General Dec 10, 2009 at 4:00 am

Eight Hours in the Life of a Portland Police Officer

Illustration by Kim Scafuro

Comments

1
HA HA HELL YEAH! THAT MAGGOTS IN THAT DUDE REMINDS ME OF DAT FUNKADELIC ALBUM "COSMIC SLOP"
2
Cops are not even in the top 10 for highest fatality rates on the job ( http://www.classesandcareers.net/education… ) They kill much more frequently than they are killed.

They use the myth of being close to death every time the radio crackles as an excuse for the amount of force they use, to justify beating and killing 'suspects.' I work directly with homeless teens, many of whom have a long history as the victims of abuse, untreated mental health issues, and oftentimes drug dependencies. The police treat these youth as criminals, routinely disrespect and abuse them. Very few of these police interactions have a positive outcome for anyone involved.

In my line of work, mediating conflict is the norm, but you don't see me breaking the ribs of my schizophrenic clients, or using any physical force against rowdy pre-teens, or shooting a client who has been in an accident and is acting 'weird.' If a client draws a weapon, staff uses de-escalation skills to the best of our ability and, if need be, clear the building until the person is calmer and can be disarmed. We would lose our jobs for shooting 41 times.

Police destroy their own humanity by failing to recognize it in the people they deal with every day. They may offer temporary relief for folks in some situations, but as a whole, they hurt and intimidate and kill more than help resolve conflict and make the world better.
3
There's a couple of other things we don't see you doing pdxer. We don't see you walk through a pitch dark two story house you've never been in, with only a gun and flashlight, searching for an intruder like the cops did for me. We also don't see you walk into full on fight situation and have to break them up, regardless of what weapons may be drawn on you.
4
Pdxer, you are a self righteous blowhard! if they do more harm than good, who will you call if you get attacked on your way home from work? You Jagoff!
5
Hey PDXER if the untreated mental issues and drug dependencies lead to criminal activities those homeless teens are indeed criminals. You're lucky, your job is to help them. The police on the other hand are there to keep those those criminals from harming everyone else and hopefully themselves as well. I have never had a problem with the police in this town, thanks to dolts like you they are painted in bad light because being responsible for your own actions is too hard a concept for you to understand.
6
Kudos for the article, glad to see something like this in the Mercury. Keep it up, get some interesting insights to the more common "Chris Humphreys" type stories.

About the loud argument in the courtyard. Did you get any impression that it might be a show? People who really fight usually aren't so loud - they're concentrating on hurting the other person, right? Do you think they were just standing around and yelling until the cops came, in order to seem tough?
7
pdxer can i send you a private email if a homeless teen is in my yard. need a response asap.
8
what a bunch of losers. One guy ( pdxer) brings out a statistic and you bring out your verbal baseball bats.

9
you sexist jerk what if pdxer's a girl, you insensitive brute!
10
huh, pdxer's statistics really piss you police apologists off. you should probably just shoot him/her. that's the way you end arguments, right? by your logic, fishermen and loggers should just dynamite the sea and the forest so that they don't have to face any harm.

i work with violent mentally ill people, and no, we don't get to beat them to death for pissing on us, or even pulling a weapon. yes, we have to actually use our heads, rather than brute force.

and who do i call when someone breaks into my apartment? my machete.
11
Hey Matthew Vollono, good job, you almost wrote an unbiased story. This could have been a great piece if you didn't include the unwarranted dis on american cars and your out-of-nowhere comment on Chris Humphreys. Maybe I missed the point somewhere but these things made me not want to recommend this read to others.
12
"To make matters worse her mother—a thin, chain-smoking woman who repeatedly punches numbers on her cell phone yet never places a call or receives one"

