Portland Copwatch Analyzes "Independent" Police Review Division 2015 Annual Report

POLICE REVIEW DIVISION'S 2015 ANNUAL REPORT BARELY SCRATCHES THE SURFACE
Improved Graphics Come with Fewer Data Points, Details and Analysis
by Dan Handelman, Portland Copwatch, July 27, 2016

At the time of this writing, the full tables provided as a detached appendix to the 2014 report-- data which used to be included in the body of IPR's reports-- have not been released, making full and accurate analysis impossible, particularly for examining longer-term trends. PCW again calls upon the Auditor to put the tables back in for the sake of those examining the history of police oversight over time-- not just our group, but anyone who wants to find this information. PCW should not be the only ones looking at these trends. Most of the data included in previous years-- such as the number of force allegations, the number of allegations that were sustained, how many charges received what kinds of findings, how often mediation is used, and more-- are not available in the report, so in some cases, PCW can only speculate as to the trends.

MINIMAL DISCUSSION OF RACE, MENTAL HEALTH, AND INCOMPLETE ANALYSIS ON FORCE

----Racial Profiling, Persons in Mental Health Crisis, Deadly and Excessive Force Data

As they did last year, IPR notes that African Americans file more complaints than is reflective of their representation in Portland's population. In 2015 it was 21% of complaints, in 2014 it was 19% in a city that's 6% black. They also for the first time address the race of the people shot or shot at by police, noting that "Since 2011, 17 of 22 people fired at by Portland officers were white, three were African-American, and two were Hispanic[, plus] the only death in police custody since 2011 involved an African-American man." They don't take the next step to note that 17% of people subjected to shootings/deaths in custody (4 of 23) were African American.

There is no raw number given for Disparate Treatment/Profiling complaints, but at 3% of 800 allegations, we gather there were roughly 24 such allegations. If 2015 followed past years' patterns, likely none of those were "Sustained"-- only one Disparate Treatment allegation has been sustained under IPR, in 2008. Because there are no data at all about the use of non-disciplinary complaints ("Service Improvement Opportunities"/SIOs) and mediation, there is no way to know whether such cases were handled using these resolutions as alternatives to full investigations. It's also worth noting that there has still been no public explanation of the outcome of the 2013 incident in which an officer was caught on video using the "N" word.*-4

IPR also notes that "In at least 11 of the shootings since 2011, the individuals fired at were thought to be experiencing mental illness." So according to IPR, at least half of the people shot or shot at were in mental health crisis during the time the Department of Justice was investigating and ushering in changes to reduce use of force against such persons. (PCW puts the number closer to 14). But rather than express alarm that the Bureau's efforts to reduce use of force against person with mental illness don't seem to be working, IPR talks about how the Bureau revised its Use of Force policy "to try to defuse crisis situations" and put more resources into efforts "such as the creation of the Behavioral Health Resource Unit" [sic-- the actual name is the Behavioral Health Unit].

Regarding allegations of excessive force, we were able to report last year that just 0.84% of force allegations were sustained since 2002. Since we don't have data for this year's allegations and outcomes, we can't update this information.*-5 However, using the Bureau's Use of Force Report, we can say that police use of force went up from 802 uses in 2014 to 1037 in 2015,*-6 and that the percentage of complaints compared to how often force is used went down minimally (to 6.9% from 7.2%). Overall, the IPR's discussion of the use of force focuses on the "overall downward trend since 2011" despite the uptick of one more complaint this year-- 36 rather than 35 (this is even reflected in the chart labelled "Complaints about physical force have decreased since 2011"). They also ignore factors which may have contributed to that trend. For example, since early 2012, the Bureau has been sending out supervisors (usually Sergeants) to the scene of every use of force to conduct investigations. It's not clear whether the outcomes of these "940 investigations" (named after the Bureau policy guiding them) are communicated to the person subjected to force. If so, it would imply there's no reason to file a complaint since an investigation was already done. It's also unfortunate that IPR doesn't analyze one such case that came before the Citizen Review Committee (CRC), in which the 940 investigators dismissed the testimony of three eyewitnesses, relying instead on a security guard who gave evidence. When the community member, Matt Klug, appealed his complaint about the incident (which involved 6 uses of a Taser), CRC sent the case back for more investigation because the Bureau's Internal Affairs Division (IA) relied on the supervisor's analysis, and did not re-interview the three non-quasi-law-enforcement witnesses.

