On Friday, January 29, 2010, at 4:22 p.m., Portland Police Officers responded to a 9-1-1 call regarding a suicidal man who was armed with a gun at an apartment complex located in the 12800 Block of NE Sandy Boulevard. The 9-1-1 call was from a friend of the girlfriend of the suicidal man. The caller told 9-1-1 that she thought the man possibly wanted to commit suicide by having the police shoot him. The caller said that she was concerned about her friend and her friend’s children who were possibly with him because she had not been able to contact her.
The first officer arrived at 4:30 p.m., quickly followed by additional officers. They made contact with a woman in the parking lot of the apartment complex. She told officers her boyfriend was inside the apartment with their children and had been despondent over the past few days, threatening suicide with a gun. She said her boyfriend had been carrying the gun with him and she had seen him put it the pocket of his black coat. While talking to the police, the woman sent a text message to her boyfriend asking him to come out. A short time after that, she received a text back from him that made comments about him bringing his gun out with him.
Officers initiated communications with the man via text and cellular telephone. At 5:33 p.m., the three children came out of the apartment and police were able to reunite them with their mother.
At 6:03 p.m., officers observed the man looking out from the back of the apartment. At 6:07 p.m., the man abruptly came out the front door of the apartment and officers began giving him directions in order to take him safely into custody. Initially, it appeared that the man was being compliant but then his actions suddenly changed. The man began making statements to the officers that they were going to have to shoot him.
Due to the man’s actions, one officer at the scene deployed a less lethal bean bag round. The man continued to not comply with the officer’s directions and in response, the officer fired more bean bag rounds. The lethal cover officer fired his AR-15 rifle in response to perceived threatening actions. The actions of the man that was shot will be fully released to the public after all officers and witnesses have been interviewed.
Officers at the scene immediately called for medical assistance but were not able to safely approach the man because they believed that he was still armed with a gun. The Special Emergency Reaction Team, (SERT), was activated and arrived on scene 23 minutes later. SERT is specially trained and equipped to safely approach and disarm potentially armed subjects. SERT medics attended to the man and pronounced him deceased at the scene.
Portland Police Homicide Detectives, as well as investigators from the East County Major Crime Team responded and began investigating this incident. The officer who fired the AR-15 is an eight year veteran of the Portland Police Bureau and is assigned to East Precinct. All officers and witnesses at the scene are being interviewed by investigators.
The man who was shot has been identified as 25-year-old Aaron Marcell Campbell of Portland. An autopsy was performed by the Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office on Saturday morning. The Medical Examiner’s Officer has determined that the cause of death was a single gunshot wound. Campbell had a history of violent criminal behavior that includes weapons charges, resisting arrest and had an active restraining order that prohibited him from carrying a firearm.
Detectives are continuing their investigation of this incident. In the next few days, all interviews of officers and witnesses will be complete. After those interviews are completed, additional details of this shooting will be released to the public. Suicidal Man Shot by Portland Police, press release PDF
As so often happens when you move in the wake of a gifted reporter, there’s not much to add to Maxine Bernstein’s Saturday story about the exile of Portland police Officer Thomas Brennan.
Brennan made the mistake of speaking up about the conduct of Sgt. Kyle Nice, one of the sweethearts at the center of James Chasse case. When his precinct commander, Mike Reese, exonerated Nice — who “acted completely and absolutely professionally” — without interviewing the three primary witnesses to Nice’s professionalism, Brennan went public with his complaint.
Portland police Officer Thomas Brennan was worried his sergeant seemed to be under too much stress while working the streets after his involvement in the controversial death of James P. Chasse Jr. in police custody, the ensuing publicity and pending federal trial.
Brennan met with his precinct commander last fall, provided details of a call in which he thought the sergeant “grossly overreacted” and recommended the sergeant be moved to a lower-profile assignment.
From: THOMAS BRENNAN [mailto:PRIVATE@msn.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 2:57 PM
To: Reese, Mike; Commissioner Saltzman; Westerman, Scott; Leonard, Randy; maxinebernstein@news.oregonian.com; jpitkin@wweek.com; Auditor, IPR Mail; PRIVATE@comcast.net
Subject: Dereliction of Duty
Commissioner Saltzman,
Let me start off by saying that as a father of a 12 year old boy, and a Police Officer with 16 years street experience, that the use of force used by Officer Chris Humphreys was more than justified.
