In this divided age of demonstrator versus riot cop and sharp outcry over officer-involved shootings, there appears to be one thing everyone can get behind (besides hating Pepsi, I mean): the fact that the bewildering, dispiriting labyrinth that Portland calls a police oversight system needs big changes.
The process needs to be restructured so that citizens arenât put off by filing a complaint, or by the crazy-straw route that the complaint takes through the system, or by the interminable process of appealing its outcome.
It needs to be streamlined so that everyone can easily grasp our plan for holding officers accountable. Both the public and powerful city officials are at present often befuddled by its specifics.
And for the love of god, it could use changes that make it so discussions about the subject donât give Commissioner Dan Saltzman a serious case of the sleepies, which he plainly suffered from during a city council hearing on police oversight last week.
âOur system is hard to explain and harder to navigate,â City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero said at that hearing. âThe US Department of Justice has called it âbyzantine.ââ
Now for the bad news: Thereâs absolutely no indication weâll get to meaty reforms anytime soon.
Because while anyone will nod emphatically when you ask whether Portland could do better on police oversight, there is sharp disagreementâand the unyielding heft of a powerful police unionâblocking the path to serious change.
The latest proof lies in a series of code changes [PDF] the cityâs Independent Police Review (IPR) brought before council last week, slated to come up for a vote this Wednesday, April 19.
This was a long-anticipated piece of legislation, in the works for years and designed, in part, to help the city comply with an ongoing settlement with the US Department of Justice. But in its present form, it amounts to only the barest wisp of actual change.
The meatiest tweak, which Portland City Council appears primed to pass, would create a system where minor complaints are forwarded to a copâs supervisor rather than being formally investigated by IPR or the Portland Police Bureauâs Internal Affairs Unit. That should free up precious staff time to investigate more serious allegations, which is a good thing.
The changes would also ensure that IPR is informed if cops are accused of committing crimes, and bolster the officeâs power to request that police investigate an officerâs use of deadly force.
These are fine suggestions, but tiny steps in the right direction. Meanwhile, a host of major (and highly controversial) reforms the Auditorâs Office proposed last year has given way before public outcry and officialsâ concerns. Other long-sought changesâsuch as giving IPR investigators the power to actually force an officer to speak to themâare held at bay by the copsâ union.
So here we are, making small changes by consensus.
That, you might have heard, is the much-vaunted âPortland Way.â And, right now, itâs ensuring that our police oversight systemâa vital piece of civic machineryâis merely clunking along.