a couple weeks back I filmed an interview for an upcoming documentary ALIEN BOY…it is a movie about someone I knew since he was a 15 year old MLC student roaming the streets of Northwest Portland much as I had started doing a few years earlier…it was a wild neighborhood in that era ..students,musicans and artists would share architectually grandiose 5 and 6 bedroom houses that rented for around 4 or 5 hundred bucks…the punk and alternative culture was exploding and the Pearl district remained a bustling bohemian ghetto  for the creative and the crazy until the late 80’s…

I HAVE FOND MEMORIES of the elf like JimJim and his impish grin and sly smile…he was a fragile and eccentric character,.. after awhile..he began a descent into mental ilness in his 20’s…havent seen him in years but we all remember him as this  frail and gentle “old soul” who was harmless, thats why he was readily welcome to couch surf at KEARNY house whenever he liked…

a couple years back…JimJim,…JAMES CHASSE JR.  still thin and sleight after all these years..was chased down by a group of Portland Police in that same yuppified Pearl district…where “his type” and “My type”  and hell, perhaps  even”your type” as well , ..are  no longer welcome among the nouveau riche with thier condo’s and credit cards  in the trendy upscale mecca…what for?..and why 6 cops?…for supposedly urinating between two cars,…some crime..its not like businesses in that area exactly welcome the poor,homeless  and mentally ill to use thier restrooms..

         Like a roguish gang they jumped him and slammed him to the ground.. dropkicked and  bodyslammed on top of him repeatedly… hog tied his feet and cuffed his hands and stood around laughing and joking as he lay dying.. ignoring his repeated begging for medical treatment..instead of the hospital…they took him to jail where he DIED, with 26 BROKEN BONES….YES,26 broken bones…HIS RIBCAGE WAS ABSOLUTELY SHATTERED…to say he was “beaten to death” is a vast understatement…made me sick to my stomach seeing those images captured on cameraphone

My brother was mentally ill…schitzophrenia, like JAMES CHASSE JR…we always worried something like that would happen to him…instead, ..after a car accident he was sent home from a hospital with a torn aorta,because they thought he was homeless and had no insurance….in essence like JIMJIM,…he died because of  his mental ilness and the callous way authorities and medical personel interact with the mentally ill…my brother had a Home and Kaiser insurance…and like CHASSE friends and family who loved him..but was in shock and dishevelled and uncommunacative at the ER….

  much like JimJim,…didnt get adequate care..was denied basic fairness and human dignity..and just like JiMJim,..he bled to death internally because of a different standard of compassion for those who never chose to…or are unable to…wear a suit and tie , punch a clock , and walk the walk like the rest of us….so this case really strikes a nerve with me…it didnt have to happen..it shouldnt have happened..and we need to resolve as a community that it never happens again 

 contact EVA LAKE or go to this site  ”ALIEN BOY’S ” progress..thanks, http://www.alienboy.org ..sincerely,rozz rezabek..more soon