Portland observer., September 24, 1981, Page 11, Image 11

Portland Observer, September 24, 1981 Page 11
Discipline and the Portland Police Bureau
This Is tha third In a series o f excerpts fro m tha A rbitration haarlngs In
tha termination o f police officers Craig Ward and Jamas Gallaway, result­
ing fro m tha "possum incidant."
Officers W ard and Gallaway were terminated for violating Rule 310.10
which provides that every member o f the Bureau o f Police will constantly
strive to attain the highest professional standard o f conduct. Employees,
whether on duty or o ff, shall be governed by the Ordinary and Reasonable
Rules o f Good Conduct and Behavior and shall not commit any act tending
to bring reproach or discredit upon the Bureau or the City o f Portland.
In challenging the termination o f officers W ard and Gallaway, the Port­
land Police Association gave as one o f reasons the record o f prior discipline
by the Bureau. " Y o u will find that many other officers— not just one—
many other officers have committed acts that are at least as serious as that
committed by Officers Ward and Gallaway and some much, much more se­
rious and have not been discharged. Some have not been disciplined whatso­
ever,” Attorney W ill Aitchison said.
O fficer james H arding, who had been assigned to N orth Precinct for
seven and one-half years at the time o f the possum incident, said, “ . . . in
one instance, you have people breaking the law, causing property damage,
hurting other people financially, physically fighting. And for all o f that they
were fined. They weren’t fired, that [is why| it’s so out o f line in this situa­
tion.”
And, “ Discipline has to be fair for everybody. And if it vacillates from
one extreme to the other and is not fair across the board to everyone, it is
not consistent, then it’s very difficult for an officer to decide on just what is
expected, what is acceptable.”
Harding explained: “ Captain Taylor getting drunk in a city car, perpe­
trating a hit and run, then got three days vacation time taken away----- It
was the idea o f a captain in a city car getting drunk and hitting another car
and leaving and causing property damage, breaking a law and then getting
three days vacation time taken o ff. That just didn’t seem right at all.”
"G iedl, a similar situation, high speed chase, fighting, getting drunk. He
d id n 't.. . he is still with us.
“ Sgt. Earl Johnson let a prisoner escape, let a . .. let a holdup man go into
a house to get some clothes. He went out the back door. He w a s.. . he’s still
with us."
C hief Baker and Commissioner Jordan explained their opinions on the
need for discipline in an organization that has great power over the lives o f
citizens.
" . . .a police officer I believe is given more power, delegated power, than
any single individual, even more I would say and 1 do say this than the presi­
dent o f the United States. W hile the president has an awesome power, the
power o f a police officer to deprive a citizen o f their freedom merely on
their say-so because it is a one-on-one situation, is a power that isn’t dele­
gated to many other people in our society,” Baker said.
"Perhaps one o f the most significant powers that's delegated to a police
officer is the power o f life and death because police officers are armed.”
Jordan adds: " A police officer can lose his job for doing things that an
ordinary citizen could do and not even be punished fo r.”
Following is a summary o f those actions presented by the union to dem­
onstrate uneven, unpredictable and allegedly discriminatory practices o f
discipline by the Police Bureau.
O fficer W illia m P. O rto n testified that in 1976 he, officer Christopher
M onlux and a friend were out drinking when they passed Ginger's Sexy
Sauna on 10th and Burnside. Monlux suggested that they go in and inquire
about the “ program” — offerings, prices, etc. They sat in the waiting room
until a young lady came out. W hile she was explaining the program another
woman came in and told them to get out.
They refused to leave and M onlux asked, “ What are you going to do, call
the police?” W ith that, she sprayed mace in Orton’s face.
H e crawled outside and they drove to Central Precinct to wash out his
eyes. Then Orton went Io the front desk and asked for a can o f mace. They
returned to Ginger’s Sexy Sauna. Orton went inside and sprayed mace in the
empty waiting room.
Orton was suspended for five days without pay; M onlux received three
days suspension without pay.
Sgt. Lanny Bennett o f N orth Precinct testified that he had been disci­
plined for an incident on an A m trak train. He was riding to a Seattle Sea-
hawk game, and drinking. He got into a “ hassle” with some Amtrack em­
ployers and was asked not to ride the train back to Portland. When he got
back to the Trailways Bus Depot he crossed to the H ilton Hotel bar where
he ran into the person who had asked him not to ride back on the train and
they had words. His discipline was three days o ff his vacation pay.
