The police records released today include a transcript of investigator’s interview with Officer Jason Walters, the police officer who responded to the 911 call of a drunk transient in Hoyt Arboretum on March 22nd and wound up shooting Jack Collins. The interview provides an interesting insight into the thinking of the officer before he pulled the trigger.
Officer Walters told investigators that he was feeling fine on the day of the shooting. He hadn’t drunk any alcohol, he wasn’t on any drugs. The day before, Walters had wrapped up work, biked home, played games with his kids and watched a NOVA documentary before going to bed at nine oโclock or so. He woke up at 5AM to get to work on time. Just a regular day.
Walters told the investigators that he was pretty confident when he responded to the scene. He had worked in the area for five years and had a โgood rapport with transients in the area.โ Walters slipped on rubber gloves to keep his hands clean and knocked twice on the restroom door, where a witness said Collins was inside. The bathroom door opened and Walters stepped back as Collins emerged. Collinsโ beard, neck and hands were covered in blood. From the report:
Officer Walters said he was asking the subject, โWhatโs wrong,โ and โWhatโs wrong with you?โ Officer Walters said he then looked at the subjectโs left hand and saw he was holding an โExactoโ style knife, and said the knife was upright with a razor tip for a blade. Officer Walters said the knife was bloody, and said it was being held upright tilted towards Officer Walters.
Officer Walters said he was surprised because he was not expecting a bloody guy holding a knife to open the door and Officer Walters said it took a second to register what was occurringโฆ I asked Officer Walters where the subject was looking and Officer Walters said the subject was looking right at him. Officer Walters said it was odd that he was asking the subject questions, however the subject was not responding to the questions.
Things started happening quickly. Officer Walters starts backing up. The interviewer asks how Walters was feeling, what was he thinking at this point?
Read the 456 pages of police reports on the Collins’ shooting here.
Man. I can’t find much to blame on Officer Walters, if he’s telling the truth. I would’ve been scared out of my wits, at the very least caught off-guard, and I’ve been in my fair share of scary situations in the military.
I wish I could trust this to be true, PPB.
“…as he’s walking slowly…”
Could’ve been a zombie for all Walters knew. Consequently it would’ve been the first thing I thought. And I’m not joking.
Oh no! Not an “Exacto” knife! You might have to get three, maybe four stitches! Plus, it’s not like you’re trained to deal with situations just like that . . .
Aaroncolter volunteers to be cut by an exacto knife!
The ol’ pigsticker-fear defense…
A bike-riding, game-playing, PBS-documentary watching guy runs afoul of a drunk transient covered with blood wielding a razor. Shoots the guy in the arms and hip, nicking an artery which results in the transient bleeding out. I know the Portland police have a less-than-stellar track record when it comes to fatal shootings, but this seems as warranted a use of force as your going to find outside of an outright attack.
This guy was wondering if his kids would ever see him again and all some of you can do is lump him in with all the rest of the Portland Police. A bloody transient comes out wielding an exacto knife and doesn’t respond to commands to drop it. What exactly should he have done? What the hell is wrong with you people?
Man, this… this is just really fucking sad.
If this happened a year or two ago, we wouldn’t even be seeing this kind of uproar. This is an unfortunate case of bad timing that sadly resulted in the death of a transient.
Don’t worry anarchists, PPB will screw something up for you to break windows over soon enough.
You act as if they pulled some random guy off the street and said “you’re a cop now” they have extensive training on how to handle a possible attack.
I guess we’ll just take his word on this one-
“Officer Walters told investigators that he was feeling fine on the day of the shooting. *He hadn’t drunk any alcohol, he wasn’t on any drugs*”
As a peacenick and as someone who kind od sort of hates authority, I gotta say I don’t blame the officer one bit.
ntreceks’ remark is exactly the reason there should be drug testing for any officer involved in a shooting, deadly or not. Anybody that objects to this is trying to hide something. You have to pass a drug screen just to drive a damned forklift, for petes’ sake. The police should too. Westerman needs to p;ll his head out of his ass. And I second Reymonts remark.
Sorry to all the haters, but this was a justifiable shooting. Does not make it any easier for Officer Walters or anyone in his family to deal with, and they are dealing. You have seconds to make a potentially life-changing decision. He did exactly as he was trained to do. He knows his job and he does it well and has for 13 years. Move on.
“Oh no! Not an “Exacto” knife! You might have to get three, maybe four stitches!”
I’ve cut myself with an exacto knife on accident and it required 4 stitches. I have a nice scar on my hand from it. I’m no police apologist but if you don’t think you can’t do real damage with an exacto knife you’re only kidding yourself. I imagine it would take some precise cutting to kill someone with an exacto but you could definitely cut someone up pretty good without killing them in a pretty short amount of time with one of those.
In short it looks like this is really an unfortunate thing that happened. Probably best to focus on the issue of why Jackie Collins was on the street and not in a care facility. It just looks like a tragic situation on all ends.
Sad situation and it’s not the officer’s fault Jackie Collins ended up dead, but it points to major philosophical and procedural problems at the PPB. There was a terrific letter in the Oregonian today by some elderly guy who still remembers “nightsticks” and wonders where they have gone in police training.
I wonder that very thing.
All the exacto knife needed to do was break the officer’s skin, and then whatever diseases were being carried in the unidentified blood all over Jackie would do the rest (e.g., hepatitis, AIDS). That was definitely a thought that was going through the officer’s head. Small knife plus infected blood equals serious risk to the officer’s safety. Tragic and probably preventable, but this is no campbell or chasse. But Westerman is still a buttlicker.
What Ted said.
But this is campbell or chasse if for nothing else than that the portland police department and city council refuse to admit when cops commit crimes and have in the past tried to do extensive cover ups. In that context any information coming from them must be taken with a grain of salt. Don’t we all remember how James Chasse went from a deranged coked out homeless man to a guy who was simply scared when needlessly approached by police. Furthermore isn’t it at all troubling to read the tenor of the interview. I am no expert but something tells me that if a CITIZEN and not a COP had done this the interview would probably not be so conciliatory. There is also a point where officer Walters corrects himself and starts to say he misread the fo- and then stops short. Maybe a small point but if he was reading off of documents shouldn’t that fact be identified in the transcript? Is that a courtesy that would be extended to CITIZENS? What fo-‘s was he reading from? These are not the only things I find troubling in this case but when it comes down to it you need go no further than the history of lies, blaming the dead, and false reforms to realize what the police so kindly pointed out to us with their march a couple months ago; THEY ARE ALL CHRISTOPHER HUMPHRIES.