September 19. 2012___________________________
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‘I Love This City’
continued
from fron t
One way to increase equity within
Portland would be to increase job
opportunities and technical train
ing for youth, he said. “We need
skilled workers.”
The equity agenda also needs to
go all the way to the top, said Hales.
“But if the equity agenda is going to
have real clout, it needs to be right
at the m ayor’s side.”
Hales also emphasized his goal
to catalyze more diversity amongst
city leaders. While at City Hall, he
sees himself as a mentor to develop
new leaders of color for positions in
the city, he said. “We can do that
deliberately.”
This includes more people of color
within the Police Bureau. He said
police recruitment is falling short on
looking for local hires.
Although some officers truly be
lieve in community policing, Hales
said there are not enough of them,
which consequently divides the
house. “But if we set expectations,
we will be a community agency,” he
said.
One goal would be to change how
the bureau deals and partners with
the community, by increasing the
number of officers who live within
Charlie Hales
their working neighborhoods.
He added, while he respects the
work of Chief of Police Mike Reese,
he said officers within Portland need
a mayor and command structure
they respect, and a police bureau
that will connect with the commu
nity.
When addressing the current fis
cal state o f the city , he said
Portland’s city budget is wounded,
but not in a dire condition. He said,
however, there is too much funding
in overhead and administration, and
the current city council, he believes,
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has run up too much debt.
“This will be a challenge,” he
said. “We have two blinking yellow
lights. There is too much overhead
and too much debt.”
He also said he is opposed to coal
going through north and northeast
Portland neighborhoods, and he
plans to put pressure wherever it’s
needed, even though he realizes the
fight might not be an easy one.
But Hales said he is optimistic
positive changes can and will be
made if he is elected mayor. “I
wouldn’t want the job if I thought I
would be presiding over the decline
of Portland,” he said.
Although he is proud of the work
he did as a commissioner of the city,
this time around, he said there will
be many differences in how he con
nects to the local community. “I’m
going to have the discipline of get
ting out of the building and talking
to people and not just rely on staff,”
he said. “Count on me to be acces
sible.”
Hales also would like to have city
council meetings at night and out in
the various communities occasion
ally, perhaps monthly, in an effort to
increase the voices within Portland
neighborhoods. “We have got to
have leadership,” he said.
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attle officials recently reached a deal
with the DOJ, agreeing to court
oversight and independent moni
toring of the city's police depart
ment.
Portland police have been criti
cized for years over how they deal
with mentally ill suspects.
The DOJ announced its Portland
investigation in the aftermath of the
death of Aaron Campbell, an un
armed black man who was fatally
shot by officers who responded to
a call that he was threatening sui
cide.
His death was not the only recent
high-profile case, a public outcry
followed the 2006 death of James
Chasse Jr., a mentally ill man who
died after he was chased and tack
led by officers after he was said to
have urinated in public.
Five years before that, the police
shooting of Jose Mejia Poot at a
psychiatric hospital drew calls for
change in the way police handle the
mentally ill.
The federal investigation said
Thursday that most police uses of
force were constitutional, but that
officers sometimes use too much,
including situations involving mi
nor offenses.
"Fundamentally, we have to treat
people in mental health crisis with
compassion and empathy," Reese
said. "We can't treat them the same police officer has gotten even
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mitted a bank robber."
The Associated Press contrib
e-mail: classifieds@portlandobserver.com
The investigation singled out uted to this report.
stun gun use, saying officers fre
quently discharged them without
justification or used them too many
times on a given suspect.
InJuly 2011, forexample, officers
responded to the home of a men
tally ill man who had allegedly as
saulted his mother and had a sword.
Though the man's hands were vis
ible and he had no weapon, one
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F e d eral o ffic ia ls also said
Oregon's statewide mental health
system has "gaps in services" that
We are located on the
often make the police the first re
com er o f MLK and Russell
sponders when people are in a men
tal health crisis. In this, Oregon is
Street, on the second floor
not alone, Perez said.
above the coffee shop.
"In com m unities across this
country, the largest mental health
facility is the jail," he said. "That’s
wrong, and we need to change that."
The report noted that Oregon
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has one of the highest rates of
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homelessness in the U.S., and many
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people in that population have seri
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ous mental illness.
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"Given our anemic community-
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based mental health system," said
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Mayor Sam Adams, "I appreciate
Russell St.
that the findings note that the al
s
ready tough job of being a Portland
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