We seem to be continually asking how can an Officer bean-bag a 12 year old girl, when we should be asking how can a 12 year old girl already be excluded from mass transit, be out at almost midnight without a parent present, be coming back from an alleged gang party, and most importantly believe that it is appropriate to attack a uniformed Police Officer. If Greg Oden has shown us nothing else, it should be that you can not judge the age of a person by how old they look. Without first checking his birth certificate, most people would guess that Mr. Oden was in his late thirties!!
My real reason for writing you this E-Mail is my belief that Portland Police Bureau Command Staff were derelict in their duties by allowing Humphries, and Sergeant [Kyle] Nice to remain on the street over the past several months. If Bureau leaders had of used due diligence, and even the slightest amount of common sense, both of these Officers would have been reassigned to a lower profile assignment (Neighborhood Response Team, Training, Criminal Intelligence Unit, ETC) months ago, and this latest media debacle would have been avoided. One of the primary jobs of competent leaders is to put their people in positions to succeed, not into no win situations where there is such a high possibility of failure.
It should have been made clear to them and the public that their reassignment was no how punitive in nature, rather an opportunity to be away from the DAILY stress they faced in their current assignments. Both Nice and Humphreys assignments required them to constantly contact unreasonable, drunk, homeless, mentally challenged, and uncooperative citizens; often in a confrontational setting. Just last week, Sergeant Nice was put in charge of a crowd control detail at the Keller Auditorium, which was responsible for dealing with a large, potentially hostile crowd (Al Gore conference). Am I the only one that sees the potential for disaster in this equation?
Needless to say both of these decorated officers would have been reluctant to leave their current assignments, just like a football player does not want to leave the game after being injured, or a soldier does not want to leave his unit after being wounded. In both of thier cases, I am sure they would have looked back and realized that it was the prudent decision, not only for the City of Portland and the Police Bureau, but also for them and their families.
The above reasons are why I entered the Central Precinct Commanders office on the 26th of October. I entered Commander [Mike] Reese’s office not only as 16 year police veteran, and a 25 year military serviceman; but as an officer who has been involved in multiple traumatic incidents, one of which involved having to shoot and kill a violent subject in 2000. At first I was reluctant to enter his office, but after consulting with my wife, I came to the conclusion that it would be remiss of me as a Portland Police Officer to not make my beliefs known to not only Commander Reese, but the Officers assigned over him.
While meeting with Reese, I told him why I thought a change of assignment was necessary. I pleaded to him that we “should fix the potential problem, before we have to fix the blame”. I spent approximately 10 minutes explaining to Reese about the constant negative media barrage that had taken place over the weeks prior to our meeting, and I assured him the barrage would only increase as civil trial date got closer. I am not a psychologist, but as someone who was under similar pressure once, I assured him that the stress they were under would almost push almost any man to the brink. I even provided him with details of a specific incident, in which I thought Sergeant Nice grossly overacted on a routine call for service; which required me to step in to prevent the situation from escalating into a use of force scenario; one of which I wanted no part of.
After speaking with Reese, he assured me that there was no problem with any of the “three officers involved”. He went on to add that he and the “Chiefs Office” were constantly monitoring the “oil levels of all three involved officers”, and that there was no need for concern on my part. I told Commander Reese directly that if the “Oil levels” were in fact fine, I would not have been sitting in his office. Before leaving, he asked for the call information I spoke to him about involving Sergeant Nice, and I provided it to him. My last thought to Commander Reese as I was leaving his office, was that even the most minor of incident involving these officers, had the potential for becoming a major media circus. As most officers are aware, it is not what an officer does, but who the officer is who does it that matters.
If the past few years during the [Rosie] Sizer tenure are any indicator, I fully anticipate retaliation for my raising these concerns; but I fully believe I must do what is right in this situation, and that is to hold the leaders who allowed this current debacle to happen, equally as accountable as they seem to be willing to hold Officers Humphreys. In my 41 years of combined military and police service, I have never encountered such arrogant leaders, as those I have worked for the past 3 years. They are truly adept at fixing the blame for situations, but have continually missed the boat when it come to fixing problems, before fixing blame becomes necessary.
In closing, if I am to have any faith in an agency that professes to “Improving Accountability” and “Developing and Encouraging Personnel” as the core tenants of their value system, then I must ask that a complete and thorough investigation be conducted. I would now like to know who Reese informed about our conversation, and why they did nothing to date to head off future potential problems.
