After Portland Police Chief Mike Marshman disagreed Wednesday night with the civilian panel that unanimously concluded a Portland cop acted unprofessionally when he insulted an attorney in 2015, and the panel wouldn't back down to Marshman, it looked like Portland City Council would have the final say in a police oversight case for the first time in 13 years.
But, like then-Interim Police Chief Donna Henderson in June, Marshman reversed course, avoiding the rare city council showdown and putting an end to the drawn-out case. An officer will face discipline for saying a lawyer "must not be a very good attorney" when she attempted to help a woman they were arresting.
The Citizen Review Committee (CRC) is the civilian oversight group that, among other duties, hears appeals from people unhappy with how the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) handled their complaints and rules whether the determination could have been made by a "reasonable" person. In June, it sided with Portland resident and Marion County public defender Sara Foroshani on two of her complaints against the bureau (you should read this Oregonian story from that meeting to get up to speed).
Foroshani filed a complaint against the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) last year after an incident in a Goodwill parking lot in Southeast Portland. When she spotted two Portland cops roughly detaining a woman who had been passed out in her car, she intervened and told the woman she didn't have to speak to them or consent to the search of the car. Later in the incident, one of the cops reportedly told her "you must not be a very good attorney (and, again, you should read the O story for more background than I'll put here).
The CRC ruled in June that it was unreasonable for the bureau to say the officer didn't violate bureau directives on professionalism, and new-Chief Marshman could either have accepted that and given discipline to it, or challenge it. He challenged it, so the CRC could either back down or stick with their original vote, would would give city council the final say.
"I'd rather have an attempt at dialogue and not have it go well all the time" than for an officer to not engage with a person, explained Marshman on Wednesay night about why he didn't think the jab was unprofessional. "I don't want to send a message to my officers to not talk to people."
CRC Chair Kristin Malone disagreed.
"It seems to me to so clearly unprofessional," she said to Marshman. "If I looked at you and said 'you must not be a very good police officer,' everybody would know that's completely unprofessional. It's not appropriate to say to somebody."
By a vote to 6-0, the CRC voted to not back down to Marshman, setting a the city council showdown, which would have be after Thanksgiving at the earliest. Marshman conceded Thursday morning.
"I have been notified by the Chief that the Police Bureau has decided to accept the Committee's recommendation and the finding will be changed to SUSTAINED," wrote Constantin Severe, the director of the auditor's Independent Police Review, which oversees the CRC, in an email to CRC members this morning. "With all allegations now resolved this complaint will be closed."
