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Chief Overturns Discipline in Deadly Force, Offensive Slide Cases, Plus More in Police Review Board Report Dec. 2024
Table of contents
To: Elizabeth Vogan, Police Review Board Coordinator
Chief Overturns Discipline in Deadly Force, Offensive Slide Cases, Plus More in Police Review Board Report
With hours left to go before the end of 2024, the Portland Police Bureau published its second required Report on the Police Review Board (PRB) quietly on December 31. *-1 The previous Report from September included 21 cases, ten on deadly force.*-2 The new Report covers 15 cases and four on deadly force, including the last two from 2022 and one from late 2023 where the civilians involved were Black men (Antoine Young [#9], Immanueal Clark-Johnson [#5] and Tyrone Johnson II [#11]). The fourth deadly force cases involved an unidentified suspect who was reportedly not hit by police bullets [#2]. Portland Copwatch (PCW) is not breaking news here to say that three of the seven Review Board members recommended firing the officer who shot Clark-Johnson in the back as he ran away, but Chief Day chose to go with the majority vote, despite Internal Affairs finding it was a policy violation. This news was first reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting on December 10. However, it _does_ seem to be new information that Sgt. Jeff McDaniel, who was the only officer facing discipline for adding a pejorative "Dirty Hippie" slide to a crowd control training PowerPoint, was found to have lied to investigators and was unanimously recommended for termination (to be fired, not killed, just to be clear). Chief Day rejected that finding and let McDaniel's previous 10-day suspension without pay stand as the only punishment. Although it's usually mandatory to fire officers who lie, this case is an exception to the rule due to the Chief's action. The other cases in the Report tend to prove PCW's axiom that officers will be disciplined for lying, cheating, stealing or sexual misconduct, but not for use of force, especially deadly force. One new addition to that list: an officer faced two separate investigations into their use of cocaine (#3 and #13), and was fired for their drug use.*-3 The Bureau started redacting the dates the hearings were held a few years ago, so it's hard to pin down an exact time frame for the cases covered by this Report. That said, two cases were sent to former Chief Chuck Lovell, who left his position in October, 2023, but all were adjudicated by Chief Day, his successor. Furthermore, a Chief Day's memorandum for the state's "Economic Sanctions Database" about McDaniel's discipline is dated December 16, 2024,*-4 indicating that the PRB met prior to that time to review his case, which is listed here as #6. The PRB is made up of either three or four members of the Bureau, a manager from the "Independent" Police Review (IPR), and either one or two members of the community depending on the type of case being heard. The community members are selected either from among the 11-member Citizen Review Committee (CRC) or a pool of Police Review Board community volunteers. IPR staff reported at a recent meeting that there are fewer than 10 community pool members. The PRB's hearings are closed to the public, the media, and even the person who was harmed by the police (or their survivors). In another new development, nearly all of the meetings (10) were facilitated by Tanya Settles, whose business Paradigm Public Affairs is based in Colorado, appears to have filed for a business license in Oregon in 2023. It's interesting that no facilitators in Portland-- or Oregon-- are willing to be part of this closed-door process. PCW continues to categorize the cases as either Bureau-only ("B"), Community ("C") or Bureau/Community ("B/C"), which include deadly force cases and those in which the officer's action affected one or more community members but the investigation did not seem to be prompted by a complaint. This time those included a Sergeant failing to properly report an officer's use of force (#1), the first of the two cases of "cocaine cop" (#3), and an officer who tried, but was unable to use a Taser on a suspect because he'd failed to check it was charged up that day-- and over the course of several months (#12). Community cases involved the infamous Sgt. Darke Hull, who sexually and physically assaulted a woman off-duty at a bar in 2022 (#4), an officer who wrote up a community member when he complained of poor service by calling the man drunk (#7), and an