But if the man went ahead and killed his girlfriend and/or her children it would not be mentioned in the Mercury. How many murder suicides have there been in the past year? I thought it was something like 12.
Maybe you should try to make your next assignment spending the day with someone who is suicidal, has weapons, a history of violence, personality disordered and toss in some alcohol. I think finally you would gain some insight into the realities of what people working in emergency services have to manage on a regular basis. These are not so uncommon situations and generally the police do an amazing job of diffusing them.

Just another suicide by cop.

Hey Matt--why the quotes in "Suicidal Man"? It's the equivalent of using "so-called..." when, as far as I can tell, there is nowhere in this story where you've demonstrated cause to call that fact into question. I generally appreciate the work that you do (entertainingly and consistently anti-authority at every turn), but this seems to be particularly sloppy. I get it: you have a major bone to pick with authorities--and you're sometimes justified in so doing. But when you don't even have a half-assed reason (or, more damningly, a *fact*) for doubting the word of--as far as we know--every person involved, it makes it seem like you're really clutching at straws in your 'cops-can-never-do-anything-right' case.
If you know something that seems to indicate that the police story is untrue, let's hear it. Otherwise, you're just a 'shoot first, ask questions later' so-called reporter, and that's even less charitable than the police are.

"something that seems to indicate that the police story is untrue"

That would be the continuing history of murder by the Portland police.

I'm interested to know if the man actually had a gun on him and if he had it out at any time before being shot.

All that matters is that they believed him to be armed, and believed themselves to be threatened. There's definitely a bit of vagueness in that part of the release, but I'll bet the gun was visible. The 911 caller said he wanted to commit suicide by cop, and if anyone wanted to, they could eventually get the 911 tape to confirm that. According to the release, the guy even said "you're gonna have to shoot me coppers!" so I'm guessing he was trying pretty hard to keep the gun in view.

You also don't cover fantastic stories about local police -- like this one, where the responding officer would have been well within reason to shoot the "suicidal man" in question. As gloworm said earlier, emergency responders are put in situations like this regularly, and I would challenge you to be in their position and make the "right" choice every time. It's a lot easier to be a computer chair critic.

http://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty…

@gloworm&sgtgrumbles&Mello: The question isn't, did the police do the right thing according to their training, what 90% of the city are happy with, etc, the question is: Could they have done better? When someone dies, the answer to that question is ALWAYS yes.

It may not be easy, it may not be cheap, but instead of saying that, "it is good enough to kill someone because there is a good chance that otherwise there would be a murder-suicide," (there wouldn't be: The woman and her kids were in safety,) or saying that "the police are in their rights to shoot him, they thought he had a gun," (yes but just because someone is driving the wrong way on the freeway, you still try to avoid them,) or any number of other things, we should be asking: HOW can we prevent this from happening in the future?

I don't accept "good enough" when there are dead bodies around. If we spent the same sort of money/time/energy on keeping people from dieing in plane crashes as we do preventing them from getting killed by the police, I'm almost positive that this wouldn't have happened: The obvious thing I see that they could have done is they could have called the SERT team immediately: It was more than 30 minutes between when the kids got out to when they shot the guy, and once the guy was down they then called the SERT team, but if they'd called the SERT team in in the first place, would this situation have gone down differently?

“He had his hands up, just like this,” said Kenny Boyer, demonstrating. “And he was looking down, like basically, he was just trying to surrender.”


They followed their Portland police training, checked everyone for cameras to confiscate, and executed him.

And so if the guy with a gun, who was holding children and said he wanted to commit suicide by cop, had shot the children or killed a cop, then where would that leave the Mercury? They'd have no chance to suggest that this was police brutality? Guess what? If you have a gun, and you make those kind of threats, and you don't respond when shot several times by bean bag guns, then you're gonna go down the hard way. I guess children and police are less important than that guy. Truth is that there are people who will always believe that every shooting is proof that police are evil (in every instance in every city), and people that think they have it coming. And the rest of us RIGHTLY judge the situations as they occur, without bias. Mainly, common sense dictates that you comply with the police, especially when you're be ing hit with bean bags and are armed.

With the death of James Chasse, many "facts" initially stated by police officers to witnesses, and many "facts" stated in the media were shown to not be true or accurate by the homicide investigation and private interviews with witnesses and experts. No internal investigation was released. No public inquest was done. No independent investigation was launched. No grand jury transcript was released.

The pressure at this moment should be directed at Mike Schrunk, Multnomah County's District Attorney. He should, with County Coroner Karen Gunson, hold a public inquest within two weeks, where the complete homicide investigation is released, and where the testimony of police officers, experts, witnesses and other persons can be gathered in public.

Anything less will again fail to provide justice for our community and continue the erosion of trust and confidence with our police officers.

