By Pastor Mark Knutson and Dan Handelman of the Albinia Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform

In late May, consultants from the Los Angeles-Based OIR Group released a study on Portland Police Bureau shootings and deaths in custody. The Oregonian has supported the consultants’ call for the Bureau to learn more from its mistakes and to take simple steps like ensuring officers using assault rifles wear earpieces. What’s been lost in the discussion is that many of the recommendations– both formal and informal– have previously been made, over the course of a decade or longer, by community members.

READ – Report to the City of Portland Concerning the In-Custody Death of James Chasse (PDF)

The Albina Ministerial Alliance (AMA) Coalition for Justice and Police Reform compiled 49 community demands dating back to the death of Jose Mejia Poot in 2001, which it forwarded to the Chief and Police Commissioner in October 2010–19 months before the consultants’ report. While a letter from the Chief and Mayor made an attempt to show progress with some demands last November, many remain unaddressed. The AMA Coalition is made up of volunteer citizens concerned for the good of their own community, yet came up with many of the same ideas for change as the consultants.

For example: The AMA Coalition urged: “Reconcile the Bureau’s training on use of force with the de-escalation taught to all officers in Crisis Intervention Team [CIT] Training.” The consultants, in their first recommendation, tell the Bureau to “integrate [CIT] training into patrol tactics… [and incorporate CIT training] into its evaluation of shooting and force incidents and hold its officers accountable.”

The consultants’ analysis of the Raymond Gwerder, (Lesley) Paul Stewart and Aaron Campbell shootings indicates that the Bureau has far to go in ensuring communication among crisis negotiators, Special Emergency Response and other officers. They pointed to the issue of earpieces, saying that the Bureau instituted such a policy after the Gwerder shooting, though officers in both subsequent shootings were not wearing earpieces. AMA Coalition called for “Communication between negotiators and other ‘teams’ must be established,” and that “proper equipment must be bought, distributed and trained with to ensure communication, such as earpieces which allow two-way dialogue.”

AMA Coalition demanded, related to Kendra James‘ shooting in 2003, that “the initial interview with officers involved in cases of serious injuries or deaths should take place within 24 hours.” The consultants recommended, and the Oregonian and the Chief both support, the removal of the so-called “48 hour rule” in the police union contracts.

The consultants fall short by failing to call for more independent oversight of these serious cases. They indicate that since the Independent Police Review Division (IPR) has been more involved in shootings cases, both during investigations and at the Police Review Board level, investigations have improved. They fail to acknowledge the community’s distrust of police investigating other police. PARC, the previous consulting group, called for more independent oversight. The OIR Group’s consultants merely repeat a PARC recommendation to stop relying on other local law enforcement agencies to assist in criminal investigations. In contrast, the AMA Coalition has called both for an independent prosecutor to conduct such investigations and a fully independent review board that can “engage in administrative (non-criminal) investigations of these incidents.”

Clearly, the community has made and can make further common-sense proposals for change without waiting for another expert report to bolster its demands. The consultants’ ability to examine confidential material is helpful, but can also be done by the community invoking the public interest exceptions to Oregon’s public records laws.

The consultants’ contract ends in 2014, but they will only examine 11 other shootings up until early 2011. The community has and can make recommendations for change as any new shootings occur. The Bureau should be much, much quicker to respond.

Mark Knutson of Augustana Lutheran Church and Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch are co-chairs of the AMA Coalition for Justice and Police Reform’s Training and Policy Committee.

unsigned opinion by the editors of The Oregonian, July 17, 2012

No doubt, Chris Humphreys and Kyle Nice were pleased with an arbitrator’s decision this month related to the 2006 death of James Chasse. At least someone is. Portland residents have every reason to be disgusted, and the rest of Portland’s police force should be uneasy. Whether they like it or not, the resolution of this incident reflects on them.

James Chasse

READ – What happened to James Chasse

One afternoon nearly six years ago, Officer Humphreys was patrolling with his then-partner, Deputy Bret Burton, who was working for the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. They spotted Chasse standing “hunched” near a tree, where Humphreys thought he might be urinating or using narcotics, according to the arbitrator’s report. Chasse ran when he spotted the officers, and they gave chase. Humphreys employed what the arbitrator’s report calls a “takedown technique,” and Sgt. Nice — who arrived at the scene separately — estimated that it took two to three minutes for the three officers to take Chasse into custody.

It was quite a struggle. Chasse bit Nice on the calf, then tried to bite Humphreys and Nice again, according to the report. Humphreys punched Chasse in the face, and Burton shot him with a Taser.

The officers’ actions to this point seem to have been justified. But then the real trouble started.