officer who gave a traffic ticket to someone who yelled at them out the window of a car instead of finishing up a higher priority robbery call (#15). The two Bureau-only cases other than McDaniel and Cocaine Cop were an officer who deleted files and cussed out a supervisor after being made to transfer (#8) and one who lied about another officer's return from leave (#14). With the Chief's intervention, there were six cases which did not lead to discipline (though there were nine such recommendations). Five officers resigned or retired before being punished-- four who would have been fired and one who faced 20 hours off without pay. Other than Cocaine Cop's being fired, only two other corrective actions were taken: one Letter of Reprimand and one Command Counseling (which had been proposed as a Letter of Reprimand by the Board). Deadly force cases are automatically referred to the PRB. The majority of the others were referred to the Board by the officer's Responsible Unit (RU) managers, with the exception of the improper force reporting case (#1) which appeared because both the IPR and Internal Affairs disagreed with the RU Manager's original proposed finding. Out of all these incidents, the PRB made just six recommendations to the Bureau (in three cases), all of which were accepted. PCW has broken down the cases by our categories below. Notably, where we use the names of the survivors/victims of the shootings and the officers involved, those come from information the Bureau itself has already published and not the PRB, despite City Code allowing those names to be included.*-5
DEADLY FORCE: NO FIRING FOR OFFICER IN CLARK-JOHNSON CASE It's possible that one reason officers are rarely, if ever, held accountable for any aspect of shooting incidents is the Bureau's insistence on calling those investigations "reviews," presumably to remove the stigma that comes with being investigated for misconduct. Maybe that is also one reason Chief Day felt free to let an officer go for shooting an unarmed Black man in the back. In the past, some officers who were not the ones actually using force got disciplined in these cases. This time, there were three "debriefings" suggested, which just means the officers got a talking-to but no formal discipline. Case #2 (B/C2): Officer Takes Shot at Moving Car, Suspect Gets Away In July, 2022, an incident occurred where it was publicly reported that an unidentified suspect drove away from officers, with Kyle Roush (#57758) shooting at the suspect's truck but not hitting the person. The Chief actually sent this case back for a second hearing to examine whether Roush acted properly by getting out of his car. Details in the PRB Report say that Roush's vehicle had spun out when the suspect used the stolen vehicle to hit the police car. Unnamed Officer #2 left a narrow space after "boxing in" the truck, leading to Roush being in the path of the truck as the suspect drove away. The Board suggested debriefing Roush for initially trying to box in the suspect's truck by himself and regarding communicating better. Two of the seven Board members also wanted to debrief Officer #2 for the lack of communication. Overall the votes were 6 for "In Policy" for the deadly force use with a debrief, which ticked up to a 7-0 vote in the second hearing, and except for the 5-2 vote on Officer #2, the others were all 7-0 votes as well. The last aspect that was considered in the first hearing was whether Officer #2 should have engaged in a chase of the suspect, which they found was ok. The weird thing about this incident is that they seemed to know the person was a suspect in a murder, but could not identify them by name, catch them with the stolen car, or, unless PCW missed a news report, capture them later. The Board made a recommendation for the Training Division to emphasize boxing-in a car where a suspect is known to be armed can be hazardous. Case #5 (B/C4): Immanueal Clark-Johnson Did Not Match Suspect Description, 43% of Board Wants Cop Fired In November, 2022, Officer Christopher Sathoff (#58857) responded with other officers to stop a car that they said matched a description of armed robbery suspects. However, the person who called in the incident explicitly said all the people in the car where white, while Immanueal Clark-Johnson was Black. As noted above, four members of the Board found Sathoff acted within policy, though one suggested a debrief. Three voted to agree with Internal Affairs (whose opinion is not mentioned in the Report) that the officer violated policy and proposed the officer should be