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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, JuNE 13, 2020
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
DERRICK DePLEDGE
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
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Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
BEHIND THE NEWS
‘Those guys shouldn’t have been cops’
T
he message might not fit neatly
on a protest sign, but Ron Louie,
a former Astoria police chief,
believes mandatory accreditation has the
potential to make the biggest difference in
law enforcement.
Accreditation could be the frame-
work to help ensure reforms to discourage
police misconduct actually happen.
Louie, who teaches criminal justice
at Portland State University and Port-
land Community College, signed on to
the Law Enforcement Action Partner-
ship’s recommendations
to transform policing in
the wake of the killing of
George Floyd by Minne-
apolis police.
The ideas for Con-
gress include a national
public database on offi-
DERRICK
cer misconduct, require-
DePLEDGE
ments to collect data on
police stops and the use
of force, a national standard for the use
of deadly force and an end to qualified
immunity that prevents police from being
held legally accountable when they break
the law.
“One of the biggest problems that we
have is we don’t test for emotional intel-
ligence. We don’t test for adversity quo-
tients,” said Louie, a former hostage
negotiator who wrote the book “Tacti-
cal Communication in Crisis Incidents.”
“And the reason I’m telling you this, is if
you take a look at all the instances of mis-
use of force, those guys shouldn’t have
been cops. They lack that ability.
“From Michael Brown (in Fergu-
son, Missouri) to Rodney King (in Los
Angeles) to what we’re seeing now with
George Floyd, if you really had to say
what’s the biggest impact in the future,
stop having those people wearing guns.”
Louie, a Chinese American who served
in the U.S. Marine Corps, was the police
chief in Astoria from 1987 until 1992
before a long stint as the Hillsboro police
chief. He and his wife have homes in Hill-
sboro and Astoria.
In an interview, Louie talked about the
movement to defund police, the protests
across America and the pressure on police
officers to respond to social issues.
Q: Some of the protesters nationally
are calling on cities to defund police.
Your thoughts?
A: It runs the gamut. It runs from the
extreme — ‘We don’t want any police;’
‘We want our neighbors to respond to
calls’ — I mean, I’ve even heard that.
But I think the City Council presi-
dent of Minneapolis — she was inter-
viewed over the weekend and I listened to
her — she backed off on that by saying,
‘We have the policing over here, but we
need to take some of those resources and
put them over here and invest in mental
Hailey Hoffman/The Astorian
Ron Louie, a former Astoria police chief, teaches criminal justice at Portland State
University and Portland Community College.
‘THE MORE THAT yOu SEE A MORE OBJECTIVE
ANALySIS, THE MORE yOu ARE GOING TO
SuRFACE QuESTIONABLE uSE OF FORCE.’
Ron Louie | former Astoria police chief
health, invest in housing, in care. All the
things over here.’
Unfortunately, defunding has become
a political issue ... What’s happening is
defunding has become a political catch-
phrase where they’re taking from the
police and moving it somewhere else. Do
you know what I mean? They shouldn’t
be doing that.
Have we defunded police in Oregon?
Yeah, we have. Guess where? Cornelius.
They had a lot of problems with the
police department internally. City of Cor-
nelius went out of (the police) business
and just said, listen, we’re going to con-
tract with Washington County, but these
are the measures that we want to look at
as you come into our town and police us.
So Cornelius, Oregon, is now run by
Washington County. The department
was defunded, so to speak. But it wasn’t
because the money is still going down to
Washington County.
Q: Are you surprised to see pro-
tests in predominantly white cities like
Astoria with no recent history of police
misconduct?
A: Someone that looks at strate-
gic planning will look at what are trig-
gers, what are benchmarks and what are
watersheds.
We didn’t see that from Rodney King
when I was a cop. We didn’t see that with
Michael Brown. We didn’t even see that
with James Chasse, who was mentally
ill (and killed by Portland law enforce-
ment in 2006). But we did see the federal
government, by the way, come in, look at
Portland, and say, ‘You mistreat. You’re
now in a consent decree.’ So we did see
that.
But, now, I think that we see police
officers — as well as nonimpacted com-
munities, middle class, white middle
class; not just white liberals and guilt lib-
erals — you’ve got those, but you’ve got
people over here now protesting, saying,
‘Oh, my God. We must make a change.’
So I’m surprised, but pleased, to see
that.
Q: Over the past few years, we have
had two police shootings in Seaside
that were ruled justified. There were
no significant calls by government or
the public for better training or more
accountability. The default position
was to support the police. Do you think
that’s going to change going forward in
those types of situations?
A: I think, going forward, you’re
going to see a different kind of scrutiny. It
may not necessarily end in any change in
support.
But here’s my point — and this is part
of the recommendations for transform-
ing police of which I have been propos-
ing for years — is you will see the inves-
tigation taken over on a state level, not on
a local level.
And that’s one way to help build trust,
by the way. This is fundamentally a trust
issue, anyway ...
The more that you see a more objec-
tive analysis, the more you are going to
surface questionable use of force. And
when you do that, people may be upset.
But they also, at the same time, when
they’re going to be angry, that’s going to
go up. But you know, believe it or not,
what quietly goes up? Believe it or not,
trust.
Quietly, trust goes up. No one talks
about it.
Q: We have heard from law enforce-
ment that they often feel pressure to
respond to social issues beyond their
control, from alcohol and drug abuse to
mental health to homelessness to rac-
ism. How do we fix that?
