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2022 Annual Report from "Independent" Police Review
Adds Some Details, Removes Others

The "Independent Police Review (IPR), the office which processes complaints about police misconduct, is supposed to put out its Annual Report by May of each year. However, the 2022 Report was released in August. Growing one more page from 2021 to 15 pages, new details such as examples of complaints were added, while others, like the demographic makeup of complainants, were cut. Several other data sets including officers with multiple complaints, the time it took to complete intake investigations, and trends in allegation types are not included this year. A key disappointment is that rather than chance making a mistake for the sixth year in a row about the Citizen Review Committee (CRC), the community body tied to IPR, they aren't even mentioned in the new Report. CRC made a rare presentation to City Council of a policy report about Crowd Control in September 2021 (which was not mentioned in the 2021 Report), but only IPR's own policy reviews are mentioned. That one of IPR's reviews was about the way the 2020 protests overwhelmed the accountability system, an analysis they did without CRC input, just adds insult to injury.

IPR received 174 community complaints, way down from roughly 400 a year prior to 2020. In the section reviewing the outcomes of the 316 allegations IPR extracted from those complaints, they note that seven were "Sustained" or found out of policy. They use the figure of 5% out of 106 investigated allegations (even though 7/106 is 7%), but really, as Portland Copwatch has pointed out repeatedly, that should be 2% based on the 316 total allegations. On the other hand, 45 police-on- police complaints generated 51 allegations, leading to a whopping 53% Sustain rate (27 out-of- policy findings).

Notably, IPR does break out complaints in a little more detail, saying that six of the seven Sustained findings were related to the 2020 protests... but not how many had to do with Use of Force (see PRB article).

Though 34 officers were subjected to discipline in 2021 (PPR #87), in 2022 that number was down to just 15. One officer received 100 hours off without pay (this may or may not be Sgt. Jeff McDaniel, whose discipline wasn't proposed or imposed until 2023) and five others got one day off without pay. The remaining nine received Command Counseling (6) or Letters of Reprimand (3).

In a consistently frustrating manner, IPR presents the data either as raw numbers or percentages, but not both. In some cases, like the charts showing how many complaints were filed and how many were about protest actions since 2011, the graphs have numbers/percentages along the side but each bar does not include a number. *Sigh.* From what we can tell using previous Reports and a ruler, the complaints fell from 336 in 2020 and 193 in 2021 to 174 in 2022. IPR says there was a "slight increase" in Bureau-generated complaints, but in reality it went from 34 to 45, a 33% increase, which is quite an uptick.

In another troubling trend, IPR continues to avoid listing even the number of deadly force incidents involving police, even though shootings/deaths is the subject of one of their online "dashboards." Moreover, there were nine such incidents in 2022, more than any year since 2001... the year IPR was created. IPR also monitors the investigations into these most serious cases.

One interesting tidbit: IPR was required by the US Department of Justice Settlement Agreement to investigate supervisors who oversaw the brutality of the 2020 protest but hasn't finished those investigations yet in late 2023. The Compliance Officer said in their report (see DOJ article) that they were not at liberty to explain why the investigations are taking so long. IPR, though, states in their Annual Report about these four cases that "they are complex and comprehensive and may branch out into additional investigations."

Unlike the IPR's Report, which ends abruptly with no conclusion, PCW will conclude here that IPR should really do a better job on creating these Reports, present them publicly at least at a CRC meeting, and try to ramp up for the new oversight system which should be providing more comprehensive Reports.

January, 2024
Also in PPR #91

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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