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Oversight System Faces Potential Overhaul; The biggest news about Portland's civilian review system, the "Independent" Police Review (IPR) is that it could be replaced sometime in 2021 by a stronger, more empowered review board led by community members. Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty put forward an amendment to the City Charter (like Portland's constitution) which would create a review system with many powers and abilities not currently delegated to IPR or its Citizen Review Committee (CRC). For their part, the 11-member volunteer CRC was mostly dormant between the pandemic-related lockdown in March and their first public meeting (on the internet) on June 3. But from that point forward, they were active, visible and vocal. New members appointed by City Council in March were able to plug in as CRC revived its Work Groups. Oversight System Change Addressed at Other Advisory Group
The Auditor put out a detailed document outlining some of the obstacles baked into the IPR system which require legislative changes or modifications of the police collective bargaining contract (see PPA contract article ). However, recalling that this same Auditor tried to move CRC meetings behind closed doors in 2016 (PPR #69), yanked CRC's deadly force report off the City Council agenda (PPR #76), and refused to meet with CRC about their debilitating standard of review in misconduct cases (which requires them to defer to police commanders if a "reasonable person" could agree with the original finding), we are not convinced Hull Caballero is the change agent the system needs. That said, Portland Copwatch (PCW) testified to City Council about the proposed Charter amendment, cautiously optimistic since the Auditor's point about obstacles to the proposed new system correctly identifies things which need to change. For example, in the Portland Police Association (PPA) contract, IPR is specifically prohibited from investigating deadly force cases. On July 1, PCW co-authored an op-ed for the Oregonian with the League of Women Voters outlining some of the main shortfalls of the IPR/CRC system. The piece called for a model which could be made independent, like the city's development commission, in the City Charter, an idea tossed around at the last two Charter Commissions (PPRs #38 and 56). Former IPR investigator Andrea Damewood penned an article for the Willamette Week (June 17) explaining how IPR is hampered by the inability to be thoroughly transparent about misconduct complaints. Former public records advocate Ginger McCall wrote about changes to public records laws which would help fix that problem in a separate op-ed in the June 24 Oregonian. PCW intends to keep pushing for change whether or not the Charter amendment is adopted and to continue monitoring the oversight system regardless of its structure. CRC Meetings, Forums Draw Crowds During Uprising; CRC Speaks Out CRC's June meeting occurred about a week after the first Portland demonstrations about the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Over 40 people attended, compared to fewer than 20 at past in-person CRC meetings. Their Crowd Control Work Group quickly planned a public listening session, which was held on July 8 and had over 100 attendees. While it was frustrating that members of the public were assigned randomly to various "chat rooms" on Zoom, thus not being able to communicate with or hear everyone's stories, overall the event was a good place for people to vent about excessive force used by the Bureau at the weeks-long protests. They also held a forum about the state of policing in Portland a few days later, on July 13. Speakers included Chief Chuck Lovell, PPA President Daryl Turner, people from two different neighborhood associations (Lents and Goose Hollow), and Dr. LeRoy Haynes, Jr, of the Albina Ministerial Alliance for Justice and Police Reform. About 100 people attended this forum as well. Despite the tenor of the rallies in the streets, the discussion veered a lot toward the "police are necessary" point of view rather than the "defund, demilitarize and hold accountable" demands outside. Dr. Haynes' voice brought an important counterbalance to the somewhat biased presentation. Interestingly, unlike if this had been an in-person event, there was a lot of lively discussion among community members in the text-based chat on the Zoom conference, which was helpful as the panel talked for nearly a full two hours before opening up for Q&A. CRC also held a special meeting on June 5 to develop a statement in which they criticized the heavy-handed tactics being used at protests. Chair Avalos also co-signed a letter with the chairs of the PCCEP and the Training Advisory Council, asking the City to involve them all in any discussions about the future of police oversight. Case #2019-x-0003: CRC Rebuffs Chief's Support of Officer Who Refused to Help Woman Find Stolen Car At their August meeting, CRC held a "conference hearing" to let the Bureau discuss why the cops refused to accept the Committee's recommendation to sustain a finding of misconduct against an officer who failed to help a woman recover her stolen car (PPR #79, case 2019-x-0003). Although the dispute began under Chief Outlaw in December, it was Chief Lovell who came to explain why he felt the finding should have been "Not Sustained with a debriefing." The CRC relied on the December testimony of the Appellant. At that time, she showed them the only piece of paper she had when she tried filing the report to prove she owned the car, which she had just bought. A careful read of the stolen vehicles policy led CRC to once again ask for a Sustained finding on a 6- 2 vote (stronger than the original 4-3). Other CRC Activities: New Members, General Meetings
Their July 1 meeting included a presentation by new Chief Lovell. This was followed by a vote to formally elect Avalos as Chair (the "acting" chair after Kristin Malone resigned in February), Vadim Mozyrsky as Vice Chair, and Adam Green as Recorder. IPR's monthly reports to CRC revealed that as of July 1 they had received 191 contacts since the protests began (plus thousands of what they called "form letters,"), 113 specific to the protests, leading to 51 investigations. Oddly, the list of IPR "independent" investigations* in July only lists two "Bureau-only" (officer on officer) and one Civilian case (two other civilian cases listed in the June report disappeared). In August, IPR released a report on the Bureau's policy around using flashlights attached to weapons, calling for them only to be used when the weapons are needed rather than for basic flashlight use. Contact IPR at 503-823-0146
*-unlike the Board envisioned in the Hardesty Charter
amendment, IPR has to use Internal Affairs to
compel officers to answer their questions. |
September, 2020
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Portland Copwatch Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.
People's Police Report
#81 Table of Contents
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CRC Chair
Candace Avalos and Auditor Mary Hull Caballero, whose office houses IPR, spoke at a
forum hosted by the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing (PCCEP) on July 9 to
address the ideas for change proposed by Commissioner Hardesty (who also spoke). The Auditor
urged slowing down the process for more discussion. PCW is hoping that if the new system is
adopted in November, the next year will be spent on a thoughtful transition from the current system
to the new one so the institutional memory of IPR/CRC isn't lost. Additionally, leaving IPR in place
will ensure investigations and review do not fall back to being police investigating police.
At CRC's June 3
meeting, they introduced the new members: Carol Johnson, Adam Green, Taylor
Snell and Shaina Pomerantz. Council also appointed Megan Bigelow as an alternate member. They
voted to formalize their current set of work groups as Crowd Control/Use of Force,
Policy/Outreach, and Recurring Audit, which all held meetings in July. Notably, there was only a
brief mention of IPR's annual report having been released (