A: You have smart resources allocated
to those areas specifically — substance
abuse, homelessness, domestic violence,
those issues.
You have smart resources focusing on
that, such that you don’t end up with 911
over here ...
Here’s the problem: Communities
across America do not see harm reduction
as their No. 1 goal. Some cities do, like in
homelessness ...
The more a city takes on harm reduc-
tion to its community, the less we will see
police engaged in where they shouldn’t
be. The more harm reduction here also
means reducing the overrepresentation
of minority youth in the criminal justice
system.
Q: Do you fear we are going to make
the job of a police officer impossible?
A: Right now, it’s getting close to that
...
It’s going to be very, very difficult to
do policing when everybody is on your
shoulder. I retired in ’07. I got called back
in 2013 to Hillsboro just to take a look at
why the chief was moved out, why was
the department demoralized ... It was a
huge difference being a chief then, or a
cop, because now on a daily basis I had
people screaming for my emails and how
I did.
The answer is, it’s going to be very,
very difficult to be a police officer
because so much is being scrutinized. We
have 700,000 cops and we have a handful
doing horrible things, and all the 700,000
are now impacted.
So it’s getting very, very difficult. So I
think you will sadly see good people, also,
leave the force or not want to join. And
those are the people I want on the force. I
want assertive people, not aggressive peo-
ple. I want people, again, that have really
good, mindfulness-based quotients.
It may be hard to get them.
derrick dePledge is editor of The
Astorian.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Menaced
L
ast week, I witnessed several
peaceful protests menaced by a group
of agitators, primarily comprised of Proud
Boys and Patriot Prayer affiliates relo-
cated from the Portland metro area, one
of whom awaits trial for violent felony
charges.
Clearly, these antagonists aim to bully,
intimidate, suppress peaceable expression
and sow chaos and violence — as they
have elsewhere.
I’ve seen despicably cowardly, anti-so-
cial behavior tolerated in public spaces.
While protesters wore face masks and tried
to maintain distance, unmasked aggressors
yelled in people’s faces, spewing germs,
and used megaphones to agitate and
silence protesters.
Grown men berated teenage girls and
mothers carrying babies, encircling them
while exposing firearms. They spouted
sexist and racist slurs, labeled community
members as terrorists and flashed white
power gestures at children.
Haven’t our youth been through enough
already, as they’ve sacrificed for the health
of our community, particularly for our
elders? In turn, will we stand up for the
security of our children and other commu-
nity members?
We need safe spaces to express dis-
agreement without severing our basic
bonds of community. We must unite and
persevere together to comeback from this
COVID-19 crisis.
Agents of social division seek to trans-
plant their vitriol to Clatsop County when
we are vulnerable. If we allow this hate
group to gain traction, it will have terrible,
lasting repercussions.
Regardless of our politics, we must
unite around protecting our children and
the essential fabric of our community, and
completely reject the unwanted presence
of any group seeking to poison our home
with hate.
TROY HENRI
Astoria
Words are powerful
P
lease don’t call the rioters, looters
and thugs protesters. I’m looking at
you, and you … and especially you, news
reporters.
Peaceful protest is an important element
of our society. We need it.
Lumping the protesters together with
the destructive thugs is counterproductive.
You might as well call the protesters
thugs.
TERRY JAMES ERICKSON
Astoria
Domestic terrorists?
e just learned that our firebrand-
in-chief, President Donald Trump,
plans to label antifa (slang for anti-fas-
cists) domestic terrorists. One hopes he
walks back this ill-informed tweet, as he
has many others.
He also labeled “both sides” of earlier
violent protests as “fine people” — when
did that change? How can any reasonable
American support fascism?
Fascists were the target of the Great-
est Generation in World War II. Hundreds
of thousands of American lives were lost
in that struggle. We find it notable that the
current cabal of American fascists cyni-
cally waited for the Greatest Generation
to pass away before exposing their hateful
tactics and racist rhetoric.
We also find it notable that today’s
American leaders vilify current protesters
across the nation the same way they cursed
black ball players peacefully protesting
W
police brutality by taking a knee on live
TV before sports events.
We propose that the people of the U.S.
declare the Republican Party anti-Ameri-
can for their opposition to universal health
care, civil rights, immigrants, care for the
unemployed and seniors and child care,
and blind faith in corporate largesse sav-
ing us all.
The current executive branch could eas-
ily be branded as domestic terrorists, using
and hiding behind Immigration and Cus-
toms Enforcement and a compromised
Justice Department and stacked judiciary.
We speak for our family, many friends
and many neighbors.
R.D. SMITH
Gearhart
Act of insurrection
oncerning President Donald Trump’s
threat to use military action against
citizens exercising their constitutionally
protected right to protest, it appears the
C
majority response by the country includes
a chorus of Bronx cheers, and a collective
middle-finger salute.
Is America becoming great again?
DONNA LEE ROLLINS
Astoria
Courage and leadership
nteresting photo in The Astorian on June
6 of a diverse group of mostly young
people protesting against racial injustice in
our country. They were being harassed and
shouted at by large, white, male thugs.
I have never been more proud of the
young people of our community, who are
the future of our country. The Pledge of
Allegiance states, “with liberty and jus-
tice for all.” Thank you, young people, for
your courage and leadership.
As someone recently said, “When the
power of love overtakes the love of power,
then we will have change!”
TED MESSING
Astoria
I