PCW also posits, albeit somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that the reason use of force has gone down in Portland is that with gentrification, there are fewer people for the police to beat up any more.

Regardless, Force went back up from the #4 most common complaint to #3 this year, beating out "Inadequate Investigation" by a count of one. (More on the top allegations below.)

It is also of interest that IPR and Internal Affairs are obligated by the DOJ Agreement to investigate all allegations of force unless there is "clear and convincing" evidence not to do so. While trying to be assuring, it's a bit alarming IPR reports that from January to August 2014, before the Settlement Agreement was entered by Judge Michael Simon, they dismissed 90% of force allegations. Afterward, they brag, they "only" dismissed 8 of 49-- which means one of every 6 force complaints (16%) was discarded.

Incidentally, IPR seems to have it wrong on p. 7 where they write "there were fewer rudeness and use-of-force allegations." From Figure 6, which says 9% of allegations were about force, one can estimate there were roughly 72 allegations, versus 58 in 2014.

----(Over)Emphasized: How Deadly Force Cases are Handled Differently

The report notes in three places that civilians cannot appeal deadly force incidents to the Citizen Review Committee, and in one place that officers cannot, either. (Officers are found out of policy extremely rarely, so that's mostly a moot point.) A special table showing how a deadly force incident leads to a criminal investigation handled by the District Attorney as well as an internal administrative investigation means to show these are "different" from regular complaints. The table includes a required analysis by the Training Division, which is actually channelled into the same process as the internal investigation, not an added layer of review. But all of this does not address the fundamental problem: If the person who was shot/shot at (or his/her survivors) believe the police acted out of policy and want to see the officer disciplined, they do not have the same rights as a person who was called a name or had their handcuffs put on too tight. That fundamental unfairness needs to be addressed. If the only hold-up is the prohibition on IPR from investigating deadly force cases in the Portland Police Association's labor contract, that contract must be amended. The City Ordinance guiding IPR does not prohibit IPR investigations or CRC appeals of such cases.

Also, while the IPR Director's monthly reports continue to list the names of the officers and civilians involved in deadly force cases, the annual report only includes a graphic with numbers. On the plus side, other than the chart on force complaints, this the only chart tracking data over a five year period. We again call on the Auditor to at least add links to the Director's reports for people seeking details.

We noted last year that IPR didn't mention the OIR Group's December 2014 analysis on officer involved shootings. It was also not listed in the new report. This means people in the future looking for details on what IPR accomplished will not be aware of the 2014 OIR report unless they happen to follow the provided link to "reports produced by outside experts" (<https://www.portlandoregon.gov/ipr/54263>). The most recent such report was released in January 2016, so we hope it will be mentioned in the next annual report-- with a summary of its findings and recommendations.

back to table of contents • back to top

LACK OF INFORMATION MAKES SYSTEM SEEM BIASED AGAINST CIVILIANS

----Outcomes and Narratives of Complaints Create Concern

In a moment of honest analysis, one headline in the report reads "Police Bureau supervisors sustain fewer allegations made by community members than those made by public employees." However, since raw numbers were only given for the number of community complaints (11), PCW had to do math to discover that 15 Bureau cases had at least one "Sustained" finding. The report points out this is a large contrast percentage-wise, representing 18% of community complaints investigated but 68% of Bureau-initiated complaints.