Shortly after Chasse was placed in custody, he passed out, at which point Nice, the ranking officer on the scene, requested an ambulance. The primary paramedic soon cleared Chasse for transport to jail, where he passed out again. At a nurse’s insistence, Humphreys and Burton tried to drive Chasse to a hospital. Chasse died in transit of blunt force trauma to the chest, which likely happened while he was being apprehended.

Both Humphreys and Nice were suspended for two weeks without pay for violating the department’s Taser directive. Among other things, it required that people who exhibit “hyper stimulation” or “agitated delirium” before being stunned be taken to the hospital by EMS.

The arbitrator last week tossed the suspension and ordered the bureau to restore the two officers’ back pay.

Chasse, a schizophrenic, was certainly acting strangely. But Nice — who was in charge at the scene — did not violate the policy, the arbitrator ruled, because there is “significant evidence” that Chasse “did not at any time suffer from hyper stimulation and/or agitated delirium.” As for Humphreys, the arbitrator wrote, he wasn’t in charge, either at the scene or at the jail. And in any case, the paramedic at the scene told the officers Chasse was well enough to head to jail rather than the hospital. And the paramedic’s the expert, right?

In other words, unless an officer clearly violates a very explicit policy, there’s a good chance his union will, if so inclined, saw away at technicalities in arbitration until his penalty topples. No matter that his behavior might strike people outside of the union cocoon as shockingly callous. Most people understand that it might be difficult for a police officer with limited medical training to discern whether a suspect is suffering from hyper stimulation or agitated delirium. But in a similar situation, most people probably would approach the paramedic in charge immediately and say, “Hey. You might want to know that we just Tased that guy.”

Both officers should have done exactly this, but didn’t, the city argued in defense of the suspensions. Even the arbitrator acknowledged that there is “no dispute between the Parties that Sergeant Nice and Officer Humphreys could have provided substantially more information to the paramedics” about what had happened. The fact that such information would not have changed the paramedic’s assessment of Chasse’s condition is irrelevant. Chasse was tackled, Tased and lost consciousness, yet neither Nice nor Humphreys provided a full account of the struggle to the chief paramedic. There is simply no excuse for such behavior.

But that didn’t prevent their union from offering a couple. According to the arbitrator’s report, the union argued the following: “at the time of the Chasse incident, the Bureau had no policy around exactly what kind of information officers were obliged to tell paramedics. Second, the Bureau did not provide training to its officers on how to communicate with medical personnel.”

How much training does it take to say, “we just Tased him”?

If the department did, in fact, have such communication policies in place, we suppose the union would have argued that the bureau hadn’t trained officers to identify paramedics.

Few would dispute that police officers have a tough job, and most do it conscientiously and well. But the consequences when they fail can be terrible, which is why those who oversee them need the authority to impose reasonable discipline. This case and others noted this month by The Oregonian’s Maxine Bernstein indicate how difficult this authority is to exercise in the face of union opposition. The result, inevitably, is an erosion in the entire department’s credibility. That’s a high price to pay for lifting the suspensions of two officers whose performance even the arbitrator who ruled for them found lacking.

From the Salem Statesman Journal, July 7, 2012 – guest opinion by Tim Murphy.

Addiction stole my friend.

Addiction steals parents from children, daughters from mothers and loved ones from their lovers. Addiction robs you of your present and disintegrates your dreams. Addiction can steal your life.

Tim Murphy, CEO at Bridgeway Recovery Services

It is often said that Alzheimer’s is a brain disease that robs you of your memory and in doing so destroys your past. Addiction too is a brain disease that, instead of your past, destroys your future.

No one wants to develop Alzheimer’s and no one sets out to become addicted to substances such as alcohol, amphetamines or opiates. Once you begin using any of these substances, your brain becomes affected and, in most cases, desires more. Those desires evolve into cravings and those cravings can become unbearable pains that require relief.

Currently in our community we are witness to a surge in opiate addiction and, as a result, heroin use. Recently the Statesman Journal brought this “epidemic” into focus with a series of articles regarding the growing use of heroin in Salem and throughout Oregon.

The hydraulics that work together to create this epidemic are both complicated and controversial. For the past decade there has been an unprecedented demand for pain management medication. Nationally there began a laser-like focus on identifying and relieving pain.

Nurses are trained and required to assess hospital patients’ pain several times a day. Every outpatient physician visit often involves a question regarding a patient’s experience of pain. Once identified, the pain must be attacked with an intervention meant to reduce that pain. Too frequently that intervention is an opiate-based medication that can lead to dependence, cravings and outright addiction.

How does heroin fit into this discussion? Simple. As the availability of prescribed opiate-based pain relievers decreases, the demand for street drugs like heroin increases.

Heroin acts on the brain in a similar way to how opiate-based medicine acts. It can relieve pain and, at the same time, develop a craving for more. That craving can become a force so powerful that you will do anything to address it. Anything.

