Last week, Mayor Tom Potter stood by his May decision to fire
Portland Police Bureau Lieutenant Jeffrey Kaer for poor decision-making
leading up to Kaer’s fatal shooting of 28-year-old Dennis Young in
January 2006.
But police oversight activists say the mayor’s language in firing
Kaer is designed to avoid the city being sued, rather than create true
accountability for the police.
Potter delivered a statement to the media outside his office last
Thursday, August 16, once again accusing Kaer of bad performance in the
events leading up to the shooting—but not accusing the lieutenant
of wrongdoing by pulling the trigger.
“This has been a difficult decision for me to make, and not one I
make lightly,” said the mayor. “But I believe our community must hold
its police officers to the highest standards of behavior, and on the
evening of January 4, 2006, Lt. Kaer failed to meet those standards.
Ultimately, that failure contributed to the death of a human
being.”
Potter added that while Kaer’s decision to shoot “was not unlawful,”
it violated Bureau Directive 1010.10, stating that bureau members not
place themselves or others in jeopardy by engaging in actions
inconsistent with their training.
“The mayor is saying, ‘You shouldn’t have pulled the trigger toward
a moving car,’ but he isn’t saying, ‘You shouldn’t have shot this human
being,'” says Copwatch activist Dan Handelman. “They’re accusing Kaer
of poor decision-making in everything leading up to the shooting, but
not in the shooting itself. This is the same thing that happened with
Officer Scott McCollister over the Kendra James shooting in 2003.”
But Potter’s termination of Kaer represents a tougher approach than
that taken by Mayor Vera Katz in 2003 over the Kendra James shooting:
McCollister was suspended for five and a half months without pay for
shooting James. Potter said Kaer’s experience as a lieutenant was a
factor in the termination.
“We are deeply disappointed with the mayor’s decision,” says
Commander Mike Reese, a spokesperson for the Commanding Officers’
Union, of which Kaer is a member. “And we expect an independent arbiter
to reach a different decision.”