I believe this is called "Text Messaging," and it is all the rage since Fall of 2009!
13
PDXer's ignorant notion that relates the death rate of an occupation as the sole indicator of it's overall danger level just proves he/she has no idea what police officers do day in and day out. Did it ever cross his/her mind that perhaps a lower death rate might reflect that police officers are well trained and that the way they interact with people reduces their chance of dying on the job? Let me be the first to tell you that when "homeless teens" become violent and threaten staff with weapons at local social service providers/shelters, they call 911 and ask for police assistance. Don't believe me? Check the dispatch records and look for yourself. Portland Police contact almost 400,000 people a year and receive about 450 complaints total...of those 46 are related to force...read that again...400,000 contacts and 46 complaints about use of force...and remember these are just allegations of excessive force. Just for fun lets assume that all 46 complaints were true (and they aren't - some of the complaints of excessive force are from the bad guys who run and are bitten by a police dog or the drunk who brawls outside a bar and gets sprayed with pepper spray to get them to stop, duh). Now I'm no math wizard, but that roughly converts to .0001 percent of police contacts resulting in an ALLEGATION of excessive force...sounds like Portland Police really are a bunch of jackbooted thugs to me. Don't get me wrong...do some cops cross the line...we know that they do...and PPB has consistently identified and terminated employees who break the law. Hard to believe, but cops don't tolerate other cops who don't follow the rules (there is something about about the thought of losing their jobs, embarrassing themselves their co-workers, their families, going to jail, being sued, etc, etc, not to mention the who notion of ethics/integrity that keeps them from tolerating unprofessional/ illegal conduct). The bottom line is that the police have to hire people from the human race (sorry PDX'er), but the vast majority of these folks do an outstanding, professional, ethical, compassionate job at keeping the violent, dangerous, antisocial predators at bay 24 hours a day/365 days a year. They do it day-in-and-day-out with the hope that some day members of the public like PDX'er will realize that not all people out there can be hugged into submission and that when they are faced with violence it sometimes has to be met with violence. If you want a better perspective...do what Mr. Vollano did and go on a ride-a-long...otherwise you will suffer the same fate as PDX'er (a life of ignorance and hatred - a bad combination by any standard). Cheers -
14
Loved the article. Great depiction, felt like I was right there with you.
15
I doubt anyone will read my comments since this article was published over two weeks ago, but that it is not enough to prevent me from my adding my own two cents. The fact is that we live in a dynamic and complicated society whose problems are very rarely solved with a relatively short and simple intervention by a police officer. It is waste of time to try and blame either homeless people or police officers for the lack of improvement or good behavior that exist on both sides.

That being said, I must say that I agree more with pdxer and solid gold than the rest of the so-called police apologists, and I say this for very, very personal reasons because I am love in someone who was homeless for two years. I love my boyfriend very, very much because he is the most engaging, intelligent, sensitive, introspective, and resourceful person that I have ever met. The fact that he is still so curious and passionate after dealing with so many hardships in his life simply amazes me.

He had put up with bouts of verbal abuse from his smart, but mentally-ill mother who had struggled with undiagnosed bi-polar disorder for most of her life, but has a great relationship with her now that she has found the right medications to control her illness, and he loves and appreciates her very much. He had to face the death of his only father figure when he was just 10 years old, then had to endure four years of court battles for the right to keep his father’s inheritance because of his father’s greedy ex-wife, plus a year long court battle for simply pushing a boy that had routinely provoked and disrespected him because that boy happened to be the son of a wealthy lawyer.

I had the unfortunate experience of having police officers in my home because my boyfriend had tried to do a favor for one of his friends by letting him stay in our home. The friend had overstayed his welcome and actually encouraged us to the call the police when we asked him to leave and he refused. The police made it perfectly clear that they had absolutely no respect for my boyfriend and even had the gall to ask me, a college-educated graduate, why I was not smart enough to avoid getting involved with “street kids.”

They were quite surprised to find out that my boyfriend and I had been happily living together for over a year at that time, but that didn’t stop them from giving me a self-righteous and smug lecture about getting involved with people who do drugs, even though the “drugs” in question have been used by people, peacefully, for thousands of years (far longer than they’ve been around) and had not been associated with thugs and petty criminals until they were illegalized.

It would be an oversimplification to say that police officers must not be doing their jobs correctly, but I have to agree with pdxer that police officers almost always fail to see the humanity of the people that they deal with on a daily basis. The system that they uphold and protect does very little to help these people deal with their hardships, and often becomes an expensive, living graveyard for people who might otherwise be able to lead perfectly happy, healthy lives if they were offered the services that could help them succeed. I only wish that we would take most of the money we spend on law enforcement, which usually changes nothing, so that we could spend that money on more productive pursuits – like pdxers job – for those who really need it.
16
I would also like to respond to antipdxer's comment by pointing out that the small number of allegations for excessive force compared to the number of contacts that police officers deal with is not very good proof that police officers rarely use excessive force. The fact of the matter is that the 10% of the population with whom they spend 90% of their time are most at risk of being abused or otherwise overlooked by law enforcement and are not likely come forward and report such incidents. I think it's pretty obvious who the justice system would favor, and I'm not talking about the homeless people or the prostitutes. As with rape, it is fairly safe to assume that most of these incidents are never reported. That statistic doesn't do much to endorse police conduct once you put it into perspective.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.