“No one holds as much potential fo r
abusing the rights o f another under the
guise o f representing the interests o f the
community as does a police officer. An
officer can suspend, through his actions,
almost all o f our rights. ”
■ Commissioner Charles Jordan
Running from tha copa
Officer Peter Giedl had been drinking in a tavern outside the city and was
driving a young woman home in her car. He was pursued by a Deputy Sher­
if f o f an adjoining county and was attempting to elude the Deputy Sheriff
when he struck another car head on. The woman was seriously injured.
G iedl was charged w ith and convicted o f a felony. W hen the judge
learned that a felony conviction brings automatic termination, he changed
the conviction to a misdemeanor. Baker recommended that he be term i­
nated.
Commissioner Jordan concurred, term inating G ied l in December o f
1977. He later rescinded the termination.
Jordan explained that decision: “ Giedl had a drinking problem. They
knew he had a drinking problem. His partner had reported that to his super­
visor that Giedl had a drinking problem. And instead o f trying to help him,
they had set a trap for h im ___
“ And I was— I was really trying to send a message to that Police Bureau,
that, you know, if you have a chance to prevent something like that, that
you should.”
Mixing alcohol and crime fighting
Sgt. Garland Snowden testified that O fficer Kenny Sanford had been
drinking at D ad ’s in St. Johns. A fter a while he went to N orth Precinct,
picked up a set o f keys to a police car, and drove the car to the Alibi. He was
found at the Alibi by another officer.
Another disturbance by Sanford was explained by Lt. Webber. In August
o f 1977 she was called to a restaurant in North Portland. Sanford, who was
o ff-d uty, had threatened a fight with the owner. W’hen he left the police
were called and while they looked for him, more calls were received about a
person disturbing, threatening to fight.
Lt. Webber and three officers found Sanford. "Immediately he went into
a defensive posture and said that he’d take us all on. that he could whip us
all. They finally convinced him to walk to North Precinct and they would
follow.
"A s he was walking in front o f us, he suddenly turned and went into a de­
fensive posture and, as 1 took one step further toward him he went into sort
o f a football tackle and rammed his shoulders into my chest, at the same
time swinging his arms and hitting one o f the other officers. Then w /E a d to
physically subdue him and cuff him and take him to the precinct.”
Sanford received fifteen days suspension.
The second incident happend approximately two years after Sanford shot
and killed Black teenager Ricky Johnson. The first incident occurred prior
to the shooting.
Then-chief Bruce Baker said about Sanford’s second incident: " . . . he de­
veloped serious emotional problems, mental problems he developed which
subsequently ended up in the fam ily splitting up. He developed a terrific
drinking problem alcohol problem. At the time that this occurred— when
the incident o f his striking this sergeant occurred— he was in a— in a very
bad condition in my opinion.” After that he was pushed to get a psycholo­
gically-based disability pension.
Regarding the shooting o f Ricky Johnson, Baker said, “ Kenny should
not have been where he was in my opinion. He was sent in wearing a taxi
driver's coat and hat. The young person had a gun. There was an attempt to
shoot Kenny. The young person spun away and when Kenny shot, it caught
him in the back o f the head which made it appear— there were claims it was
an assassination and that his life had not been thieatened although we felt
we proved our case, that it was just a circumstance.”
Many o f the Bureau’s disciplinary actions involve drinking. Bureau poli­
cies do not differentiate between actions on duty and o ff duty.
Baker explained his policy: "W e ll, if you will look over the history o f the
discipline in the Bureau particularly when it involves problems with alcohol
and d rin k in g .. .the past history has been that previous to our current prac­
tices o f trying to redeem employees with a drinking problem, usually it was
let go the the extent where they were fired. Proplc would cover for them,
hide their drinking problems and then it would get so bad they’d be fired. I
recognize in my own mind, or at least I look upon it, I look upon alcoholism
as a disease like cancer, like measles, chicken pox, whatever you want, but a
very serious disease, an extremely serious disease.. . .
“ And the fact that we recognize that people have drinking problems and
that we try to make the discipline— usually part o f that discipline w on’t
show in the order is that they’ll undertake a course o f treatment___
“ But our practice has been to look upon people who are alcoholics and
have serious drinking problems o f that kind as a diseased person rather than
someone who intentionally and deliberately goes out to commit an act.”
