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Police Review Board Challenges System Portland's police oversight system, specifically the nine-member civilian panel of the Independent Police Review Division (IPR), is becoming more assertive, challenging Police Bureau findings in one high-profile case and demanding to review another. Richard Rosenthal, the Director of the IPR, is working to prevent both cases from moving ahead. His lack of support comes in spite of his efforts to encourage the panel, known as the Citizen Review Committee (CRC), to sustain a misconduct allegation in a different case. One of the major cases was the beating of José Santos Mejía Poot (Case #02-21). Mejía was a Mexican national who suffered from epilepsy and was shot by Portland Police in a psychiatric hospital in April, 2001 (see PPR #24). Two days before the shooting, Mejía was beaten by police when an altercation that started over 20 cents of bus fare escalated. Two citizens filed a complaint with the Internal Affairs Division and one filed a subsequent appeal with the IPR. That citizen died a few months after the IPR denied the appeal in July, 2002. The only public recognition that the appeal was denied came in a short announcement during the "Director's Report" at a CRC meeting, lasting less than a minute. The surviving complainant, along with community members who also weren't informed when the appeal was denied, wrote a letter to the CRC and asked that they review the case. The findings were that a female officer did not strike Mejía with a flashlight (although she was, apparently, holding the flash-light while trying to restrain him) and that a male officer did not use excessive force by beating him (IAD stressed that Mejía had resisted the police, leading to the escalated use of force). The CRC discussed the idea of bringing the case back for a pre-hearing. City Auditor Gary Blackmer, who oversees the IPR, tried to convince them that this was really a shooting case and they should let it be reviewed by the independent researchers currently looking at shootings that occurred between 1997 and 2000. But the community and the board recognized that the beating was an entirely separate incident. It is not even included in the civil rights lawsuit filed against the City by Mejía's estate in mid-March. The CRC voted 7-1 to hear the case. Director Rosenthal has since attempted to dissuade the committee by having Deputy City Attorney Linly Rees present certain interpretations of case law and other regulations implying it might be beyond a legal time limit to review the case. That did not work either. At the April 1 meeting, the Citizens agreed to write up their own summary case file for the incident when Rosenthal announced he and the IPR staff refused to do so.
The other case, #02-17, involves Merrick Bonneau, a man of mixed race who was mistaken for his larger, white half-brother and roughed up during an arrest. As reported in PPR #28, the CRC voted to send Bonneau's case back to have his complaints recategorized. The initial result was a list of 10 allegations in which all police actions were found justified ("Exonerated") or the allegations without merit ("Unfounded"). The CRC, in particular member Mia Butzbaugh, an attorney, reviewed the allegations one by one and voted to recommend two major allegations be "sustained"- -that officers unreasonably arrested Bonneau in September, 1999 and failed to file full reports on the incident, which included use of physical force. They voted to move five other allegations from "Exonerated" to "Insufficient Evidence," meaning that there isn't enough evidence to prove or disprove the allegations. This finding is more serious as it implies the officer may have committed misconduct. Early in 2002, Rosenthal invented an extra bureaucratic meeting (the "conference committee") to avoid bringing any cases to City Council. While City Code provides for Council to be the final stop for CRC cases, both Rosenthal and City Auditor Gary Blackmer seem intent on preventing this from happening. The conference committee allows the Police Bureau's higher-ups to explain why they disagree with the CRC's findings. At the April 1 meeting, when one CRC member suggested that such meetings were attempts to change the Citizens' minds, Rosenthal denied it. But when Vice Chair Denise Stone suggested that the CRC just listen to the Bureau without voting, Rosenthal became agitated and stated the police wouldn't show up if the CRC wouldn't vote. Despite the fact that he had been caught trying to mislead the Citizens, Rosenthal insisted that the "conference committee" regarding Bonneau go ahead anyway. On April 15, Assistant Chief Derrick Foxworth met with the CRC. He tried to excuse the police's mistakenly arresting Bonneau by stating that descriptions given over the radio are often faulty, and citing a disputed fact--a claim by police that Bonneau came to the door that night holding a butter knife. Foxworth also explained that the officers, in his opinion, didn't need to identify the witnesses to the arrest because none of them could have seen the arrest as well as the officers did. But since the officers didn't question the witnesses that night, there was no way for them to know that. The CRC voted unanimously to send the case to Council. While looking like an apologist for police misconduct in these high-profile cases, Rosenthal received some positive press from a case in which he appeared to act independently. This case involved an officer acting rudely toward a woman being taken in on a civil custody hold (#03-01). While disturbing, this case hardly rises to the level of seriousness of the other two. This is significant as it "marks the first time that the [IPR] director has found the complaint justified based on witness accounts and found the police ruling of 'insufficient evidence' unreasonable" (Oregonian, January 17). Rosenthal urged the CRC in his summary case file to change the finding to "sustained" (independent witnesses including an EMT had heard the officer being rude). In February, the CRC did vote as Rosenthal urged; the Bureau agreed to sustain the finding. Another serious case heard by CRC (#02-27) involved a man whose arm was broken when police shot a "less lethal" lead pellet bag at him. The man had allegedly robbed a store at Lloyd Center and was hiding under a table in a restaurant. The appellant (who was in jail and thus not at the pre- hearing) says he had his arms out to surrender. The police say he refused to comply with their commands so they shot him, according to their reports, from ten feet away. The "bean bags," which hit with the impact of a line-drive baseball, are only supposed to stun a person; the manufacturer recommends not using them from within 10 feet because the bags can break bones or even kill people if used from a short distance. Unfortunately, the CRC upheld the Bureau's findings and declined to hold a full hearing on this case. The CRC heard a number of other cases raising recurring issues such as: are the police responsible for securing an apartment after an arrest? (Doors were left unlocked, cooking devices left burning, etc.) They discussed a large number of protocols, including how to replace CRC members who leave mid-term (Bryan Pollard was replaced by Doug Montgomery in January). They are also pondering the maximum time period within which a decicion can be reconsidered by the board.
For more information contact the IPR at 503-823-0146. CRC meetings are held on the third (and often the first) Tuesday of each month at 5:30 PM, usually at City Hall, 1221 SW 4th. For information on the José Mejía Poot case contact the AFSC at 503-230-9427. |
May, 2003
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People's Police Report
#29 Table of Contents
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