We will all now be left wondering that if action was taken in a timely manor to the concerns that I presented on the 26th of October, would Humphreys and his family be going through the hell they are currently?
Regrettably submitted,
Officer Thomas J. Brennan
Portland Police Bureau
Central Precinct
From: MReese@portlandpolice.org
To: PRIVATE@msn.com, dan@ci.portland.or.us, president@ppavigil.org,rleonard@ci.portland.or.us, maxinebernstein@news.oregonian.com, jpitkin@wweek.com, IPR@ci.portland.or.us, PRIVATE@comcast.net
Cc: RSizer@portlandpolice.org, Bmartinek@portlandpolice.org, MWheat@portlandpolice.org
Sent:Mon Nov 23 05:51:51 UTC 2009
Subject: RE: Dereliction of Duty
I would be happy to discuss this email from Officer Brennan with any of you, in an appropriate setting. Officer Brennan met with me on October 26th, to share his concerns about Sgt. Nice and a specific call that Officer Brennan, Sergeant Nice and another officer handled. This incident was thoroughly investigated, at my direction, by Lt. Ron Alexander.
I also discussed this incident and Officer Brennan’s concerns about Sergeant Nice with Assistant Chief [Brian] Martinek. Officer Brennan and I did not discuss Officer Humphrey or any other officer involved in the Chasse incident, and Officer Humphrey’s does not work for me.
More than two months after Portland police began an internal investigation into Officer Christopher Humphreys‘ Nov. 14 beanbag shotgun shooting of a 12-year-old girl, investigators ordered Humphreys in for his first interview Friday.
Humphreys went off work on stress disability leave, shortly after the Portland Police Bureau announced an investigation into the shooting.
This page holds a fairly comprehensive archive of all media stories and public documents about what happened to Aaron Campbell on January 29, 2010. Now 400 items to 2/24/10.
Our friend Joe Parker once told us, for some people with mental illness, “it’s not a question of whether a person will commit suicide, it is a question of when. We who are on the outside should honor the strength and integrity it took to fight off the demons for so long.”
Here’s a note left for Daniel Schaull of Dodge City, Kansas, who died yesterday, January 28, 2009 in downtown Portland.
Hey man – The universe is a strange and sometimes hurtful place. I hope that you are happier, where ever you are. – DRUGLESSxF.
DODGE CITY, KANSAS – Daniel V. Shaull, 26, died Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at Legacy Emmanuel Hospital & Health Center, Portland, Oregon. He was born on January 7, 1984 at Dodge City the son of Warren and Donna (McWatters) Shaull.
Daniel was a friendly, outgoing person known and loved by his family and friends. He enjoyed meeting new people and had many friends who knew and respected Daniels continued struggles with mental illness and previous drug dependency. At the end of his short life Daniel had overcome some of his personal problems and we were very proud of him.
Daniel had a great concern for many of the ills of society including mental illness, drug and alcohol dependency, the homeless, and the environment. He had a deep compassion for the down trodden and the forgotten and neglected souls of society. It seemed that Daniel believed he could single handedly solve all these problems. His potential was unlimited as it is with each and everyone that God has given life to. We are thankful for the person Daniel was. He was determined to live his life under his terms and had a tenacity that few possess.
Daniel volunteered and worked at Crew Recycling Center in Dodge City and other organizations, never wanting to be idle. He was determined to regain his health and enjoyed Bicycling and daily exercise. He held a long term goal to bicycle across America to raise funds and awareness for various charities. Daniel loved music in all its varied forms from classic rock to rap. He participated in AA/NA where he enjoyed the encouragement, fellowship and acceptance of others in recovery.
Daniel’s life ended abruptly and his family and friends may never know why. One thing we do know, although Daniel will never return home again to Dodge City, he now has an eternal home in heaven with his Lord and beloved grandmothers. He now is living in that perfect peace that he desired and believed was possible for all. We will remember always the unique and caring son, brother and friend that God gave to us to know and love.
Daniel is survived by his parents, Warren and Donna Shaull of Dodge City; brother, Micah Ian Shaull and sister, Sophie Elizabeth Shaull both of the home; grandfather, Marion Shaull of Tonopah, Arizona; and numerous Aunts, Uncles and Cousins residing across the United States and Canada. He was preceded in death and united in heaven with his beloved grandmothers, Betty Ann Shaull and Mary Elizabeth McWatters; and grandfather, Veron L. McWatters.