In the case summaries, though the headlines have been written somewhat more neutrally this year, the narratives and outcomes indicate that community members' words are not considered as reliable as officers. (We note here, however, that none of the Bureau cases are summarized, but it's more likely than not that little to no civilian testimony was used to "Sustain" cop-on-cop allegations.) In one of the three investigated cases summarized, a civilian accused an officer of excessive force, and "the officer denied that he had used any force... The officer's supervisor found that the evidence did not support the woman's allegations and did not sustain her complaint." In another case, a female bicyclist said an officer shoved her away from a bridge that was closed (due to concern about alleged explosives) and "the officer behaved appropriately by moving the complainant and her bike away from an active bomb threat." In that case, even though the woman wasn't directly interviewed, the officer was found out of policy-- for failing to give her his identification number. In the third case, the officer also was alleged to not hand over a business card but the supervisor found it "likely" that the officer did so. The complainant felt the officer's giving her a citation was retaliation for asking for the ID.*-7

PCW believes these three cases involved 8 allegations, of which only one was "Sustained." Perhaps two resulted in the officer being "debriefed"-- the failure to de-escalate with the cyclist and the perception that the third person was retaliated against. It would be an enormous help if IPR would include the actual allegations and findings in the case summaries so that the community can get a sense of what the outcomes were. (For example: "Failure to identify- Exonerated" after the business card allegation; four such simple words will not cost the City extra ink or paper.)

There are also multiple examples in the Service Improvement Opportunity and Dismissed case summaries which indicate bias. One example is a woman who complained another person in her assisted living facility deliberately ran over her foot with a wheelchair. IPR discovered there was video footage available of the incident, but rather than investigate the officer who decided based only on the two people's testimony (and not the video) that there was no crime, IPR dismissed the complaint and alerted the Bureau to the existence of the video. Interestingly, the discovery was made only after the woman protested IPR's initial dismissal of the case and a second staff person looked into her complaint. As with so much other data, there is no mention of how often such "protests" took place in 2015 even though the statistic of such "reconsiderations" was included in IPR reports from 2010-2012. There's similarly no discussion of why IPR sent five cases to the Police Review Board by "controverting" the commanders' findings or what happened to those cases (p. 11).

Another odd thing about the case summaries is that if they were truly picked at random, they should reflect the overall trends in complaints. However, the report says 53% of complainants are male, yet the 11 summaries involve 7 female complainants (64%), three men, and one person whose gender is not listed. The summaries include three investigated cases (of 84 completed-3.6%), and there are six examples of dismissals (out of 244-2.5%). The only indication of how often SIOs were used appears in an unclear chart (Figure 10), at somewhere around 55. This would mean the sample of two SIOs represents about 3.6% of those cases as well. Unlike in the past, there are no summaries of mediated cases-- in fact, mediation is only mentioned three brief times in the report, once in another unclear chart (Figure 9), showing mediation was used perhaps 10 or 12 times, an increase from previous years (8 in 2014, 7 in 2013, 6 in 2012), and once in the flowchart of case handling. The other time is in the "About IPR" now-standard info page, which was inexplicably moved from the front to the back of the report. There is also no separate category for those dismissed cases sent back to the Bureau for informational purposes (75, according to the report), though three of the Dismissal summary reports involve such an action.

----Reasons for Officer Discipline Still Not Made Clear to Community

As noted previously by PCW, while IPR prints data about how many officers were disciplined and how often certain levels of discipline were used, they still do not analyze what kinds of misconduct led to the various disciplinary actions. In 2015 one officer was fired. Wouldn't it serve the community to know what led to such a dismissal?

IPR rightly notes that only 28 officers were disciplined in 2015 compared to 41 in 2014, but also doesn't say, for instance, what kinds of discipline the four officers who resigned while under investigation were facing. Also, as we noted before, since the Police Review Board ordinance now requires the Chief to explain why he/she deviates from recommended discipline, IPR should publish information on how often that is happening and why.

----Misrepresentations of Outcomes Raise False Expectations

As noted above, the IPR's calculations for the "Sustain rate," or how often a civilian might expect their allegation to be upheld, is based on a faulty analysis. The number should be measured against all complaints that come in the door, not only those cases that are investigated; as noted above that rate would be 2.8% of all cases (11 of 388), not 18% (11 of 62) as IPR indicates. This means you're six times less likely to have your concerns validated than what IPR implies. Normally PCW also analyzes how many _allegations_ are sustained (usually a lower number, though it was 5.3% in 2014), but no data are available. That said, according to the new report, the likelihood of having a complaint investigated has gone up from a 10 year average of 9% (1 in 11 chance) to 17% (1 in 6 chance). It's likely this is due to the increase in excessive force investigations, which went from having 10% investigated to 84% (as noted above).

