Rev. LeRoy Haynes Jr. has been fighting for decades for civil rights, justice, and accountable policing. In the wake of city officials declining to hold Portland Police Bureau’s top leadership responsible for shortcomings and excessive force during the 2020 racial justice protests, he’s still fighting.
Haynes was among those who spoke out Tuesday, August 25 against a lack of transparency around the city’s response to Portland’s Independent Police Review (IPR) of how police handled the 2020 protests. Haynes is part of Portland’s Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform. The group was an amicus (or friend of the court) in the settlement agreement between the US Department of Justice and the city of Portland, after the DOJ sued the city over its policing practices in 2012. The settlement remains active and still governs several aspects of the city’s police force.
On Tuesday, the Coalition joined members of the Mental Health Alliance–another amicus in the DOJ settlement–and Portland Copwatch, to denounce a lack of action on behalf of Mayor Keith Wilson and Deputy City Administrator Tracy Warren, who both declined to uphold two recommendations from the IPR. The groups are also calling on the city to release all documents related to PPB’s 2020 protest response.
“We’ve been at this thing a while,” Haynes said from Allen Temple CME church in Northeast Portland, noting the Coalition has met regularly over the last 12 years with city attorneys, mayors, police chiefs, officers, and more recently, with the Independent Monitor appointed to oversee the DOJ settlement agreement. “We’ve seen it unfold and put back together again, and unfold and put back together, but we’ve been persistent in wanting to see this city do better, and wanting to see our police bureau become a model police bureau.”
While the city has yet to release the full scope of investigative documents related to IPR’s review of the 2020 protests, recently released memos provide an overview of the group’s investigation into how PPB’s top leaders handled the months-long racial justice demonstrations. Documents show IPR investigated whether incident commanders authorized excessive levels of force that violated PPB directives during the city’s ongoing protests in 2020. IPR also looked at PPB’s crowd management and crowd control training during that time, as well as the Bureau’s compliance with reporting each use of force, as required.
Overall, IPR found PPB leadership wasn’t responsible for officers’ excessive use of force, but the review board—the former police oversight body tasked with investigating complaints and reviewing policies—found former assistant chief Jami Resch and Assistant Chief Chuck Lovell, who was serving as the acting chief at the time, failed to ensure proper reporting of all the Bureau’s use of force incidents.
According to IPR investigators, Resch “took the initiative in leading the Bureau’s attempts to fix problems” with the force data collection report and after action reporting processes. “Ultimately however, these attempts were not successful, and the Bureau did not complete all AARs as required.”
PPB is required to perform a detailed review whenever an officer uses force. An officer is required to document the force used in a force data collection report, and their chain of command is also supposed to complete an after-action report to review the use of force and the completeness of the officer’s report. The reporting processes are “data intensive, even when reviewing low-level force,” Warren stated in her memo to Mayor Wilson.
Neither Resch nor Lovell are still employed by PPB.
“Multiple witnesses credibly testified that the force-review processes were developed with discrete uses of force in mind, as opposed to sustained, volatile crowd control events,” Warren noted, citing IPR investigative summaries. “As the 2020 protests continued, with frequent civil disturbances and riots, the Bureau documented over 6,000 uses of force, triggering multiple AARs after each evening’s events.”
The 2020 protests were marked by heavy use of CS gas, pepper balls, and other crowd control munitions by law enforcement. The sheer volume of reporting required due to repeated use of force caused a breakdown in adherence to policies within PPB, IPR investigators noted.
IPR investigators ultimately determined Resch failed to ensure the use of force reports stemming from crowd control events were completed as required. They also found Lovell should be held responsible as well, because he was overseeing PPB at the time.
Deputy City Administrator Warren disagreed.
“Ultimately, I am persuaded by the multiple, proactive steps taken by former AC Resch to remediate the delayed completion of FDCRs and AARs,” she wrote. Mayor Wilson agreed and IPR’s findings weren’t sustained.
As for the multiple instances of excessive force used by officers, IPR found PPB leadership couldn’t be held accountable because there was no evidence suggesting commanders at the time improperly instructed officers or permitted them to use force that exceeded the Bureau’s own directives.
In 2021, the DOJ found the city out of compliance with its own use of force directives and the city later faced multiple bodily injury lawsuits stemming from use of force during the 2020 protests.
“What a way to disappoint us again,” Pastor Robin Wisner said Tuesday, recalling his own experiences with police in Portland over the past 30 years, including an incident where he had a less lethal bean bag launcher pointed at him during a protest decades ago over police killings of community members. “We’ve been fighting for justice for people to have accountability. We thought we were progressing.”
During a press conference the same day, Portland Police Chief Bob Day said the culture within PPB has changed since 2020.
“When we talk about accountability … oftentimes, people are looking for a form of punishment,” Day said. “I believe accountability and culture change occurs around corrective action, and that discipline is intended to change behavior. We’re not into punishing people. We’re into changing behavior.”
The Mental Health Alliance says by withholding the full set of documents related to IPR’s investigation, the city is doing the public—and by extension its own police bureau—a disservice.
“The people of Portland deserve better. We deserve a law enforcement agency which is transparent, open, responsive, and which affirms the PPB’s credibility and legitimacy,” a statement from the organization reads. “Providing the public with complete, thorough and timely findings of these investigations could have only served to encourage dialogue and build trust between PPB and community members. Delay only breeds suspicion and mistrust.”
For Haynes and others, the city’s response feels like a lack of culpability. Still, he’s undeterred. “We have been at the table and we are still at the table, and we will not give up until every citizen, Black, or brown, or white, or any other group, any other gender, sexual orientation, has a right to protest and be treated with respect.”