fired. The lynching apologists said the car matched the description, the driver had been driving recklessly, Clark-Johnson ignored a force warning, and footage from the PPB's airplane showed the young man had been reaching for his waistband as Sathoff claimed. However, the three who sought justice said the footage was inconclusive, Sathoff did not see a weapon, and Clark-Johnson ran around the front of the vehicle-- away from the police, not toward them. An ongoing problem with the Reports is the tallies are given without identifying, even generally, who voted which way. But with four police (an Assistant Chief, the officer's supervisor, and two officers of the same rank as those involved) it was likely a split between cops and not-cops. Supervisor #2 created a plan to approach the car but was debriefed for becoming engaged in the tactical operations. There were several mentions of the police not having a lot of resources on hand and the responding supervisors making the best of what they could. However, the issue of supervisors being part of the action has been a focus of several recommendations by the OIR Group, which reviews deadly force cases for training and policy issues. One of the six members voting suggested a debriefing for the officer, but the cover memo says the Chief found all officers in policy, meaning that debriefing probably did not happen. To recap: The vote on the deadly force was 4-3 (with one of the four asking for a debrief), the Supervisor's actions were ok'd 6-0 with one recommendation for a debrief, and Supervisors #3 and #4 were cleared by 6-0 votes. Apparently when supervisors' actions are reviewed, officers below their rank are not allowed to vote. Case # 9 (B/C 5): Antoine Young Set a Car on Fire, But No Mention of Mental Health Issues About two weeks before the shooting of Clark-Johnson, Officers Mark Piombo (#46529), Joshua Howery (#37867) and Erik Daniels (#37128) shot and wounded Antoine Young, who had set a car on fire. Paint cans in the car exploded, leading two of the officers to believe he was firing a gun at them. Officers #1 and 2 (again, they are not named in the PRB Report) each said they saw Young crawling with a rifle, while #3 said he was running with the gun. Officer #2 said the barrel of the rifle was pointed at him. A later description of Young crawling _toward_ the rifle seems to refer to him being on the ground after being shot, according to the narrative of Officer #4. Four officers (#4, 5, 6 and 7) fired "less-lethal" rounds at Young. The Report says #5 fired seven rounds and only hit Young once, #6 fired four rounds and hit him twice, #7 fired two rounds and missed, while #4 is listed as using 40mm rounds (plural) but no numbers are given. All three shooter officers and all four less-lethal operators were found in policy on 6-0 votes (apparently only six voting members were at the hearing). The City has been under scrutiny from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) since 2011 (and subject to a Settlement Agreement since 2012) for over-use of force against people in mental health crisis. The little bit of description about Young setting the car on fire seems to indicate maybe there was a mental health component involved here. In addition, the DOJ came to town in part due to the Black community's concerns about deadly force being disproportionately used against Black people, and Young is Black. In fact, he was the first Black person shot by the PPB after Andre Gladen in January 2019. But neither race nor mental health are addressed in the PRB Report. The Board made two recommendations about the less-lethal weapons, which apparently mostly missed Young due to adverse weather and him being further than 25 yards away. They asked whether other options should be available with a longer range, and to train officers how to fire from further than the recommended longest distance. Perhaps it is OK that the Chief agreed with these recommendations as it's better than grabbing an AR-15 rifle to shoot people. Howery was involved in the shooting of Alexander Tadros in 2021, and later that of Matthew Holland the next month in January 2024. The PRB tends not to look at whether officers are engaged in patterns of use of force. For what it's worth, Officer Daniels retired in November, 2024. Case #11 (B/C7): Tyrone Johnson, Wanted for Shoplifting, Shot and Killed
In December 2023, the police were called to track Tyrone Johnson for allegedly shoplifting at Mall 205. Officers
Ramic and Bartlett both had been involved in the shooting of Matthew Leahey in 2022.
