Eugene weekly., July 22, 2021, Page 9, Image 9

Perlow does say Payne should not have been taken to
jail that night by the EPD officers.
“He should have been transported to the hospital given
his condition,” Perlow tells EW.
EW asked Perlow if she had shared her opinion with
Eugene Police. “I don’t make policy or enforce policy for any
of the law enforcement agencies in Lane County,” she said.
Skinner declined to answer EW’s questions about the
death of Landon Payne or the actions of his officers in
arresting Payne.
Payne’s death came two months before police in Minne-
apolis killed George Floyd in May 2020 and set off nation-
wide protests over racial injustice and police brutality.
Landon Payne was white, but the scrutiny of deaths in
police custody has also focused on the treatment of the
mentally ill and the need for greater accountability when
suspects die in police custody.
Floyd’s death happened in public view. Minneapolis
officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against Floyd’s
neck as Floyd lay face down in the street, with witnesses
looking on and iPhone video recording the scene. The
visibility has forced police to be held accountable, includ-
ing criminal charges against officers and a murder convic-
tion for Chauvin.
Meanwhile, Payne’s death has been whispered about
among Lane County law-enforcement officials, but the
case has not been revealed publicly until now.
EPD stamped reports about Payne’s death “confi-
dential.” A Marion County judge handling Payne’s civil
child-support case followed EPD’s direction and sealed
the reports in a court file.
EW and the Catalyst Journalism Project have pieced
together this story using documents and video obtained
under Oregon public records law. The documents include
police reports, Payne’s autopsy report and video of up to eight
Lane County deputies restraining Payne at the county jail.
The video also shows a frantic 19-minute effort to revive him.
The EW/Catalyst investigation also found that the
Eugene police gave Payne’s widow, Angie, false informa-
tion about what happened to her husband.
The night Payne was arrested, an EPD officer told Angie
Payne only that her husband had collapsed while being
booked into the jail. The officer and other EPD officials
never told her that deputies intentionally took Payne to
the ground or that Payne stopped breathing while being
restrained.
Records show that EPD officers were aware they had
given Angie Payne incomplete information, but they never
corrected the record. Angie Payne says she learned the
details only after EW shared with her its findings about
Payne’s death.
“I feel lied to,” Angie Payne says. “I was missing puzzle
pieces from what happened that night.”
“At the same time,” she adds, “intuitively, I felt like
there’s something missing that I don’t know.”
A ROLLING STONE
Landon Jay Payne spent his childhood following his
parents to Georgia, New York, Texas and Ontario, Canada,
before returning to Oregon, where he’d been born in
1983. His parents worked in the winery business, but his
father struggled with substance abuse. Payne struggled
in school, too fidgety to focus in class.
He started drinking and smoking weed in high school,
and years of addiction followed along with long stretches
of sobriety and battles with depression. After taking
classes at Chemeketa Community College, he worked
as a landscaper, rarely holding jobs for long. He had two
children and struggled to make child-support payments.
“Everything he tried, the wheels fell off,” his sister, Monica
Payne, tells EW. “And it's not that he didn't try, I think he
just didn't fit the mold.”
Payne loved few things more than electronic music —
performing club and occasional festival shows profession-
ally in Oregon until his early 30s. His shyness deterred
him from committing to music as a career, but he carried
it on as a hobby. Years later, his wife would hear him in his
room editing music on a computer. “It was like him in his
natural habitat,” she says.
But early on, Payne got into trouble with the law. In
2002, when he was 19, police in Salem arrested Payne
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
for dealing marijuana. He received a five-year probation
sentence, but was later sentenced to six months in the
Marion County Jail for violating probation after he was
charged in 2007 with selling mushrooms and LSD, and
as a felon in possession of a firearm. (Police found an
antique handgun in his home, according to his sister.)
Payne served two years of a three and half year sentence
before being released from Powder River Correctional
Facility in Baker City.
“I made some very negative choices in my life. I’m not
going down that direction any longer,” Payne told the
judge at a hearing in 2009. “It was obviously necessary
for this to occur in my life for me to make the changes
that were necessary, because the route that I was going
was not beneficial to anyone.”
Landon and Angie Payne married in 2013 and lived
with her two children in north Eugene. He worked occa-
sionally as a landscaper and in computer repair but still
struggled to make his child-support payments — the state
of Oregon filed two civil cases against him to collect. In
2014 the Eugene police arrested Payne for driving under
the influence, driving while using a cell phone and for
having an open container, according to Eugene Munici-
pal Court records. The case was dismissed in 2016 after
he completed a diversion program.
Angie Payne said her husband still fought off depres-
sion and a desire to isolate himself.
On the night of Jan. 21, 2017, Angie Payne came home
LANDON PAYNE
to find Landon paranoid and delusional. He said he had
smoked meth and believed people were out to get him. He
either fell or jumped from a second floor window and ran
off. Angie called police, told them Payne was having “some
sort of mental crisis,” and asked for help in finding him.
