Ayaz Alam Quadir was born on Dec. 2, 1985.
With his parents, he left Bangladesh when he was young. He grew up in the United States with his mother. His father lived in France, and he visited at times.
His father described him as “a shy but intense human being, who had focused his passion on music.”
Ayaz wanted to be a professional jazz musician. He studied piano at McGill University in Montreal.
Somewhere in life, someone introduced him to heroin.
Life became difficult for him after that. He struggled with addiction for years.
His mother, Samina, lived in Portland and married William Reese.
Reese is the brother of Becky Reese, a physician who lived at the Movement Center in Portland.
In 2007, he almost died from an overdose. It was difficult for his mother, stepfather, and father, who were trying to do what they could to help him.
Ayaz came to the Movement Center under the care of his aunt Becky and husband, Andrew Bonner.
While there, he was close to Jessica, Laura’s daughter. He worked under Jim Brissette, who assigned him to work with a young man named AJ. His last name is unknown.
A source told Frank Report:
There was a young man named AJ. I am trying to find his last name if anyone can help. He came in under Jim Brisette’s supervision.
He and Ayaz were often paired together by Brisette as a team to work on house projects. Jim thought they were a good pair; they would be a good influence on each other. They could learn from each other…yea: a drug dealer (AJ) and a recovering addict (Ayaz).
Only Brisette, Ward, Shoemaker and the Bonner’s knew of Ayaz’s recovery program: that was kept secret from the community.
And only Brisette, Ward and Shoemaker know who AJ is. Perhaps someone from the community can recall that kid’s last name? He was about the same age as Ayaz, young twenties with shoulder-length stringy blonde hair and missing a front tooth. Hard to forget but it seems most people have forgotten him.
AJ was supposedly “caught” buying drugs from homeless people in Oregon Park. Now I wonder how much of this story is true, and consider if he was scoring drugs for Brisette and posse.
The two young men, AJ and Ayaz lived there at the same time and for a short period of time (not even a year I would say).
While Ayaz lived at the ashram, he attended drug counseling meetings. He skipped a few. meetings
The ashram was holding a retreat. Ayaz did not attend. Instead, he stayed in Andrew and Becky’s room.
Near the end of the retreat, he left the ashram. A drug test confirmed he had relapsed.
He went to rehab for three weeks to conquer his addiction. The rehab facility discharged him on August 6.
When he got out, he stayed, it appears, with his mother for the first and second nights. He seems to have visited the Movement Center on August 7, but did not stay overnight.
Andrew Bonner told police he had seen Ayaz at the Movement Center around 4 pm on August 7, rehab.
Ayaz told his mother about his excitement. He was out of rehab, clean, and wanted to stay at the Movement Center again.
His mother was a follower of a Sufi teacher or “master.”
It must have been a comfort to her. The abbot of the Movement Center was a man, though born in the west, who followed the traditions of the east.
Becky described Shoemaker as a master himself.
On August 8, Ayaz was to stay overnight at the Center.
It was his first night at the Movement Center since going to rehab in July.
At some point on that first day, Ayaz got hold of heroin and crack cocaine.
Ayaz did not call him.
During the morning and afternoon, Ayaz’s mother, Samina Reese, became worried. Ayaz did not call.
She called on Becky or Andrew to check on her son.
At about 4:40 pm, Andrew told police he went to Ayaz’s room and found him unresponsive.
About 15 minutes later, Bonner notified the police.
Andrew contacted Samina and her husband, William, the stepfather. He told them of their son’s death.
At 6:15, Portland PD Officers Shroeder and Fox arrived at the Movement Center and went to Ayaz’s room.
From the police report of Officer Kenneth Fox:
I observed (DE) Ayaz Quadir laying on his bed motionless, with his left arm extended straight off the bed, the rest of his body on the bed.
“Mr. Quadir appeared very stiff, was motionless and cold to the touch. I also noted on the floor there was a round blue pillow and next to it was two metal spoons and a syringe sitting on a piece of white paper.
Also next to the spoons and syringe was a dirty white rock like substance which appeared to be crack cocaine. On a small bookshelf directly next to these items were three more white rock like substances which appeared to be crack cocaine and one small bindle of tin foil which from my training and experience may contain heroin.
Under Mr. Quadir’s bed he had his laptop. There was no signs of a disturbance in the room, everything was neat and orderly.”
While police were still at the scene, Samina and William Reese arrived. The police report continues:
Samina and William arrived on scene and were very distraught. On their arrival I offered to have TIPS respond, they both declined.
Samina told me she had been trying to find out who Mr. Quadir’s drug dealers were recently. She said she believed his marijuana dealer’s name was “Coleman” but she was unable to provide any other information about him. There were no phone numbers listed in Mr. Quadir’s phone for a “Coleman.”