While IPR is open about the fact that they dismiss a huge number of complaints-- 67% in 2015 (244), down from what they say was 76% last year (though the 2014 report said it was 75%), they still do not include in that figure cases declined for investigation by IA. Since that number isn't available this year (last year it was 30), PCW cannot give an accurate number for the dismissed and declined cases.

IPR also continues to tout that the "Police Review Board sustains 79 percent of complaints" (albeit it was 88% in 2014), ignoring the fact that most of the complaints were sent to the PRB because the Bureau has already made a recommendation for a "Sustained" finding. They also do not include officer-involved shootings in their tally, noting the PRB found all six shootings in 2015 were within policy. So while IPR says 15 of 19 cases had one or more "Sustained" findings (the 79% figure), if one includes deadly force cases it was 15 of 25, or just 60%. Last year we were able to do a more in-depth analysis of how many community complaints versus Bureau complaints resulted in "Sustained" findings, but without the data tables it's difficult to do so.

It's also frustrating that IPR paraphrases the Bureau's definitions for available findings, but doesn't r eword the offensive definition of "Unfounded." Instead, they echo language saying it means the allegation was "false or without a credible basis as a possible violation of Bureau policy or procedures." In the 2007 Directive on Internal Affairs (#330.00), "Unfounded" was defined as "The available facts of the investigation do not support the allegation," which is far less accusatory.

The report also promises the community that the "Citizen Review Committee challenges Bureau fin dings." While it is true that CRC challenged findings in three cases and sent Klug's case involving a Taser back for more investigation, in reality, CRC considered 11 allegations, and proposed changes to 7 findings, but only two were to sustain findings (in an appeal was actually heard in 2016). The Bureau refused to accept those findings but in February took that case back for more investigation, and it is still under review as of July 2016. The other changed findings were: Adding a "debrief" to two "Exonerated" findings, changing an "Unfounded" finding to "Not Sustained", changing an "Exonerated" finding to "Not Sustained with a debriefing," and, unfortunately, changing an "Exonerated" finding to "Unfounded." With the exception of this last finding, the CRC moved the Bureau more in the complainant's favor, but not so far as to say that their concerns were validated.

Surprisingly, the report does not mention that in mid-2015, Council gave CRC the power to order IPR or IA to conduct further investigation, which led to the Taser case being the first use of that power. (That case was only partially resolved in May, when the Bureau analyzed the officer's actions using an outdated Taser policy.) The report definitely suffers in clarity by ignoring the past practice of including summaries and specific outcomes of the CRC's hearings, including vote tallies. (PCW has included such an analysis in our footnotes.*-8)

back to table of contents • back to top

ALSO NOT INCLUDED: OTHER DATA, VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES, IDENTIFYING PARTICIPANTS

----PCW is also unable to analyze the following due to lack of data:

--How often the various findings are assigned to allegations, especially the "Not Sustained" finding indicating there is insufficient evidence to prove or disprove the complaint (it was used 18% of the time in 2014). The Bureau found officers in policy ("Exonerated") 40% of the time in 2014. Side note: "Unfounded," "Exonerated," and "Not Sustained" are all "not Sustained" findings, so we urge the City to take action to return that finding to the more easily understandable "Insufficient Evidence."

--Timeliness of complaint investigations. To be fair, the report explicitly gives the following information on timeliness of investigations (though we had to rely on old reports for some numbers):
---IPR's intake investigations are down to 32 days (from previous 36/33 in 2014/2013), though their goal is 21 days;
---Internal Affairs investigations are taking "less than 115 days," (down from 157 and 176.5);
---Commanders are only taking 10 days to review cases and issue findings (down from 17.5 and 12 days); and
---Review Boards are being scheduled in 42 days (down from 54/66).
However, there is no indication of the overall length of time the cases are taking, which was 278 days in 2014 (as noted sheepishly by IPR's report last year) and 325 in 2013. Since the DOJ wants the City to complete these investigations in 180 days, it is important to have that figure. If you add the numbers given, it totals 208 days or about one month over DOJ's goal. It's also not clear how long IPR's "independent" investigations*-9 are taking.

