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Less Substance, More Dreariness in Police Policies Up for Public Review

After a busy few months pushing the Police Bureau to improve its Force, Crowd Control and other policies (PPR #93), the latter part of 2024 has been far less deeply meaningful for police accountability. Portland Copwatch (PCW) did not comment on at least four Directives (policies) posted for review since late August, mostly because their contents were not much changed or their impact on the community is minimal, or they involve unpleasant police actions (such as the use of informants). Here are the items we did address:

Late August: The Bureau policy on Medical Transport, which underwent improvements after the 2006 death of James Chasse, Jr. when police failed to report the extreme violence they had used on the man (PPR #40), was back for input. PCW continues to encourage the Bureau to have medical teams explicitly sign off if the police are going to take a person into custody instead of to a medical facility. We also pointed out that it's nationally frowned upon to use the term "Excited Delirium" to describe a catch-all state in which people only seem to die in police custody, though the term still appears in the Directive.

Another policy on "Weapons Administration" led to our praising the police for lifting the pointing of firearms up from "de minimis" force to something more serious (PPR #93). We also expressed cautious optimism that pointing firearms was down from 430 times in 2017 to 91 times in 2023, though it leads us to question whether even all of those incidents would have justified the use of deadly force if the officers had pulled the trigger. The policy says "Officers shall not unnecessarily brandish any firearm."

September / October: PCW chose not to comment on policies about responses to active violence situations, personnel orders or the use of informants.

November: PCW did not directly comment on the Wellness Directive after the Bureau took care of most of our concerns. However, we later thanked them for using the term "community interactions" instead of "customer service," the final issue we had raised.

December: Breaking with our tradition of not addressing undercover work due to its dishonest nature, PCW made comments including highlighting the many actions police can't do when pretending they aren't cops (such as taking drugs or sexual contact). We also commented on a policy that allows property oweners to give access to police for trespassing people off their property. This seems to continue the concept of special rights for some, and turning the police into private security for those few.

Sheriff Posts Immigration and Duty to Intervene Policies

In November, the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) posted their policies on how to process people whose immigration status may be undocumented and officer duty to intervene. For the former, PCW thanked the MCSO for emphasizing that long-standing state law prohibits using local police to enforce federal immigration laws, and reminded them about a 2017 case where one deputy appeared to violate that policy. The "duty to intervene" policy stems from another, more recent state law. We thanked the MCSO for a clearer policy where low-ranking officers can go outside their chain of command if the person they need to report is their own supervisor.

January, 2025
Also in PPR #94

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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