The macing of Olngar’s Saxy Sauna
Sgt. Dan Elfving testified he investigated the Cochever case which oc­
curred on August 6, 1980. Officer Cochever had been drinking all day and
had gone to Slims in St. Johns. He accused another man at the bar o f being
drunk and took his drink. The bartender asked Cochever to leave. At this
point, Cochever said he was a police officer and that everyone in the bar
was under arrest. When he started to go behind the bar the bartender told
him to get out, and he told her she was under arrest and began pulling her
hair. She struck him several times in the face, then other patrons dragged
him out onto the sidewalk. He was taken to North Precinct and a crime re­
port written.
Officer David Petry was o ff duty when he was stopped by Washington
County sheriffs for driving while under the influence. He was driving a po­
lice car. He offered some resistance to arrest but was not charged with re­
sistance. Petry received a suspension o f five days and lost ten days o f vaca­
tion time.
The incident in which Earl Johnson allowed a prisoner to escape was not
part o f his disciplinary proceeding. In July o f 1977 he was charged with
drinking on the job after he had been (old not to. He indicated that he had to
drink with an informant to obtain inform ation. There was some question
about whether there was an in fo rm a n t. Johnson had previously been
charged with drinking on the job and warned not to repeat that behavior.
Johnson went before the disciplinary board, which recommended termin­
ation. Baker and Jordan concurred. Several months later Jordan reversed
his decision. He rehired Johnson but demoted him from detective to officer.
Last year he was promoted to sergeant.
Johnson had been drinking on the job but the termination was based pri­
marily on incompetency. The evaluations did not support that charge. “ I
said that, you know, if the guy was incompetent, why didn't you document
that some time ago and start taking corrective action,” Jordan said.
“ I did not receive a satisfactory response, and so I overturned that deci­
sion. And 1 was again— 1 was still trying to get a message to that Bureau.”
Officer John Potter was driving under the influence o f alcohol within the
C ity o f M ilwaukie. He became engaged in a car chase with M ilwaukie po­
lice; he tried to escape on fo o t, and had to be apprehended. H e was
suspended, but not terminated.
Other cases cited involved harassment o f the public and law-breaking by
police officers.
When the City pays
The George Jacobus case involved a person who reported that large num­
bers o f officers were spending long periods together in restaurants. Later,
Jacobus was harassed by police officers. Although the City was unable to
document the harassment, $10,000 was paid to Jacobus as a settlement. A l­
though some o f the officers admitted acts o f harassment to the C ity A t­
torney, they claimed attorney-client privelege and Baker was unable to ob­
tain their identity. No officers were disciplined.
Officer Robert T illy testified that in approximately 1970 he and his part­
ner, Officer Emmerson, were at 42nd and Burnside at about 3:00 am when
T illy rode on the hood o f their police car wearing a pig mask while Emerson
drove. They were both in uniform and on duty. T illy was given 30-days sus­
pension without pay and was transferred. A controlled substance was found
in the car. Emerson, who had planned to resign in 30 days, resigned early.
Deputy Chief James T . Brouillette was reported to have shot wildly into
Van’s Olympic Club during an incident that ended in the death o f LeRoy
C lark. Clark (who was Black) was in the club, which he managed, with a
white woman. “ There were people outside who told me the bartender had
gone crazy and had fired a gun, as I recall,” Seargeant J eff Barker said.
“ H ad fired a few shots inside, but had not shot anybody at that tim e.”
C hief Brouillette was night commander. “ He came up and was— kind o f
took charge. Several people were then trying to take charge.” Barker, who
had heard a shot and saw the woman fall o ff a stool, told Brouillette about
it. The decision was made to go in and try to get the woman out; Brouillette
conferred with them; they entered the building; an officer was shot.
“ A n d about that time Deputy C hief Brouillette began »hooting into the
building with a 12-gauge shotgun. There was still a member o f the SER T
team in the building, although at that time that wasn’t known to me, and I
don’t believe that Chief Brouillette knew it either.”
Q. " H o w many rounds, shotgun rounds, did Deputy C h ief Brouillette
fire?”
A . ‘ I didn’t count them. I would have to estimate it, 20, as a conservative
figure. I had to go get more ammunition for him a couple o f times.”
Barker testified that the firing was not in accordance with police training,
that officers are taught to shoot at a target with the possible exception o f
trying to suppress fire. “ But just to fire random shots into a building, we
would not do.” Barker heard that Clark was killed later in the morning by a
machine gun or automatic weapon. “ They shot up dose and shot down into
them on the ground as I understood. They were in the building with him .”
Brouillette also came in for criticism by L t. Roberta Ledyard Webber.