Just more than an hour later, shortly before 12:30
am, officers found Payne wandering in the median of
Delta Highway. Payne was disoriented and wearing dark
clothes. Officers feared Payne might step into traffic, so
they detained him on a non-criminal mental hold and
took him to PeaceHealth’s University District Hospital.
It’s not known what treatment Payne received while he
was there.
Angie Payne says her husband stayed clean after that
incident. But he had something hanging over his head
— an unresolved contempt case against him for unpaid
child-support.
Also in 2017, Payne had failed to show for a court hear-
ing over the debt. A Marion County judge found him in
contempt of court and issued a warrant for his arrest.
The warrant hung over him as he tried again to work.
In 2019 Payne took a job as a welder and as a sawyer —
sawing wood — at Carry-On Trailers in Coburg until he
slashed his right hand on the job. Angie Payne said Landon
remained optimistic and always talked about finding a
way to become a better person.
“Angie,” Payne told her at the start of 2020, “this will
be my year.”
CALLING FOR HELP
Landon Payne died after a series of turning points
and decisions made by law enforcement. But the events
of March 27, 2020, began after Payne had smoked meth
with a friend. He had left his house the day before. When
he returned on the 27th, Payne admitted to Angie that he’d
smoked meth. Angie said he got on his knees. “This was
the stupidest thing I could’ve done,” he told Angie, telling
her he feared he would die. “I have so much to do still here.”
Payne took a long walk, hoping to steady himself. But he
returned and his anxiety turned into panic. He told Angie
he feared that family members were trying to kill him.
“Help, help,” he murmured, but soon he was screaming.
At around 9:30 pm, Angie Payne says, Landon went
outside, hoping more fresh air would help. It’s then, she
recalled, that Landon “started freaking out.”
“He’s just panicking, fearful for his life,” she recalled.
Angie could see neighbors watching and feared they
would call the police. So she called the police to explain
what was happening. She was right; a neighbor had called
911 minutes earlier and two more also reported Landon
to the police. An EPD dispatcher relayed one of the calls,
“Male across the street yelling that someone is trying to
murder him.”
THE POLICE ARRIVE,
AND THINGS GET WORSE
The EPD officers dispatched to the Payne house heard
two key pieces of information over their radios. First,
they were told that EPD had previously taken Payne for
mental hold, signaling the police knew Payne had a history
of mental-health issues. Second, they learned about the
Marion County warrant issued for Payne three years
earlier over unpaid child support.
The first EPD officer to arrive was Jairo Solorio, whose
decisions and actions that night were key in the events
that followed. Solorio had four years' experience as an
officer in Billings, Montana, before joining the Eugene
police nine months before Payne's arrest.
EPD requires its officers to take a 40-hour crisis inter-
vention team training (CIT) to prepare them for dealing
with people experiencing a mental-health crisis. According
to EPD policies, “Officers are expected to use their CIT
training when responding to incidents involving persons
in crisis due to a known or perceived mental illness.”
Solorio had not received the mandatory training, accord-
ing to records with the state Department of Public Safety
Standards and Training. Neither had another who showed
up at Payne’s house, Officer Andrew Roberts. A third offi-
cer who also arrived, Jacob Thomas, an EPD officer since
2013, was the only officer present who had even partly
completed the mandatory training, state records show.
Solorio and Thomas spoke to Landon and Angie Payne,
who told the officers Landon had returned home acting
erratic and he had had a similar incident several years ago.
Angie Payne remembers that Solorio and Thomas
talked calmly to Landon, asking him if he was a danger
to himself or others. Landon said, “No.”
In his report, Thomas later described Landon as
“animated in his movements and seemed very paranoid,
which was consistent with methamphetamine use.” Solorio
later wrote in his report that Landon Payne was “aggres-
sive with our interaction” and that he was “sweating and
very confrontational.” Solorio quoted Payne as saying, “If
I remain here, I’m going to be killed.”
Angie Payne’s memories of what happened differ in
important ways to what Solorio and Thomas later reported.
“[Landon] started to sober up and was making some good
suggestions and reasoning with the officers,” she told EW.
She later gave a similar account to an EPD investigator
soon after Landon’s death. “For a bit, he almost like, was
clear headed,” Angie Payne told the investigator. “He was
getting really delusional. And, when they came, he started
to kind of, you know, reason with them.”
There’s one way to determine precisely what happened
on the Paynes’ porch that night — at least one of the offi-
cers was wearing a body camera. Under Oregon public
records law, EW has requested a copy of the body camera
video. EPD officials have refused to release it. EW is appeal-
ing the denial, arguing the public interest outweighs the
EPD’s efforts to keep the video secret.
J U LY
2 2 ,
2 0 2 1
9