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Second Police Review Board Report of 2020:
Disturbingly, cases in which officers arrested two people without probable cause and failed to report using force at a protest (a baton push) ended in the lowest level discipline of Command Counseling. The three deadly force cases considered were: 1) The January 2019 incident where Officer Onest Robert shot at Anita Ruiz but missed (PPR #77), which led to the debriefing about backup. 2) The April 2019 case where David Downs had taken a woman at knifepoint and was killed by Officer Nathan Kirby-Glatowski (PPR #78). Though the officer could have injured or killed the woman, the Board felt there were "no other options" than deadly force. The perfunctory three-page summary contains no discussion and no recommendations. 3) The July 2019 shooting death of Lane Martin, who was killed by Officer Gary Doran when he thought Martin was grabbing a knife. Martin was in mental health crisis, and had earlier dropped an axe when another officer hit him with a "less lethal" round (also PPR #78). The extensive documentation in this case summary all points to exonerating the officers, with recommendations such as asking not to bother involved officers for a "public safety statement" if the information can be obtained by other means. The most remarkable thing about these three case summaries is that they all appeared to involve people in mental health crisis (Ruiz had a knife and said she was going to kill someone, Downs held a fake detonator, claiming he had a bomb), but the only hint of this likelihood is a description of Martin being "angry and erratic." Since the US Department of Justice directed the PPB to use less force against people in mental health crisis (see DOJ article this issue), it is inconceivable that the Board would not raise this issue. Apart from the car crashing cop, the five other cases that ended in time off without pay were varied. (a) Four officers failed to take shoes from a prisoner who used the laces to hang themselves. One cop saw the shoelaces and was suspended for a day for failing to act on the procedural violation, since signs outside holding rooms explain what items can go in. The other three officers received Letters of Reprimand. (b) An officer who failed to file a required report after being ordered to do so got three weeks off without pay. The Board asked Chief Resch to fire the cop for lying, but she overturned the finding. (c) An officer who did not take a child abuse report got one week off without pay. (d) One of the eleven officers who used personal cell phones to share part of a traffic crash report involving a cop received one day off because they sent the information to nine people, including some outside the Bureau; nine officers got Command Counseling and one a Letter of Reprimand. (e) An officer who continued a car chase after being told to stop got one day off. All these cases involved community members, but only the child abuse report incident is listed as a civilian involved case. The incident that went to Council, in which they found Officer Neil Parker retaliated against Kristin Bowling by giving her a jaywalking ticket (PPR #78), ended with a Letter of Reprimand. The Board (which includes one civilian and an "Independent" Police Review manager) disagreed that Parker retaliated, and ignored the discipline matrix requirement which calls for a minimum of two days off without pay. |
September, 2020
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Portland Copwatch Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.
People's Police Report
#81 Table of Contents
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The Portland Police Bureau released the second
Police Review Board (PRB) Report of the year in
late July. The PRB looks at cases with Sustained findings in order to recommend discipline,
sometimes proposes changes to findings, and reviews all deadly force incidents. The new Report
reveals that the Board disagreed with the first-ever City Council finding of misconduct, but since
they were not allowed to change the finding, instead recommended the most minimal discipline. Of
28 officers who received discipline in 11 of the 14 included cases, only six received time off without
pay. The Board also, as usual, found no misconduct in any of the deadly force cases they reviewed;
however, they did ask for an officer to be debriefed... because he failed to wait for backup to arrive
before taking the suspect into custody.
Of the 11 non-
shooting incidents, five directly came from community member complaints and
another five were mis-identified as "Bureau only" cases, even though they all involved civilians in
one way or another. This classification is also incorrectly assigned to deadly force cases, which of
course involve civilians (duh). For example, an officer who looked down at their in-car computer,
ran through a stop sign and got hit by a car which had the right of way received one day off without
pay, but their case was listed as "Bureau-only." There is no broader impact in the sense that the
civilian whose car got damaged would not want to appeal the Sustained finding in this incident, but
classifying cases this way takes away that right of appeal in others, including the shootings.