Samina believed he had multiple more drug dealers but was not able to provide any information about them but thought their phone numbers may be in his cell phone. Samina said she would contact me if she was able to find out any additional information about who Mr. Quadir’s drug dealers were.”
Medical Examiner Erin Patrick responded to the scene and took pictures.
The officers contacted Sergeant Morris. Morris instructed them to take Ayaz’s laptop, cell phone, and drugs as evidence.
He told them to contact the on-call Homicide Sergeant and notify them of the death.
We know little else.
On August 8, 2009, Ayaz Alam Quadir died. He was 22 years and nine months.
He moved into the Movement Center at 1025 Ne 33rd St in Portland, Oregon, after leaving a drug rehab facility.
One woman familiar with the Center told Frank Report:
Please note there is no information about any investigation of the death. Dead… boy with needle seems to be the way the police looked at it. No involvement of Ayaz’s aunt, Dr. Rebecca Reese, no mention of Dr. Bonner being a family member. Report states Ayaz had only spent one night at the address where the call came from. No mention of checking out the rehab program. No interview with the director of the center, no mention that the Movement Center has 60+ rooms, and maybe the drugs were procured by someone in one of those bedrooms.
This young man meant nothing to the police, and that is what they invested in his death.”
A few questions arise.
Did Becky recommend the recovering addict come to this Center?
Did Becky and Andrew know the ashram was rife with drugs?
Did they know Swami Chetanananda used drugs himself?
Becky was the Swami’s physicians and lived there for years.
She and Andrew treated drug-addicted inmates of the ashram.
A source said Andrew and Becky treated the Swami in the aftermath of his drug binges.
Was this the grossest negligence of Bonner and his physician wife? Or did they believe the Swami could help Ayaz?
Is the official story true? Did anyone have a hand in the death of Ayaz or disturb or instead tidy up the death room?
How did Ayaz get his drugs?
We know Daniel Glavin told Frank Report that Jim Brissette asked him to provide drugs to the ashram and did so. Dan was not living at the ashram when Ayaz died.
Ruth Graham reports Ayaz was not the only one with drug problems at the Movement Center.
Graham wrote, “People were coming in clean from addictions and lapsing badly while there, even dying like Ayaz did.”
Dr. Becky and husband Dr. Andrew Bonner with Swami Chetanananda.
Ayaz’s sister, Sabah, tells of an eerie event. She came to the room to gather her brother’s possessions. A group from the ashram came in carrying some kind of dagger and did an odd ritual dance and chant.
She could not even have a few moments in peace. A moment of silence to gather the few remaining items that her brother once possessed.
As for AJ?
According to a source, “AJ left when Ayaz died. All I remember is him being devastated to lose his friend Ayaz, and he declared he hated Oregon and left, and we never saw him again. He sure could answer some important questions today, though.”
No matter what the answers are, nothing will bring the late Ayaz Quadir back. The death occurred 13 years ago.
A tender memorial appears online by the writer Amitav Ghosh, who met Ayaz during a trip in the Sunderbans.
All that remains to be said perhaps is that Ayaz was troubled, and it appears his troubles began before he came to the Movement Center. But that did not get better there.
But let us remember that he was a gifted piano player and spiritually inclined.
Ayaz’s mother wrote she had a dream shortly after Ayaz passed. It was a dream “of me trying to hug him, and he dissipates much like a shadow… The dream went on to give me hope that he is well.”
His father wrote that after his son’s death, he listened to his son’s recordings and would pause the tracks.
“The part of me that echoed you, I froze; setting aside my pain in the fifth chamber of the heart, where now you come alive with every beat – and I can hear your music once again. And now you show me from the great beyond that suffering must be our ultimate teacher.”
You can hear some of Ayaz’s piano compositions here.
His Facebook remains online.
There may be no good in reviving this, but I record it in its place as I record the history of J. Michael Shoemaker.
Shoemaker made no public comment that I know of, not one, of the passing of this tragic young man.
I can echo what the writer, Ghosh, wrote to his family, of “the pain of this appalling loss – you have all my sympathy.”
Ayaz himself seems to have had insight into time and death. He wrote the following when he was 14 on the death of his grandfather.
Physical things occur over spans of time; they are not timeless. But in the prodigious scheme of the spirit, Dada is here with us all the time and forever. It is this True Spirit that is timeless.
Dada is with us even more so now than before. We may be unable to talk with him on the telephone or eat lunch with him, but our greatest fortune is that we get to live through him. He is within all of us… We must remember this and seek this spirit and roam in this essence in every aspect of life. We must force ourselves to go beyond this illusionary physical life that human beings are preoccupied with, and find the true peace and divinity that Dada has so beautifully portrayed for us.
It is now our duty and also our therapy to do this: to channel the positive living energy of this human being that we love forever and allow it to resonate through us and through our everyday lives.
I wish peace and strength to all of you. And may Allah bless our special loved one.
Ayaz Alam Quadir
