- Todd Saucier
A YEAR AGO, Facebook posts had Portland police on high alert.
On the night of February 24, 2015, a man named Quintrell Holiman shot at two officers who’d tried to talk to him near an East Portland strip club. Holiman—26 years old, with gang affiliations and a federal arrest warrant—then fled, killing himself after being cornered in a backyard.
It wasn’t long before the man’s friends were questioning cops’ version of this story on social media. They didn’t buy that Holiman had taken his own life, and they were angry.
“People associated with this man are talking about killing cops,” Portland Police Bureau (PPB) spokesperson Sergeant Pete Simpson told KGW at the time.
Back then, the bureau responded to the threats by assigning more officers to its gang enforcement team. But if a new law flying through the state legislature passes, they might address similar situations with a controversial move: trying to shield the names of officers involved in the incident.
Under House Bill 4087, police agencies throughout the state would have the ability to keep secret the identity of any officer for at least three months, provided they can show a judge a “credible threat of present danger” to that officer stemming from a specific occurrence.
The bill was inspired by a singular event: the shooting death of anti-government militant LaVoy Finicum on an Eastern Oregon highway in late January, and the apparent threats of violence that have followed in its wake. But local police observers worry that the proposed law could have widespread effects at a time when calls for police transparency are stronger than ever, thanks to high-profile incidents like the shooting deaths of Tamir Rice and Michael Brown.
“America should keep [officers’] names public until laws, policy, and directives change to suit a public safety system that values all lives,” says Teressa Raiford, a key figure in the group Don’t Shoot Portland, who spoke with Democratic leaders about the bill last week. “We aren’t even close.”