Once you are addicted, all you want is relief, and the bridge from oxycodone to heroin is an easy one to cross.

At Bridgeway Recovery Services, we see the aftermath of this cycle of addiction every day. The good news is is that we can treat opiate addiction effectively, and an important part of that treatment is reducing access to the drugs.

Salem Hospital recently held a press conference indicating that they recognized the issue and are committed to reducing the prescription of addictive opiate pain relievers in the emergency room. Our colleagues in private practice need to join the effort. In the coming months, Bridgeway will be participating in a community-wide conversation meant to educate the public on the dangers of opiate addiction and heroin use.

We need to attack addiction but refrain from attacking addicts. Addicts need treatment, and we know how to treat them. When we provide treatment, people find relief from the pain and relief from addiction, and they recover their lost lives. We invite all of you to join us in this effort.

Tim Murphy of Salem is chief executive officer of Bridgeway Recovery Services. He can be reached at tmurphy @ bridgewayrecovery.com.

Here’s the July 2012 edition of Eyes & Ears, a mental health consumer run newsletter for consumers, their friends & family and mental health professionals.

Download and read the July 2012 issue at:

Online Reading Version of Eyes & Ears – with links
Full article version of Eyes & Ears – for printing
Contact the editor at eyes.ears_newsletter@yahoo.com

Included in this issue:

* Supreme Court Ruling Met With Relief in Oregon
* Mental health group says combat PTSD deserves Purple Heart
* OHSU’s Richmond clinic in Southeast Portland wins federal funds to expand services
* Changes to Oregon health reforms lead to delay by Portland-area Medicaid group
* Governor Kitzhaber Meets With Mental Health Consumer/Psychiatric Survivor Leaders About Healthcare Transformation
* Your Input Welcome For 2012 Alternatives Keynote Speech – SURVEY
* GUEST VIEWPOINT: Mental hospital needs discussion, not construction
* Extra on the online version with links: Glaxo Agrees to Pay $3 Billion in Fraud Settlement; Arbitrator tells Portland it must dismiss suspensions of two cops involved in Chasse case; State Will Use Federal Grant to Expand 211 Health Resource Referrals; Blue Mountain Recovery Center Still On The Ropes; and a lot more.
* Coming Events: Peer Workshops at Clackamas County urgent walk-in clinic; Wireman Project presents
For the Love of Art; Movies & Concerts in the Parks; Alternatives Conference 2012 and OCSC Statewide Gathering preceding the conference in October.

Besides other news there are a variety of listings of meetings, services, support groups, job opportunities and more.

In the past three decades, Portland police chiefs have fired officers who were convicted of driving drunk off duty, leaving dead animals outside a black-owned business, and selling “Smoke ‘Em, Don’t Choke ‘Em” T-shirts to officers after a man died in police custody from a neck hold.

The chiefs had to bring them all back.

More recently, an arbitrator overturned the firing of Officer Ron Frashour for fatally shooting an unarmed man [Aaron Campbell] in the back; the 80-hour suspensions for Officer Chris Humphreys and Sgt. Kyle Nice following the death of James P. Chasse Jr.; and the 900-hour suspension of Officer Scott McCollister for his actions leading up to his fatal shooting of Kendra James.

READ – What happened to Aaron Campbell
READ – What happened to James Chasse
READ – Stories including mention of Kendra James

So just what does it take to discipline a Portland police officer?

Frankly, if push comes to shove and it goes to arbitration, you can’t do it.

Police leaders complain that they can’t effectively manage their work force when decisions are second-guessed and overturned.

Police union representatives say the percentage of discipline cases they challenge is small. And they’re right; in the past 10 years, 12 discipline cases in the nearly 1,000-member police force ended up in arbitration. An arbitrator overturned the discipline in half; the others await a hearing or a ruling.

But the cases that reach arbitration usually are high profile and involve the most egregious conduct, tactics leading to the use of deadly force or, in Frashour’s case, the use of such force. They tend to be those that reflect most poorly on the agency and anger the public, which seeks accountability for bad actors.

The result of repeated rulings overturning discipline has left those responsible for trying to command the largest municipal police force in Oregon feeling powerless.

“It’s frustrating. It’s very hard to lead an organization like that,” said Brian Martinek, a former Vancouver police chief who served as an assistant chief in Portland during the Chasse case and Frashour’s shooting of Aaron Campbell.

Once discipline comes down, union leaders frequently are in command staff’s faces, he said, taunting that, “We’re just going to kick your butt anyways, like we always have.”

The Oregonian reviewed 14 Portland police arbitration decisions since 1981 and found that discipline usually was overturned because either the bureau did a shoddy investigation or the arbitrator picked apart a chief’s decision with a grab-bag of objections: Similar misconduct by officers in the past hadn’t drawn such discipline, police policies were unclear or none governed the alleged misconduct, bureau instructors testified that an officer had acted as trained, or the officer had a prior clean record.

