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Bedtime for Bernie: Sheriff Giusto to Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto, under investigation for "moral fitness" by the state's Department of Public Safety, Standards and Training (DPSST), announced he would be resigning before the end of 2008. His announcement, made days before the DPSST's decision came down, clearly had an influence on the urgency of de-certifying him as a law enforcement officer. Unfortunately, some other manipulations, conducted by Portland Police Association President Robert King, may make such de-certifications harder to uphold in the future. King, who represents Portland Police officers, not Sheriff's deputies, gave the panel a "14-page brief on why Giusto should be exonerated," likely to "set a new precedent that makes it harder to take cops' badges" (Portland Tribune, February 19). Reports released in November and December 2007 slamming Giusto's management of the County jails led to County Chair Ted Wheeler threatening ballot initiatives giving control of the jails to the County Commission (see PPR #43). In late January, the two worked out a deal that gives the Commission temporary authority over jail spending and disciplinary matters, to be re-examined in six months (Oregonian, January 31). Complaints and discipline are being handled by the County's Human Resources department, but perhaps with Portland focusing on independent review (see article in this issue), it is time to look at a civilian review board at the Sheriff's office. Maybe this can be wrapped into the new position of "Deputy chief operating officer for public safety" (Tribune, February 1). The DPSST still has one more, new allegation to investigate--whether Giusto lied in 2004 when he told the Oregonian he had not been confronted about his affair with Governor Neil Goldschmidt's wife in the 1980's. President King opined in the March Rap Sheet that the DPSST should not have the ability to trump employee bargaining rights, as he claims they have by de-certifying officers who regained their jobs after arbitration. "It's not that I support misconduct, it's that I have not believed the facts presented rose to the level of decertification." King was proud of the unanimous vote not to de-certify Giusto, saying they were presented a report which was not an "unbiased objective investigation into the facts... [it was a case of] double hearsay...what the Oregonian said he said about things that happened years ago."
Meanwhile, the state ethics commission decided to open a full investigation into Giusto's use of a county-owned vehicle for personal trips (including some with Lee Doss, the former wife of the Citizens Crime Commission chair who Giusto forced into rehab--PPRs #37 & 41). Giusto lifted the restriction on using vehicles outside the Portland/Vancouver area after his abuse came to light (Oregonian, March 1). In other bad news for Bernie: --Giusto intervened to keep on the force the deputy accused of asking women to pull down their pants, looking for a non-existent tattoo (PPR #40). As punishment, the deputy lost 10 vacation days. The number of investigations into misconduct dropped from over 50 under Sheriff Noelle in 2002 to an average of 19 per year under Giusto ("Giusto ignored discipline code, record suggests," Oregonian, January 30). --Jail suicides, which had gone down to zero in 1999, were back up in 2003 (1) and '04 (2); another man died just after being released last year (Oregonian, January 16). The County settled with the family of Berta Lee, one of the people who committed suicide in 2004 for roughly $60,000 for failure to adequately monitor Lee (Oregonian, March 14).
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May, 2008
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Portland Copwatch Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.
People's Police Report
#44 Table of Contents
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