City Commissioner Randy Leonard is planning to strengthen police oversight this Thursday afternoon. In advance, the Independent Police Review has gathered its Citizen Review Committee to guage its opinion on the idea.
“Some of the responses we have gotten from the police bureau, including from Assistant Chief Brian Martinek, have felt dismissive,” said CRC member Jamie Troy II. “That’s not acceptable, and that’s not indicative of a police bureau who takes citizen review seriously. The appropriate thing to do is to beef up citizen oversight, and give it some muscle. Fundamentally I agree with the concept and I think it’s past time.”
“It goes back to the teeth, the accountability, to the bureau knowing that they cannot just dismiss a request from us,” said CRC member Ayoob Ramjan. “I’m looking for a way that all the agencies are treating each other with the appropriate level of respect. As a citizen, I’m expecting that the police are going to respond to me in an appropriate way and an accountable way because they work for me.”
“Oversight is not watching the police police themselves,” said Mary-Beth Baptista. “It’s being active in the bureau. And so that’s the accountability gap, that’s why there’s a crisis of confidence right now.”
Much more on this idea in tomorrow’s paper.
Oh My God! This is a no brainer! You headline “Citizen Review Committee: Cops Dismiss Us” and the solution to that is…US DISMISS COPS, as in kick some of their asses to the curb and be damned and done with ’em one time for all time! It’s called Simple Solutions for Simpletons! Easy as eating pie! Try it ((we’ve tried everything else!))
I’m not a Portland or Oregon resident, but this is way overdue. Having (any) cops policing themselves is like having the fox guard the henhouse. There MUST be public oversight, with teeth, so the police (I’ll admit that it is just a few bad ones) cannot just dismiss citizen complaints and/or drag investigations out so long that most people forget about them.
Hey, that’s funny Ujfoyt – like you, many (most) Portland police officers are neither Portland nor Oregon residents. so your opinion is just as valuable as their opinion. You aren’t even tainted by making a six figure salary (with overtime) with amazing benefits.
Chief-in-Waiting Martinek dismisses the citizens! (way to nut-up on that rumored bold “change,” Dan!) No way! I thought Sizer/Noelle II might pack up his moving van from Estacada or wherever he R&R’s from us hostiles and start going by streetcar with all of the Portland “libs” or whatever his buddies like to call the people who pay their bloated salaries, overtime and pensions and whom they’ve sworn to protect and serve.
The brass and the unions keep whining that “the people don’t get what we do.” What a canard. They work for the citizens. The real issue is that they aren’t doing what the citizens want them to do, and they want to act like they get to decide what the citizens want them to do. Under a state of martial law, that might make some sense. While that may be a dream world for some, that’s not what where we live. In a free society, what they are arguing for amounts to something resembling a slow, insidious coup.
Actually, Number Six, I wasn’t referring to the Portland police in particular. I meant any police force. I think we are having problems over here in Vancouver, also. I mean, I read yesterday that there are 181 sworn officers in the VPD, but they have an Assistant Police Chief. That sounds a little unreasonable to me, and , by the way, just where does all this overtime come from? I realize that the officers have to appear in court and have other duties besides patrolling, but wouldn’t it be cheaper to have more police officers? Just askin’.