20,000 SIGNATURES GATHERED FOR STRONG REVIEW BOARD;
MAYOR CREATES WORK PANEL

PAC 2000 button Although the Police Accountability Campaign 2000 (PAC-2000) only gathered some 20,000 of the necessary 20,950 to qualify their initiative for the November Ballot, their activities set the city in motion to change civilian oversight of police. Their initiative proposed to give PIIAC (the Police Internal Investigations Auditing Committee) the power to:

  • Independently investigate complaints of misconduct;
  • Have final say as to the merits of the complaints;
  • Review police investigations of shootings and deaths in custody; and
  • Hold public hearings on police policy, with the ability to recommend or mandate changes.
  • Meanwhile, the local NAACP submitted a similar proposal to Mayor Katz on May 1. Under pressure building from PAC-2000 and the NAACP (and no doubt, from the May Day melee which erupted that same day--see article), Katz shortly thereafter announced a work group to study PIIAC and recommend changes to City Council.

    The work group is intended to represent a diverse cross-section of Portland, with members who have an interest in police issues. It includes: three representatives of the NAACP, one of whom also represents the National Lawyers Guild; a member of the League of Women Voters; community activist T.J. Browning; rotating members to represent the homeless community (street roots/Transition Projects) and a member of Copwatch. PAC-2000 declined to sit at the table, which received more coverage in the Oregonian (May 25) and the Skanner (May 31) than the content of the group's first meeting.

    Also on the panel are three current members of PIIAC; one former member; one former Chairperson; one former appellant (Nena Williams, who won a judgment against the City last year after being injured by the police--and has a current appeal before PIIAC--see article); and former PIIAC staff person Lisa Botsko.

    The Mayor's hand-picked representatives of the Latino and Asian-American communities are Amalia Alarcon-Gaddie, the staff person for the Metropolitan Human Rights Center (who, granted, hears a lot of complaints from the public, but who is also a city employee), and recently retired Portland Police Officer Preston Wong. At its first meeting in late May, this rather large group decided that to more fully represent members of the community likely to encounter police misconduct, it would need grassroots representation from the Latino and Asian-American, as well as Native American and youth communities. Mayor Katz responded briefly in person at the beginning of the next meeting, announcing: "This is my work group and this is who will be on it and I hope you will respect that."

    Work group member and Portland Police Association president Greg Pluchos declared at the end of the first meeting, "I play a lot of poker, and I know when I'm going home with money and when I'm going home wearing a barrel, and I feel I'm going to be leaving here in a barrel." Charles Ford, current Chair of PIIAC and defacto chair of the work group, reassured him that nobody was trying to take anything away from the police, and ideas were only being brought up for discussion.

    The work group has been looking at information from cities all over the country, mostly Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Cincinnati. They were visited by a scholar on review boards, Sam Walker of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, who noted that PIIAC has only been working "fairly well" and discounted the Mayor's long-standing claim that citizens tend to go easier on police than the police do. "That's based on fallacious data that was collected 20 years ago," he told the Mayor.

    Mark Gissiner, former head of the International Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (IACOLE), spoke to the group over the phone from Cincinnati, Ohio. He said that in his city, independent investigators are called to the scene of shootings and deaths in custody, and perform parallel investigations with the police in such extreme cases.

    On July 11, the work group held a public forum to get input on what people would like to see in a civilian review board. About 30 people testified, nearly all of whom called for independent investigators. PAC-2000 members described the feedback they received while collecting signatures­people didn't know Portland had a review board, or assumed the review board was already independent. The Campaign Manager plopped an eight-inch-high stack of signed petitions on the speakers' podium for effect.

    One suggestion for the group was put forth in the Skanner's May 31 editorial. The editorial called for all of City Council, rather than just the Mayor, to be responsible for the Bureau. While applauding the work group's existence, the Skanner encouraged PAC-2000 to keep working: "The campaign has no reason to believe such a large committee will reach conclusions that will truly change PIIAC for the better."

    Meanwhile, agitating out in the streets, PAC-2000 folks were busy not only gathering signatures, but also holding two speakouts on Police Accountability. The first, in St. Andrew's Church in Northeast Portland, drew a multiracial crowd of about 200. It happened to be two days after the May Day melee, which brought extra energy--and media attention--to an issue that is usually buried or ignored by the mainstream press.

    In June, a smaller, still mixed but whiter crowd gathered at the First Congregational Church downtown. About 70 people shared stories of brutality, profiling, and other mistreatment at the hands of police.

    For more information on the PIIAC work group, call PIIAC at (503) 823-4126,
    or, for our perspective, call Copwatch at (503) 236-3065.
    To get involved with PAC-2000 call (503) 287-2255.

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