OPB’s Think Out Loud is taking on the fatal police shooting of homeless man Jackie Collins this morning. Before this point, the public has mostly weighed in via protests and blog comments.
I’ll be liveblogging the show, so weigh in on the comments with your thoughts or opinions on the questions and dialogue.
Emily Harris kicks off the show noting that this is the second police shooting in two months, “What is similar and what is different about these two shootings? How do they affect your view of the police?”
Question for the medical examiner: Had Collins been drinking or doing any drugs?
Examiner Dr. Karen Gunson replied that she could not smell alcohol on the man and her on the scene investigators did not find any bottles or drug paraphernalia, but the tests aren’t done. “I can’t tell you yet because we have to do toxicology test and those take a couple weeks,” says Gunson. This is relevant because the person who called 911 initially described Collins as a “drunk transient.” As his later wounds appear self-inflicted, it’s possible that Collins was not drunk but in severe emotional distress.
Collins also had lung disease, says the examiner. Definitely signs of a hard life.
9:15 AM
Harris asked Dr. Gunson is she had seen the knife Collins was waving at Officer James Walters, but I wish the doctor would elaborate on what the knife actually looked like. The police have described the knife as a “razor knife with a six-inch handle” which makes me ask… what the hell is a razor knife? And why would the cops emphasize the handle length rather than, you know, the length of the part that actually does the cutting. That description makes it sound like Collins was wielding a box cutter. Those have about six-inch handles, but “razor knife” sounds much more fearsome than “box cutter.”
9:19 AM
That’s it — Dr. Gunson just described a photo of the scene as Collins’ body lying crumpled on the ground next to a box cutter. Should we scrap this “razor knife” description?
Police union President Scott Westerman just joined the show. He has a tendency to shoot his mouth off a bit, so this could get interesting.
Why didn’t the officer use a Taser, asks Harris. “Officer Walters was by himself at this time and Taser success rate is not 100 percent, especially with multiple layers of closing, so what happens when the Taser fails?” replies Westerman.
I’m going to jump below the cut now, keep tuning in.
Westerman admits that he has not actually spoken with the officer involved in the shooting, Officer James Walters, just the officer’s lawyer. That does not stop him, though, from leaping the justify why the officer brought his gun to a knife fight.
“Why didn’t the officer use a Taser?” asks a caller.
“This man wasn’t reacting when he had a live firearm pointed at him and the officer screaming ‘Drop the knife! Drop the knife! Drop the knife!'” says Westerman.
9:29 AM
April Baer is describing the protest last night, which met up in Colonel Summers Park. There were about 100 people there, says Baer, but it “wasn’t a formal protest.” She notes that there was a drum circle, but that the people she spoke with were angry about the police and there was a good deal of will to do something right then. Like a march. Which took two hours to start.
As for how media got kicked out of the meeting, Baer says she didn’t see what happened there. “My impression was it was a group of people who had had less than ideal interactions with the media before,” says Baer.
9:32 AM
A good point from Baer: “There’s no Jesse Jackson figure here. It could be that this man has no one to speak for him.”
Will Portlanders get more angry about police shooting a black man than shooting a homeless man? Will we see homeless groups like Sisters of the Road or Street Roots take an activist position on this shooting, like Albina Ministerial Alliance did for Aaron Campbell?
9:35 AM
Portland Mental Health Association lawyer and public defender Chris O’Connor makes an important distinction that a lot of reports (including mine) have overlooked before: Officer James Walters was not sent out to the scene by a police dispatcher. He was self-dispatched. When the 911 call came in complaining of a “drunk transient” harassing people in the park, the caller noted he was “not physically violent.” Minutes later, he was shot.
9:40 AM
Wow, another startling fact from Chris O’Connor: Portland is one of the only cities in the country were cops involved in shootings give VOLUNTARY statements to investigators. In other cities, they have to tell investigators their version of events, often on the same day the incident goes down. Officer Walters has still not been officially interviewed about the shooting.
Doesn’t that seem like a problem? It has now been almost two days since Officer Walters shot Jackie Collins. His memory has to be shifting and fading and, frankly, it looks suspicious not to interview the officer right after the incident. The time lapse could give the officer time to get a story together that makes him not look bad.
9:49 AM
Word fight! Razor knife vs. box cutter, razor knife vs. box cutter… and now police description of Collins as “charging” from the bathroom versus other accounts saying Collins “emerged” from the bathroom. That makes a big difference. Was the guy CHARGING Officer Walters with a razor knife or merely wandering around, confused and bleeding with a box cutter?
Westerman denies he ever used the word “charged” to describe the incident, despite media reports that report that’s exactly the word he used.
9:53
WTF?!
Westerman is defending Officer Walter’s choice to use force, “Officer Walters is a compassionate person, this is a vegan bicycle-riding police officer.”
Harris jumped in, “Do being vegan and riding a bike make you compassionate?”