OTHER CASES WITH COMMUNITY MEMBERS REPORTING OR AT RISK Other cases PCW labelled B/C have some kind of community member involvement even if they did not file complaints. Case #1 (B/C1): Sergeant Fails to Analyze Force Used on Suspect The rules put in place under the US DOJ Agreement require supervisors to conduct After Action Reports (AAR) when their subordinates use force. Officers #2 and #3 caught a male (pronoun not redacted) stolen vehicle suspect who'd fled on foot and put him in handcuffs, but initially did not report using force. After a video revealed the officers' statements didn't match what happened, they submitted Force Reports, leading to Sergeant #1 conducting an AAR. The PRB notes that Officer #2 asked the Sergeant whether or not they used force, but the Sergeant did not conduct an on scene investigation as required. Rather than engage in due diligence once the video was presented and Force Reports were filed, the Sergeant contacted a representative of the Portland Police Association (PPA), the collective bargaining unit. Notably, the PPA's membership includes both Officers and Sergeants, which PCW has noted for many years complicates the job of management. Furthermore, instead of conducting an investigation after seeing the video, the Sergeant critiqued it for being of poor quality. This is the case that was referred to the PRB because both IPR and IA disagreed with the RU Manager's finding of "Not Sustained (insufficient evidence) with a debrief." Three Board members found the Sergeant violated policy, and two voted no-- clearly, one of these was that RU manager who, by the problematic rules of the PRB, gets to vote on their own finding. The dissenters voted for the "Not Sustained with a debrief" finding and said it was OK to assume no force was used, further saying that contacting the PPA was a step above and beyond what was required-- really! The memo on this case refers to an Air Support video meaning it came from a PPB airplane, but also refers to the "poor quality" video that surfaced as being on Twitter. Confusing! The three who voted to find the Sergeant out of policy suggested a Letter of Reprimand, but Chief Day changed that discipline to Command Counseling (lowest form of discipline which may not even be considered discipline) with training for the Sergeant. The Board made one training and two policy recommendations. The first policy idea was to define force as when it is used "intentionally." They point to a section of the Force policy that uses that word. Not sure about that from the standpoint of the police being agents of the state who are granted extraordinary powers to use violence on community members. Second, to allow supervisors more than the required 72 hours to submit After Action Reports if new information arises. Fair enough. And third, have training explain who decides whether force is used-- the policy indicates it's up to the officer. Which seems wrong in instances like this when the officer was unsure. Anyway, the Bureau accepted all three. Case #3 (B/C3)-- combined with #13 (B3): Cocaine Cop Sniffed Out by Civilian Witnesses, Fails Drug Test PCW has been around for over 30 years and this is the first time there has been a case like this, in which community members contacted a Lieutenant to report that an officer was using cocaine. The Bureau's narcotics team investigated and found it highly likely to be true. The officer told Internal Affairs it was true they'd been using cocaine for several months. The officer tested positive. The PRB notes that the officer's story on how they obtained cocaine was not believable, but sadly there are no details. In this case, the Board voted 5-0 to find the officer violated the Bureau's drug policy and suggested firing them. The second case against Cocaine Cop arose when they failed a random drug test for both cocaine AND cannabis. The timeline of when this test happened is unclear, though the Board hearing was likely later as they appear to be presented in chronological order. The officer admitted to having used cocaine two days earlier and to using cannabis. These were treated as separate allegations, and both were sustained on 5-0 votes. There was a recommendation to terminate the officer AGAIN... and the cover memo said that wasn't applied because they'd already been fired for Case #3. Case #12 (B/C8): Officer's Taser Isn't Charged, But They Are! This one is awkward because PCW does not support the use of weapons, including electroshock weapons known as Tasers. However, the suspect in this case allegedly assaulted officers and the officer in this case could not use theirs because it wasn't charged up. The policy requires the cops to check the batteries every time they start a shift. The paper trail showed this officer had not done so for months prior to the incident. This doesn't sound familiar, so we're hoping that the outcome wasn't the use of some other, or greater use of force. The PRB voted 5-0 to find the officer out of policy, suggesting two days off (20 hours) without pay. The officer resigned or retired before that was imposed.
