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BY ALAN PITTMAN
Cops v. Auditor
attorney represents their interests or the city
manager’s.
“My client is the city,” city attorney
Glenn Klein told the council. “It’s not the
city manager.”
But if the “client” is defi ned as the one
who hires and fi res the attorney and decides
what to pay the fi rm, under the city charter,
that’s the city manager, not the council.
Dismissal of criminal complaint leaves
unanswered questions about EPD
T
convicted in 2004 of offi cial misconduct,
rape and other crimes for using his badge
to coerce sex from a dozen women.
Magaña’s fi nal victim complained
repeatedly to police who “asked her
questions designed to intimidate or discourage
her” from complaining, according to a brief
by attorney Marry Burrows, who successfully
sued the department.
After another woman complained to
police, two fellow offi cers told her “to stop
‘making up’ information about Magaña. ...
The woman apparently believed she had been
threatened,” Burrows wrote.
After a third woman’s complaint to police,
fellow offi cers told Magaña. The woman
testifi ed in criminal court that Magaña
confronted her, ripped off her pants, “touched
my genitals with his gun,” and said, “If you
tell anyone anything about me, I’ll blow you
up from the inside out.”
Swanson also could be investigated for
the crime of “initiating a false report” (ORS
162.375) if he knowingly provided false
information. If Swanson’s actions weren’t
criminal, he could still be disciplined. But
under the city charter, that would be up to the
city manager and police chief.
he district attorney’s dismissal of
the criminal complaint by Eugene
police Sgt. Ron Swanson against
the city’s independent police auditor leaves
many questions unanswered — not about the
auditor, but about the police.
Should Swanson himself be
investigated for criminal
wrongdoing?
Swanson’s complaint apparently involves
an allegation by Auditor Cristina Beamud
that Swanson wrongly dismissed a complaint
against one of the offi cers he supervises,
according to sources.
Swanson alleged that Beamud’s allegation
against him was biased and not factual,
according to sources. He alleged that her
action constituted the crime of “offi cial
misconduct.”
Offi cial misconduct is defi ned by state
statute (ORS 162.415) as a public servant
who “knowingly performs an act constituting
an unauthorized exercise in offi cial duties”
with the “intent to obtain a benefi t or to harm
another.”
But after the DA dismissed Swanson’s
complaint, was the sergeant’s complaint itself
“offi cial misconduct?”
Swanson wrote the complaint on offi cial
city letterhead, apparently in his offi cial police
sergeant capacity. The complaint reportedly
calls for harming the auditor by fi ring and
prosecuting her. The complaint may benefi t
Swanson by removing the person who has
alleged he was involved in misconduct.
Members of the Eugene Police Department
have been accused of seeking to intimidate
people who complain about them in the past.
Indeed, allegations about police seeking
to intimidate complainants helped spark the
creation of the police auditor position to
handle complaint intake. Police previously
had allegedly sought to intimidate potential
complainants by threatening to arrest
the person for fi ling a false report or by
fi rst running a warrant check to see if the
complainant could be arrested.
Police intimidation of complainants came
up repeatedly in the civil suits involving EPD
Offi cer Roger Magaña, the police offi cer
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Was police chief Robert Lehner
biased in immediately referring
Swanson’s complaint to the district
attorney?
Chief Lehner told the R-G last week that
while he didn’t think the complaint was
“prosecutable,” he had to refer it to the DA as
a matter of “routine.”
But Lehner, who has opposed independent
oversight of police, in fact routinely does not
refer complaints of offi cial misconduct to the
DA. In the Magaña case Lehner has repeatedly
refused to act on complaints that fellow EPD
offi cers engaged in offi cial misconduct by not
acting on repeated complaints of Magaña’s
sexual abuse.
In 2006 the Philadelphia Inquirer reported
on the sexual abuse scandal: “Mistakes were
made, Lehner said, but he’s not sure that
means anyone should be punished: ‘Do I go
back and end [someone’s] career because of
it?’”
Mayor Kitty Piercy (right) spoke in support
of Police Auditor Cristina Beamud (left) at
a press conference last week.
More recently Lehner did not refer a case
to the DA in which the police found that an
offi cer apparently unlawfully punched a
suspect in the face last summer. Unlawfully
punching someone is often prosecuted as
assault.
Why did District Attorney Doug
Harcleroad take two weeks to
dismiss the complaint?
In 2005 Harcleroad took only a day
to declare that the fatal Springfi eld police
shooting of Jason Porter, an unarmed 15-
year-old, was justifi ed. In 2006 Harcleroad
took three days to rule the Eugene police
shooting of mentally ill 19-year-old Ryan
Salisbury was justifi ed.
The DA works closely with the Eugene
police on a daily basis. In the past Harcleroad
has referred some criminal investigations
involving the Eugene police to outside
agencies due to real or perceived confl icts of
interest.
Why did city staff keep information
about the complaint from city
councilors for more than a week?
Although Swanson’s complaint was
addressed to the City Council in a Feb. 4
memo, councilors did not actually see the
complaint until eight days later. City staff
have not accounted for the long delay despite
repeated questions from city councilors.
Councilors have complained for more
than a decade that Eugene city staff keep
them in the dark on vital information. Some
progressive councilors are now calling for
the creation of a city performance auditor
to provide the council with an independent
source of information.
Former City Manager Dennis Taylor
and other city staff opposed the creation of
an independent police auditor. Councilors
have also questioned whether the city
What was this complaint really about
anyway?
Although city staff know the details of
exactly why Swanson complained, they
haven’t told the city council or the public.
But on Feb. 4 the auditor and Citizen
Review Board handled a case that appears
similar to the facts in Swanson’s complaint.
Although it is the only case so far completed
by the review board and auditor, it is uncertain
if the two cases are related.
The reviewed incident dates from last
August and involved a police offi cer who
stopped a man for jaywalking, found he had
a burglary warrant and cuffed him and placed
him in the back seat of a patrol car, according
to the auditor’s case summary, which does
not include names. The offi cer said he then
punched the handcuffed man in the mouth
because he believed that the man was going
to spit at him. The man denied that he was
going to spit and said the offi cer punched him
because he was being verbally diffi cult.
The supervising sergeant and lieutenant
dismissed the complaint, but a police captain
and Lehner overruled them, and the auditor
and review board agreed with Lehner.
Will police offi cers use criminal
complaints again and again to
subvert independent oversight?
In most other cities with police auditors,
criminal complaints against the auditor by
police offi cers disagreeing with them are
unheard of. But in Eugene, if the police
chief sees no problem with quickly referring
dubious criminal complaints about the police
auditor to the district attorney, and the DA
sees no problem in launching two-week
investigations before clearing the auditor,
will this become the norm? Every time the
auditor disagrees with a police offi cer, will
the DA grab headlines with another major
criminal investigation?
If so, the EPD may be able to use the DA
to defeat the independent police oversight that
they couldn’t defeat at the ballot box.
ew
Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival
175 KNIGHT LAW CENTER p 1010 AGATE STREET p SEATING BEGINS AT 5:00 P.M. p SHOWS BEGINS AT 5:30 P.M.
CHINA BLUE:
Friday, February 8 (2005, 88 minutes)
Admission: $3 per person; free for University of Oregon students
and members of the Museum of Natural and Cultural History.
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EL INMIGRANTE: Friday, February 15 (2005, 90 minutes)
FLOCK OF DODOS: THE EVOLUTION-INTELLIGENT DESIGN CIRCUS:
Friday, February 22 (2007, 84 minutes)
Information: (541) 346-3024 or natural-history.uoregon.edu
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EUGENE WEEKLY FEBRUARY 21, 2008 11