No sooner did the average annual number of people shot by Portland Police drop below 5 than a rash of shootings around the state began to stir concern that Copwatch is needed all over Oregon.
On August 2, a 63-year old Latino farmworker was shot to death by Salem police in a bungled attempt to find a drug dealer. In early October, a Douglas County Sheriff's deputy shot and killed a man who was holding a 7 year old girl at gunpoint. On October 20, an FBI agent backed by Oregon State Police shot and killed a man who threatened to blow up the Bonneville Dam.
In each instance, the police believed the suspects were threatening lives (in Salem, the man was holding a knife or a refrigerator door, depending who you believe; the young Native American man at the dam was pointing a rifle at the police and FBI and claimed his cel phone was a detonator). However, thorough analysis of police use of deadly force does not seem to be a part of mainstream news coverage in most of these cases. And the fact that the little girl who was a hostage said she really wanted to thank whoever shot her captor reveals that she's already been brought up in a society that accepts violence as a solution to conflicts-- and is even somewhat eerily relieved by a murder which could have cost her her own life. (These comments and her parents' subsequent exploitation of the child makes one wonder how such trauma will affect her later in life.)
We're also aware of a movement growing in Eugene to pro-mote a civilian review board and dialogue developing between the Latino community and Salem/Keizer police and city officials. We hope that other communities will take note and encourage public dialogue on training regarding deadly force and race relations as well as police accountability as a general topic.
Please write or call us from other parts of Oregon to let us know what you are doing or how we can help.