Darrel W. Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association, said Portland’s experience is not unique.

“Quite frankly, arbitrators find it very difficult to take the police officer’s livelihood away,” said Stephens, who served as chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and teaches at Johns Hopkins University’s Public Safety Leadership Program. “The unions may win these things, but they’re not helping the organization. The community loses confidence in the police, and within the department, it undermines the whole process of discipline.”

Portland’s police union lawyers say the rank-and-file accept most discipline, and the union takes only strong cases to an arbitrator when it’s clear an officer was wronged. Further, they say many serious discipline cases don’t stand up because they were politically motivated.

“I grant you, it’s not the perception of the public” said Will Aitchison, who served as Portland Police Association lawyer for 32 years, “but the fact is, it is very rare to find the city’s police union challenging a police termination.”

Mark Iris, who served for 21 years as executive director of the Chicago Police Board and has written about arbitration rulings in Chicago and Houston, said he’d expect serious discipline — which has gone through several layers of review, including grand jury, criminal and internal inquiries — to be upheld once it got to arbitration in at least 75 to 80 percent of cases. But that’s not happening nationally.

Over time, he said, such reversals can have a “corrosive effect” on an agency’s disciplinary process, “erode the deterrent value of discipline” and cause the public to lack confidence in the ability of an agency to control its people.

One need only look at the remarks of the Rev. LeRoy Haynes, chairman of the Albina Ministerial Alliance’s Coalition for Justice and Police Reform, who helped lead a protest outside City Hall after an arbitrator ordered Frashour back on the force.

“This decision says that those who are elected, that they cannot hold police officers in this city accountable,” he bellowed from City Hall’s steps. “It says any police officer can do what they want to do. … It means we cannot trust our police department.”

The arbitrator’s ruling that dismissed former Chief Mark Kroeker‘s 900-hour suspension of McCollister reads as a template for how arbitration has worn down Portland police discipline. The litany of reasons for overturning the suspension have popped up in multiple Portland arbitration decisions since. Kroeker had ruled McCollister should not have put himself in such a precarious position by reaching into a moving car to try to stop Kendra James from driving off, only to fatally shoot her in 2003.

Kroeker testified that he recognized the unusually long suspension was “ground-breaking” in the bureau, and said he issued it to “send a message to the officer and to the organization” that McCollister’s tactics were faulty, and led to the use of deadly force.

“Policing is the kind of profession where the employer must be able to exercise its subjective judgment in making disciplinary decisions; so long as that subjective judgment is exercised in good faith, the arbitrator should not second guess the disciplinary decisions and sanctions imposed,” Kroeker argued.

But the union quickly cited two cases in which officers had reached into moving vehicles without facing such harsh discipline.

One involved a highly respected officer, Mike Stradley, who climbed entirely into a moving van to take a suspect into custody and ended up firing his Taser while the van was traveling 80 mph through a city neighborhood. A written reprimand was proposed. The other case involved then-Officer Jim Lawrence, who shot and killed a suspect while reaching into the open window of a moving van and being dragged. He received no discipline.

The McCollister discipline was further derailed because no internal affairs investigation was ever done. Instead, the bureau relied solely on the detectives’ criminal inquiry, which the union pointed out was contrary to past practice. For a final blow, all the bureau training instructors testified that McCollister had acted as trained, and no policy existed then that restricted an officer from reaching in to a moving vehicle.

Sound familiar?

Once McCollister’s suspension was reversed, the arbitrator ordered the city to make McCollister whole not only for his back pay, but also include 1.88 hours of overtime for each week he was suspended. The union said the city must compensate him for what he “would have earned.”

“The arbitrator can always find an excuse that on its face looks potentially plausible,” Iris said.

Stephens said arbitrators can’t expect agencies to have a policy for every conceivable act of misconduct. “Some of it just has to be about common sense,” he said.

Aitchison counters that chiefs can’t discipline officers based on a standard of conduct that’s not trained. “Cops just want to know what the rules are,” he said.

Typically, only the union can decide to challenge an officer’s discipline before an arbitrator; officers can’t do so on their own. The union’s executive board votes and a majority rules. A list of arbitrators is sent to the city and union, and each side alternately strikes names off the list; the last name remaining gets the assignment.

Critics say arbitrators are well aware that if they routinely side with management, the union won’t pick them again, or vice-versa.

“The last one left standing gets the commission, gets the job,” Iris said. “I think arbitrators rein themselves in so they’re chosen the next time.”

Observers also note that Aitchison, a nationally recognized police labor attorney, historically has run circles around city attorneys.

“In many places that’s true,” Iris said. “The attorney for the union is savvy, experienced and capable, and the city lawyers are vastly overmatched.”