--Portland Copwatch Presents: Top Allegations 2010-2014
As usual, PCW has created a chart of the most frequent allegations over the course of five years. IPR's report now only shows the top four allegations (rather than five) and includes data for just two years (Figure 7). They indicate that Rudeness is back down to the #2 position, switching again with the returning top category "Action or assistance inadequate" (formerly "failure to act"). The inadequate action category was down from 100 to 72 allegations in 2014, but went back up to 97 in 2015; this unpredictable fluctuation makes us wonder why the headline on the IPR's chart is "Allegations of inadequate action or assistance jumped." Rudeness complaints were down from 77 to 64 this year, but still has the title of champion as the #1 complaint for 12 of 14 years since IPR was created. Force went back up from the #4 position to #3 with 36 allegations, over "Inadequate investigation" which went down from 43 to 35 complaints. We continue to encourage IPR to publish a more comprehensive list to give a greater view of why people are complaining, including Disparate Treatment and other behaviors important to the community.

There is no information on the specific allegations investigated in Bureau-Initiated complaints.

--In the past, PCW has expressed concern how frequently IPR was using the "unable to prove misconduct" justification for dismissing complaints. Because there is no table, it's not clear how often that "crystal ball" logic was used in 2015 (it was down to just 6% of dismissals in 2014). The poorly conceived graphic showing dismissals (Figure 9) shows "No Misconduct" (which they identify being used in 53% of dismissals, so likely 129 times) butted up to "other reasons" to add up to the 244 total dismissals. No numbers are given for the other categories listed (unable to identify officer, complainant unavailable, untimely filing).

--PCW also cannot analyze how often cases are being minimized with supervisor "talking-tos" as n on-disciplinary complaints/SIOs, due to lack of data not only about how often they are used (as noted above, we guess 55 times, the same as 2014) but also about what kinds of cases are handled this way. In 2014 and before SIOs were used most often for Rudeness, Inadequate Communication, Inadequate Investigation, and Demeaning/Defaming Conduct.

--Also, even the meaningless survey of all Portland residents meant to gauge faith in the IPR system is not included in this report. As noted in the past, there has never been a "Good/Very Good" rating of over 47% for the review agency, while the largest number of responses are usually "neutral" (as in most Portlanders have never used the system and are unaware of what it does). PCW continues to encourage IPR to reinstitute the complainant surveys they stopped using in 2011.

--Even though the DOJ Agreement requires the City to examine lawsuits (/tort claims) for possible misconduct investigations, there is no mention of lawsuits, how often they were filed, or how often they led to inquiries.

----Other shortcomings in the report:

--There are only roundabout references to the standards of review being used by commanders to determine findings (preponderance of the evidence) and the Citizen Review Committee when hearing appeals (the "reasonable person" standard).

--Although IPR has made progress in conducting investigations mostly without the help of the Bureau's Internal Affairs, two of the four appeals to the CRC were on cases investigated by IPR.

--There is no mention of the CRC's Crowd Control report that went before City Council in January 2015, the CRC's Work Groups, feedback given by community members to the IPR's outreach coordinator, or the IPR's now- defunct quarterly reports, which used to mention these kinds of accomplishments.*-10 It should be noted that there has not been a quarterly report published since 4th quarter 2015 even though they are required by the City Ordinance.*-11

--Though the roster of CRC members used to be a regular part of IPR reports, there was no mentio n at all of the new members appointed in February 2015 (or that the entire membership has turned over since August 2013). There is also no list of the staff members at IPR (including the Director's name outside the front page), nor a list of who sits on the Police Review Board.