Why didn't they taze him?

who is the offending KILLER KOP this time? bet ya it's one of the PPB's All-Time-Favorite killers, one who killed before and got away with it as his daddy called the District Attorney to come in with a freebie for Scottie!

Now the dreadful deed is done, the question is....was the KILLER KOP Scott McCollister, or was it Christopher Humphreys, Kyle Nice, or that arrogant Barton that helped stomp James Chasse to death?

Will the real KILLER KOP please identify himself?

At least the poor deranged bastard got what he wanted.

Is anyone keeping track of the number of people that the Portland and area police are killing? That would be a worthwhile blog.

is anyone keeping track of the numbers and faces of people that the portland and area police are killing... that would be a useful blog..

Brought to you by "reporter" Matt Davis.

The real question is why in the hell it took the SERT 23 minutes to get to a police standoff that had been in production for over 1 1/2 hours.

Matthew D above put it best. Anytime lives are lost, something could have been done better.

@ "c" - They can't taze someone who is either holding a firearm or thought to be holding a firearm in fear that it could discharge when they're tazed. The voltage is enough to make your hands squeeze, thus the trigger could get pulled quite easily. The beanbag rounds were probably the only effective less-than-lethal option at the time. There are "glue guns" and other incapacitating weaponry but I don't think PPB utilizes any of those.

@Jackattak and @Matthew D - "Anytime lives are lost, things could have been done better." So...you admit you're holding them to an unattainable standard?

More info here.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2…

wonder why the PoPo are dragging out the announcement as to who the Killer Kop was this time? Bet you that it was one of their better known Thug Turds like Scott McCollister, or Kyle Nice, or Chrissey Humphreys that was involved and they're stalling on announcement as they're in a serious cover-up or "re-telling" mode as even they're getting sick and tired of the ensuring shitstorm that follows in the wake of media mention of any of these Tommie Turds!
Get ya popcorn and set back and watch as this disaster enfolds!!!!

just found out that today's designated PPB KILLER KOP is none other that Ronald Frashour and given what a jerk he is, no one should be at all surprised that this long-standing Brotherhood of the Strong follower has finally got himself a credited kill. Does he get a prize or a medal from the
Brotherhood of the Strong for this totally unnecessary kill? Well, if not, at least he joins the ranks of such hapless rogues as Scott McCollister, Kyle Nice, Jason Sery, Leo Besner and Christopher Humphreys, amongst too many others to mention.

@ Reymont,

I'm not holding anyone to anything. It's called an "After-Action Review" or AAR. That's when you look back at what went wrong, analyze it, and do what you can to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Pretty simple. Calm down on all the "unattainable standard" shit.

here's the kind of turd this Killer Kop is:
PPB Ronald Frashour 02.Feb.2010 09:04
ICU link

http://www.policeabuse.com/index.php?optio…

On 09/22/2007, Officers Stahl and Frashour of the Portland Police Bureau, were responding to domestic dispute call at the victim's home. When the Officers arrived, they were both immediately became hostile towards Ms. Kelly and her Husband; therefore Ms. Kelly declined any further "services" from the two Officers. Ms. Kelly then proceeded to go into her home, so that she could use the restroom; but was advised by Officer Frashour that she "may be arrested" (exact words on police report). Having not committed any crimes, Ms. Kelly continued to the restroom. Officer Frashour then illegally entered Ms. Kelly's home, kicked in her bathroom door and forced her to the ground; using unnecessary excessive force and large amounts of chemical spray. Ultimately, Ms. Kelly was charged with resisting arrest (even though she was not actually being arrested); but the charges were later thrown out in court.

Status:Filed

Investigator's Notes: Further investigation into this incident revealed that this is not the first time a Portland resident has had a negative encounter with Officer Frashour. In 2007, Officer Fradhour and other Portland Officer were named in an excessive force lawsuit; stemming form this incident. http://blog.oregonlive.com/multimedia/2007…

In this article, another Portland resident describes how she was manhandled by Officer Frashour.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/07/3…

@trixiethyme: He wasn't holding children, the children had gotten out 34 minutes beforehand. You seem to have a reading comprehension problem.

@Reymont: I already know about your reading comprehension problem from your other comments on this blog. I'm not asking for a "standard," I'm asking for a goal, exactly like FAA has. The FAA doesn't gloss over "some people died, that happens, it is still safer than driving," (all of which are true!) like the police do. Even this press release is part of the glossing over; they minimized the victim by claiming that he wanted the police to shoot him, without actually saying what exactly he did; note the lack of direct quotes/actions/whatever, just the "perceived threatening actions."

Where are all the commenters now that it's been established that the man was unarmed, in contact with the police, to whom he had promised not to harm himself or anyone else, walking backwarde with his hands on his head. If those things don't spell out, clearly, that he was surrendering, what else could he have done (aside from being white, which probably wasn't an option at the time)?