Auditor, Former Police Review Director Misrepresent
Assessment of Review Board
Responses Designed to Divert Attention
from Structural Shortcomings
an analysis by Dan Handelman, Portland Copwatch, March 11, 2008

Several of the comments by Blackmer and Stevens seem like schoolyard "digs" at the credibility of the consultant, Eileen Luna-Firebaugh (ELF) and her report, rather than the "facts or objective analysis" the Stevens bemoans are missing (LS, p. 1).

Auditor Blackmer writes, "I certainly hoped for a better product for the City's $60,000" (GB p. 4), adding, "very little here is new or valid." (GB p. 11) He tries to split off the Citizen Review Committee from embracing the report by suggesting the consultant's analysis of the institution failed to "understand or appreciate [the CRC's] perspective or accomplishments." Stevens wrote, "About the only accurate conclusion reached in this portion of the report is that 'the statistics have been sometimes difficult for this Consultant to understand'" (LS p. 6).

If one imagines another City Bureau responding to one of Blackmer's audits this way, it becomes clear that for whatever problems exist in the assessment, there is a problem with the assessed.

The Auditor's response to several ideas regarding independent investigations, particularly the recommendations he numbers 3, 18 and 47 (#6a-1c, 6b-1c and summary, ELF p. 12) seriously calls into scrutiny his dedication to civilian-based police oversight. In effect, the recommendations are for the IPR's Citizen Review Committee to "direct the IPR Director to conduct an independent investigation" in certain circumstances. Auditor Blackmer writes, "I disagree on principle because I _will not have my employees under the direction of a citizen body._ ... I was elected to serve the citizens of Portland, _not to have my judgment and expertise over-ruled by a committee appointed by Council_" (GB p. 10, emphases ours). This shows a contempt for the ability of citizens to make informed decisions.

In her section on Satisfaction, Director Stevens seems to want to undermine the report's assertions that the IPR is not well known in the general population of Portland, but those who do know about it are widely dissatisfied. The dissatisfaction rate is certainly supported by the IPR's own survey results, which show an average 59.2% dissatisfaction rate with the system (2005-06 report, p. 61). Claiming that there can't be widespread dissatisfaction if the public is also unaware of the process is a cheap effort to detract from the conclusions. Stevens also stoops to name-calling in criticizing the Consultant for only attending one "focus group" which was organized by Portland Copwatch, the NW Constitutional Rights Center and the League of Women Voters. She refers to "two activist groups that remain committed to criticizing all aspects of Portland's oversight system." She claims the forum was not valid since "these groups urging people to come share their experiences with the IPR were able to marshal less than a dozen people who had any experience with the IPR" (LS pp. 7-8). This completely ignores Stevens' own lack of interest in, for example, using the resources of the City of Portland to create an alternative public forum for the Consultant.

Stevens "urges caution in making political compromise in matters of employee discipline," (LS p. 2) which is interesting because Portland Copwatch urges the IPR to remember they are overseeing employees who have power of life and death and the ability to use violence against the citizenry.

Both Blackmer and Stevens assert that the IPR has been a success by pointing to apparent drops in the number of Portland officer-involved shootings, excessive force complaints and profanity complaints. Stevens refers to these as "measured results" of IPR efforts, noting there were only 2 police shootings in 2007 rather than the average of 9 from before 2003. But this ignores that there were 9 shootings in 2005.

The Auditor uses tricky mathematics to show a reduction in police shootings since 2003, when the first PARC report was issued (in August). His chart claims to be for 10 years, but it is for 11 years, 1997-2007. By reaching back only to 1997, the Auditor fails to show that there was only one officer involved shooting in 1995, when there were no PARC reports and PIIAC, not the IPR, was the City's review board. He briefly mentions that "Tasers were introduced....which may have contributed to the decline" (GB pp. 2-3). In fact, between pointing the Tasers' laser sights and using them to shock suspects, the police used Tasers on average 1000 times per year since 2002. This is not an insignificant change in policy; it was brought on mostly by the outcry after the death of Jose Mejia Poot and the work of the Community Police Organizational Review Team (CPORT), not the IPR.

