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Updates PPR #94 January 2025

After significant community engagement around the Portland Police Association (PPA) contract from 2019-2022 (PPRs #79-86), the City seems perfectly happy to perpetuate the status quo without even letting the community know they have done so. In September, Portland Copwatch (PCW) asked the City Attorney when negotiations might get started on the July 2025 contract, wondering whether the existing or the new City Council would be in charge. The City Attorney explained that an obscure item that appeared on the Council Agenda on April 24 led to an agreement to extend the current contract a full year until the end of June, 2026. The public has been invited to participate in most negotiations at least since 2011.

The Agenda item was titled "Amend City Employee Benefits Program to reflect plan design changes as recommended and administratively required by the Bureau of Human Resources for plan offerings." The gist of it was to, on April 30-- six days after the Council vote-- implement agreed changes to the health care issues for various collective bargaining units including the PPA (their name was not specifically mentioned). A special memo signed on April 30 included the health care changes, an affirmation that PPA has the right to further negotiate the new oversight system and to extend the contract until 2026.

This effectively locks in various problematic issues in the Contract identified by community members during previous negotiations. Arguably one of the most important and powerful bargaining units in the City, the PPA has used its considerable sway to limit what the new oversight board, alternative responders like Portland Street Response, and investigators/supervisors looking at body camera footage can do. This "Hail Mary" plan also throws uncertainty into when the (not very good) statewide discipline policies adopted by the Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Conduct (PPR #88 and see article) will kick in, since Portland's discipline guide is allowed to continue until a new contract is finalized.

Find the memo at pjw.info/copwatch/PPAcontractExtended043024.pdf.
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PCW Updates Portland Deadly Force Infographic

In mid-December, Portland Copwatch once again updated its infographic showing how many Portland officers have used deadly force since 1992. The eight incidents since the last update added five new officers, plus five became "two-timers" and three have now used deadly force three times.

See the webpage at portlandcopwatch.org/deadlyforcepdx.html.
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Outside Experts Rightly Question Retaining Name for PPB Crowd Unit but Still Confused About Recordings

In early November, the Independent Monitor, LLC (IMLLC) consulting group published their follow up Report on whether the Portland Police have updatedtheir crowd control tactics after the disaster of 2020. The Report asks the City to prioritize crowd control training before the elections, though it was released the following week. It's fortunate for the City and the community that reactions to the November 5 elections and the police response to them were relatively quiet. The Report doesn't mention that PPB's updated crowd control policy was posted for review in July, but not approved until October 15-- so any positive changes were not in effect until Friday November 15-- 10 days after the election.

IMLLC points out some flaws in how the Bureau rolled out its "Public Order Team," including the poor judgment it took to call the "new" group by its old name, the "Rapid Response Team." The version of the Crowd policy posted in February clearly said it would be called the "Public Order Unit" (also not great).

The Report also called a June 13 news conference a good first step to introduce the Team to the community, while remarking that most of the audience were the media. They left out that a community committee asked to hear the Chief's plan to introduce the new RRT on June 12, the news conference was held the next day and the committee was not informed it was happening (PPR #93).

The City is currently following a judicial order from a lawsuit not to record people who aren't engaged in criminal activity. However, they continue to appeal that decision. The IMLLC does not help by rightfully telling police not to send undercover cops into a crowd unless there's articulable criminal activity, but on the other hand remaining confused about the protections provided by state statute ORS 181A.250. The PPB explored gathering information from private businesses' security cameras, making this more of a surveillance state.

See the report at efiles.portlandoregon.gov/recordhtml/17127692 [note url change from print issue].
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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.

People's Police Report #94 Table of Contents
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