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Officer Who Unleashed Lethal Rounds at Unarmed Man Fired
It's always good when the People's Police Report's article on Portland Police shootings and deaths in custody can begin with the news that no Portland officers (to our knowledge) have used deadly force since our last issue. By November 27, they'd gone 268 days without a shooting-- the third longest time since 1992 (the last shooting was of Santiago Cisneros on March 4). There is good news and bad news on the deadly force front, in that Officer Dane Reister, who shot William Monroe in the back with live shotgun rounds loaded into a "beanbag" gun in June 2011 (PPR #54), has been terminated from his job at the Bureau, while sadly, Fred Bryant, the father of Keaton Otis (who was killed by 23 police bullets in May 2010--PPR #51) died a few weeks after suffering a stroke in October at age 53. The announcement came on October 16 that Chief Reese decided to fire Reister-- an action he said he hoped would "bring some sense of closure" while Reister's criminal case continues to wind its way through the courts. (The City already settled with the now permanently disabled Monroe in the amount of $2.3 million in May-- PPR #60.) What's clear, unfortunately, is that the firing for violations of the Unsatisfactory Performance and Less Lethal Weapons directives were only because Reister put the lethal rounds into his "bean bag" shotgun, not because he should not have used force in the first place against the young man, who suffers from mental illness. Even though Monroe supposedly had a small pocket knife on him, by the time Reister fired police say he had dropped the weapon and so posed no threat to Reister. The Police Association, of course, pledged to file an appeal. News of Bryant's death came as a shock to many in the police accountability movement, including dozens of people who have intermittently or regularly attended the monthly vigils remembering Otis (held on the 12th of each month at 6 PM at NE 6th and Halsey). Bryant was a strong and determined man who was resolute about not letting the system have the final word about whether his son was racially profiled and unjustifiably shot. However, his health was showing signs of stress prior to the day he suffered a stroke on October 3. While he gave it his all to get up and walk out of the hospital, he died on October 29. A memorial service held November 9 drew hundreds of friends, family and supporters and included a eulogy from Dr. Leroy Haynes, Jr. of the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform, who called Bryant a "drum major for justice." In other news, the Mental Health Association of Portland marked the 7th anniversary of the police beating death of James Chasse, Jr. on Sept 17 with a special screening of the documentary "Alien Boy." Soon after, a distributor bought the rights to "Alien Boy" and it is expected to gain national distribution in spring 2014. |
January, 2014
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People's Police Report
#61 Table of Contents
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