Similarly, he and Stevens point to a 40% drop in excessive force complaints and 68% drop in officer profanity complaints. These decreases could have any number of causes, including that as the community began to see the IPR handling such cases as "Service Complaints" instead of investigating them, people chose not to use the system. The assertions that these changes are the result of positive changes due to IPR activity are, to quote Stevens, "not supported by fact or objective analysis."

Stevens also notes that a City survey shows 50% more people gave favorable ratings to city's efforts to control misconduct (LS p. 1). This is misleading, since the favorable rating is at 38 percent, versus 26 percent unfavorable (best guess), with presumably 36% having no opinion.

Portland Copwatch has analyzed the annual payouts for claims of police misconduct 1993-2005 and seen that the average payout of $365,000 from 1993-2001 a year roughly doubled after the IPR was instituted in 2002, with an average from 2003-2005 (the most recent year for which full statistics are available) of $704,365. This increase in settling lawsuits implies that misconduct itself is not on the decline, perhaps only complaints about certain kinds of misconduct.

Stevens shows that she did not read the report carefully when she states that the Consultant relied on survey results from a small sample with no follow up (LS p. 8); but she ignores that they called 53 and interviewed 38 people beyond the ones who responded to the surveys by mail (ELF p. 96).

One of the most important recommendations, made several times in the report, is that the IPR begin to use the power given to it under the current ordinance to conduct independent investigations. In Director Stevens' analysis of the Timeliness of Investigations, she notes that the Internal Affairs Division (IAD) has "civilianized" half of its staff. She shows that having these civilian investigators dropped the percentage of cases taking over 70 days from 54% in 2006 to 33% in 2007 (LS p. 6). This proves the point that civilian investigators make a marked improvement over sworn police investigators.

The question is, why did the City allow the Bureau to hire these investigators instead of having the IPR hire them? In what way is it improving Internal Affairs' ability to improve officer conduct to have non-officers inside the Bureau conducting these investigations? The Council should look seriously at moving these investigators to IPR to begin the process of getting independent investigations off the ground, then considering the consultant's recommendation to reach outside of retired law enforcement (we'd say, particularly outside retired Portland Police Bureau) for additional hires.

On this subject, the Auditor disingenuously says he "generally agrees" with the recommendation that "Additional staff should be hired to handle independent investigations" (#7 / 6a-4). Blackmer adds a "signing statement," insisting that the extra staff should _not_ be dedicated to independent investigations, but rather to ensuring proper case handling (GB p. 5).

In addressing recommendation #38 (#6f-2), the Auditor repeats the first part, "The IPR Director should ensure that IAD investigations are adequate and that officers are being held responsible for misconduct," saying this currently happens (GB p. 5). In and of itself, this is contradicted in the report where Chief Sizer admits to not holding officers accountable in cases in which they admitted or were found guilty of wrongdoing (ELF p. 66). Worse, Auditor Blackmer has deliberately ignored the second half of the recommendation, which says, "This should be done by close monitoring as well as by independent investigations of issues of community concern." Why would he leave of one of the most important recommendations of the report?

When he does talk about independent investigations, addressing recommendations #1, 2 & 4 (#6a- 1a, b, and d), which suggest specific thresholds to implement the current ordinance, the Auditor lists them under "faulty" recommendations, having listed others as "vague" (GB p. 9). In this case he is given specific recommendations, but he pushes back, saying that particular categories of complaints, individual officers, and timeliness factors may fluctuate, so they are not adequate measurements to begin independent investigations. That is always going to be the case--the consultant is saying the IPR should take on these issues until they are no longer a problem-- otherwise there is no point to having the power in the ordinance. (Here the consultant's recommendation falls far short of what Portland Copwatch has suggested, that IPR investigate _all_ the cases that go to full investigation.)

The Auditor finally gets to his disagreement with the idea of independent investigations by stating "the consultant is suggesting something very different than the auditor model of police oversight" (GB p. 9). Yet one of his preferred experts on police review, Sam Walker, suggests that Police Auditors have the power to conduct investigations (ELF p. 45). In addition, numerous models referenced in the report have this power and yet are still primarily audit models.

In a huge admission, Stevens agrees that the IPR needs the legal authority to conduct independent investigations. However, her discussion of this idea then sidelines into a discussion of the adequacy of IAD investigations that ignores the report's details and IPR's own data (LS p. 3).

