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Bureau Continues Hiding Racial Imbalance of Force Use, Training Advisory Council Pushes Back On September, the Training Advisory Council (TAC), a community-populated board attached to the Bureau's Training Division, created a special Task Force to suggest how the Bureau could meaningfully incorporate data on the city's demographics into Use of Force reports. This was after their recommendation to include those data (PPR #75) was rejected by the Bureau. The cops argue the percentage of people who have force used against them should only be compared to the people who are taken into custody, not the general population. This, of course, raises the question of why were 22% of the people taken into custody in the fourth quarter of 2018 black in a city with a 6% African American population. But it doesn't mean the TAC should stop asking for a comparison to the percentage of black Portlanders subjected to force-- which was 27% in Q4- 2018, multiple times higher than the population would suggest, and a higher ratio than white people subjected to force. For whites, it was 2.7% (96 of 3586 custodies) and for African Americans it was 3.9% (50 of 1271 custodies).
In March, PSD explained that although the reports show roughly half the people subjected to force are "transients," that designation could mean the person is houseless or it could mean they refused to give police an address. Since 52% of people arrested by the PPB are houseless (also PPR #75), it stands to reason that 51% (Q4-- 272 of 537 uses) of the force used is against people listed as "transient." The Force reports include a list of incidents the PSD's Force Inspector thinks are out of policy. In the Q3 report, there are at least two incidents where the Taser use itself-- not lack of a warning or failure to write a report-- was deemed inappropriate. Also at the March meeting, TAC welcomed at least eight of their 13 new members, including Edna Nyamu, the first African American to serve on TAC in about five years. In January, they stated only 13 people applied, so all were appointed. At both the January and March meetings, the TAC discussed "wellness" and "emotional intelligence." The former seems to be about officers' self-care and the latter about their ability to empathize with community members. TAC has set up Task Forces to look at both. In January, the City Auditor's office sent a staff person to ask the Council for ideas of areas to audit in the Bureau, such as use of overtime. Member Venn Wylde suggested looking to see if hiring more officers produces different outcomes such as a reduction in use of force. Portland Copwatch noted that the Auditor did not come to the TAC before doing its original audit of the Training Division in 2015 or its follow up in 2018. TAC's recommendations, transcriptions of their meetings, and more can be found at https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/61449. |
May, 2019
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Portland Copwatch Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.
People's Police Report
#77 Table of Contents
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The TAC voted to adopt the Task Force's
suggested guidelines at their March meeting, saying the city's demographics should be included
with a clear caveat saying there isn't necessarily a correlation. Adding insult to injury, an auditor
from the Bureau's Professional Standards Division (PSD) then presented the Q4 data without ever
mentioning race. This compounds the Bureau's statistical gymnastics trying to hide the racial
imbalance in traffic stop data (