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More Tiny Bits of Change in Portland Police Policies Subjected to Public Input

The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) posts its policies ("Directives") for public review once or twice a month, asking for public input. Portland Copwatch (PCW) often uses this opportunity to assert that so long as we have police, they must do no harm to the community and be held accountable. As we noted in PPR #83, their draft Directive on interacting with the LGBTQ+ community was fairly progressive to start with; a revised version posted in June was even better in some places. Another new Directive about officers being required to intervene when their colleagues are acting improperly similarly shows promise. PCW also commented on a new "Officer Wellness" policy and others which had been reviewed previously, meaning we mostly recycled our comments except in the rare instance where the Bureau adopted a proposed change.

April: PCW followed up on comments about PPB participation in the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), continuing to ask that officers be prohibited from taking part in JTTF activities if the FBI engages in discriminatory training. The City's only change was to allow the Chief to ask the City Attorney for legal advice about whether JTTF activity might violate Oregon's anti-spying law.

A somewhat related Directive about Bias Crime Reporting was posted at the same time-- one criterion for officers to work with the JTTF is if there is a "hate crime." Since our last comments in March 2020, the PPB added gender identity to the list of protected classes, which we'd suggested... and also became state law in 2019. We asked the Bureau to tone down its call for a "swift and strong response by law enforcement" to prevent rogue officers going out to "kick butt."

May: The Directive on Racial Profiling came back after two years. The PPB adopted PCW's idea to remove "lawful source of income" as a protected class, because they should not discriminate if a person, say, sells marijuana or engages in consensual sex work. We noted the Discipline Guide has not been updated to allow for termination for biased policing, even after an officer resigned with back pay after originally being fired outside the existing guidlines (PPR #77).

PCW also updated its comments on Performance Evaluations (no meaningful change), Lawsuits and Claims (one minor change), and the Employee Information System (which still doesn't define what "traumatic incidents" get entered into that database).

Later in the month, we commented on a new Directive guiding PPB intelligence files, which could allow the Bureau to evaluate itself for compliance with state laws. They also posted the Truthfulness, Retaliation, Conduct and other policies. We thanked the Bureau for adding "political ideology" to the list of characteristics around which they cannot discriminate in the Conduct policy.

June: PCW updated its comments on nine Directives about accountability, including the Police Review Board, Administrative and Criminal Investigations policies. For the new Active Bystander Directive, we supported the idea that staying silent while other officers commit misconduct fosters a culture which does not value accountability. Under this Directive, officers could be disciplined for failing to stop or report fellow cops' misconduct.

In late June, the updated LGBTQ+ Directive indicated the Bureau listened to feedback from members of the community to make cops use a person's preferred pronouns and name. However, they inexplicably cut the definition of "gender," and opened up to cisgender, straight males the ability to request an officer of a certain gender identity to conduct searches. They also posted the new Officer Wellness policy. We reminded the cops they can build trust with the public by being calm, centered and healthy when out on the streets.

September, 2021
Also in PPR #84

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.

People's Police Report #84 Table of Contents
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