COMMUNITY CASES: GOODBYE PERVO-COP, ONE RETAILIATOR PUNISHED BUT NOT ANOTHER Case #4 (C1): Sgt. Hull's Bad Touches Violated Policy While the DOJ called for the Portland Police to simultaneously investigate incidents where criminal conduct might be involved, it seems the Bureau still waits for criminal charges to be resolved before determining if the officer should also face consequences at work. After Sgt. Darke Hull pleaded guilty to grabbing a woman's crotch and hair at a bar a year after the incident, he was sentenced to two years of probation. A Willamette Week article from December 2023, when the plea was entered, indicated that the internal investigation continued. The PRB looked at four allegations, three for violations of laws: unwanted touching of the woman's genitals, pulling her hair, and harassment. These were all confirmed by surveillance video of the incident. A fourth charge of unprofessional conduct talked about how these actions brought discredit to the Bureau. All were sustained on 5-0 votes. The Board unanimously recommended firing Hull. However, since he resigned on August 26, 2024, the Chief did not have to terminate him. Strangely, the Board members all considered the fact that Hull "accepted responsibility" (by pleading guilty to criminal charges?) as a mitigating factor, but still wanted him gone. Case #7 (C2): Officer Writes Up Complaining Man as Drunk and Uncooperative There's a lot to unpack in this case, as the initial call was from a man in the community concerned that a person living in a tent might have a gun. PCW has seen a lot of exaggeration and community vindictiveness toward houseless people. Though some crime happens in the houseless community, most houseless people are not criminals. That said, for the job the police are asked to do in society, the officer's actions seemed out of line. The officer initially dismissed the concern because the community member saw the body language of the houseless person, but not a gun-- so far, so good. The man called the police again to be sure he could safely get to his van. The officer came back, and the man said he was going to file a complaint about the officer and asked for their business card. Clearing the call, the officer wrote the man was "uncooperative and seemed drunk." When considering whether this was retaliation, the Board noted that the witnesses and 911 records do not support the officer's description. The vote was 4-1 with one thinking there was not enough evidence to prove retaliation. That Board member said the officer would know that the community member would not see the notes-- which makes it worse, not better. Looking at an allegation of unsatisfactory performance, the vote broke down the same way (4-1), with the majority citing the officer's failing to look at security camera video. The dissenter said the officer did not know about the video. One more allegation that the officer was discourteous was also 4-1, with the Board using the grating term "customer service" (which the Bureau has started calling "community interactions" in its policies) and referring to witnesses who thought the officer was "short," "pissed" and red in the face. The dissenter (which was probably not the officer's supervisor, who sent this case to the Board) did not find the witnesses believable. There's no convincing some people. The recommended discipline was either termination, said three Board members, or 120 hours suspension without pay. The officer resigned or retired before the Chief could fire them. Case #15 (C3): Another Cop Pivots from Serious Crime Scene to Retaliate The other officer charged with retaliation was on a "code 6" call about a robbery. A car drove by and someone in the car shouted something out the window. The officer, a relative rookie, took off after them for an alleged lane change violation-- "code 2," so much less serious. The majority of the Board (three people) thought the officer was not retaliating, saying the initial investigation was nearly concluded, and that the rookie was showing their desire to be a traffic officer. They wanted a finding of "Not Sustained." However the officer said they chased the car because of the "unusual behavior" (yelling is a crime?) and not the lane change issue. Two of the three wanted to debrief the officer to say the reason for the stop, when what was yelled could simply be a free speech issue. No kidding! The two who found the officer violated policy may have included the officer's supervisor, who'd recommended a sustained finding in the first place. The officer had never ticketed someone for lane change violations in the past, and they would not have stopped the car without the person yelling at them. These two suggested 80 hours off without pay. Chief Day agreed with the majority and also to debrief the officer.
INTERNAL BUREAU CASES: LYING COP GETS OFF EASY, FILE DELETER AND LIAR GET FIRED Case #6 (B1): Sgt. McDaniel "Forgot" He Put Offensive Slide in Training Materials The PRB Report indicates that further investigation was done into whether McDaniel was responsible for putting the "Dirty Hippie" slide into the crowd training presentation. The case seemed to be closed in 2023, when Chief Lovell changed his desire to fire the Sergeant and instead imposed 100 hours off without pay.