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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (May 15, 2015)
News Page 10 Street Roots • May 15-21, 2015 hennetn L. ueroe Thomas L Graves §31 iViq-.VW iUW«5 1 •nôthv Gnr' TfcÔn-as ■ ee Nunes ' *fc I LêSlê'/ r3U Death by cop: Who’s at risk? For more than 40 years in Portland, it has been people with mental illness BY JASOIM RENAUD AND JENNY WESTBERG Tyrone C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T S or years, our organization, th e M ental H ealth Association of Portland, has chronicled, eulogized and rem em bered persons who have been on receiving end of Portland-area police^ violence. Today w e’re sharing th ese nam es w ith you, recognizing early on th a t many w ere people barely noticed even while alive, easily forgotten once they’re gone. But som eone should rem em ber — and we do. O uf list, now over 300 nam es long, has developed to th e point w here we can parse t h e data and tea se out so m e reasonable sense of who, exactly, is a t risk. One m inority group rise s to th e top, year in and year out for over 40 years, consistently \ targeted —^sometimes justly, som etim es not. B Qy intra! 5ph?Ä > en Rahmsan r ä » Ste&’fr W hich group? H e re ’s a hint: j f you have a m ental illness o r activeaddiction, keep your head-tow n. Trackin g u nw arranted fo rce ordres-ha f/j —c b —ixh ?f Ce— T h e list sta rts in l969, when. Clay Hall w as killed by then-Portland Police Officer Steven Sims. T he sto ry does n o t fit w ith any p a tte rn found elsew here in th e list, bu t we s ta rt th ere for a reason: to this day, it’s still th e last tim e a PPB officer was convicted for a use-of-force incident in a M ultnom ah County court. Forty-three years w ent by. In June 2011, then-Officer D ane R eister m ixed up his ammo, loading lethal rounds into his beanbag gun. L ater th a t day, he responded to a 9-1-1 call of a m an “possibly harassing” children and behaving in a “peculiar m anner.” T he m an was William M onroe, a j 20-year-old diagnosed w ith bipolar disorder. Reister, thinking h e w as firing “less lethal” beanbags, blasted four bullets into M onroe, causing severe injuries th at left M onroe perm anently disabled. R eister was fired by the city, an extrem e rarity; M onroe sued the city and won a record $2.3 million. R eister has been charged by a M ultnom ah County grand jury - but it’s been th ree years, and R eister’s case languishes on the desk of D istrict A ttorney Rod Underhill. T he list is not a list of innocent p erso n s. Many — too many — w ere by all accounts extrem ely dangerous w hen officers engaged. N or is i t a list of guilty persons. It is also not a list of police-caused deaths in th e U.S. We did th a t already; it appeared in T he Portland M ercury. Review the complete list of Metro PDX Critical Incidents — 1969-2015 at Inyurl. the com/metrol969-2015 W hat th e list does include are incidents w e co u ld find from a thorough search of the public record, including co u rt rep o rts and new spapers. We include incidents w here one or m ore persons w ere killed or w here lethal force was used, in Clackamas, M ultnom ah and W ashington Counties. We don’t list all T aser uses or m ost beatings. We certainly don’t try to list every tim e a citizen has a gun pointed at them , o r all th re a ts of bodily h a rm . At m ore than 300 incidents, our list is long enough as is. B ut th e data confirm s o u r long-standing hypothesis; th a t th e persons m pstlikely harm ed by police are those whose thinking w as im paired during th e incident. T he data of th e public record is affected by an evolution in m edia coverage. Crim e reporting-has improved significantly over 40 years — both m ainstream and local sourced. Now journalists som etim es ask questions. P rio r to th e killing of K endra Jam es in 2003 local crim e re p o rte rs simply re stated law enforcem ent talking points. A fter Jam es, things got b e tte r — bu t they’re still not great. On th e spreadsheet a link to an original single news story re p re se n ts th e b e s t inform ation about w hat happened each of th e 300-plus individuals. O ther data includes nam e, age, race, agency, date and clinical status. Not shared on th e list are th e nam es of th e officers involved, and outcom e information. Too m any persons on our list are “unidentified” by race and too m any are listed as “unknown” for clinical status. Som eone knows"these people. Over one hundred tim es th e public record failed to including th e ra c e of th e individual harm ed. T his is a substantial gap in our list and we’d appreciate com m ent from th e com m unity to' improve th e data. Please e-mail your com m ents to info@ m entalhealthportland. org. T he list includes 15 known black m en and one black woman shot and killed by the Portland Police B ureau since 1970. O thers died in custody, or w ere shot and grievously wounded, and in a sentinel case, strangled. Of those 20 who died, nine w ere in a w hat th e police call a m ental health crisis. Of 171 people Wiled by police, the p tijlte record identified: ■ 20 as African American (11.7%) ■ 32 as personsof color (18.7%) ■ 110 as having a mental illness or in mental health crisis: (64.3%) Of 129 people injured by police, or shot at but not Ht: ■ 21 are identified as African American (16.3%) ■ 30 are identified as persons of color .(23.3%) ................... ■ 54 as having a mental illness or being in mental health crisis: (41,9%) No LGBTQ persons are identified from th e public record. Over 40 years of th e public record com plem ents th e D ep artm en t of Justice’s 2012 findings and confirm s th e basis of Portland’s re ce n t foray into police reform . In th e Portland area th e m ajority of police use of force incidents revolve around people w hose thinking was im paired. T he killing of Jam es Chasse, Jr. sparked com m unity outrage and local m edia has followed th e case closely since 2006. Chasse, a white m an with schizophrenia, was not th e first o r last person w ith m ental illness killed by th e Portland Police Bureau. Since C hasse’s death, a n average of two have been killed each year; ju st over a m onth ago Chris Healy, a m an with schizophrenia, was killed by officer Tom Clarke. P rio r to th e killing of A aron Campbell, w hen a black person was killed th e re w ere fewer new s stories. W hen family or com m unity m em bers did not advocate on behalf of of th e person killed th e re w ere even fewer. In several cases in re c e n t years w hen a Hispanic m an is killed—— especially in W ashington County, th e re could be less than 300 words in th e news. 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