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Bureau Continues Revising Policies,
Copwatch Continues Sending Mildly Successful Comments

From late December to late March, the Portland Police posted 26 policies, known as Directives, to their website for public feedback. Portland Copwatch (PCW) made comments on all of them, made easier by the facts that (a) six came up twice in that period, and (b) only five were new, meaning we had previous recommendations for 15 of 20 unique Directives. While the Bureau did make some changes based on our input, they were generally technical items like typos, not more substantive ideas which would make the police more responsive to community concerns.

--December:

Comments on the Special Emergency Reaction Team policy (720.00) included that they are called the Special Emergency Response Team in some City documents and should be renamed thusly. When this Directive came back in March, the Bureau followed our suggestion to include a definition for the Rapid Response Team, which mostly does crowd control but apparently sometimes works with Portland's version of SWAT. We repeated comments from August 2019 on the Arrest with Warrant Directive (840.00).

--January:

The Bureau reviewed policies on Secondary Employment (210.70) and "Extra Employment" (210.80), probably in part due to the overtime study released by the Auditor's office (PPR #79). Secondary employment includes gigs off- duty officers can get as security guards. We asked the Bureau to define what they meant by whether officers in this capacity "provide a benefit to the greater community." On the idea of non-police jobs (Extra Employment), officers are allowed to sell creative products. We raised the concern they should limit this "creativity" if the sales are of "Blue Lives Matter" flags or other potentially inflammatory messages which could bring discredit upon the Bureau.

We also commented on the four Mental Health Directives which are critical to fulfilling the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Settlement Agreement, and previously came forward in May 2018. Most all of our comments were ignored, particularly our ongoing concern about officers bringing weapons into mental health hospitals. The Bureau posted the policies again in April, with almost no changes at all, and PCW re-submitted our old comments.

--February:

We noted four of the six Directives under review related to high-profile cases. Traffic Crash Investigations (640.50): Officer Alfonso Valadez chased a suspect down an off-ramp of the freeway, leading to the suspect's fatal head-on crash in 2018 (PPR #75). Alcohol Use (316.50): Commander Steve Jones cracked a utility pole in two with his car in June 2018, then lost his job (PPR #75). Reserve Officer Program (630.23): The whole Reserve Officer unit resigned in 2018 when the Bureau failed to train them to the US DOJ Agreement standards (PPR #78). Use of Bureau Resources (317.40): Detective Norville Hollins III was demoted after he repeatedly took a police car to the Oregon coast, racking up hundreds of non-work miles (see article). We repeated our in depth comments about the Vehicle Tow policy (630.60) including ideas from a 2007 Citizen Review Committee report.

PCW continued to question the use of temporary holding rooms (870.25) for juveniles just based on whether they have "engaged in criminal behavior," since there is supposedly a presumption of innocence until a court hearing establishes otherwise.

--March:

In five separate batches, the Bureau released eleven policies, including an only slightly revised Training Directive (1500.00), which we'd also commented on in January. One change made relating to our comments may have made matters worse: rather than reminding Supervisors to review their employees' training records when reports are generated every six months, the revised version suggests they wait to look at them until an annual review. A similar change for the worse was in the new Eyewitness Identification Directive (870.80) which carves out exceptions allowing officers to manipulate suspect photos, rather than prohibiting it after controversy from last year (PPR #79).

Links to some of our comments can be found at <portlandcopwatch.org/doj.html#Directives>.

May, 2020
Also in PPR #80

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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