Portland Police Chief Mike Marshman will be out of a job soon, as Mayor Ted Wheeler announced today that he’s picked Oakland Deputy Chief Danielle Outlaw, 41, to lead the Portland Police Bureau (PPB). Outlaw, a 19-year veteran of the Oakland Police Department, will become Portland’s third female and first woman of color to head the PPB.
It’s expected she’ll start no later than early October.
The move comes after a several months-long national search for a PPB chief, as Wheeler promised during his campaign last year. Marshman, appointed last June by then-Mayor Charlie Hales to replace trigger-happy Larry O’Dea, has been a favorite of the rank-and-file police union and a frequent target of criticism of police reform activists.
“During the selection process, Mayor Wheeler emphasized the qualities he wants in a police chief, based upon the principles of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing,” Wheeler’s office announced this afternoon. “The Mayor selected Outlaw based on her ability to provide leadership and supervision to over 950 sworn and 270 non-sworn employees, to work effectively with diverse communities, and to lead an organization committed to community policing, transparency and accountability. Wheeler and Outlaw have a shared dedication to improving relationships with Portland’s communities of color, increasing diversity and embracing equity.”
The city and Outlaw will hold a press conference on Thursday. In the meantime, Marshman has issued a statement strongly suggesting he’ll opt to retire now that his bid to remain as chief has failed.
“It has been an honor to serve as Chief of Police and to serve this community throughout my career,” he wrote. “I’m confident that the Portland Police Bureau will continue to be a leader in 21st Century Policing and the community should rest easy knowing they have one of the best police departments in the country.”
Wheeler’s choice, awaited for weeks, spurred a flurry of reactions from various organizations. The Portland Police Association thanked Marshman—its preferred candidate—for his service.
“He took a department that was in shallow water headed for rocks, turned us around and pointed us to the horizon,” PPA President Daryl Turner said in a phone interview. Turner, who was involved in interviewing candidates for chief, declined to share his impressions of Outlaw, saying he’d signed a nondisclosure agreement.
Meanwhile, the activist group Portland’s Resistance issued a statement saying it wouldn’t push for a recall of Wheeler. The group had threatened to try to toss the mayor from office if he allowed Marshman to continue on.
“We are cautiously optimistic that this hiring will mark a new direction for policing in Portland,” the statement says. “We are also proud to have a woman of color as our police chief.”
According to a biography provided by Wheeler’s office, Outlaw is only the second female deputy chief in the history of the Oakland Police Department, a position she appears to have held since 2013. She first began working at the department while she was still in high school.
Assuming she passes a state police background check, Outlaw will be Portland’s fourth woman chief (if you count the interim stint of Donna Henderson last year). More on Outlaw from the release:
Outlaw obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University. She is a graduate of the Police Executive Research Forum Senior Management Institute for Police and the Major Cities Chiefs’ Association Police Executive Leadership Institute. Outlaw is a member of the National Organization for Black Law Enforcement Executives (N.O.B.L.E.).
“My life’s passion is policing. I want to make a positive difference in the lives of my fellow officers and the residents of the community,” said Outlaw. “Portland is an amazing City. I am humbled by the tremendous opportunity in front of me, and am ready to get to get to work.”
The varied reactions to Marshman’s ouster speak to a tenure atop the police bureau that saw its share of turbulence. Marshman had barely been sworn in last year when he was forced to acknowledge a 2006 incident in which he grabbed his 16-year-old step-son by the neck and pushed him against a wall. The admission rankled many, and has been cited frequently in recent days as a reason Marshman should not be picked.
More pressing, though, have been police responses to protests that have unfolded since Donald Trump was elected president. Rioting broke out shortly after election day, when police had used a light tough on demonstrators marching through the street. That resulted in a revamped strategy that many believe has been too forceful.
With all those degrees it seems like she could have a way higher paying job than a Police Chief. California colleges beat Oregon colleges in every way.
I’m sure that there might be a lot of bias against Oakland from some unintelligent commenters/Oregonians. But Oakland officer/s and several other police officers from the bay area were just in the news last year for passing around an underage minor for sexual favors.
Oakland has had a terrible history of its own police force. I lived in West Oakland for two years and LOVED every minute of it. The only ‘bad part’ about would be the interactions I had with police over supposed traffic violations and dealing with the court regarding those violations. One time I was even stopped in the “nicer” part of West Oakland on a mountain bike for supposedly not obeying some traffic light. It was then I realized that all this stopping was total racial harassment. You don’t stop people on mountain bikes when there is no traffic. It was a completely dead street without any traffic. There was no need to stop me. That cop had it in for me because of my ethnicity (Latina). Luckily another cop saw the scene and also stopped. Then I was “let go”. I’ll just say it. The bad cop was Latino and the good cop was Asian.
I had been pulled over many times in my neighborhood while driving. The officers were of various backgrounds some were White, African American and Latino. They all stopped me without reason as far as I could tell. Only some of the stops resulted in minor traffic violations. I assume the non-ticked stops were just them racially harassing people.
About four years ago, in Portland, I believe I almost was very close to being a victim of an “accidental police shooting” by Portland Police. Pro-tip: if officers approach you while you are doing absolutely nothing, not even driving, (I have learned the hard way), they have a bigger plan in mind. I was sitting in my car in an empty lot. It was around 4 pm, still light outside and I was just sitting there, not doing anything in particular. I am just sitting there not doing anything when an officer approaches me about some supposed complaint by a neighbor and he wanted to check my ID. I had been involved in an “altercation” where the other person had a weapon, a gun, and I was scared of this other person. In hindsight, I realize how incredibly naive it was to have expected an Oregon Police officer to help anyone of Latino/Hispanic heritage even if they are a victim of someone with a weapon. To my disbelief the other person was not charged. And neither was I–this is an important part of the story.
This cop who had approached me on a false premise (a lie) came back to my car EXTREMELY TENSE WITH HIS HAD ON HIS WEAPON saying I had been arrested and it involved a gun. I had been calm the entire time and now was being very consciously calm and not moving in any way and said I had not been charged for anything. He glaringly looked over me, seeing how I wouldn’t move or in his mind “provoke him” in some way there was nothing more he could do. He eventually left. So while I was repeatedly racially harassed while driving in Oakland, I came eerily close to becoming an ‘accidental’ police shooting victim in Portland. I’m sure the IPR would turn this around and say how all Latinos are involved with guns and therefore I HAVE NOT brought a complaint about the incident to the attention of the CRC or IPR.