--While the report once again says which divisions generate the most complaints (the three precincts prompted 70% of all complaints, traffic division 7%), it no longer has a category for "large event/multiple precincts." It's possible that no complaints were lodged against the police's brutal crackdown on the May Day 2015 rally, which included pepper spray, batons and flash-bangs, but we doubt it.*-12

--In the section showing various elected officials' roles in the oversight process (and throughout the report) there is no mention of City Council's role in hearing appeals if the Bureau disagrees with a recommendation from the CRC. Though only used once, this was an important carry-over from the previous review system voted in by the public.*-13

--Pithy headlines no substitute for topic headings:
While it's true that PCW's analyses of IPR rely on short, informal headers to separate sections, IPR's much-longer and more formal report would benefit from using simple bold (or underlined) words when it moves from section to section. For instance, rather than just saying "Some officers lost pay or their job for their misconduct," the IPR could add the word "DISCIPLINE:" in front of that headline to clarify the topic of the section.

back to table of contents • back to top

A FEW GOOD MENTIONS

--The outreach section admits that there is still a long way to go to successfully build trust with "immigrants, youth, and community members living with mental health issues," though arguably communities of color are not necessarily represented by the Chambers of Commerce highlighted in the report as outreach "targets" (p. 17).

--Whereas in 2014, the number of officers' complaints investigated was roughly the same as civilians, despite a huge difference in initial numbers (28 of 53 Bureau/53%, 29 of 379 civilian/8%), it was a good sign that there were just 22 Bureau investigations this year (of 28 complaints-79%) but 62 for civilians (of 388 complaints-16%). However, as noted in IPR's graphics, 18% of investigated community complaints had one or more "Sustained" findings vs. 68% of police complaints, bringing us back to the theory that officers' words are taken more seriously.

back to table of contents • back to top

CONCLUSION

Once again, Portland Copwatch urges the Auditor and the IPR to expand the annual reports back to reasonable sized documents that can include important information and data for people who want to know what's going on with officer accountability, the oversight system, and the civilians who are supposedly representing their interests on the Citizen Review Committee and Police Review Board.

We continue to be concerned that even the slight improvements in the system-- mandatory investigations of force complaints, CRC's ability to require further investigation, more investigations headed by the civilian agency-- are improperly presented or not mentioned at all. The fact that a person's chances of having a complaint fully investigated doubled this year should be a highlight of the report, but it should be tempered with the reality that it is still just a 1 in 6 chance.

We also repeat the comment we made last year that our all-volunteer organization should not be pouring so many hours into analyzing the IPR's wafer-thin document by pulling in source material from other places. Tables showing data trends over 5 years should be integrated into the document or physically attached to the report.

Despite the turmoil in the Police Bureau and with various oversight bodies, we continue to recommend that people file complaints with IPR to help hold officers accountable, since there is no way for the City to know what officers are doing if nobody speaks up. We're very proud to have been part of crafting the agreement in April 2016 that got the CRC, the Bureau and the community back at CRC's meetings with much more calm than was happening in March, and continued until late June at the Community Oversight Advisory Board.

That said, we are deeply concerned that the City is trying to ram through changes to this system without a single elected or appointed official sitting down with our organization, which has attended every CRC meeting since its creation. We want to be part of making the oversight system better and more trusted. We've proven ourselves again and again as knowing CRC procedures and history, and sometimes even Bureau Directives, better than the official participants in the process. We demand a seat at the table on changes to the system.

We are hoping to get the chance to express all of these sentiments at a public presentation of the Annual Report at City Council. Please inform us when that presentation is scheduled.

Thank you
dan handelman
portland copwatch

footnotes

*1-The 2014 report came out in November 2015. PCW's records show that, excluding the two years IPR failed to put out reports (2005-06), the average date for release has been in July. (The 2002 and 2012 reports were released in May of the following years, the 2008 report came out in April 2009). Though IPR was in existence for 14 years at the end of 2015, this is the 13th annual report because they combined the 2005-06 reports despite the ordinance requiring annual reports.
back to text

*2-Memo from US DOJ to City Attorney Tracy Reeve and Auditor Lavonne Griffin Valade dated October 28, 2014, in which the DOJ sought assurances the City would produce the 2014 IPR report "no later than March 31, 2015."
back to text

*3- By our tally, 2010 was the lowest rate in the last 6 years at 1.82% of all cases that came in the door, and 2011 also had a lower rate at 2.11%.
back to text

