Street roots
March 2, 2012
H A R D ESTY from page 1
IPR director and anyone else within the city
government. Their advice is always about
They gave us inadequate staff they gave us
how to limit liability or limit the possibility
inadequate resources. They really tried to
of a lawsuit. But if the IPR director had an
tie our hands. They didn’t expect in the
independent attorney that could advise her
short period of time that I would be able to
about the appropriateness of filing charges
come up with a couple proposals that would
against police officers, holding them
make it to the ballot.
accountable for some egregious behavior,
then she would have
J.T.: Was this a lost
much more power to
opportunity fo r some
implement her own
real change?
investigations, get her
The whole IPR system is
own legal advice and
J.H .: I certainly
then be able to
flawed. So try in g to fix a
agree with the lost
flawed system becomes very, recommend what the
opportunity for the
punishment should
w r y fru stra tin g »I would lik e be.
public. It is really
frustrating to work
to see that system go away
The problem with
as hard as we did
the current system is
because It was supposed to
without the support
the independent
be tem porary 10 years ago.
of the public body
review process really
I t ys become institutionalized does no review. They
that put us together.
It supports the need
and the assumption is that It review what the
to remove this
police and the
works,
and
it
doesn't«
process from the
internal investigation
political process.
committee has
One of the
already done, or they
housekeeping
recommend that the
measures if passed in May, will provide a
Internal Affairs Division actually conduct the
structure and timeline for the next charter
investigation. So in and of themselves, they
effort. It would appoint commissioners for a
have the ability to do their own
two-year period of time. I continue to
investigations, but they don’t. The whole
believe what the mayor said to me in a
IPR system is flawed. So trying to fix a
private meeting: he didn’t care about these
flawed system becomes very, very
issues, and it is reflected in the lack of staff
frustrating.
and resources dedicated to this effort.
I would like to see that system go away
because it was supposed to be temporary 10
J.T.: I t ’s been about two years since City
years ago. It was created by then Mayor
C o u n cil passed an ordinance m eant to bring
Vera Katz who said, let’s try this for a year
greater oversight to the police bureau. Looking
and see what happens. It’s become
back, how well has this ordinance worked?
institutionalized and the assumption is that
it works, and it doesn’t. It doesn’t work for
J.H .: Commissioner Randy Leonard put
community members, it doesn’t work as far
together a work group that came up with 54
as giving the community certainty that
recommendations for changes. The City
police are being independently investigated
Council implemented four of those changes,
and then held accountable for their
and I w ould s a y th a t it is n o t w o rk in g yet.
b e h a v io r.
We don’t have true police reform in the
oversight process yet.
J.T.: So what specific things should have
been in the police-reform ordinance?
J.T.: What needs to happen?
J.H .: Before the ordinance was passed, a
J.H .: Several things need to happen. The
IPR director needs to have the ability to
have her own attorney. The city attorney
represents the police, the City Council, the
work group made 54 recommendations and
laid out some good ideas, like making sure
that the auditor has the ability to show up at
crime scenes and actually conduct her own
investigation. She has the power to do that,
but it actually looks like the City Council
lessened her ability to do that in a follow-up
ordinance. I don’t think it’s police that
should be investigating police. There should
be an independent citizen committee
investigating police. If those 54
recommendations had been adopted by the
City Council, I think that this system would
be better because at least it would have
those independent pieces in place, and then
we would have to wait and see if that
worked.
J.T.: Are any other cities doing anything
worth em ulating?
unnecessarily. And what’s frustrating for
me, and I think others, is there is training in
how to address people with mental health
issues. We have mental health workers all
over this state where every single day they
confront the kind of things Portland police
confront, but they don’t kill people. They are
able to immobilize people, to calm them
down, to de-escalate the situation. So, if
we’re training police in de-escalation why is
it not working for them most of the time?
J.T.: You mentioned the Justice
Departm ent’s investigation o f Portland police.
What are some things you hope w ill come out
o f that?
J.H .: Well, I’m hoping that the Justice
J.H .: I think San Francisco has a true
independent body that actually investigates
police. We wouldn’t want to copy them
exactly, but they had some good things like
their total independence, and their budget is
set by statute so it doesn’t get in a political
fight if people don’t like the outcomes. They
have community members that serve on the
body. I think that’s just one of several
models around the country that we should
be looking at.
J.T.: In response to a string o f incidents
where mentally fragile individuals died at the
hands o f police, the bureau has taken steps to
make officers better equipped fo r such
encounters. H a s the bureau made any progress
in this area?
J.H .: Somedays I think that they’re
Department investigation will confirm that
people of color and people with mental
health issues are treated differently by
Portland police, and I’m hoping the Justice
Department will have very specific steps
that Portland police will be required to take
to remediate that activity.
What’s good about when the Justice
Department comes in, is that they
recommend very specific actions that they
want to see the local police department
take. I hope they come out with a laundry
list of things for Portland police, so that the
community can have a better level of
comfort with interacting with the police.
J.T.: H a s any progress been made on the
issue o f racial profiling? Form er Police C h ie f
Rosie Sizer did some work on the issue, but
have we seen anything since then?
making progress. We read every once in a
while how the police were able to come to a
situation where someone is suffering mental
illness and they’ve been able to de-escalate
the situation. But we hear that rarely. Most
of the time what we hear is that they had to
kill them because they had a little knife or
they were aggressive in some manner like
the poor guy on the roof of a garage
committee was disbanded by Mayor Tom
Potter, the replacement was supposed to be
the human right commission’s sub
committee on police and community
relations. I used to go to those meetings.
The predominance of that committee were
d o w n to w n .
c o p s . T h e c o m m u n ity m e m b e r s th a t th e y
We’re told that under former Mayor Tom
Potter that every law enforcement officer
had been trained in how to identify and
de-escalate situations with people who are
suffering from mental health issues and be
able to call a special team if they need it. So
sometimes they use that system, and
sometimes they don’t, and when they don’t
another community member dies
selected for the committee had to apply, and
the people they selected had the least
knowledge of police activities. I would go to
those meetings and sit through the whole
two hours until the 10 minutes of public
comment, and I would be a bit appalled
because I would hear police lying to
J.H .: No, actually once the racial profiling
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