IT’S BEEN A TENSE WEEK in Portland following Reverend Jesse Jackson’s visit. But the general consensus among Blogtown readers—whom I polled on Sunday, February 21—reflects my own feeling that Mayor Sam Adams has played an earnest game of catch-up after dropping the ball early on in the aftermath of the Aaron Campbell shooting.

For me Adams’ make-or-break moment came the afternoon following Jackson’s visit, when the mayor came face to face with Campbell’s mother as he greeted over 100 protesters outside his office on Wednesday, February 17. The crowd wanted to know why the cop who shot Campbell was back on duty that morning: “What message does that send?”

“You wouldn’t want me to pass judgment without a full…” began Adams.

“Can you face the victim?” asked one protester, as Marva Campbell-Davis stepped forward. Well, could he? Adams asked Campbell-Davis if she wanted to step into his office, and she did. I’m not sure if he had any option in the circumstances, but I respected the move: It was decisive, but it didn’t seem cynical or rehearsed.

“There’s blood on your bike paths, mayor!” shouted one protester, as the door closed. Since then, Adams has joined Police Commissioner Dan Saltzman in calling for a federal civil rights probe into the shooting. He supported Saltzman’s call for the grand jury proceedings in the case to be made public, and even told reporters on Friday, February 19, that he has asked Saltzman to review the policy of letting officers return to the streets before inquiries are complete in deaths like this. All in all, it’s an appropriate response—even if it did require Reverend Jackson’s visit to make Adams step up to the plate.

Then again, I wonder if a community only ever really gets the leadership it deserves. By Monday, February 22, Adams was over the worst, even attending a panel discussion on making us a “world-class design city.”

Instead of smugly listing Portland’s achievements in urban planning, the mayor told the very white crowd at Urban Grind East on NE Oregon that Portland has done a “shameful” job of protecting the rights of African Americans in its urban renewal history, and even chastised the design community for being absent on the environmental/design debate about the Columbia River Crossing. “Make some noise,” he told them. “Where the heck were you?”

“We haven’t fully embraced” the “non-white” aspects of sustainability either, added the mayor. More please.

Matt Davis was news editor of the Mercury from 2009 to May 2010.

5 replies on “Hall Monitor”

  1. I agree with you Matt.

    Adams has picked up his fumble on the two yard line and is running left, and this is good for all of us.

    He’s right- The atrocity that our nation did to the people of Africa by bringing them here as slave labor has never been fully resolved. The descendents of this abomination are suffering greatly, as much as some of us try to begin to correct this injustice. So, yes let’s take serious steps toward accepting responsibility as a nation for our wrong-doing. What a concept-

    And here’s the dilemma with your argument – forgive and forget. voters were denied the necessary information to determine the best candidate for mayor. Now we know, and we deserve the right to vote on this, regardless of the cost, same as repairing the damage we have done to the African-American community.

    I honestly feel that if this scandal involved a seventeen-year-old female intern, Mirk and the Mercury would be supporting a recall. So let’s all support a re-vote on this debate, and end the controversy one way or another. If Sam has redeemed himself in the eyes of a majority of citizens then his critics should be silent, but not until justice has been fully served…in either case.

  3. “I wonder if a community only ever really gets the leadership it deserves.”

    You respect Mayor Adams for his _decisive_ move? Taking the victim’s mother into his office is a far cry from decisive leadership. I say Adams is more afraid of the police (union, perhaps) than he is of recall.

    What you cite is style, not leadership.

    Let’s talk ‘leadership’ in the mayor’s ability to manage the police bureau.

    9 Sep 2009: Chief Sizer presents the police plan to address (not eliminate) racial profiling.
    City Council Agenda Item 1243, here:
    http://www.portlandonline.com/index.cfm?c=…

    In the hour and a half of discussion, Police Commissioner Saltzman says only one word between introducing the chief and when he is called to vote. Adams – instead of the mayoral custom of retaining the police commissioner’s portfolio – delegated this dysfunctional city bureau to an inept underling. More time is spent thanking Saltzman than Saltzman actually spends in asking questions.

    Adams (former chief of staff to a Portland Police Commissioner) abrogated leadership on use of force and police racism from the point at which he took office. He knew a hot potato and he dropped it off.

    In the above legislative record the Mayor requests actual metrics, so city council can determine whether progress in hiring, training, policy and practices are being effective. I dare you to find out whether he got those measures, or any of the ‘suggestions’ he made to the Chief (so as not to micromanage the bureau).

    48 minutes into the hearing, the Chief is banging on about how her office of accountability and professional services will work with PSU to analyze & measure the effectiveness of police bureau performance. Adams asks very pointedly when the council will see results. The Chief says an annual review will be completed … in February 2010.

    You are the best investigative journalist we have in Portland. You could simply ask our Mayor how his request for ongoing metrics on workforce diversity has been met. I’m sure you will find that our Mayor did not get the incremental work plan he requested in public posturing that passes for leadership. He won’t have the annual review, nor even the promise of it. If you look at the plan, you’ll find that most of the dates in the original plan (that was over a year late in submission) have slipped while under his watch.

    An incredible number of citizens’ hours went into pressuring the police to come up with a plan to address police misconduct. You will find our leader has let the implementation of that plan slip from his agenda.

    In September Chasse had already been stomped to death; the Chief had already testified that Frashour had a history of using force contrary to policy. This was the meeting where it was all the mayor and council could do, to order the police bureau to hand out business cards. Seventeen members of the public took time from their lives to give testimony … and most of them demanded accountability. This was the meeting where the city struggled lightly with an idea that they needed changes in state laws so that any identification of errant police officers could be shielded from the press and public.

    Or we could just take your word for it; that taking in the widows, orphans, brothers and sisters of innocents killed by abusive police practices actually passes for leadership.

    I think leadership would be for the Mayor and Police Commissioner to let the people know the District Attorney has been called on the carpet for failing to present a full range of witnesses to the Grand Jury. A civil servant who wanted to protect the public and crack open the deadly features of entrenched police culture would have already given political cover to the officers who know Campbell was beanbagged at variance with policy, and that beanbagging an innocent man led to another poorly trained shooter to use lethal force. A leader would be standing right now to affirm that his employees had committed wrongful acts (even if only held to the standard of training … and not morality) instead of allowing Saltzman to dilly dally over whether the triggerman goes back to work.

    If Mayor Adams were in a leadership position today, he’d know precisely what parts of the city/police union contract prevent annual reviews of officer misconduct, let alone inhibit effective management and disciplinary action. Instead, the Mayor is content to let the lame duck Police Commissioner bind us into yet another contract … without benefitting from Adams’ proficiency for astute policy analysis.

    Wasn’t Nick Fish a civil rights lawyer? Fritz oversees Human Rights. And no one gets a sense that letting Chasse and Campbell die untended by human touch is a moral outrage that demands a vigorous response?

    I’d say leadership came from the Campbell grand jury, the jury that awarded Waterhouse more than he sued for, and will be sustained by the pastors who led Portlanders of conscience from the Justice Center INTO the confrontation with the Mayor.

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