She notes that the consultant says IAD's investigations are free from bias. She then tries to undermine the report's assertion that 9 out of 25 investigations were "seriously inadequate." The consultant said that in 4 of the 9, officers admitted to misconduct but were not held accountable. The Director says "it is hard to imagine how an investigation could be better if it results in an admission of misconduct" (LS p. 4). Among other things, there is the possibility that other misconduct is being ignored if all allegations are not identified. An officer may admit to minor misconduct (profanity) but not major malfeasance (excessive force).

Attempting to disprove the consultant's claim that in three cases, civilian witnesses were not contacted, Stevens cites only one case in which IAD tried to contact neighbors one day (p. 4). Stevens includes redacted documents that show several people were not home, and it looks like that was the extent of the "investigation" (LS Exhibit A).

The IPR's own reports have shown that the IAD has not met its timeliness standards, that several officers have had multiple complaints against them, and that some forms of misconduct repeat year after year. These are the three criteria that should trigger independent investigations. The Director ignores this reality in order to keep slamming the consultant.

The consultant said she found evidence of IPR involvement in only one IAD investigation; the Director says she found 3 of the reviewed cases in which she asked IAD to conduct additional investigation (LS p. 5). This all depends on the definition of IPR involvement--the assessment report talks about the IPR being "more active participants in complaint investigations" (recommendation #6a-1). To us, this would mean invoking the ordinance's provision for IPR to sit in during investigation and asking questions (3.21.120[D]--IAD investigation with IPR involvement), not merely sending draft cases back to IAD.

The Director again takes aim at the consultant by saying that she "never asked whether IPR has done any joint investigations or participated in investigations," but then, does not offer the answer to that question (LS p. 5). Unless the IPR Director provides evidence to the contrary, we can only assume that such participation has been minimal or it would have turned up in the random sample.

Regarding the report's focus on the minimal policy review done to date by the CRC, only three reports in six years, the Director highlights the Use of Force Task Force (UFTF) that met from October 2006 to April 2007. She states that "The IPR _and_ the CRC convened a task force with PPB and CRC members to analyze the Bureau's use of force data" (LS p. 3). This is at best a serious mischaracterization of what happened. The CRC was not asked to deliberate on this task force, nor to decide which members would be assigned to it. Two CRC members were asked privately to participate in the Task Force; the CRC as a whole was never asked to deliberate on the substance of the report nor to decide which members to assign to it. This is significant because nobody who worked on the UFTF was a person of color. The existence of the Task Force and the names of the two CRC members were announced at the October 17, 2006 CRC meeting. The UFTF was never talked about again except a brief announcement in the Director's Report on April 17, 2007 that the final report would be coming out in a few days. (This information can be verified by looking at CRC meeting minutes on line at http://www.portlandonline.com/auditor/index.cfm?c=42358 .)

The use of only two CRC members, who did not ask the rest of the group for input, was done, we believe, deliberately to ensure that the meetings would not be open to the public.

Director Stevens goes on to say that "PPB is in the process of implementing the recommendations while being monitored by the IPR and CRC" (LS p. 3) yet the draft revised use of force directive, which was discussed in the Oregonian in December, has yet to be circulated to the full CRC or to the public for input.

Stevens asserts that making numerous policy recommendations is not a measure of success for a police oversight body (LS p. 3) ; however, we stipulate that the _severe lack of such recommendations_ is a measure of its inactivity.

The report suggests that the CRC should have a subcommittee dedicated to policy review, "working with an assigned IPR staff person" (Recommendation #34/#6e-1). The Auditor says it is being done (GB p. 5). However in current practice the CRC creates committees that work on specific policies, but sets priorities only once every two years at retreats. Moreover, the report is clear that the CRC should have its own staff person to help with policy review and appeals; the existing subcommittees are staffed by various IPR employees based on availability.

The Auditor also claims that "Policy issues that arise from appeals are sent to a CRC subcommittee that considers policy issues and makes policy recommendations" (GB p. 5). However, what actually happens is that such issues are placed on a "Tracking List" and considered for a "top 10" list at the retreats. This means that issues raised at hearings could take over 2 years to be considered--or they may never be considered (Recommendation #30 / #6d-1).

