look at my cufflinks
for Nebraska. What do you see?
Ohh I see Kansas
City Chiefs. Look at you.
How about everyone who favored
the eagle stays right here.
Ohh it worked out.
That was tricky.
That was not fair.
OK, real quick, here's a headline that
we're following for Valentine's Day.
Front comes in Monday.
The air gets colder Monday night.
Right now, the latest update
is snow level starts off Monday
evening as low as 1500 feet,
so it drops during the day.
Monday, heavy cascades, snow starts to fall.
The snow level drops all night.
By Tuesday morning,
I still think there's a reasonable
chance we have sticking snow all
the way down to about 500 feet.
I mean, it's not going to be a ton,
but could there be a couple
inches of snow at 500 feet?
And that's enough to make it.
Slick and icy.
And could there be another inch or so up
in the West Hills higher than that, yes.
Downtown Portland though,
and lower elevations stay wet as
the temperature never gets down
to freezing with a westerly flow.
This will be heavy cascade Snow Monday,
Monday night into Tuesday morning
and also over the coast range.
So traveling both directions over
the the mountains will be an issue.
OK, we'll keep you updated on that.
Right now we have clouds out to sea,
we have rain up in Western Washington,
but we're completely dry and
in fact right now.
Most areas are saying hey it's
pretty clear outside so it's gonna
be a nice start to your day.
Now with the clearing we have some cold
numbers 30 and Eugene 32 in Salem so far.
The airport 36 out of Portland.
The Dallas 31.
Winds are light except for a bit of
an east wind coming out of the gorge.
15 mph at last. Check out at Troutdale.
Here we are.
10:00 o'clock this morning we
start off with sun.
Let's watch this, watch it with me.
Here we are.
This is 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon.
We're still sunny.
It's going to be a beautiful day alright.
Clouds quickly come to the coast
a little bit later today and
then just like that this evening.
Maybe around 8:00,
this is 8:30 we have showers returning
with those clouds and then we have
scattered showers into Friday.
The models that have come in overnight
show most of the rain we get is
actually overnight tonight and
there are only a few showers around
tomorrow with possible sun breaks.
The weekend Saturday, Sunday dry.
There's the rainy 46 degree Monday
and the colder weather Tuesday
with PDX getting down to 34 at
the coldest it looks like.
And seeing a high of 41 with
rain and snow showers in the air,
but some sticking up in elevation
as we talked
about. That is your forecast.
Thank you, Mr. Hill.
Coming up next on sunrise,
we have Chris McGinnis joining the
show for the latest installment of
his series called Driving Me Crazy.
And it's all about that
situation right there.
Who enjoys being stuck
at a training crossing.
I mean, sometimes these can go
on for what seems like forever,
but there is a change on the way
here in Portland that could help.
Chris breaks it down for
us right after this.