Memorial service will be held at the Victory Life Fellowship, 700 S. 14th, on Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 1:30 PM with pastors Carl & Joyce Nance presiding. There will be a fellowship following the servce at the chuch. Memorials can be made to the Victory Life Fellowship for the Legacy Emmanuel Hospital Burn Unit. Thoughts and memories may be shared in the online guest book at www.swaimfuneralhome.com.
Judi Chamberlin, whose involuntary confinement in a mental hospital in the 1960s propelled her into a lifelong leading role in the movement to guarantee basic human rights to psychiatric patients, died on Jan. 16 at her home in Arlington, Mass. She was 65.
Judi Chamberlin
The cause was pulmonary disease, said Martin Federman, her companion since 2006.
“It was not into one of those horror-story-type places” that Ms. Chamberlin was committed in 1966, Mr. Federman said. Still, those five months in a state hospital in New York City for a diagnosis of chronic depression were enough to shock her into action.
She was then Judi Ross, 22 years old, and had suffered a miscarriage. “She didn’t get over that, as people kept telling her she would,” Mr. Federman said. After several voluntary hospitalizations, she was involuntarily committed.
“There are real indignities and real problems when all facets of life are controlled — when to get up, to eat, to shower — and chemicals are put inside our bodies against our will,” Ms. Chamberlin told The New York Times in 1981.
There was a lack of activity, of fresh air. There were seclusion rooms and wards for noncompliant patients, even those who were in no way violent. The drugs, which made her lethargic and affected her memory, seemed more intended to control than cure. And she could not sign herself out.
She had become, she said, “a prisoner of the system.”
After her release, Ms. Chamberlin began working with several organizations in the budding rights movement for mental health patients. She gave speeches and interviews throughout the country. Then, in 1978, her book “On Our Own” (Hawthorne) was published.
“It became the bible of the movement,” Daniel B. Fisher, executive director of the National Empowerment Center, said in an interview. The center, run by people who have experienced mental health issues, is a federally financed organization that provides support, teaches recovery skills and works to reduce the stigma faced by psychiatric patients and those who have recovered.
Ms. Chamberlin’s book “is a set of beliefs and principles,” said Mr. Fisher, who recovered from schizophrenia. “The most fundamental is in the subtitle: ‘Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System.’
“Embodied in that,” he continued, “is consumer control of not only the treatment but of the new paradigm for recovery, which goes beyond what the system provides and encompasses all the support and services needed to lead a full and meaningful life in the community: education, housing, jobs.”
Not surprisingly, Ms. Chamberlin was a critic of the old system, of large institutions in which people were given little hope of recovery and essentially told to accept that they would always lead a limited life.
In 2000, she was a primary author of a federal report by the National Council on Disability called “From Privileges to Rights.” The report made clear that within the traditional system patients had to earn privileges, among them to see visitors, to leave the grounds and to have their own clothes. Those should be basic rights, not earned privileges, the report said.
Ms. Chamberlin was also a member of the team that framed the mental health recommendations in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. The convention, adopted by the General Assembly in 2006, calls for mental patients to be treated with dignity and for a reduction in forced treatment.
In 1992, President George Bush presented Ms.Chamberlin with the Distinguished Service Award.
Born in Brooklyn on Oct. 30, 1944, Judi Ross was the only child of Harold and Shirley Jaffe Ross. Her father was an advertising executive, her mother a school administrator.
Her marriages to Howard Cahn and Robert Chamberlin ended in divorce. Besides Mr. Federman, she is survived by a daughter, Juli Chamberlin of Medford, Mass., and three grandchildren.
“The public dislikes mental patients, mentally retarded people, the physically disabled, the deformed or disfigured — and often such people are incarcerated in institutions euphemistically called hospitals, schools and homes,” Ms. Chamberlin wrote in her book. “The public’s aversion to people who are different is not sufficient reason to justify locking them up.”
James Chasse Jr. is pictured cuffed face down on the sidewalk. Chasse died later by broad-based, blunt force trauma to his chest, as ruled by the state medical examiner.
The ambulance company that responded in 2006 to a police call involving James P. Chasse Jr. and the paramedics who examined him without taking him to a hospital are settling their part of a wrongful death federal lawsuit.
