Jury Fails To Convict In Alleged Rent-A-Cop Assault

Update, 3:03pm:

Parks Security Manager Mark Warrington says he meets with PPI boss John Hren on a bi-weekly basis, and that Hren informed him of the incident when it took place, as they did at the end of September this year, when a PPI officer was punched repeatedly by a transient. KGW ran this story, with a mistaken headline describing the PPI officer as a “police officer,” but you know, it’s a tough distinction to draw.

Asked why Warrington did not relay details of the altercation to Commissioner Saltzman’s office, or to the Parks’ bureau’s information officer, Warrington said he only relays details of incidents in parks “if it’s a big enough deal.”

Asked how he determines what’s a big enough deal, Warrington responded that he decides on a “case by case basis,” but that generally, he does so “if it’s going to be of interest in the community.”

The incident happened 23 days after this paper ran a feature asking about oversight for the officers, and homeless advocates were pushing, publicly, for better oversight for the parks officers. I guess Warrington has a narrower definition of “community” than some of us in the community. Because I, certainly, would have been very interested to hear about the incident when it happened.

Original post, 11:51:

This week’s newslede focuses on the trial of Steven Lee Johnson on five counts, following a physical altercation with a rent-a-cop in Waterfront park back in May 2007.

Johnson was charged by police with failure to obey a park officer and assault in the fourth degree, disorderly conduct, harassment and criminal mischief in the second degree after the altercation with Portland Patrol, Inc. Officer Ron Cash.

Accounts of the altercation differed sharply at trial, but there was no dispute that Cash broke Johnson’s finger, wrestled Johnson to the ground, and pepper sprayed him in the face. Cash told the court that did not want Johnson to get hold of his 9mm Glock pistol, which was on his left hip throughout the encounter.

A jury was still deliberating on the case when the Mercury went to press Tuesday night.

Megan Doern, spokesperson for the Portland Business Alliance (which serves as the middle-man for the contract between the city and PPI to patrol Portland’s parks) noted Tuesday night that Officer Cash “was assaulted by this man,” she wrote to the Mercury. “And the defendant [Johnson] initiated a second attack when the officer defended himself. The case has gone to trial where the court will determine whether or not the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the assault.” Doern said PPI also followed procedures “and report[ed] this incident” to the police.

But after hearing all the evidence, the jury could not reach the same conclusions as Doern evidently already had on Tuesday night about the alleged assault. Initially, the jury returned to Judge Steven Bushong’s courtroom finding Johnson guilty only for failure to obey a park officer, and not guilty on all four other counts. But asked individually whether the verdict was unanimous by Bushong, the jury members admitted that it had not been, and that there were members of the jury who could not be convinced to change their opinions based on the evidence presented. So: Judge Bushong declared a hung jury and mistrial on all four of the previous not guilty counts.

The District Attorney’s office now has to decide whether to continue to pursue the case. It is understood, from listening to testimony in court, that there were witnesses to the encounter who reside in Denver, Colorado, and also, a homeless man, Dale Box, who could not be located for a subpoena to be served. The continuation hearing is scheduled to take place on December 19 at 8:30am in Bushong’s courtroom. It’s not clear whether PPI has sufficient clout with the DA’s office to push it to pursue this case to a re-trial. Having said that, the political stakes in this case are high, so we will watch with interest.

In “oversight” terms: Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s office, which oversees the city’s contract with PPI to patrol Waterfront Park, told the Mercury this Tuesday, December 2, that it had not heard anything about the incident until contacted by this newspaper on Monday night. A parks spokesperson was inquiring with the bureau’s security manager, Mark Warrington, as we went to press, as to whether PPI had informed him of the incident. Warrington told the spokesperson he could “not be sure,” but is scheduled to call the Mercury later today for clarification purposes.