To make sure discipline issued by police managers is not arbitrary but consistent and fair, police consultants have recommended agencies adopt what’s called a disciplinary matrix. It would set disciplinary guidelines for a variety of violations or misconduct, intended to give officers and police managers a sense of what to expect. A few U.S. police agencies have adopted matrixes, including the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, Phoenix and Washington State Patrol.

Portland police are setting up a work group to consider such a matrix.

Beyond that, criminal justice experts have urged police departments to do as much as possible to limit disciplinary problems by setting high standards for hiring with effective screening of applicants, ensuring training is aligned with bureau policy and clear expectations, and there’s strong street-level supervision. Also, they stressed the importance of disciplining officers soon after the alleged mistake.

Upon learning that the Chasse arbitration ruling this week had come 5 1/2 years after his death, Stephens said: “That’s crazy! By the time you get to that point, any impact you intended the discipline to have is long gone.”

There’s no magic answer, Iris said.

“In some cases,” he said. “You basically have to gnash your teeth.”

From the Oregonian, July 12, 2012

An arbitrator has ordered the city of Portland to dismiss two-week suspensions against former Officer Christopher Humphreys and Sgt. Kyle Nice stemming from the death-in-custody of James P. Chasse Jr. in September 2006.

ARBITRATOR’S OPINION AND AWARD CHRIS HUMPHREYS / KYLE NICE GRIEVANCE

IN THE MATTER OF THE ARBITRATION BETWEEN PORTLAND POLICE ASSOCIATION ( “PPA” OR “THE UNION” ) AND CITY OF PORTLAND (“THE CITY” OR “THE EMPLOYER” )
HEARING: FEBRUARY 13 –17, 2012 HEARING CLOSED: MAY 8, 2012
ARBITRATOR: Timothy D.W. Williams 2700 4th Avenue #305 Seattle, WA 98121
REPRESENTING THE EMPLOYER: Stephanie Harper, Deputy City Attorney, Dave Famous, Captain Portland Police Bureau, Mgmt Rep, Darla Collar, Paralegal
REPRESENTING THE UNION: Anil Karia, Attorney, Sergeant Kyle Nice, Grievant, Office Chris Humphreys, Grievant, Office Daryl Turner, President, Portland Police Assoc.
APPEARING AS WITNESSES FOR THE EMPLOYER:, Michael Poorkley, PPB, Internal Affairs Investigator, Tamara Hergert, AMR Paramedic, Rosie Sizer, Former Chief of Police, Dan Saltzman, Former Commissioner of Police Bureau, Dave Famous, Captain Portland Police Bureau, Dwight Pahlke, Sgt. Portland Police Bureau
APPEARING AS WITNESSES FOR THE UNION:, Kyle Nice, Sgt. Portland Police Bureau, Chris Humphreys, Former Office Portland Police Bureau, Bob Brown, Officer Portland Police Bureau, Dan Livingston, Sgt. Portland Police Bureau, W. Ken Katsaris, Police Consultant

“The Arbitrator is certainly aware of the controversy surrounding the James Chasse case,” arbitrator Timothy D.W. Williams wrote in a 60-page ruling. “The viral nature of the events that occurred on Sept. 17, 2006 does not, however, change the standards or protocols that a labor arbitrator uses to resolve a grievance.”

Chasse’s family lawyer Tom Steenson and then-police commissioner Dan Saltzman reacted with disgust Thursday, while police union leaders called the arbitrator’s order a “vindication” for Nice and Humphreys.

Chasse, who suffered from schizophrenia, died in police custody from broad-based blunt force trauma to the chest Sept. 17, 2006, after officers chased him and knocked him to the ground in the Pearl District. Paramedics came to the scene but did not take Chasse, 42, to the hospital. Instead, police drove him to jail, but jail staff refused to book him. Police then drove him in a cruiser to the hospital, but he died on the way.

In February 2010, Saltzman suspended Humphreys and Nice for violating the bureau’s Taser directive. He found they failed to insist that Chasse be taken by ambulance to a hospital after police stunned him with a Taser, and did not brief paramedics fully about the police struggle and use of the stun gun. Humphreys also was cited for not requiring Chasse be taken by ambulance to the hospital after the jail refused to book him.

The arbitrator said the city failed to prove its charges, particularly because “competent medical personnel approved or directed the transportation of Mr. Chasse by police car.”

“While Sergeant Nice and Officer Humphreys could have provided a much more thorough statement of the observed medical problems related to Mr. Chasse, the evidence is compelling and indicates that this information would not have changed paramedic (Tami) Hergert’s conclusion that Mr. Chasse was safe to take to jail,” the arbitrator wrote.

Williams directed the city to pay lost wages to Nice and Humphreys.

The ruling comes on the heels of another arbitrator’s ruling this year that ordered the city to rehire officer Ronald Frashour, who was fired for fatally shooting an unarmed man in 2010. The city is challenging that ruling.

