Border-crossing journalism from the Sacramento Valley
by Leslie Layton
Reynaldo “Reny” Cabral was placed on probation Friday for an assault on his girlfriend that landed him in the Glenn County Jail – and ultimately, in a wheelchair.
Cabral, a 24-year-old Orland man who suffered a spinal-cord injury at the jail and is now a quadriplegic, was sentenced to four years probation and ordered to attend a class for batterers. The sentencing gave some closure to Cabral’s frightening 16-month journey in the Glenn County criminal-justice system.
Charles “CC” Carter launched the Cross Cultural Leadership Center at Chico State last year to further the kinds of relationships that he believes are sometimes difficult in America.
By T.J. Holmes
Charles “CC” Carter knows the value of focus and determination.
Carter, an alumnus of Chico State, runs the cross-cultural and leadership programs for the Student Activities Office. Carter oversaw the opening of the Cross Cultural Leadership Center (CCLC) in late 2007, a program that has taken off and become a bridge in the Chico State community, bringing together diverse groups.
“That’s the key to success in America,” Carter said. “An inclusive society will form a more successful nation.”
Konkow Maidu leader Patsy Seek shows one of the traditional huts she’s built out of tree bark along the Feather River in Oroville.
by Jennifer MacDonald
Patsy Seek combed the banks of Northern California’s Feather River, scoured the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and made house calls in Oroville searching for Native American children skipping school.
“I’d drag ’em out of bed,” she says. “They’d hide in the mountains and I’d go find them.”
Seek could relate to the troubled students. Herself a Maidu woman, Seek dropped out of high school during her first year.
In Oroville and surrounding Butte County, the Native American population is mostly Maidu. The Maidu were among the largest of the California tribes, occupying large parts of Northern and Central California before white settlers came.
por Leslie Layton
Temprano una mañana de invierno, en una celda de aislamiento de la cárcel del condado de Glenn, Reynaldo “Reny” Cabral se puso en posición de velocista, una posición que había tomado frecuentemente cuando jugaba para el equipo de fútbol americano de la escuela preparatoria de Orland. Luego se abalanzó, chocando su cabeza contra una capa de hule que cubre la pared de la llamada “celda de seguridad” en la cárcel.
Ahora recuerda el sentimiento de sorpresa que tuvo mientras estaba tirado en el piso de la celda al darse cuenta que estaba paralizado. En un esfuerzo desesperado de liberarse de su prisión — No solamente de la celda de 5 por 8 pies, pero además de la prisión creada por sus alucinaciones y su temor de ser nuevamente lastimado por los policías que ya habían usado contra él dardos “Taser” — había roto su cuello.
Reny and Torrie at Enloe Rehabilitation Center
by Leslie Layton
Five months after his arrest in connection with the choking of his girlfriend, an Orland man said that psychosis drove him to ram his head into the wall of a Glenn County Jail cell.
Reynaldo “Reny” Cabral, 23, described himself as disoriented and desperate when he rammed his head in his isolation cell Jan. 8, breaking his neck and becoming paralyzed from the chest down. He is now a quadriplegic, and both Glenn County and MediCal have been billed hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical costs.
