Eugene weekly., July 22, 2021, Page 10, Image 10

Angie Payne said she and Landon asked police to call
CAHOOTS, Lane County’s mobile crisis intervention
service run by White Bird Clinic, a nonprofit that provides
medical assistance, substance treatment, counseling and
other support services.
The CAHOOTS van arrived at 10:10 pm — 10 minutes
after being dispatched to the house. The CAHOOTS team
members, Henry Cakebread and Tatanka Maker, spoke to
Landon and Angie and told them there was nothing they
could do — their resources were limited due to COVID-
19, and White Bird Clinic was closed for the time being.
(CAHOOTS staff declined to be interviewed for this story.)
Angie Payne tells EW that the officers then explained
to her that there was nothing they could do for Landon.
Angie Payne said the officers also told her they had no
reason to arrest Landon.
Angie Payne provided a consistent account to an EPD
investigator after Landon’s death. As an EPD investiga-
tive report put it: “She said the police officers also told
her they had no reason to detain Payne because he had
not committed a crime.”
But the officers hadn’t told Angie the truth.
TURNING POINT NO. 1:
EPD OFFICERS MAKE AN
UNNECESSARY ARREST
The EPD officers knew the outstanding warrant from
Marion County gave them a reason to arrest Payne.
Police officers are not required to arrest someone
simply because that person has an outstanding warrant.
In fact, EPD policies give officers the option not to make
an arrest. “While this department recognizes the statu-
tory power of peace officers to make arrests throughout
the state, officers are encouraged to use sound discretion
in the enforcement of the law,” EPD’s arrest policy reads.
Payne’s mental health required sound discretion by
officers.
According to EPD policies, Payne was exhibiting signs
of being in a mental-health crisis, including delusions,
“extreme fright,” and “strong and unrelenting fear of
persons, places, or things.”
In those cases, the policy says, EPD officers can offer to
assist the person. If the person poses a risk to himself or
others and is in need of immediate care, the police could
place him on a mental-health hold.
Officers can also decide to put off arresting a person
experiencing a mental-health crisis until another time.
“Delaying custody,” the EPD policy says, “is a tactic that
can be used if the officer determines that taking the
person into custody under the present circumstances
may result in an undue safety risk to the person, the
public, and/or officers.”
Records show the officers had plenty of reason to delay
in arresting Payne.
At no point did any officer report that they believed
Landon had committed any crime.
At no point did any of the officers report that Landon
posed a threat to anyone or to himself. The officers recorded
plenty of evidence of Payne’s mental instability, but
nowhere in their reports do the officers discuss provid-
ing Payne with assistance to help him through this crisis.
There was another reason not to arrest Landon Payne:
COVID-19.
The COVID pandemic had been declared by the World
Health Organization two weeks earlier, and Oregon had
gone into shutdown on March 12. The Lane County Jail
was trying to limit the inmate population.
The EPD officers had another choice: Before arresting
Payne, they could have taken the time to find out whether
it was even necessary to arrest Payne over the warrant.
The Marion County Jail — where Payne would have
eventually been sent — faced the same worries about
COVID as Lane County. Had the EPD officers inquired,
they would have learned Marion County didn’t want
Payne held on the warrant. That would have eliminated
any reason to arrest him.
Solorio and the other officers didn’t do that. Instead
they ignored all the warning signs and moved in to arrest
Landon Payne.
Tragedy followed.
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TURNING POINT NO. 2:
THE UNNECESSARY ARREST
DEEPENS PAYNE’S CRISIS
Solorio and Roberts stepped behind Payne, and Solorio
told him to put his hands behind his back. According to
his police report, Solorio didn’t wait for Payne to comply
and instead simultaneously grabbed Payne’s arm and
pulled back on it. Payne pulled his arm free and strug-
gled with Solorio and Roberts. Solorio and Roberts took
Payne to the ground.
Angie Payne had been talking with CAHOOTS staff when
she heard yelling and saw the officers tackle Landon. “They
threw him down and started to restrain him,” she says.
The third officer, Thomas, fired a Taser. “That's when
everything went wrong,” Angie later told an EPD inves-
tigator. The Taser shot its prong attached to wires into
Payne’s backside, but Payne twisted and tangled the wires.
Thomas then pressed the Taser against Payne’s leg and
fired once According to police reports, Payne told the
officers, “Okay. I’m done, I’m done.”
In an interview with EW, Jason Renaud, co-founder of
the Mental Health Association of Portland, raised ques-
tions about how the officers arrested Payne. Renaud said
that surprising a person who is mentally ill and high on
meth is “completely contradictory to every kind of train-
ing I've ever heard about.”
The best practice, he said, is to move slowly and quietly
to de-escalate. “Not to increasingly agitate the situation
by assaulting the person. He's high on meth. Why are you
Tasing him? Where's the crime?”
The EPD officers later charged Payne with resisting
arrest.
Renaud also said the presence of police, even without
use of force, can trigger a negative reaction from some-
one in Payne’s mental state. “People who are experienc-
ing acute drug toxicity, or acute mental illness, they don't
have the tools to de-escalate the police,” Renaud says.
“So when the police escalate, the individual escalates,
the police escalate right back.”
