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Training Advisory Council:
Data Analysis and Officer Wellness

The Bureau's Training Advisory Council (TAC) met on May 8 and July 10, focusing on various forms of data and their suggestion for an "officer wellness" program. The Chief has not responded to the TAC's March recommendation for the Bureau to include demographic data in its quarterly Force statistics reports (PPR #77). This is significant since the TAC published a detailed analysis for the July meeting showing that Portland officers point guns at African Americans at a statistically higher rate than their white counterparts, and generally use force against blacks and Latinos at a higher rate.

Even though it is now seven months into 2019, the PPB has not yet published an annual report for Use of Force in 2018. At the July meeting, they presented the Q1 2019 Force Data, which show 31% of the people subjected to force are African American (in a city that's 6% black), and that 46% of those subjected to force are "transients." The latest report is signed by the new Force Inspector-- Lt. Jeff Niiya, notorious for his friendly texts with the alt-right (also PPR #77). After being removed from the Rapid Response Team (riot squad), Niiya took over for Lt. Craig Dobson.

TAC Chair Shawn Campbell produced a data-heavy powerpoint show for the May meeting which incorporated statistics about many aspects of policing in Portland. The presentation seemed to take at face value the PPB's ongoing complaint that they are "understaffed," even though the figure of 360,000 calls to the Bureau in 2018 can be broken down to 986 calls per day. Divided among 351 officers that is three calls per day. So even if only half the patrol officers are working on any given day, that means officers are only responding to six calls a day. It's not clear why that is an unmanageable workload, especially since cops work 10 hour days. In an email to the TAC, Portland Copwatch (PCW) encouraged them to consider that recruitment is down all over America since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson in 2014.

Campbell's presentation also touched on the fact that 51% of the Police Bureau's arrests are of houseless people, which corresponds closely to the level at which such persons are subjected to force. However, TAC did not ask why the arrest number is so high.

As for the "Wellness" program, it is focused on officers having training and activities designed to relieve them of the stress of their jobs, such as yoga, meditation, and dietary considerations. PCW has no problem with the idea of officers finding ways to go out on the street in a calm and centered way. The only concern is that the Training Advisory Council seems to be so focused on this and a related "Emotional Intelligence" program that there is not a lot of focus on the other aspects of training the group is charged with reviewing. Campbell presented the Wellness Program recommendations from TAC to the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing in May and they seemed supportive of the idea.

See the TAC's force analysis.

September, 2019
Also in PPR #78

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.

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