Page 11
Commentary
Street Roots • Jan. 8-14, 2016
Police accountability starts with a new police union contract
Jenny Westberg and
Jason Reneaud are
members o f the
M ental Health
Association o f
Portland, the state’s
foremost advocacy
organization on
mental illness and
addiction.
BY JENNY WESTBERG
AND JASON RENAUD
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R S
ormer Mayor Sam Adams wanted Ron
Frashour fired. So did the current mayor,
Charlie Hales. So did former Chief of Police
Michael Reese. So did the city attorney. So did
a majority of Portland city commissioners and
most of Portland’s citizens.
Frashour, you’ll remember, was the sniper
cop who pulled out his earplug, severing
communication with his commanding officer,
and then killed Aaron Campbell, an unarmed
African American father in the midst of a
mental health crisis, by shooting him in the
back. That was six years ago.
Now, however, the Oregon Court of Appeals
has told Hales, who is police commissioner as
well as mayor, that Sam Adams made a mistake
firing Frashour. Further, the court said, Hales
erred by not reinstating Frashour immediately.
These mistakes were not mistakes. They
were deliberately, but not freely, chosen.
Adams and Hales didn’t have other acceptable
legal options. The appeal was at best an
expensive delaying action meant to satisfy
critics.
Protection for Frashour was carefully
installed in Portland’s police union contract by
negotiators representing both the City and the
Portland Police Association years ago, long
before Frashour pulled the trigger of his AR-15
rifle. The union contract protects officers from
being separated from employment unless they
act “out of policy.” Management-byrdefinition.
employs plenty of crafty lawyers who see the
tree in the forest and argue it should be cut
down. In Portland, the mayor can’t fire a cop.
Neither can the police chief.
This practice is fair in theory; workers
deserve protections from capricious
management, and especially from cowardly
politicians. But when a police officer brings
dishonor to himself, to his colleagues, to the
bureau and is the cause of mistrust between
officers and basically everyone else in town -
he needs to go.
So Frashour will be patrolling our streets in
the near future. Because he is a trained
F
held behind locked doors and generally not
reported on by the mèdia. The next mayor can
open these doors and allow civilian oversight.
The next mayor can negotiate for executive
power to separate officers from employment if
they irrevocably harm the trust between the
city, the police and the community. These
names - Leo Besner, Kyle Nice, Christopher
Humphreys, Scott McCollister, Jason Sery and
Ron Frashour - are just a handful who stained
the reputation of high performing officers. ■
They should have been fired by past and
current mayors.
The Independent Police Review is toothless
without the ability to investigate deadly force
incidents. The next mayor can fight for the
IPR’s right to investigate, and for access to
informants needed to shed light on deadly
force events. And the next mayor can resource
the IPR to get the work done in a timely way.
Oregon district attorneys evade
responsibility for the prosecution of police
officers by hiding behind grand juries. District
attorneys are elected to provide accountability
An Open Letter
and transparency, but they have a conflict of
to Portland’s Next Mayor
interest and rarely put officers on trial.
Since the brutal beating death of James
Portland’s next mayor can join the next Oregon
Chasse at the hands of three Portland police
attorney general and seek legislation to follow
officers, no mayor has tried to run for a second California and ban grand juries from reviewing
term. The weight of Chasse’s death has been a
deadly force by police.
curse on three administrations, on City Hall
There are two cop-preferential standards for
and on current claims of reform. Our next
police investigations into deadly force. When
mayor can lift that curse through direct
most people get questioned, they get a.chapepy’ i
particjpatjpn in.police union co n tract., v¿-, 4 ‘ ito catfcfrtiSen? breath before answering. But ■ ipu
negotiations. Changes to the police union
policé, protected by their steely union
contract will improve accountability,
contract, get 48 hours to get their stories
transparency and community confidence in
straight. Further, cops who’ve used deadly
both police and city hall.
force
get the name of the officer who will
Candidates for mayor can improve
interview them prior to their interview, and all
accountability wow by pledging to keep the .
cop-to-cop interviews occur in a police facility.
2017 police union contract negotiations open
This
is not just unfair; it hovers 10 feet over
to the public. They can pledge to attend
unfair. The next mayor can stop the double
negotiations, be knowledgeable, have a citizen-
standards.
driven agenda.
Finally, if we’re stuck with Frashour, the
Here’s the agenda for the next mayor of
next mayor should put him where he belongs,
Portland:
on a hard chair in a basement behind an iron
Union negotiations are managed by the
door and an empty desk. And keep him there.
city’s human resources department. They are
hunter, it’s likely the new police chief, Larry
O’Dea, will give him his rifle back. If Frashour
kills another innocent person, can Hales fire
him?
No. Our mayor is just as powerless as he
ever was.
That iron-clad police union contract is still in
place, undebated, undiscussed, unaddressed by
three one-term mayors in a row: Tom Potter,
Adams, and now Hales.
What diminishes our city, beyond the
reckless danger of putting cops who’ve tasted
blood back on the streets, armed, lethal and
eager, is the hand-wringing disengagement of
mayors and city commissioners from the
problem, from leadership, from direct action.
They can’t stop killer cops. They can’t keep us
safe from them.
All this chatter about police reform, the
marching in the streets, all the Department of
Justice v. City of Portland nonsense, is self-
serving foolishness if the next police union
contract gets another rubber stamp. We’ve
learned a hard lesson - time for action.
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