“No, but he’s very Portland,” replied Westerman.
WTF?! So if an officer shoots someone, don’t worry, it’s probably justified if he’s Portland.
10 AM
I missed a couple important points of this discussion, hopefully I can wrap up some of the questions Harris and listeners asked in posts later today. If you’ve got an extra hour in your life, listen to the entire broadcast here.
A box cutter is a lethal weapon. It was the weapon of choice of the 9-1-1 hijackers.
OMG, you’re right! He was totally about to crash that bathroom into the US Bank Tower!
Westerman: “Officer Walters is a compassionate person, this is a vegan bicycle-riding police officer.”
Harris jumped in, “Do being vegan and riding a bike make you compassionate?”
“No, but he’s very Portland,” replied Westerman.
Shit I’m a bicycle-riding Portlander from Downtown and I’ll shoot the crap outta someone coming at me with a box cutter. WTH does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
“That does not stop him, though, from leaping the justify why the officer brought his gun to a knife fight.”
Last time I checked, officers don’t carry knives and try to reenact they open scene from Micheal Jackson’s Beat it video…
“the 911 call came in complaining of a “drunk transient” harassing people in the park, the caller noted he was “not physically violent.” Minutes later, he was shot.”
The caller also didn’t state that the man was holding a box cutter and was covered in blood. Those are two developments that change the situation the officer was walking into. Don’t you think?
Sarah, in your points under 9:40 am, you are missing some important details that were said. The call-taker at BOEC put the call in the district officer’s queue as a priority C call. That means basically, you don’t have to get there right away — just check it out with you can. They also said that the officer called the Arboretum and talked to someone and said if he gets violent, call back. Then he found time to get there and check it out (probably because there was no other priority calls in the dispatch queue for his district). If you want to continue your hands-on understanding of how the police bureau works (a la your visit to the shooting range), might I suggest you take a day and go on a ride-along with an officer and see things from a patrol car and see how they work?
Also, I think it would be important if you would flush out Scott Westerman’s response to why the district attorney doesn’t want compulsory interviews with officers right away — basically that the DA wants to reserve the right to prosecute an officer, and they can’t do that if they’re compelled to talk.
Regarding the comment about being Portland, I think Westerman’s point was, defending the criticism that Portland Police officers don’t live in Portland, James Walters isn’t some right-wing nut from Vancouver. Perhaps referring to him as a bike-riding vegan is labeling, but labeling is how groups like the police refer to people that don’t fit their typical mold.
@Paul Cone, I agree. I think they were just trying to say, “Look, this isn’t a trigger happy cop, he’s a descent guy…” In short, they’re trying to differentiate him from someone like Humphreys.
Westerman is a dick and is bad at his job as a spokesman. Every time he talks I don’t believe a word coming out of his mouth. His defense of every shitty cop in the past has made me not believe a word of what he says in this situation. This cop may have done exactly what he should have done…but Westerman sticking up for assholes like Chris Humphries makes me not believe him one bit in this case. Is it just me?
@DLS 3.0 / Paul Cone –
I totally agree, I’d hate to see this guy get the public to crash down on him just because of the trigger-happy cops out there (like Humphreys). However I am reserving my judgement on the officer until a full report is published
and @ Blackout – yeah, I think once everyone settles down a bit we need the cops to hold the press conferences themselves… but not until the media backs off a bit…. I think that will give everyone a real sense of how competent the officer is at his job, and how much trigger-happy-ness (or lack-there-of) the officer has, instead of having this artard telling everyone that every cop is perfect.
I understand that there are serious bloodborne diseases that can be contracted from being cut with a dirty blade. However, if my tax dollars are going to pay for a police force, that’s exactly what I want them to be – a force. Step 1 should’ve been for the officer to use the taser. If it failed, he probably could have forced the “knife” from the man. If he got cut, so what, that’s part of his job. That’s the risk I expect him to take – to try to calm the situation without the use of deadly force. They say you don’t bring a knife to a gun fight for a reason. I think the officer one-upped the man in weaponry.
I would like to see some psychiatrists on staff as well as maybe a tranquilizer gun. There’s no need to use guns all the time – especially on the mentally ill.
Re: “… what the hell is a razor knife?” I had the same question all of yesterday and today. Maybe they were trying to distinguish from a shaving razor and a box cutter? That’s probably being too generous, though.
If the police are telling the truth about this incident then I completely support Officer Walters on this one. There’s something called the 21 foot rule which basically states that an average person armed with an edged weapon can cover 21 feet and stab/slash/cut the shit out of you before you can draw a holstered pistol. People who are agitated, intoxicated, etc. can get you even faster.
As far as taser use goes, that would be nice if the cop had had the time and if someone else had a gun pointed at the dead guy just in case but it doesn’t sound like it went down that way. And tranquilizer darts? This isn’t fucking Wild Kingdom, there are in fact dangerous armed people out there who might just occasionally warrant getting shot.