American Medical Response Northwest Inc. is the second party to the federal lawsuit to settle before a scheduled June trial, leaving the City of Portland and its officers as the remaining defendants.
Last summer, Multnomah County settled for $925,000, and the settlement by AMR is reportedly about $600,000.
AMR’s move comes after U.S. District Judge Garr M. King threw out allegations that paramedics acted with negligence and discrimination against a patient with mental illness, but allowed a wrongful death claim to proceed.
This being Portland, people are not shy in telling Homer Williams what (and who) they think killed James P. Chasse Jr.
And why not? Their imaginations are free to roam.
Nearly three and a half years after the frail — and mentally ill — musician died in police custody, the facts that might rope in public debate are still missing.
Forty months, or 1,220 days, have been insufficient to produce a single minute of discipline for Chris Humphreys and the other Portland police officers who were on hand when the 145-pound James Chasse was taken down in the Pearl and, somehow, died.
Yes, I know: Humphreys admitted tackling Chasse, breaking 16 of his ribs, and the poor guy died of blunt-force trauma while in police custody. But I’d hate to add to what deputy city attorney James Rice calls the “overwhelming, inflammatory, negative and pervasive” media coverage of the case.
That coverage has so tainted the jury pool, Rice insists, that his clients in the civil case can’t possibly geta fair trial in Oregon. Those clients include Humphreys and Officer Kyle Nice, police Chief Rosie Sizer, former Mayor Tom Potter and the city.
In his 16-page request for a change of venue, Rice condemns the “pervasive, prejudicial publicity that has saturated Portland for the last three years,” or as long as it took Sizer and the cops to complete their internal inquiry.
He cites the “attacks on the credibility” of police officers in random letters to the editor as undermining the ability of potential jurors “to consider them as honest, trustworthy witnesses at trial.”
He cites a documentary on Chasse’s death, “Alien Boy,” as possibly adding “another layer of sensationalism that would inhibit a fair trial.”
“How strange,” the film’s director, Brian Lindstrom observed last week in a guest column for The Stump, The Oregonian’s online opinion site, “that the city cited my film as one cause for potential jurors in a civil trial to be adversely prejudiced against the Portland police when the film has yet to be completed, yet alone screened.”
This week we reported that Portland Police internal-affairs detectives have yet to interview Officer Christopher Humphreys about shooting a 12-year-old girl with a beanbag gun two months ago.
The bureau is investigating Humphreys for possible violations of policy from the Nov. 12 beanbag shooting — a probe that brought hundreds of cops downtown to rally against Police Commissioner Dan Saltzman for taking Humphreys’ badge.
Saltzman later capitulated in the face of a no-confidence vote by the police union and returned Humphreys to desk duty.
Humphreys was also involved in the 2006 death of James Chasse Jr. If the bureau that took three-plus years to investigate Chasse’s death still hasn’t interviewed Humpheys for the beanbag probe two months later — and indeed, Humphreys hasn’t even been asked — how long might the beanbag probe take?
Months? Years?
“We have no idea,” says Detective Mary Wheat, spokeswoman for the police bureau. “It does take a little bit of time to make sure that we are thorough.”
It’s not only the public that has an interest in swift justice for Humphreys. During the Chasse probe, the police union repeatedly criticized Chief Rosie Sizer for leaving the officers involved hanging for years in uncertainty.
In the interest of all involved, we asked Sgt. Scott Westerman, head of the police union, to explain the “use of force review” currently under way in the Humphreys investigation.
The bottom line is this: Even if Humphreys were interviewed tomorrow, we’d still be a long way from a resolution. But if you’re thinking this explanation about the process will clear things up for you, please refer to the Tokyo subway map above.
Here’s Westerman’s explanation of the process, blow by blow:
1. Internal Affairs detectives investigate. (In this case, it’s retired Detective Lynn Courtney, who has a solid reputation among officers.)
2. The investigator writes a summary and forwards the entire investigation to the boss at Internal Affairs. (In this case, Capt. Ed Brumfield.)
3. Brumfield looks over the material and, if he approves, forwards it to Leslie Stevens, head of the police Office of Accountability and Professional Standards.
4. Stevens forwards the investigation to the city auditor’s Independent Police Review Division (which Stevens used to head).