The bureau’s Taser Directive at the time of Chasse’s death said EMS will be summoned when a Taser is used, and “EMS will also transport” a patient to the hospital, if a child, elderly person, someone who is “obviously medically fragile,” suffering from “hyper stimulation” or “agitated delirium” is stunned.

Saltzman testified at arbitration that Chasse, based on the record, appeared hyperstimulated, and the directive should have kicked in. The union countered that the officers did not notice a medical condition that would have required transport and relied on paramedics. Further, the union argued there was no bureau policy on what officers are required to share with medics.

The arbitrator agreed with the union, that there was no evidence Chasse suffered from “hyper stimulation and/or agitated delirium,” as his vital signs showed no elevated heart rate, blood pressure, temperature or respiration.

“I can’t say it surprises me,” said Steenson, who won a $1.6 million settlement against the city in 2010 after filing a federal wrongful death lawsuit. “The city is incapable of having any kind of system in place to control its officers.”

The $1.6 million settlement was the city’s largest payout stemming from a wrongful death lawsuit. But the city admitted no wrongdoing.

“Obviously I feel my decision was the right one,” Saltzman said. “This is another example of arbitrators gone wild.”

Nice now works in the Telephone Reporting Unit and serves as a firearms instructor. Humphreys was medically laid off from the bureau Nov. 23, 2010, because of the time he missed work collecting disability payments. But he’s now considered fit for duty and is running for sheriff in Wheeler County.

Police union leaders hope the arbitrator’s ruling would amount to a “name clearing.”

“Sergeant Nice and Officer Humphreys were trained to police. They are not paramedics or nurses,” union president Daryl Turner said. “It was a tragedy what occurred. These are not victories for us. There’s some vindication for the officers involved.”

Humphreys, in a written statement, noted that his actions were scrutinized by a grand jury, the bureau’s Use of Force Review Board and now an arbitrator. “In all cases I have been cleared,” he wrote, adding that he looks forward to serving as the next Wheeler County sheriff.

The arbitrator said a key question was: What difference would it have made if Nice or Humphreys had given more information to the paramedic at the scene?

Hergert testified in a deposition that she wished she had known Chasse had been Tased, but it wouldn’t have changed “the vital signs or exam I had done on Mr. Chasse.”

“Overall and in hindsight, the Arbitrator finds much that could have been done differently,” Williams wrote. “However, based on the training that Sergeant Nice and Officer Humphreys received and on the conclusions reached by the lead paramedic, the Arbitrator does not find evidence that the failure of Sergeant Nice to have Mr. Chasse medically transported to the hospital an offense that should be subjected to discipline.”

Chasse’s death led to new policies. Since March 2009, Portland arresting officers are required to provide “complete and thorough” information on any use of force used to EMS personnel, and says EMS personnel will make a final decision on whether to transport someone to a hospital. Ambulances now must be called to transport suspects whom the jail refuses to book for medical concerns to a hospital.

Arbitrator Overturns Suspensions for Cops in Chasse Death

From the Portland Mercury, July 12, 2012

An arbitrator has told the Portland Police Bureau it must overturn two-week suspensions handed out to two police officers—Sergeant Kyle Nice and Officer Christopher Humphreys—who were involved in the fatal 2006 beating of James Chasse Jr.

The decision was confirmed by Dan Saltzman’s office, which has so far just seen an email synopsis of the finding and declined to comment without reviewing the full ruling. Saltzman, as police commissioner in 2009, suspended both officers because he thought they botched the medical care of Chasse, a man suffering from schizophrenia who was tackled, Tasered, and pummeled by officers who incorrectly accused of him of public urination and carrying drugs

Saltzman argued that the officers should have insisted that an ambulance take Chasse to a hospital, not drive him in their patrol car. And he also said, after the seriously injured Chasse passed out at the jail for the second time, that the officers again should have called an ambulance.

Here’s Saltzman testifying about his decision:

To me it’s really quite clear. It says if the Taser is used and one of certain circumstances apply to the individual, then EMS transport, that that person shall be transported by EMS. And there are two circumstances under which I felt that applied; one was sort of the excited delirium. The other was potentially the hyperstimulation. So there was two paragraphs in there as part of the directive that says EMS will transport. And I felt that both of those applied.

And just their [Nice and Humphreys] observations, too, that not only did they think he was high on drugs but they felt he had mental issues too, and I think that that’s also cited under rule 1051 as a basis for requiring EMS transport….

I felt that 80 hours was a minimally appropriate amount of suspension, and that’s what I went with.