When a citizen is not satisfied with the outcome of an IAD investigation, they may appeal to the CRC. The consultant recommends that the IPR director be taken out of the loop on appeals, and that CRC handle appeal requests directly. In recommendation #21 (#6b-2), she writes, "the IPR Director decides what cases are dismissed or declined. The Director now also decides what complaints may be taken to appeal. This gives the IPR Director 'two bites of the apple,' and may be part of the reason that so few appeals are made to the CRC." In addressing this, the Auditor asserts that "The CRC determines what cases it chooses to hear" (GB p. 4). This completely ignores the analysis given by the consultant. She's pointing out that the IPR Director has already handled the case several times: at intake, deciding to send the case for investigation, while the investigation is going on, when the investigation is completed, and when proposed findings are returned. To also handle an appeal, which in essence is challenging the Director's previous work, is inappropriate.

For her part, Stevens emphasizes she has _declined only one appeal_ (emphasis hers--underline and italic--LS p. 2). This is true, but the CRC only held 8 full hearings on the 14 cases appealed since Stevens arrived, 2005-2007. (4 cases were declined by CRC, one was withdrawn, and Stevens rejected one which was about 2 weeks over deadline, though she is allowed to accept them up to 28 days late.)

Worse, neither Blackmer nor Stevens even mentions the second half of the recommendation, which says "The CRC should request that the City Council grant subpoena power on an ad hoc basis for Appeal hearings. Conversely, the City Council should order that the PPB members testify as a condition of employment."

The Auditor also says that the number of appeal hearings have not declined over the years, showing an average of 10.4 hearings per year beginning with 2002; however, the Auditor's own numbers show that the average from 2002-2004 is 13 per year, while the average from 2005-2007 is 5 per year (GB p. 7). If the Auditor is going to claim the average number of shootings are down, he has to acknowledge that the average number of appeals is down. (NOTE: The IPR's reports actually show there were 90 appeals from 2002-2004, but the additional cases were apparently holdovers from PIIAC.)

When the consultant recommends that the City Council restore the previous findings of "Unfounded" and "Insufficient Evidence" as well as adding three new findings (#13 / #6a-9), the Auditor only focuses on the first part of the recommendation. He claims that they have not found "any common terms regarding the disposition of investigations" (GB p. 6). But the report clearly explains that such terms can be found in the publication, "Citizen Review of Police: Approaches & Implementation, NIJ Issues and Practices," U.S. Department of Justice, March 2001 (ELF p. 115). Neither Blackmer nor Stevens even acknowledges the three proposed new findings, Policy failure, Supervision failure and Training failure.

In another effort to persuade Council and the public that the report is insufficient, the Auditor responds to a recommendation, #39 (#6f-3), "The IPR should develop an effective community outreach program," that there is "no specific guidance in this recommendation" (GB p. 7). But the remainder of the recommendation, which he has conveniently left on the edit room floor, explicitly suggests: "IPR staff should regularly request and schedule monthly presentations with community and business organizations, including communities of color, church groups, neighborhood organizations, and youth groups. They should encourage a question and answer approach to enhance community confidence in the accessibility of staff and program." We don't see how you can be more specific than that.

The Chutzpah award definitely goes to Auditor Blackmer on another outreach issue. When the consultant recommends (#44 / #6f-8) that hearings be televised on community access channels, the Auditor responds, "The hearings are always videotaped by a representative of a media group" (GB p. 7). Dan Handelman, who attends the meetings both as a member of Portland Copwatch and of Flying Focus Video Collective, shared this claim with Flying Focus. The group stated that they were appalled to be used by the Auditor in this fashion to imply that the recommendation is somehow not valid. Flying Focus produces one show every 2-3 years about the IPR and police accountability, depending on how clear and compelling certain hearings are. This is very different from having a regular crew promote, tape, edit and broadcast the hearings for regular public consumption. The Auditor should be censured for this cynical effort to use Flying Focus as a shield behind what is obviously the intent of the consultant's suggestion.