She was present at a meeting in M arch o f 1980 with Brouillette, Captain
H u g h le tt and O ffic e rs D eppe, D u g a n , C a n z io , M oose, M c L o u g h lin ,
M cDonald and Gerhardt. The meeting was called by Brouillette following
the tria l o f Robert Christopher, who was found guilty o f manslaughter
rather than murder, for the shooting o f O fficer David Crowther during a
police raid on the Outsiders* club house.
W ill Aitchison, attorney for the Portland Police Association, submitted
the testimony to demonstrate that “ the commission o f a felony has been en­
couraged within the Bureau.”
L t. Webber said, “ He was talking about a past contact with the Outsiders
motorcycle gang, back several years prior, whereby an Outsider had stolen a
police officer’s motorcycle and he said that at that time he was in the O ut­
siders’ club house and placed listening devices in there and then they were—
they weren’t working so they broke in again and went back and replaced
them. . . he went on to say this was not mean to mean we were supposed to
do anything illegal, but that he wanted the Outsiders to be done real well, to
be gotten good, to be— have good cases against them and get them put away
and not make chippie cases against them.”
Because she did not want the officers to think Brouilette had asked them
to break the law, she told them to ignore his statements.
Q. “ W hy did you think that warning was necessary from yourself?”
A . “ Just because o f the statements he had made.”
The other eight
The other eight officers involved in the possum incident were not disci­
plined in any way. Jordan testified that he was very concerned and asked
Chief Baker what he could do to them. “ There’s no reason why they should
not have tried to prevent W ard and G allaw ay from carrying through the
act.” Baker said they didn’t have much to go on. Jordan was disappointed.
“ But yes, I was very disappointed. I think they have a responsibility to pre­
vent an act like th a t.” The first reports indicated that the officers had left
before the act was completed, or that some o f the cars were pinned in .”
Jordan was not satisfied with these officers’ explanations or their inabil­
ity to remember the conversation during the investigation. “ But I couldn’t
prove that they did, so there was no basis for me to move against them.”
A fte r he became Police Commissioner in 1977, Commissioner Jordan
wrote: “ The police have a new role to play in society because Society has
changed in its expectations and goals. Citizens are more aware o f their
rights and more concerned that these be safeguarded. The police must
preserve and protect these rights both in their w ork against crime and in
their everyday professional behavior.
“ Citizens also want to be more involved with the agencies which serve
them and demand more accountability from those agencies. Policing a
community is a sensitive task. No one holds as much potential for abusing
the rights o f another under the guise o f representing the intersts o f the
community as does a police o fficer. An officer can suspend, through his
actions, almost all o f our rights.”
Continued next week
We Can Help
Do-It-
Yourselfers.
Officers James I.eep and Richard Rademacher took two derelict alcohol­
ics, against their will, to a rural area and left them there. Initially the o ffi­
cers lied about their act to the Internal A ffiars Division. They later changed
their story and admitted their action. The case was submitted to D .A . Harl
Haas, who didn’t consider it to be kidnapping although Baker felt it was
very close. The two officers each received 10 days o ff without pay.
” 1 made a very bad mistake in conjunction with the U nion president.
They had also lied to him and I discussed the case with him, pointed out that
they had lied to him and asked that he participate in this so we could get to
the bottom o f it ,” Baker said.
In a way, it was an— I guess could be likened in some respects to the in­
cident where we had with the narcotics investigation where we granted some
immunity to try to get to the bottom o f the matter. In retrospect now look­
ing hack on it, I ’m ashamed o f that.
" I did not stick to my own principles in that case and I ’m living with that
on my conscience."
Bruce Raybourne, a crimnalist, provided parking tags to a friend who
owned a music store so the friend could tag cars parked in a no-parking
zone in front o f his shop. When a ticket was given to another officer’s wife,
Raybourne tried to void the ticket. He was given a five-day suspension.
Sgt. Michael Callaghan stole some presto-logs from a store while intoxi­
cated. He was charged with Theft 2, a class C misdemeanor. Callaghan also
had a prior record o f misconduct. He was terminated and his termination
sustained.
Want to make your home more homey and your
electric costs less costly?
The People at Pacific Power can show you how with
our series of weatherization and conservation brochures.
Pick up a free copy of our “Do-k-Yourself Home
Insulation Guide", available at your local Pacific Power
office.
THE PEOPLE AT PACIFIC POWER b'lierxy,solutions. We cun help.
c I *381 Pa» 4,< Ptwxri and I n,rit C iwn|tan>