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Profiling and Community-Police Updates:
It's been more of the old steps forward, steps back news in terms of racial profiling and the Portland Police. Even as the institutional racism training designed by the Community Police Relations Committee (CPRC) was rolled out to all of the Bureau's Sergeants, an officer was caught on video using the "N-word." Meanwhile, Mayor Hales made a mis-step by replacing a community activist acting as liaison from his office with an active duty police officer who's a member of CPRC, at the same time CPRC has been expanding the feedback to the cops (or at least the ones who are CPRC members and its guests) by visiting Latino and Native American cultural hubs. So the good news is that the Portland Police Bureau (PPB)'s 130+ Sergeants have now undergone the same (with some tweaks) training that was given to Command-level staff in November 2012 (PPR #58). The bad news is that, as Portland Copwatch has been warning CPRC from the beginning, internal discussions do not necessarily translate out into the streets. On November 22, the Portland Mercury posted a short video showing Officer Michael Hall (#52025) facing off with an unseen camera operator by what appears to be a busy night club. Hall uses the "N-word" and someone behind the camera tells him not to say it; Hall defensively says that the other person used the term first. As pointed out by the Mercury, the Bureau's policies prohibit use of such terms unless quoting someone for reporting purposes. The Bureau has opened an Internal Affairs investigation into the incident. The fact that the Bureau may be undergoing internal changes so officers of color (and women) might find it a less white-male-centric place to work is due in part to Officer Deanna Wesson- Mitchell, who as a member of CPRC helped develop the institutional racism training. But Wesson- Mitchell's focus has never been on officers interacting with less bias (or violence) against community members. That is why many were surprised upon the resignation of Baruti Artharee, a longtime community activist who had been acting as liaison among the PPB, the Mayor's office and the community, that Hales hired Wesson-Mitchell to take his place. The Albina Ministerial Alliance (AMA) Coalition for Justice and Police Reform posted an open letter to Hales questioning his decision of putting an active-duty officer in that role, and questioning whether Wesson-Mitchell would declare herself completely separated from the Bureau so she would not second-guess her actions thinking she might rejoin the force later. Wesson-Mitchell has stated that if the Bureau becomes an organization she wants to return to, she prefers to leave her options open. Thus, as the AMA Coalition pointed out, it is questionable whether she will be able to stand up to her former boss (Chief Reese) and her former union leader (Portland Police Association President Daryl Turner) when city policies-- particularly in light of the Department of Justice Agreement (article)-- call for it. Reese and Turner having statements ready praising Wesson-Mitchell the day her hire was announced only reinforces these questions. That Wesson-Mitchell is African American does not substitute for the kinds of relationships needed for the person taking on this role. Also, while discussions among the CPRC's ten community and five Bureau members open the door for better understanding, it's not clear whether this information is shared with all 1000 members of the PPB. That said, at CPRC's September meeting, held at Rigler School in the Cully neighborhood, members of the Latino community expressed their concerns, mixing together their worry that police don't patrol often enough in some parts of the neighborhood with the fear that talking with officers could end up sending family members to jail, and in some cases, being deported. At the November meeting at the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA), former officer Dave Barrios (who among other things admitted in a Willamette Week article in 2000 that racism exists in the Bureau--PPR #22) talked a lot about the history of community policing and the need for officers to know people and their families instead of relying on the criminal justice system to solve all their problems. The October meeting was once again held at the Traffic Division, AKA the Kelly Building, with the December meeting at North Precinct-- trying to build community trust by forcing people with concerns about racial profiling to enter a police precinct. In October CPRC focused on the new wave of officers heading to the Bureau's cultural exchange in Bangladesh where they teach a form of "community policing" (PPR #56)-- probably not Barrios' version. In December, they mostly talked about conducting more outreach, though member Sam Sachs raised concerns about the process the Mayor used to hire Wesson-Mitchell. CPRC still has not fully discussed the Bureau's analysis of the Racial Profiling Plan to determine whether its goals are being addressed, and the 2011 profiling statistics report has still not been published (PPR #60). Moreover, the Bureau's analyst implied the 2001-2010 statistics will be discarded since the methodology of collecting information changed in 2011, even though the numbers are not significantly different. Also in the one step forward, two steps back department, in late October the Second Circuit Appeals Court in New York overturned the judge's order which would have essentially banned that City's racially charged stop-and-frisk practices and created an oversight system to ensure officers obey the Constitution (PPR #60). While NY elected a new Mayor who ran on the platform of eliminating the program, the way in which the court attacked the first decision-- including calling the judge in the case "biased" for, among other things, suggesting the plaintiffs file a new motion when their first one expired-- is indication that the institutions needing change are deep-seated. |
January, 2014
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Portland Copwatch Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.
People's Police Report
#61 Table of Contents
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