AFTER KELLY SWOBODA was killed by Portland police four years ago, news outlets across the country shared the lurid details of his van.
Swoboda, whom local cops confronted in March 2014 after reports that he was acting suspiciously around teenage girls, had outfitted his minivan with chains and ropes. The vehicle contained pornographic movies that emphasized the youth of their actresses. Cops found latex gloves and lubricant.
The New York Daily News—writing of Swoboda’s death in a gunfight with a Portland officer, and his earlier attempted kidnapping of a Milwaukie tanning salon employee—dubbed him a “van sicko.” The facts of the case make it hard to disagree.
But how those facts came to light is now a matter of some controversy—one that has ramifications for more recent officer-involved shootings.
In a report released last week, an independent auditor took the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office to task for the way it presented the Swoboda case to the grand jurors who decided whether to charge the cop who killed him, Officer John Romero.
Since 2010, the California-based OIR Group has looked into how the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) handles police shootings. In its latest analysis, the organization extends that scrutiny, arguing prosecutors needlessly—and perhaps unethically—brought the disturbing details of the contents of Swoboda’s van before jurors, even though they had little bearing on the reason Romero shot Swoboda.
“The grand jury presentation should have focused on the overwhelming evidence that Officer Romero acted in self-defense when he used deadly force,” OIR’s report found. “Unfortunately, the grand jury proceeding was infected with evidence about Swoboda’s history, character, and presumed intent.”