IN A CITY that often prizes process over outcomes, Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard is by no means considered perfect. He’s been a champion of a secret police list program that has drawn comparisons to the Gestapo, been accused of trying to create his own water bureau militia by arming security guards, and has even drawn constitutional lawsuits by aggressively pursuing “problem” businesses with his so-called HIT Squad.
Still, Leonard’s latest effort to strengthen the city’s Independent Police Review (IPR)—which comes before council on Thursday afternoon, March 18—is likely to further strengthen his reputation as a populist dealmaker with a keen ear for the Rose City zeitgeist.
“Think about the difference in this community about police relations since last October,” says IPR Director Mary-Beth Baptista. “There has been a significant deterioration over the last few months.”
Indeed, calls for stronger police oversight have reached a climax in Portland ever since Officer Christopher Humphreys shot a 12-year-old girl with a “less-lethal” beanbag shotgun last fall. Humphreys was suspended by Police Commissioner Dan Saltzman, and then reinstated following a march on city hall by the police union [“A Line in the Sand,” News, Nov 26, 2009].
At the time, Leonard described Saltzman as a “parrot for the police chief.” Chief Rosie Sizer had wanted to wait until an investigation into Humphreys’ actions was complete before proposing discipline. But Humphreys was also the key officer involved in the death in police custody of James Chasse Jr., a man with schizophrenia, back in 2006. An investigation into that incident took three years to complete, resulting in suggested discipline for Humphreys of just two weeks off—prompting cries from community groups that rogue officers are being allowed to act out with impunity.
Then on January 29, Officer Ron Frashour shot Aaron Campbell in the back. Campbell was an unarmed and suicidal African American man. Last fall, Chief Sizer herself had testified against Officer Frashour in a federal court case accusing him of excessive force. Nevertheless, Frashour went back to work the day after Reverend Jesse Jackson came to town in February and called Campbell’s death “an execution,” cueing further public outrage.
“Right now is a very difficult time in our community,” said IPR’s Citizen Review Committee Chair Michael Bigham, introducing a meeting to hear community concerns about the police at Portland State University on Sunday, March 14. “People are hurt, they feel angry and confused. They want changes in how the police do business.”
The biggest change proposed by Commissioner Leonard, in partnership with the IPR and City Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade, is to create a new five-member police review board inside the police bureau. The board will include the IPR and a citizen appointed by the auditor as voting members. Leonard also wants to ensure that there’s a 12-month limit on investigations into officer misconduct, and grant the IPR subpoena power so that it can compel testimony in its investigations.
“For example, we had a case the other day where Project Respond [the county service that interfaces between police and people with mental health problems] wouldn’t talk to us,” says IPR’s Baptista. “American Medical Response [the ambulance company involved in Chasse’s death] is also notoriously difficult to get information from. And there’s a reality to that—without a subpoena, they don’t have to talk to us.”
Leonard’s changes are hardly sweeping. There’s no suggestion of drug and steroid testing for officers, ongoing psychological assessment, or new incentives for officers to live in Portland—three suggestions mentioned repeatedly at Sunday’s hearing.
“But we’re not working in a vacuum, either,” says Baptista. “The union negotiations are going on right now, and if the community really wants annual performance review, drug testing, [and] encouraging police officers to live in the city, then they have to continue to put the pressure on those negotiations.”
Those negotiations started in the dark and cavernous Portland Building on SW 4th on Friday, March 12, with the police union objecting to the city’s stance that members of the public should be able to sit in and watch. The city says that in theory, the public can sit in, but no one has ever asked before. Meanwhile, the union says the city is playing politics.
“We’re in a difficult situation here because, of course, we’re not alone in the room,” said union attorney Will Aitchison. “We have all sorts of people who are in the room with no stake in our bargaining process.”
The issue of whether the public indeed has an interest in those negotiations and can sit in on them has been referred to the state’s Employment Review Board, giving Leonard at least a few more weeks to get his reforms passed.
Meanwhile, City Commissioner Amanda Fritz plans to ask for a delay until April on Leonard’s emergency ordinance vote, which was scheduled for Thursday. Fritz wants the public to have time to review and weigh in on the proposals.
“Public involvement and transparency in decision-making are two of my core values,” she wrote in a statement on her website.
Not for Leonard, of course.
“Every minute that this strengthened oversight proposal is not in place is another minute too long,” says Leonard’s chief of staff, Ty Kovatch.
Then again, when it comes to spanking the Portland Police Bureau, some feel Fritz’s delay will simply allow Leonard time to posture more loudly. Some wonder what value Fritz’s own posturing about “public process” really has, in the greater scheme of things.