5. IPR determines whether the case was thoroughly investigated.
6. IPR passes the case back to Stevens.
7. Stevens passes the case to Assistant Chief Brian Martinek.
8. Martinek passes the case to the officer’s precinct commander (in this case, Transit Division Commander Vince Jarmer.)
9. Jarmer makes a finding based on IA’s summary, proposing what he thinks is the appropriate discipline, or no discipline at all.
10. Jarmer forwards his finding and recommendation back to Martinek.
11. If Jarmer recommends there should be no discipline, or just a letter of reprimand or command counseling, and Martinek concurs, the case could be over. Or Martinek could send the case to a bureau review board.
12. On the other hand if Jarmer recommends heavier discipline of a day off or more and Martinek concurs, the case must go to either the bureau’s Performance Review Board or Use of Force Review Board for review.
13. The six-member or eight-member board meets and reviews the case.
14. The review board hands its recommendations on discipline to Sizer. The members may be unanimous, or each member of the board may have a different recommendation.
15. Sizer reviews those recommendations from the board.
16. If Sizer agrees the officer should be disciplined, she informs Humphreys of her proposed discipline.
17. Humphreys has the option of a due-process hearing where he can provide mitigating factors.
18. Sizer takes her own recommendation to Saltzman.
It has been more than three years since James Chasse, a schizophrenic, died after being tackled and taken into custody by Portland police on a Northwest Portland street.
And now, a community forum is in the works – to be held in March at Portland State University.
For some like Jason Renaud, a mental health advocate, the forum will be held three years too late.
“The community is pretty disappointed and disgusted with the city at this point,” Renaud said. “At this point, so many months have gone by without any accountability that the process of the internal police review and the process of the police commissioner lacks credibility.”
In Renaud’s view, the only way for the city to regain its credibility is by taking “extra efforts” to listen – and respond – to citizen comments.
Others, such as vice-chair of a Portland-based Citizens Review Committee Hank Miggins, expect the scope of the forum will be wider than just Chasse’s death.
Miggins said recent use-of-force issues, such as the same officer involved in the Chasse shooting also tagging a combative teenager with a bean-bag gun, should be part of the March meeting. He hopes the forum will shed light on the larger, more general issues of police brutality.
The forum could include a presentation from former Hillsboro Police Chief, Ron Louie, who has written a manual on use-of-force and who has also been critical of police decisions that led up to the bean-bag-shooting of that Portland teenager.
Police use-of-force has been such a hot issue, some on the citizens review committee are concerned about having enough security at the forum. However, they will settle on just how much is needed, between now and March.
The Pearl District intersection where James P. Chasse Jr. was knocked to the ground and handcuffed on Sept. 17, 2006.
A citizen panel charged with reviewing complaints against Portland police is pushing to hold a public forum on the 2006 death in police custody of James P. Chasse Jr. , a step that appears to unsettle some city officials.
Members of the Citizen Review Committee met with the chair of Portland State University’s criminal justice department today, and are considering having Ron Louie, a former Hillsboro police chief and adjunct professor, serve as facilitator.
No date has been set, but the citizen panel is considering a two-hour session this spring.
The League of Women Voters had pressed the Citizen Review Committee to hold a public forum.
“The Chasse case has raised some extremely important issues and questions about police policy for many Portlanders,” wrote Debbie Aiona, action chair for the league, in a letter to the committee. “As the citizen face of our city’s police oversight system, it is important for you to reach out to the public and listen to its concerns.”
Chasse, 42, who suffered from schizophrenia, died in police custody on Sept. 17, 2006.
An autopsy by the state medical examiner showed he died of broad-based blunt force trauma to the chest. Police say they saw him acting oddly, and possibly urinating in the street in the Pearl District and when they approached, he ran. Police chased Chasse, knocked him to the ground and struggled to take him into custody.
Paramedics called to the scene said Chasse’s vital signs were normal, but jail medical staff refused to book him. Chasse died as police were driving him to a hospital.
Chasse’s family has a federal lawsuit pending against the city and paramedics, contending police used excessive force, and police and paramedics failed to provide adequate medical care to Chasse. A trial is set for June.
Mary-Beth Baptista, director of the Independent Police Review Division, the intake center for complaints against police, cautioned the citizen panel today not to set up the public for disappointment and carefully frame how the public forum will be held and how the citizen committee will respond.
Organizers said they hoped to have at least one of the outside consultants being hired this year to review the Chasse investigation attend the public forum.