To prove the breadth of the IPR's outreach program, the Director lists 25 organizations with which they have met (LS pp. 9-10). Of these, three are police advisory round tables, adding the police citizens academy, Downtown Crime Prevention, the Portland Business Alliance, and an unnamed number of Neighborhood Associations. Our experience with Neighborhood Associations is that they tend to be dominated by homeowners and not necessarily working class people or people of color--thus likely those who see police as protecting them when they crack down on these vulnerable populations. The Director also lists Portland Copwatch as a group involved in this effort--but it was by our initiative that the IPR met with us, not their own outreach. (She also lists League of Women Voters and NW Constitutional Rights Center, who are among critics of the IPR program she disparaged on a previous page.) There are two Latino groups (including the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce), one Asian American group, and 7 groups who deal with homeless populations. No grassroots African American groups are on the list, nor are the more visible groups working on police accountability issues such as the Latino Network, the Mental Health Association of Portland, or Oregon Action.

The list of ten guest presentations at CRC meetings also shows the lack of institutional understanding by IPR of doing outreach (pp. 9-10). Four (Roy Jay/Project Clean Slate, Samantha Kennedy/Project Access, Israel Bayer/street roots, and John Canda/Office of Youth Violence Prevention) generally did not talk about police issues in their presentations. Three others were either police or those who work closely with police, and thus did not address accountability issues until they were questioned (Commander Henderson, Deputy DA Hayden, and Jay Auslander/Project Respond). The three others, who could have given the CRC some direct training in civil liberties issues, instead gave overviews of what their organizations do (David Fidanque/ACLU, Shauna Curphey/NW Constitutional Rights Center, Monica Goracke/Oregon Law Center).

In another attempt to pretend that the consultant's report is not specific enough, the Auditor responds to recommendation #9 (#6a-6) on training by stating: "We are not sure what 'civilianized' means" (GB p. 6). But the consultant explicitly explains her term, by laying out the NACOLE standards on pages 107-108 of the report. The Auditor further suggests that since complainants gave a 68 to 72% favorable rating for IPR staff and felt the investigators were generally willing to listen well, such training is not necessary (GB p. 6)

The consultant recommends that the IPR not offer mediation for serious complaints including "use of force, legal violations such as improper stop, detention, search, or arrest, or where the officer has a pattern of misconduct" (#11 / #6a-7, second half). Here the Auditor claims that it would be "counterproductive" to bar these categories (GB p. 10). Blackmer's preferred expert, Samuel Walker, in the publication "Mediating Citizen Complaints Against Police Officers: A Guide For Police and Community Leaders" (2001) says "a broad consensus of opinion exists among experts in the field that not all citizen complaints should be mediated, especially use of force complaints" (p. vii).

While there are dozens more examples, we will conclude by focusing on the consultant's recommendation to change how CRC members are chosen. She suggests in recommendation #23 (#6b-4): that "The Commissioners [City Council members] should each have one appointee to the CRC. The four remaining members should be appointed by the City Auditor from a pool of candidates as set forth in 3.21.080 Citizen Review Committee. Personalizing the selection process and tying the appointee to the appointer could greatly enhance the relationship between the City Council and the CRC." The Auditor calls the recommendation "factually wrong" since he says it is "based on a statement" that the Auditor selects the members (GB p. 10). While a "review panel" and "interview panel" are convened to screen applicants, the Auditor has selected community members who never have attended CRC meetings, and thus only have the Auditor's point of view on what to be looking for. He also notes that the Auditor forwards the nominees to Council, meaning it is, ultimately, his decision who will sit on the CRC.

Again, the Auditor completely ignores the second half of the recommendation, to allow the Council to directly appoint some of the members. (PCW would like to re-emphasize the importance that if this recommendation is adopted, the CRC be expanded to 11 members, to avoid having a majority of political appointees.)

In conclusion, we hope that the media, the general public, and the City Council will have read more than just the Executive Summary and the recommendations listed in the consultant's report. In doing so, it will be easy to spot the many instances in which Auditor Blackmer and Director Stevens have selectively reprinted only parts of the report in order to defend the status quo. We look forward to a full and fair discussion by Council of the report itself on Tuesday, March 18 in the "Work Session," which does not get bogged down by the diversionary tactics of these two individuals who do not seem to have an interest in improving the institution they have helped create. We also hope it will lead to a commitment at the Wednesday, March 19 public hearing to institute most of the changes in the report, with a few exceptions, and perhaps to look at other ideas that will help make the IPR indeed one of the best oversight systems in the country.