The city attorney’s office says it doesn’t have a copy of the ruling it can send out, but the Oregonian, in a post this morning, quoted from a copy it obtained, presumably from the Portland Police Association. According to the paper and others familiar with the ruling, the arbitrator decided that even if Humphreys and Nice had more forcefully argued for an ambulance, that paramedics still would have made the call to let the police try to take Chasse to jail.

Here’s the arbitrator, Timothy Williams, explaining his thinking. He relies on the testimony of lead paramedic Tamara Hergert—but not as much from the arbitration hearing as from her deposition in a civil case filed over Chasse’s death:

There is no dispute between the Parties that Sergeant Nice and Officer Humphreys could have provided substantially more information to the paramedics. Moreover, in this Arbitrator’s view, the efforts by the City, since the Chasse incident, to require better communication between officers and paramedics is prudent and reasonable. Dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s makes good sense when dealing with medical emergencies and certainly is essential regarding risk management and the potential for civil liability.

However, the Arbitrator emphasizes the fact that in the instant case Sergeant Nice and Officer Humphreys are not being disciplined for their poor communication. The City is emphasizing the communication deficiency as a way of disarming the fact that the lead paramedic twice indicated that it was safe to transport Mr. Chasse to jail. The basic question the Arbitrator asks is what difference would it have made if Sergeant Nice and/or Officer Humphreys had given more information to paramedic Hergert. A quick review of Hergert’s testimony at the arbitration hearing provides the following:

Q. BY [DEPUTY CITY ATTORNEY STEPHANIE] HARPER: I know it’s a hypothetical question, but if you had been told that the Taser had been used, what, if any, different steps would you have taken?

A. I’m not sure, quite honestly. There is the, if they had been tasered and they’re acting completely abnormal to the situation, you transport them in case they have or develop the excited delirium stuff. But other than refusing to talk to us much of what Mr. Chasse did was seemingly appropriate. He saw people standing around him. He saw what he thought was his backpack. He yelled when people picked him up. I would like to say positively I would have transported him, but honestly, I can’t say that for sure. I wish I had known so we could have added in. It may have made a difference. It may not I wish I had known.

Q BY MS. HARPER: Do you wish you had known that he had fallen to the ground hard?

A. Yes. (Tr 165, 166)

Paramedic Hergert is more specific in her deposition given for the civil litigation. There she provides the following statement:

Q: And what was the conversation that you had at the scene when you were clearing the scene?

A: After we had left the scene he mentioned one of the officers told him that Mr. Chasse had been Tased. And when I asked him about what do you mean Tased, he says, well, no, they said he – they tried to Tase him but it hadn’t taken.

Q: And did that cause you to change anything that you had thought about in terms of your care and treatment of the patient?

A: No. It was a piece of information I would have liked to have at the – at the time, but it didn’t change the vital signs or exam I had done on Mr. Chasse [emphasis added by arbitrator]. (J 24, P 10)

The suspensions, coming more than three years after Chasse’s September 2006 death, were controversial both because they were handed down so long after the incident and because Saltzman overruled then-Police Chief Rosie Sizer, who initially proposed just a one-week suspension, for Nice. The arbitration hearing came earlier this year and was still listed as unsettled this spring, back when the Mercury reviewed 10 years of police grievances. Humphreys was also suspended for bean-bagging a 12-year-old girl at a MAX stop, and Nice was found “out of policy” after pulling out his gun during an off-duty road-rage incident. He was then suspended.

One question now is whether the city will fight the ruling, just as it’s fighting an arbitrator’s order to reinstate Ron Frashour, the officer who shot and killed Aaron Campbell in the back in 2010. I’ve not heard back from Mayor Sam Adams’ office in regards to that question, but sources say Saltzman, for one, isn’t planning on pushing this to the state Employment Relations Board.

In both the Chasse and the Campbell death, the city agreed to pay out large settlements in federal court, $1.6 million and $1.2 million, respectively.

Police union praises Chasse case discipline reversal

From the Portland Tribune, July 13, 2012

Arbitrator overrules suspension of sergeant and officer involved in controversial 2012 death

The Portland Police Association is praising a state arbitrator’s decision reversing the suspensions of Sergeant Kyle Nice and Office Chris Humphreys for their actions related to the death of James Chasse, a mentally ill man who died after being arrested in September 2006.

In a Thursday afternoon press release, the union representing the police bureau’s rank-and-file employees said the decision was based on “facts, not media supposition or rumors.”

Former Police Commissioner Dan Saltzman and former Police Chief Rosie Sizer suspended Nice and Humphries without pay for not providing proper medical care to Chasse, who died after being injured while struggling during an arrest in the Pearl District. The city settled a civil lawsuit filed by Chasse’s family in 2012 for $1.6 million, the largest settlement ever paid in a case related to an in-custody death.

The Oregon State Medical Examinber ruled Chasse died from blunt-force trauma.

In its release, the PPA said the arbitrator reached the ruling after five days of hearings, taking the testimony of several witness and reviewing thousands of page of documents.

