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US Dept of Justice Finds Portland Out
of Compliance with 2012 Agreement
Community Committee Examines "Core Services"
of the Bureau, Urges Follow Up to Shootings

Last October, the Compliance Officer/Community Liaison (COCL), the consultants who assess Portland's progress with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Settlement Agreement calling for changed police use of force policies, found the City had not maintained their adherence to the document (PPR #82). In early February, the DOJ released their own assessment, also finding the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) failed to (a) prove officers used force in a constitutionally sound way at the racial justice protests in 2020, (b) complete misconduct investigations in a timely way, (c) train officers thoroughly, or (d) present their annual report as outlined in the Agreement. The COCL's January report did not initially agree with these last two points, saying the Bureau's promises to eventually train all officers and present the annual report in all areas of the City were good enough for them. Meanwhile, the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing (PCCEP), created by the Agreement to advise the Bureau on how to improve policies and on compliance issues, made a number of recommendations including that the City reach out to families whose loved ones are killed by police to acknowledge their loss with a letter of remorse and, if the family wants, access to support services.

The DOJ's Report, much like the COCL's October and January ones, pointed to the Bureau facing difficulties of COVID, daily protests and other unforeseen challenges. However, they note that does not relieve the City of its obligations to meet the standards they agreed to. Since the DOJ is the ultimate arbiter of compliance, Judge Michael Simon, who oversees the case in federal court, pushed back a scheduled February hearing until at least August.

Some of the key problems the DOJ (and COCL) found were that among 6000+ uses of force at protests, officers did not always explain why they used force, and supervisors reviewing those incidents did not seek answers. Investigations into misconduct are supposed to take no more than 180 days, and while the Bureau's Internal Affairs mostly met that mark, the Auditor's "Independent" Police Review (IPR) was unable to do so in more than 50% of its caseload. The in-person officer training interrupted by the pandemic was scheduled by the Training Division to be part of make-up sessions in early 2021. The DOJ pointed out planning is not the same thing as complying. For some reason, the COCL failed to acknowledge the PPB had also promised to train all officers in 2020 but did not.

The issue of the PPB annual report is one Portland Copwatch (PCW) finds illustrative of the City's incompetence trying to engage the community, even after eight+ years under the DOJ's supervision. The Agreement calls for the reports to be presented in each of the three PPB Precincts and then at City Council, including data about use of force and profiling. In 2021, they presented to City Council for about eight minutes, failing to address those issues, then appeared only at Central and North Precincts... with barely any notification to the public. The COCL did not attend those meetings because they also did not receive notice. To their credit, the COCL decided to change their assessment of this part of the Agreement (paragraph 150) to "Partial Compliance," matching the DOJ. They announced the reassessment when presenting their report to the PCCEP in February. The DOJ presented its report to PCCEP in March.

The PCCEP also took on two projects at the request of Mayor/Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler (despite his claim they can do what they want). One, helping establish a Truth and Reconciliation program, hit a speed bump in January when a proposal to pay the people working on the plan was not accepted. The other, gathering feedback on what police "core patrol services" should look like, led to a few special sessions in which PCCEP leaned toward expanding recommendations to redirect money from the Bureau to social services and other community-based problem solving ideas.

As noted above, at their January meeting, the PCCEP also passed a recommendation for the City to express remorse after deadly force incidents. This was significant, as a similar proposal failed on procedural grounds in 2019, leading to the resignation of the Mental Health subcommittee (PPRs #79-80). At the February meeting, a proposal to expand the Public Safety Support Specialist program only narrowly passed due to a debate about whether funding unarmed officers contradicted PCCEP's call to defund the police. PCW suggested an amendment which was accepted by the proposal's author, Vadim Mozyrsky, which deliberately kept vague whether the money would be added to the Bureau's coffers or shifted away from armed officers.

Limitations of the DOJ and COCL's abilities to spur true reforms came into focus at PCCEP's February meeting where new member Zeenab Fowlk pushed Compliance Officer Dennis Rosenbaum to recommend further change. Rosenbaum said the COCL's job is to call balls and strikes like an umpire, which is how the Settlement Agreement is structured. Still, had the City hired a local consultant instead of one from Chicago, there'd likely be more willingness to take deeper looks at change--closer to a baseball commissioner than an umpire.

PCCEP's regular subcommittees on "Behavioral Health" (the current Mental Health group), Race and Equity, Youth, Policy and the Settlement Agreement continue to meet and bring recommendations forward. A recent development is that some of these subcommittees are studying PPB policies ("Directives") in order to comment on them, though not always within the 15-30 day time limits the Bureau puts out for all other community members (more-- see Directives article in this issue).

Ultimately it's a mixed bag that the COCL and DOJ found the Bureau out of compliance. While there have been some good changes to police policy, training and oversight, the Agreement has been used to hinder other reforms, alternately by the DOJ and the City. The future of the new oversight system is one example, as replacing IPR has to meet the DOJ's expectations or face being delayed until the City is in full compliance again. This means the City has to come back into compliance and then remain that way for a full year, so it will be mid-2022 (at the earliest) that the benefits of external review, and the concurrent limitations on how they interpret reforms, will end.

See PCW's analysis of the DOJ and COCL's reports at: portlandcopwatch.org/COCL_DOJanalysisPCW0221.html.

May, 2021
Also in PPR #83

Portland Copwatch
PO Box 42456
Portland, OR 97242
(503) 236-3065/ Incident Report Line (503) 321-5120
e-mail: copwatch@portlandcopwatch.org

Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.

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