Accompanying police testimony was a video "re-enactment" of Dons' alleged suicide,
with Sheriff's Department public information officer Brian Martinek playing the part of Dons. His
performance and other testimony regarding Dons' statements about suicide won over more than a
few previously critical parties, most notably Dons' attorneys and Willamette Week reporter
Maureen O'Hagan. O'Hagan wrote that the re-enactment "made the most convincing
case" for the official version of Dons' death. However, the video gives no sense of how long it
would have taken Dons to rig the make-shift noose, or how long it would have taken for him to
suffocate. Further undermining its credibility, the video shows Martinek and a second officer
twisting the bedsheet while standing up. The fact that two healthy sheriff's deputies are capable of
the MacGyver-like maneuver does not convince us that Dons was capable of such a feat-- let alone
that he actually carried it out.
To main article about Steven Dons' Case
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