*4- Portland Mercury, November 21, 2013: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_QK4OObAkY >
back to text

*5- Last year we noted that four force allegations were "Sustained," the largest number since IPR was created in 2002.
back to text

*6- <http://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/article/577038 >
back to text

*7- This case involving failure to identify and possible retaliation was investigated by IPR.
back to text

*8- Here is a summary of this year's cases:

Case # 2015-X-0001: Officer allegedly was rude, entered home without permission, lied about said entry

A woman said an officer entered her home with her landlord, but without her permission, was rude, and lied in a court document about the incident. CRC voted 10-0 to change the finding on the entry from "Exonerated" to "Not Sustained with a debriefing." Whether the officer was demeaning and called her a "liar," after the complainant said that wasn't the exact word the officer used CRC voted 9-1 to uphold the Bureau's finding of "Unfounded" (Roberto Rivera voting no). Whether the officer was untruthful in an affidavit could not be "Exonerated," CRC found, since the paperwork was never examined during the investigation. They voted 9-1 to change the finding to "Unfounded" with Kiosha Ford thinking the finding should have been "Not Sustained" (insufficient evidence).

Case # 2015-X-0002: Man with Mental Health Issues Tasered

Officers confronted Matt Klug after he had an altercation of some kind with a motorist while on his bicycle. In October 2015, CRC sent the case back for more investigation because three witnesses had not been interviewed. In May 2016, a Sergeant who pushed Klug against the wall had been found "Exonerated," but CRC voted 8-0 to add a debriefing, suggesting that de-escalation should have been used especially since Klug was exhibiting signs of mental illness. The officer who used the Taser five times on Klug (and flashed one "warning arc" at him) had already been found "Exonerated with a Debriefing." CRC voted 7-1 to uphold the finding (Ms. Ford thinking it should have been "Sustained") but asked that the debriefing include not just taking more care on using a Taser (as proposed by the PPB) but also about de-escalation. After discovering the wrong Taser policy was used to make the finding, this second allegation is still under review.

Case # 2015-X-0003: Pushing a Prominent Protestor Trying to Direct Traffic

Filed by a third party, this complaint surrounds a demonstration at which Don't Shoot Portland organizer Teressa Raiford (and the third party) say she was pushed by a police officer while she was trying to direct traffic. An officer allegedly also refused to give Raiford his business card, and the two officers left the scene even after being asked to help direct traffic. CRC voted 6-2 to change the finding on the use of force allegation from "Unfounded" to "Not Sustained," since the witness and Raiford's version differed from the officer's (Julie Ramos and Bridget Donegan dissenting). They upheld the finding of "Exonerated" for failing to give out a business card because the officer eventually gave the card to the third party. Both officers had been found "Exonerated" for the failure to assist allegation, but CRC voted 7-1 to add a debriefing to those findings (with Angelo Turner voting "no").

Case # 2015-X-0004: Officers Kettle Protestors at Ferguson Demonstration

Though a "Case File Review" was held in December 2015, the actual appeal hearing was held in January. At that hearing, CRC voted 5-3 to find that the Commander and Sergeant in charge of a November 2014 post-Ferguson protest downtown had caused police to unlawfully tell the appellant (and other people who happened to be in the street or on the sidewalk) that they were under arrest, after officers boxed them in on all four sides ("kettled"). When Chief O'Dea came back to oppose those findings in February, he offered to take the case back to add allegations and do more investigation; CRC voted 7-0 to send it back. The case returned to CRC in July, but the IPR Director reworded the case file summary at the last minute, so the hearing was postponed until August.
back to text

*9- IPR still must rely on the Bureau's Internal Affairs Division to compel officers to testify.
back to text

*10- Also, as we mentioned last year, IPR didn't even report on its own analysis into the Bureau's interactions with the Hip Hop community.
back to text

*11- Portland City Code 3.21.170 (D)
back to text

*12- <http://www.portlandcopwatch.org/mayday2015.html >.
back to text

*13- Portland City Code 3.21.160 (A)(2)
back to text

back to table of contents • back to top

Posted July 27, 2016