The city auditor is poised to sign a contract with the consultant, the California-based OIR Group, to review the quality of the police internal investigation of Chasse’s death, why it took more than three years to complete and if any bureau policies or training need to be addressed. The consultants are expected to submit their report by the end of June, Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade said.
“Really the consultant’s role is very, very narrow,” Baptista said. She cautioned the citizen review committee not to raise the public’s expectations because the consultants aren’t going to be able to include all their concerns in their final report.
The city’s request for proposals for the Chasse review said the consultants would meet with the Citizen Review Committee and “interested community members, as deemed necessary by the City Auditor and the IPR director.”
Aiona, of the League of Women Voters, said she was disappointed that the wording of the proposal restricted which community members the consultants could meet with. “Who is government serving if not the public?’’ Aiona asked.
Members of the Citizen Review Committee Friday talked about logistics and planning for a forum. Talk about having PSU security at the event raised concerns among some community activists, who argued it’s unnecessary.
Kevin Hershey, a PSU student helping to organize the forum, said university officials are “sensitive to not making this a circus. I think everyone involved wants to make it as civilized as possible.”
Citizen review committee member Rochelle Silver , who met with PSU officials Friday, said , “Everybody was excited about the idea of this forum. I think it can all come together.”
Jason, who didn't want to give his last name, feeds George and Junior under the west end of the Hawthorne Bridge, where he has camped with other homeless people since mid-October. Jason says you can tell when it gets really cold because the cats sneak under the covers and sleep with him.
If you’ve driven Naito Parkway recently, you might have noticed that the effort to end homelessness hasn’t quite worked out.
Portland leaders have devoted countless time and much money to get people off the streets — or, if you’re the more cynical sort, to answer demands from business owners that they push the homeless out of sight.
Yet for months, police have allowed a small sleeping-bag city of about 20 people to prosper along the southbound lanes of Naito Parkway, despite the fact that such camping remains illegal. It’s a remarkably clean and uniquely public squatter village that might as well be named, “Camp Legal Limbo.”
Homeless men and women have long slept on the sidewalk beneath the western end of the Hawthorne Bridge. In the past, the cops roused the squatters every morning.
That was back when city leaders pushed for full enforcement of Portland’s ban on camping in public spaces. Not anymore.
“They leave us alone, because we police ourselves,” says a tall, lanky man who goes by the street name Jave. “As long as we’re not doing drugs or fighting, they’ve got better things to do.”
That’s part of the reason this campsite has been allowed to continue. Legal confusion also has something to do with it.
In late 2008, the nonprofit Oregon Law Center filed a class-action federal lawsuit challenging the camping ban. Its claim: As long as there isn’t enough temporary housing for everyone, such laws essentially outlaw homelessness.
City lawyers don’t necessarily agree; police note that many campers sleep outside even when shelters have vacancies. But City Council members, who receive regular earfuls from business owners about the damage homelessness does to downtown’s appeal, worry about what happens if they lose. They do not want a federal judge deciding what’s allowed on Portland streets.
Instead, lawyers for the city and the Oregon Law Center are working on a compromise that would give both sides a little something. Advocates for the homeless can claim a big victory if the city lifts its ban on sleeping outside, a law rarely enforced but often used to nudge people to less conspicuous spots.
City leaders, wisely, hope to end the long, expensive legal battle over how they handle vagrancy once and for all. They’d like a judge to endorse certain common-sense restrictions such as a cap on the number of people at any spot, or time limits forcing campers out during business hours.
That would free them up to stop worrying quite so much about what City Commissioner Nick Fish smartly calls “the emergency room” side of the homelessness fight — where a particular person sleeps on a particular night — and more on the broader, “preventative medicine” question of how you keep people from becoming homeless in the first place.
The police would love clarity and legal authority. These days, they keep an eye on popular camping sites but intervene only when they spot drug use or other crimes.
“We monitor, but don’t necessarily enforce,” Capt. Mark Kruger said.
Officers let the Hawthorne campsite continue because residents kick out people who openly use drugs or turn disorderly, sweep up their cigarette butts and keep a decent chunk of sidewalk clear.
Most prefer the sidewalk to shelters because they don’t want to be separated from their traveling companions or have no place to board their pets. Jave said he’s on the street because he has a criminal record that makes finding permanent housing or a job especially tough.
“Everybody here just wants to be left alone,” he said. “The police could come down here any minute and find a reason to kick us out. We know that. The fact that they let us stay must mean we’re doing something right.”
