The District Attorney’s office has dropped charges against Lisa Coppock, a woman with mental health problems who is alleging she was beaten up while being arrested by Officer Christopher Humphreys—the cop at the heart of the beanbag girl incident and the death of James Chasse.
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“It’s been two years, and really a challenge. It’s been brutal,” says Coppock’s mother, Marcia Meyers.
Coppock’s attorney, Lawrence Taylor, had served a subpoena on Officer Humphreys to appear in court for a trial next Tuesday. Coppock was charged with theft of services, resisting arrest, and interfering with a police officer. But the state dropped the charges yesterday.
“Our attorney said it was a game of chicken,” Meyers says. “And people like Lisa, who are in the pecking order of power and control, they end up in the mental hospital, they end up on the street, or they end up committing suicide or in the penitentiary because it’s too much.”
“[Civil rights attorney] Greg Kafoury said there’s no civil suit here, because it’s the police’s word against Lisa’s,” says Meyers. But she has been going to meetings of the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform. Meyers is also consulting with other attorneys.
“Two years they played chicken with her, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this,” says Meyers. “Two months she was hospitalized down in Salem. And thank goodness she showed up every time, because otherwise they could have found her guilty. Every time she was in court, that cost the taxpayer something. And not to mention all those hospitalizations, and the attorney.”
Anna Griffin ran a column on this story on March 2. We first ran the story in January 2009.
“I hope a light is shone on this archaic system,” says Meyers, who intends to attend the meeting at 2pm on Sunday at Portland State of the Citizens’ Review Committee to discuss committee relations with police.
wow! great pic of Hump-the-Thumper as it explains the vacant stare I’ve noted pre- viously in his pictures shown on the media out- lets…the guy is eat up with worms on the inside and that explains why he’s soulless and can in- flict such wanton pain mercilessly…what a piece of work this dude is? tsk! tsk!