*-6 McDaniel seemed to be taking the fall because no other officer could be identified as working on the slide show. But the new PRB case says that further investigation related to the arbitration process proved through an electronic trail that McDaniel was the one who put the slide into the deck, and that he explained it away by saying he had forgotten he had done so. The Board found he was "evasive, deceptive and misleading" when interviewed about it, leading to their first 5-0 finding of a violation of the Truthfulness policy. He said he had sent the meme to a "person," and when a supervisor talked to him he tried to discredit the supervisor. The other was simply about the assertion that McDaniel forgot he put the slide in the deck. They unanimously voted that he should be fired for lying. Chief Day and Mayor Wheeler, the Police Commissioner, changed the findings to not sustained, leaving the initial 100 hour suspension as the only punishment. In addition to the concern that McDaniel continues on the force in general, PCW reminds folks that he was the person photographed deploying pepper spray directly into a protestor's mouth in 2011, a photo that made news around the world. If McDaniel has also been assigned to the newly reconstituted Rapid Response Team, the City has some serious explaining to do. Case #8 (B2): Officer Refuses to Stop Deleting Files, Swears at Boss Here's another new one: The officer in this case was told by their supervisor that they were being transferred to patrol rather than remaining in a special division in the Bureau. They then used "derogatory and curse words" against their supervisor and deleted nearly 3000 files from a PPB computer. Apparently, this continued after the officer was explicitly told to stop trashing the files. (For what its worth, the files were able to be restored.) The Board considered four allegations, finding them all sustained on 5-0 votes. First, a violation of the Courtesy policy for calling the supervisor a "f***ing snake [sic]." The officer admitted to saying this. Second, the "Laws, Rules and Orders" policy requires officers to follow lawful orders, such as being told not to delete files on Bureau computers, in this case. Third, misuse of Bureau resources, which when they admitted deleting the 2929 files was an easy call for the Board. Finally, retaliation-- which is usually focused on cops vs. community members, but in this case was directed at a Bureau manager who said the officer was being transferred. Quaintly, the Report says the notification led to the "adverse conduct" described above. The Board unanimously asked for the officer to be fired, but they resigned or retired before that could happen. Case #14 (B3): Officer Lies About Another Officer's Employment Status It's not clear whether this might be related to the notorious case where former PPA President Brian Hunzeker lied about being employed with a Sheriff's department in Washington, holding two jobs at once in violation of Bureau Policy.*-7 The very short memo about the new investigation says that the officer involved misled their supervisor about another officer's return to duty. There's a mention that the officer had a "reason" to mislead the Bureau, but offers no details. The Board sustained the violation of the Truthfulness policy 5-0 and all recommended termination-- if the officer in question had not already left the Bureau.
The case of improper force reporting (#1) was originally presented by Facilitator Adrienne DeDona to Chief Lovell, so presumably in 2023. Elizabeth Vogen, the Review Board Coordinator, began facilitating meetings around July, 2023 and was listed for cases #2-5. The monthly Director's Reports from IPR to the CRC also show how deadly force cases moved through the system, though it's easier to tell when the PRB had finished the cases than when they heard them. The shooting by Officer Roush (#2) was listed in August 2024, then was shown as being in "Debriefing" after that. The Clark-Johnson case (#5) was in the August IPR report but not September. The Young (#9) and Johnson II (#11) shootings were in the October report but not December. It is still not clear exactly why the dates of the hearings are no longer being made public, though as noted previously it was done after a former PPB Sergeant sued the city for the amount of information available in PRB reports.*-8
... REPEATING PORTLAND COPWATCH SUGGESTIONS FOR BETTER REPORTS Before we get to our list, PCW wants to thank Coordinator Vogan for explaining why sometimes there are seven members at Police Review Board meetings, but only six of them vote. It has to do with lower-ranking officers not being allowed to weigh in on whether managers violated policy. While this seems unnecessarily hierarchical and unfair, at least there is an answer to a longstanding question. The Bureau should explain this in the Reports. Also, this is the first Report--perhaps ever-- where the text was clear whether a vote was or was not unanimous, and how many votes there were. This is a good example and that clarity should continue. With those two matters at least partially resolved, PCW still has this list of items the Bureau should include to fulfill the City and Police Bureau's stated value of transparency:
--the dates of the incident in question,
--which opinions were from officers, civilians,
--the gender of all persons involved (both for clarity in
--the names of officers, particularly in cases which have already
--more thorough background summaries for all cases, especially
--an explanation of the delay in publishing a case;
--a general summary of the purpose of the PRB with a citation of the
--reports on the progress of PRB recommendations,
--a list of the names of the civilian members of the Board, which
So far as we know, PCW once again is the first to report on the PRB Report. While we appreciate being able to give an accountability analysis before others get to the information with a less focused eye, it does seem there should be more public awareness of the Reports. The new oversight system will be gearing up this year and is required to make public reports with much of the same kind of information that appears in the PRB's memos. PCW also continues to think that so long as they exist, the Citizen Review Committee should host public forums upon the release of the Reports to discuss the process, even if they are required not to talk about the substance due to privacy concerns. The community PRB members should also be on hand to speak with and hear from the community, since they are supposed to represent the public at the closed-door hearings.
Thank you
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