“The IPR has been toothless since it was launched in 2001,” says Jason Renaud with the Mental Health Association of Portland—an outspoken advocate for police reform. “Another month of dawdling and vote trading by city commissioners provides the same police accountability as they’ve provided for their tenure.”
Mary-Beth’s right. We got the ball rolling in October – http://tinyurl.com/y8sgoyt
Perhaps Duin is suggesting that if one of us, or several of us are killed that our use of deadly force would be more acceptable. Perhaps others in the community believe the same thing.
I don’t believe it and I’m not willing for that to happen to change the minds of Steve Duin or anyone else.
Surviving the shift and going home at the end of the night is your number one priority.
Randy Leonard, the next mayor of Portland, and the pro-tem mayor now(just ask him) WAS told about a project that was being proposed to assist all “first responders” that may receive a call for service to all elements of those that may go to a “PSRB” CRIMINALLY INSANE GROUP HOME in the city of Portland, Oregon.
These locations are in the city, they are not on the “radar” of information given to officers, firemen, etc if the call over the computer is made to the location.
I have been calling for this action, for a number of yrs, I will provide 3 noted articles regarding these CRIMINALLY INSANE patients.
1. Washington County sheriff’s deputies went door to door in Corneilus on Friday to notify 1,300 residents of criminally insane sex offenders living within a half-mile of their homes.
Sgt. David Thompson, spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said three of the eight residents at Connell House, a locked residential treatment facility at 117 N. 29th Ave., were dangerous sex offenders who’d been found to be guilty “except for insanity” at trial. One had assaulted a 3-year-old child.
2. Just before Christmas 1994, 27-year-old Perez suffered a violent break. He had been unable to sleep since his release from the hospital two days prior. His mother told police she felt sorry for him: “He looked anxious and nervous and scared.”
She was cooking breakfast when he attacked. Perez punched his mother, cut her and bit off four of her fingers. She thought he was hallucinating. “He’d never done something like that before,” she said in a police report.
Later, Perez asked a Woodburn policeman to “shoot him” and “tell the other officers that he tried to get away.”
He was found guilty except for insanity of attempted murder and assault. Instead of prison, the court placed him under the jurisdiction of Oregon’s Psychiatric Security Review Board for a maximum of 40 years.
3.When they arrived, officers found 40-year-old Sean Liam Kelly severely injured across the street, who appeared to have been stabbed. Kelly died a short time later.
Later Tuesday, homicide detectives charged Ralph Anthony Williams with one count of first-degree murder in the death. Williams and the victim both lived at a mental health group home at the address but had separate rooms.
The James Chasse case, stands for what it is…..a terrible wrong, and while many fingers will be pointed, the mental health community has purposely refused to separate the mentally ill( James Chasse) from the violent..violence of the criminally insane.
First responders…NEED ALL AVAILABLE INFORMATION to assist those there in need, and to protect those that go to render aid by protecting themselves.
Many times…this support was asked for by myself, because as a citizen, I KNOW, more about it then some who are supposed to know, and get paid well to do so.
Sheriff Rob Gordon of Washington County, and county Commissioner John Lindsey will write an OP-ED,that a the very least,will call for this information to be given to all who would benefit from it.
For to long, as an activist( I hate that cover word) more inline would be husband, now grandfather, want those who do that first work to have all they need to do it, and until these two good officials became involved and concerned…my pleas for help with my own officials have fallen on “death ears”.
Sent a letter to Randy Leonard asking for support…directly…NO RESPONSE…A STAFFER RESPONDED…answer NO! one word…..no
People who WERE are running for city hall Jason Renund(a supposed mental health activist) he was asked to get behind this project….no answer… SCOTT WESTERMAN..PPB union president NO RESPONSE EVER.
I have polled personally many, many PPB officers…some contacted 2 blocks from where we stood from the PSRB group home in SE, They had no idea…no clue to the nature of the possible threat to them. they were not happy..their managers refused to give them that field support.
Bottomline: As a young cop. or a veteran….they know, they cannot look now, to these people to protect them, they must work for Rob Gordon, in Washington county, or Commissioner John Linn, clear down in Linn county.
It tell’s me a lot….Randy Leonard has bike paths to vote for..140,O00 dollar toilets to build, and cares nothing..for the safety of those he once worked with…Stay off burning roofs Randy, your not welcome there anymore.
Jack Peek
PS: Left out,but got same response or had issue tabled for two yrs by Rep, Ben Cannon, Sen Jackie Dingfelder…and many others in city..county./.or state offices…SAD…SICK…NO EXCUSE!
The current “so-called leader at City hall of the PPB..Dan(“trees have feelings”)Saltzman promised me help if I voted for him….like RANDY….DAN….NICK…the mayor knew personally of this issue as Chief of staff way back when…and is as worthless as he was then.