And another thing, expecting cops to get cut is insane. Get cut where? The face, the throat. That’s the kind of dribble that makes us lefties look like idiots, so keep it to yourself please. Besides, who would pay for all of those cut up cops disability checks? Us, and they’d just spend it at home in Camas.
It’s tragic when mental illness winds up causing an incident like this. We should focus our efforts both on helping the afflicted and in getting rid of thugs like Humphries and Westerman who are hurting the good cops that I’m sure we have somewhere in this town. Again, I hate to say it but if the story is true, I would have shot that guy too. What a sucky situation.
There is a type of box cutter that actually uses single edged razor blades. Maybe that’s what they are talking about. They are definitely nasty, dangerous devices.
You know what? there used to be a time for the media to “Back Off”… There used to be a time for me to believe Scott Westerman about whether an officer had done right or wrong… now is the time that we need to ask “exactly how many more people need to die before the police can trust us enough to be honest with us.
Post James Chasse we are told that the Portland Police are trained to deal with people experiencing some sort of mental break, yet all we see are more people being killed.
Pretty much every officer carries a set of puncture proof gloves. All officers are trained in how to disarm someone.
thanks
Patrick
Anybody here want to put on some puncture proof gloves and take a box cutter away from a mentally disturbed person covered in blood?
I didn’t fucking think so.
We absolutely need to hold the PPB’s feet to the fire every time they kill or injure someone. They need to be held accountable.
The problem here is all of the armchair quarterbacks who think they know what to do when confronting armed people. Puncture proof gloves, super karate-fu moves, and a fistful of tranquilizer darts would do what? Some of you live in an imaginary world where people don’t hurt one another and every crazy person can be gently scolded and sent home with a note.
Don’t confuse this incident with Chasse, Campbell, beanbag girl, etc. who were unarmed when they were killed or injured by the PPB. We need to keep our collective eye on the ball of meaningful police reform.
Let’s make sure the cops aren’t lying about this incident for sure. If their story is true then we need to support Walters. Full stop.
Nobody is saying “back off” here. The PPB needs to be cleaned up and the union needs a spanking, not the fun kind, the make them cry kind.
The problem I see is all of the bullshit speculating from people who have never had an armed encounter.
Patrick, do you really think you could put on a pair of puncture proof gloves and take a box cutter away from someone? Give me a fucking break.
Shit, got an error message on the long post now I’ve stated the same idea twice.
Pick the version you like best!
Milfalicious – that my friend is why they get paid good money.
As for the knife being pointed at you, count yourself lucky if you have never had that happen, it is not something that I enjoyed. I would suggest however, that since we pay them to deal with these kinds of things, and supposedly they have training in how to disarm someone, training to deal with mental illnesses, AND training to call for backup if there is a problem… one wonders why this guy died.
As no doubt reasonable it is for Westerman to accuse the guy of charging out of the restroom with a machete, it is also reasonable to say that a guy walked out of the bathroom holding a “hobby knife” he had been trying to shave with (remember the plastic bag they were talking about him having in the other hand?)… the cop, seeing someone that was not immediately his “bitch” decided it was time to shoot another Portlander.
I ask, where is our increased IPR? It seems that we have the Police’s answer as to whether they need increased oversight or not…
thanks
Patrick
A lot of police supporters, have somewhat reasonable responses to criticism. Mostly, ‘you don’t know, you weren’t there’, ‘it’s a very tough job’ and, ‘he only had a split second to decide’. All perfectly reasonable explanations. I’ve been to firearms training, things happen very quickly and instant decisions have to come from instinct and training.
The problem is that we can’t seem to go 2 months without another dead citizen, or an unarmed person being injured. It’s happening so often that there is no choice to assume that lethal force is now a police officers 1st choice. Unacceptable.
As so many have already said. If you need a situation de-escalated DON’T call the cops.
It appears that there wasn’t time to call for back-up, and the police are NOT paid to be cut or stabbed while attempting to disarm a person wielding a sharp weapon. And from his picture, I doubt that he was trying to shave. It looks more and more to me that it was suicide by cop, and I really feel sorry for the involved officer. I don’t feel sorry for the few bad apples in the PPB, though.
Ujfoyt,
how did you come up with your theory of “Suicide by cop”?
mine, I came up with because I have used a knife to cut away the bulk of my beard before, and used to keep my soap, razor, etc in a plastic bag while homeless.
thanks
Patrick
poor “Robert Collins” didn’t get the memo, did he? The last time authorities used the “box cutters” in their “official version” of events, it blew up in their faces making them out to be craven liars spinning a Big Lie in such a silly ham-handed manner that not only made them the laughingstock of the world, but wakened the world up to how vicious ‘n’ vile were these people who spinned such incredible tall tales.
fascinating to notice and remember that they called an fucking exacto ie hobby knife with a one inch blade a box cutter
im thinking so that they could link it to crazed 911 terrorists