BY ALAN PITTMAN
Policing Police
Magaña verdict leaves many unanswered questions
about police policing themselves.
R
oger Magaña was convicted
Wednesday on 42 out of 45 charges
that he sexually abused women
while a Eugene police officer.
The jury has answered the question of
Magana’s guilt or innocence. But the mas-
sive trial involving alleged crimes includ-
ing rape, sex abuse, kidnapping, sodomy,
coercion, harassment and official miscon-
duct has raised a host of unanswered ques-
tions about the need to reform how the
Eugene Police Department polices itself.
Prosecutor Robert Lane told the jury in
closing arguments last week, “There’s nothing
you can do that’s going to restore any shine to
the badge. There’s nothing you can do to make
women feel safer in Eugene or elsewhere. The
cops have to do that for themselves.”
Exactly how they will do that remains
unclear. But it is clear that the public trial has
left EPD’s secretive police discipline system
much to answer for. What follows is a rundown
of some of the bigger police accountability
questions raised by the trial this past week.
Officers Dismissed Complaints
Last summer police Detective Scott McKee
first contacted one woman who Magaña
allegedly forced oral sex from on multiple
occasions by threatening to arrest or shoot her.
In a taped conversation of McKee’s call, the
woman said she had told officer Jerry Webber
and police Lt. Pete Kerns and was “99 percent
sure” she’d also told officer Roberto Rios of
the abuse when it was happening, but the offi-
cers did nothing.
“Why the hell didn’t they listen to me?
That’s gravely offensive,” the woman told
McKee.
“It’s disturbing to me,” McKee admitted.
“It’s absolutely horrendous,” the woman
said. She compared it to police failing to inves-
tigate the Green River serial murders because
they involved prostitutes.
Other officers also heard allegations against
Magaña and also apparently failed to act.
Police Officer Larry Crompton said he was
doing a bar check at Diablos one night with
Magaña. A man came up and angrily confront-
ed Magaña and “there was some pretty pointed
allegations made.”
The judge in the Magaña trial did not allow
Crompton to specify the exact nature of the
allegations because of a defense objection that
they were hearsay. Crompton said he thought
the confrontation was “pretty unusual,” but he
apparently did not report the man’s allegations
to superiors for investigation.
In his opening statement in the trial, defense
attorney Russell Barnett said it was hard to
believe that a competent police department
would have let Magaña’s alleged crimes con-
tinue for so long against so many victims with-
out detection. “He’s either the slickest guy
working with the dumbest people, or perhaps
the accusations don’t add up.”
Prosecutor Lane said police did not see
what Magaña did and did not believe the com-
plaints from drug users against their fellow
officer. “This bunch of cops are not stupid.”
But Lane himself pointed out to the jury that
most of Magaña’s victims were not drug users and
that even drug users are often held up by police as
reliable informants in cases against criminals.
Policing Themselves
Eugene police have trouble policing them-
selves, according to testimony.
james von boeckmann
attorney at law
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8 JULY 1, 2004
The alleged victim in the taped phone con-
versation asked how McKee felt investigating
a fellow officer.
“Initially it was very uncomfortable and
you can’t help but feel some loyalty” to an offi-
cer with 10 years on the job, McKee said.
Lane told the jury that McKee investigating
a fellow officer at first “chose to, let’s face it,
adopt a strategy of trying to clear this guy” by
using police records to place him somewhere
else. “He failed.”
Police officer Jeff Glemser said officers
often discredit complaints against police offi-
cers from drug users. He said he would tell
superiors of a complaint involving coerced oral
sex, “but on the other hand, you take that kind
of thing with a grain of salt.”
police did not apparently follow through,
according to testimony.
Police had another opportunity to stop
Magaña’s alleged sex crime spree three years
ago when a woman filed a complaint that
Magaña had sexually harassed her, according
to testimony.
Sgt. Willy Harris said the complaint
“caused me some concern.” Stopping the
woman late at night appeared lawful, but
Magaña inexplicably did not report on infor-
mation gathered from the woman nor did he
run a computer check on her for warrants,
according to Harris. But Harris said he could
not “make a definitive determination” that
Magaña acted unlawfully and the department
dismissed the complaint.
Police had another opportunity to stop Magaña’s
alleged sex crime spree three years ago when a
woman filed a complaint that Magaña had
sexually harassed her, according to testimony.
Police Officer Mel Thompson testified that he
has often heard charges from drug users that “so
and so is dating a cop” but has brushed them off.
Magaña isn’t the only EPD cop to be
accused of sex on the job. Members of the EPD
Rapid Deployment Unit were accused about
five years ago of drug use, money theft and
consorting with prostitutes, according to testi-
mony from Officer Thompson. Thompson said
the allegations weren’t true, but it’s unclear
what the police did to investigate.
One thing the police didn’t do was conduct a
sting operation. Police regularly use stings to
catch people using prostitutes. Det. McKee testi-
fied that Officer Webber proposed that the police
check the allegations against the police unit by
doing a sting with fake prostitutes, but EPD Lt.
Jim Fields refused to authorize the sting.
Two of the alleged Magaña victims also
offered to help with a sting against Magaña, but
Lane asked Police Chief Robert Lehner if
he was aware that a 2001 audit of police com-
plaints found that the department should have
found Magaña guilty of wrongdoing at that
time. Lehner said he was not aware of that.
The woman stopped by Magaña while
looking for her cat testified that Magaña asked
if she was pregnant and asked if she had a
boyfriend. The on-duty officer asked her to call
him on his day off. “I felt very afraid when I
was speaking with him,” she said.
Lax Supervision
Magaña lacked effective supervision and
had apparent free reign to allegedly victimize
women while on duty, according to testimony.
Magaña’s most recent supervisor, Sgt.
Harris, was apparently clueless about
Magaña’s alleged criminal activity. “I never