Officers put Payne in a patrol car. Landon had been
calming down only moments before. Now he was delu-
sional, screaming and thrashing. An officer offered him
water. Payne refused, accusing the officers of trying to
poison him. Angie Payne later told an EPD investigator
Landon was screaming and "looked like he was about to
have a heart attack."
An officer told her medics were on their way.
TURNING POINT NO. 3:
PAYNE IS DENIED MEDICAL HELP
But the medics weren’t coming to help Landon. The
officers wanted to know if they could take Landon Payne
to jail.
The emergency medical technicians arrived around
10:40 pm and tried to examine Payne. Officers Solorio,
Roberts and Thomas all reported that the EMTs who
arrived “cleared” Payne for jail.
That’s true. But their reports all left out an important
fact: the EMTs actually had no real idea about Payne’s
condition. The full story appears in the medical examin-
er’s files, which includes information obtained from the
EMTs on the scene that night. The EMTs had tried to get
Payne’s pulse and blood pressure, but he wouldn’t hold
still for them. Angie Payne says she asked officers why they
didn’t take Landon to a hospital. She never got an answer.
No one had any idea of Payne’s condition — especially
his heart — when officers drove him to jail.
TURNING POINT NO. 4:
EPD IGNORES PLEAS FROM THE JAIL
TO RELEASE PAYNE
The EPD patrol car carrying Payne arrived at the Lane
County jail at 11:01 pm, pulling into the sally port. The jail
had already rounded up several deputies after EPD had
reported they were bringing in a “combative” suspect.
Lane County Jail Captain Clint Riley tells EW that
COVID-19 pandemic had the jail staff on high alert.
EPD brought in Payne the first night that started
moving COVID screenings to the sally port — a secure,
controlled garage just outside the booking area — rather
than inside the jail building. Riley said there was a nurse
present 24/7 to ensure deputies were “making good deci-
sions to bring people in here.”
But Riley says EPD should have taken Payne to a hospi-
tal, not to the jail.
“We as a law enforcement community talk about we’d
much rather have an incident like this happen at the ER
than here,” Riley tells EW. “We don’t want to be the medi-
cal referee all the time.”
Two video cameras — one worn by a deputy, the other
mounted on a wall of the sally port — captured what
happened next.
Solorio briefed the jail deputies on his dealings with
Payne, with voice captured by the cameras. “Used a Taser
deployment, resisting and a warrant.” Solorio said. “He’s
been just screaming and yelling the entire time. I don’t
know if he’s gonna comply.” Solorio said nothing about
Payne’s past mental issues, that Payne showed signs of
being in a mental health crisis when officers arrived, or
about Angie Payne’s concerns that Landon needed medi-
cal attention.
A deputy leaned into the patrol car and tried to ask
Payne questions. The body camera captured the exchange.
Are you injured? Are you suicidal? Payne screamed in
response to each question. “He’s not even acknowledg-
ing any of the questions,” Deputy Michael Bauerlen told
other deputies gathered around the patrol car.
After that, Sgt. Lance Jester of the sheriff ’s office deliv-
ered some pivotal news to EPD Officer Solorio: Marion
County, the source of the original warrant, didn’t want
Payne held on the contempt warrant. The original excuse
police used to arrest Payne had vanished.
Jester’s explanation didn’t sway Solorio. He insisted
Lane County deputies jail Payne for resisting arrest.
In a report, Jester described the conversation with
Solorio this way. “Due to the warrant being cleared prior I
asked if they wanted to [cite and release] on the resisting
charge. The arresting officer declined saying that they
would just have to deal with him again.”
The body cam video captured this moment as Solorio
explains why he doesn’t want to let Payne go.
“Sorry to do this to you guys,” Solorio told the depu-
ties. “At the end of the day, we’re gonna get a call back,
and we’re gonna have to do kind of the same thing again.”
“All right, we’ll take him in,” a deputy said. “He may end
up back out anyways. I mean it’s just the way it is right now.”
“We didn’t have another option, either,” Solorio said.
The exchange is telling. Solorio wanted the jail to deal
with Payne, even if the jail would simply release Payne
anyway. But Payne would no longer be Solorio’s problem.
It was now clear no one wanted to take responsibility
for Landon Payne.
TURNING POINT NO. 5:
SHERIFF’S DEPUTIES
RESTRAIN LANDON PAYNE
Riley says Lane County Sheriff ’s deputies followed
proper procedures in handling Payne. The videos show
sheriff ’s deputies working on a plan to remove the
handcuffed Payne safely from the patrol car, place him
face down on the concrete and check him for COVID
symptoms.
Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland
reviewed videos of the incident at EW’s request.
The safest thing for Payne, Renaud says, would have
been to take him to a hospital, or to simply let him sit in
the patrol car until he settled down. Forcibly removing
him, he says, was the most dangerous option for Payne.
“Moving him at this point is only going to exacerbate
his condition,” Renaud says. “But often with police, they
really feel like they need to move things along. They need
to go back out on the street, they need to get the car back.
They need to get him in jail. They've got people standing
around. And so they proceed into the problem.”
The deputies pulled Payne out of the patrol car as one
aimed a Taser. Payne’s screams grew louder as he emerged
from the car. Seven deputies surrounded him. Payne was
not resisting, but he was not cooperating, either.
Slowly, the deputies tipped Payne over and eased him
to the ground — first on his side, then on his stomach,
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M