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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 2014)
Street roots Aug. 1, 2014 Portland police, D O J settlement fails on multiple fronts BY JENNY WESTBERG AND JASON RENAUD C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T S F ■ 'ih e Mental Health Association of Portland remains firm on Department J L of Justice v. City of Portland. The position elucidated in this column has been our unvarying stance since the outset of the lawsuit, and, barring sudden, cataclysmic changes descending from the sky, it’s the same we’ll hold tomorrow and the day after. The suit is the result of the U.S. / Department of Justice’s 2012 civil rights investigation of the Portland Police Bureau. Investigators found officers routinely used excessive force, including Tasers, on persons with mental illness. In collaboration with the DOJ, then-mayor Sam Adams, a lame duck with one foot out the door, quickly drew up a settlement . agreement, created a new tax on landline phone transmissions to pay for implementation, got City Council to agree to it, and took a better job. Federal Judge Michael Simon, wondering if the agreement was fair, asked for ; community input Aside from the DOJ, the city and their vetted advocates, Simon heard sophisticated opposition to the agreement on many valid points. Testimony was given at several hearings ever the months, and the case is still not finalized. Soon Simon will hâve to decide - fair or not fair? Trial or no trial? ' Here is what we know — the people are pissed. Here is what we believe. Police officers were the-ones who slapped, punched, kicked, Tased and shot people without sufficient reason. But the city administers the police bureau. They c have final authority, and that means they bear full responsibility. Every repeated Tasering, every fist slammed into a face, every act of police violence is, at root, an act by the city. The City of Portland is at fault for the discrimination at the heart of police violence, and for the Violence itself. The city is at fault both in the lawsuit and in the long, painful bleeding of our persons and our rights. They are to blame for sitting on their hands; for watching, calmly, the wrongs being committed against us; for shutting their ears and ignoring our pleas for a small measure of justice. I Their inaction became their agreement to the steady erosion of our civil rights, affixing an official city seal on the casual diminishment we face every day, defining us - people with mental illnesses and/or addictions - as lesser citizens. Currently, the parties to the suit have | bickered their way into another revision of the settlement agreement — which, incidentally, gives us nothing — despite the fact persons with mental illness are the whole reason the DOJ came to town in the first place, and despite the DOJ’s finding we were the targets of wrongful usq of force by police. Somehow the investigation and legal proceedings were appropriated by those with more clout. And everyone has more clout than we, the poor, the addicted, the inconveniently mad. The settlement agreement is a frail and insufficient ¡solution, too quickly agreed upon by self serving parties seeking political credibility. Little of the agreement benefits us - remember us? the persons actually harm ed?- although it’s we who are, or may other provision of substance that touches be, in mental health crisis, we who are at upon mental health. imminent risk of injury and death by cop. Aspirational? Really? But there was one thing in the agreement Well, we all have aspirations - fame, we wanted and needed, which actually could fortune, a ruby-studded yacht on Neptune - save lives, and might have saved our friends and we know they’re never going to happen. now dead. Sam Adams wrote it into the “Aspirational” means it’s something hoped original draft: a walk- for. But in this case, it in and dropoff center means we got the for people in crisis. shaft — again. It The city has sm iidf ed the If police had means when crisis promise of a crisis center somewhere to take a happens, we can get person in crisis, if Into a blur of non-reality. all the help v e can people had a place to Now, tlie part of the squeeze out of our go when they’re own vain hopes, an Bepartsaent Basile© entering a state of unbuilt “aspiration,” crisis, there would be S ettfei«i«t Agreement less crisis assuring ns It would happen and the city’s broken promises. management expelled has been verbally amended Judge Simon will, from the barrel of a by the defendant —»the city H at some point, have to gun. A crisis center make a decision: is w hich h e lp fu lly redefined would keep more of us alive long enough the crisis, cesiter clear out of the agreement fair, and if npt, should he to, perhaps, recover. eastence» hold a trial? Our And it would relieve position remains the police of a duty they same - the are ill-qualified for and agreement is neither fair, reasonable, nor have a history of bungling so badly that adequate. The one right and just decision by someone dies. It’s just a good idea all around — and there it was, in the Simon would be to declare the agreement agreement, plain as day. unfair and order public mediation of a new It’s still in the agreement. But the city agreement - this time, with all harmed has smudged the promise of a crisis center parties at the table. into a blur of non-reality. Now, the part of Including people with mental illness. the agreement assuring us it would happen has been verbally amended by the defendant Jenny Westberg and Jason Renaud are board members o f The M ental Health Association — the city — which helpfully redefined, the o f Portland. M H A P is Oregon’s independent crisis center clear put of existence. 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