Diversity S e pecial
dition
July 17, 2019
Police Accountability
C ontinueD from p age 3
ing family members of those who
have been killed by police.
Morgan/Hall’s son, Brad Lee
Morgan, was fatally shot by po-
lice in 2012 after threatening to
jump from the top of a downtown
parking garage and pointing what
was later determined to be a repli-
ca firearm at officers.
“I wish they’d do the walk
away method. If you’re mentally
ill, and you think you’re going to
be in danger, especially the cops,
they need to walk away. They
don’t need to be there. Let the
mental health workers come out
and help you,” Morgan/Hall said
to the crowd of demonstrators,
who were flashing protest signs at
motorists and passersby in front of
City Hall. She added that dealing
with the incident caused her men-
tal instability, too.
“I don’t care if you’re on the
street or whatever. But cops
shouldn’t kill us because we’re
mentally ill, or we’re homeless, or
we’re just in crisis.”
She lamented that she could no
longer give her son a hug, and that
he could no longer hold the eight
month son he left behind.
James Ofsink, an organiz-
er with Portland’s Resistance,
told the Portland Observer that a
new police contract, which only
gets negotiated every four or five
years, should require stronger
community oversight and police
accountability.
Currently police cannot be
compelled to give testimony for
a misconduct allegation to the In-
dependent Police Review board,
nor does the board—designated as
a community oversight entity—
have a role in use of deadly force
cases, according to the current
contract, Ofsink said. And those
are just two of many other policy
decisions that are “baked into” the
current contract, he added, “One
of the big things is accountability,
a willingness to fire officers when
they break policies and codes and
the laws of the city.”
Haynes said the public should
have the right to petition the City
Council to give recommendations
of what is needed in the contract
to make the Police Bureau “a de-
partment that is building trust.”
He said one of the big issues is ac-
countability, a willingness to fire
officers when they break policies
and codes and the laws of the city.
Ofsink said police associations
across the country have used their
employment contracts to limit the
accountability for their officers.
Campaign Zero, a police re-
form campaign associated with
the national Black Lives Matter
movement and launched in 2015
with an aim to reduce police vio-
lence, supported a 2018 Universi-
ty of Oxford study by Abdul Rad
that found there was quantitative
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