Aloha man fatally shot by Washington County deputies

From KGW.com, July 8, 2012

Deputies in Washington County fatally shot a man they said was armed with a rifle Saturday night in Aloha.

Several 911 callers reported a man with a gun wandering around on SW 195th Avenue, near SW Farmington Road, according to Sgt. David Thompson of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.

“I looked out and sure enough there’s a guy standing there with a rifle,” neighbor Jim Briggs told KGW. “I watched him walk up and down the street a couple of times with it, so I went upstairs and called.”

The man was still there when deputies got there.

“At least two deputies arrived on the scene and encountered a 54-year-old man armed with a rifle,” Thompson said. “Within a few minutes of their arrival, two of the deputies fired at the armed suspect.”

Briggs said the man actually pointed his rifle at the deputies.

“He was standing behind this car,” Briggs said. “He pointed the gun at them and I heard two shots.”

Jeffery David Anderson, 56, of Aloha, was taken to a Portland hospital, where he died Sunday morning from injuries suffered in the shooting.

The deputies involved were placed on administrative leave. Additional details on the shooting were not available.

Washington Co. deputies fatally shoot man in Aloha

From KOIN.com

A man was shot by two Washington County Sheriff’s Deputies Saturday night in Aloha after reports the man had been walking down the street with a gun.

Officials said Jeffery David Anderson, 56, from Aloha, died Sunday morning at OHSU from his injuries.

Washington County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, Sgt. Dave Thompson, said at 8:13 p.m. Saturday night calls started coming in about a man walking down Southwest 195th Avenue near Farmington Road in Aloha toting a gun.

Thompson said deputies were on scene within a few minutes and made contact with Anderson.

“It’s a warm night, this guy’s walking around with a gun and obviously we got a lot of phone calls about it,“ Thompson said.

Neighbors tell KOIN Local 6 they heard several gunshots follow by deputies telling them to stay inside their homes.

A witness said the deputies shot the man after he ignored their commands.

Officials would only confirm two deputies had been involved in the shooting, and said the suspect was the only one injured.

Thompson said the suspect was taken to OHSU but did not know his condition Saturday night.

Aloha man who was killed by deputies had aimed rifle at officers, a neighbor says

From the Oregonian, July 8, 2012

An Aloha man shot and killed by two Washington County sheriff’s deputies was described as unstable by a neighbor Sunday.

Jim Briggs called 9-1-1 Saturday night after a passing motorcyclist told Briggs’ mother-in-law to go inside Briggs’ house because the motorcyclist had seen a man carrying a gun down Southwest 195th Avenue. Others in the neighborhood had also called 9-1-1 about the man.

After securing his children in the back of the house, Briggs watched out his glass front door as his neighbor, Jeffery David Anderson, sat on the curb across from Briggs’ house and pointed a rifle toward cars driving along Southwest 195th Avenue south of Farmington Road.

He said Anderson, 56, who lived two doors down on the same side of the street, was talking to himself and seemed drunk. Then he saw Anderson aim the rifle at an area where neighborhood kids normally play in the road, although Briggs could not tell whether children were present.

At one point, Anderson sat down and took apart what Briggs described as an assault rifle with a banana clip, and then put it back together.

Deputies responded to Briggs’ call around 8:13 p.m., and according to police, several deputies arrived on the scene and confronted Anderson.

Within a few minutes of the deputies’ arrival, Briggs said, Anderson took aim at them, and two officers fired back.

Briggs said he heard the shots, which he described as “pops,” and saw Anderson lying on his back in the street.

He said the general feeling in his family was the man was “someone you didn’t want to mess with.”

He said Anderson would make “grumbling” noises at Briggs’ wife whenever she walked the dogs past his house.

After Anderson was shot he was taken to OHSU Hospital, where he died early Sunday, according to the Multnomah County medical examiner’s office.

The two deputies who shot Anderson were placed on paid administrative leave, according to Sgt. David Thompson, a Washington County sheriff’s spokesman.

Thompson declined further comment on the case, and said detectives and the county’s district attorney’s office will continue to investigate the incident.

Neighbor: Man shot by deputies was suffering from mental issues

From KATU.com, July 8, 2012

A 56-year-old man shot by Washington County sheriff’s deputies later died of his injuries.

Jeffery David Anderson, of Aloha, died Sunday morning at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) after he had been shot Saturday night.

The incident began around 8:15 p.m. on Southwest 195th Avenue, just south of Farmington Road.

Deputies had responded there on a report of a man with a gun and within a few minutes of their arrival, they fired at the armed suspect.

No further details about what transpired in those minutes have been released but neighbors said the man had been threatening people.

“(He was) walking down the road with a rifle with a big clip and supposedly pointing the rifle at children,” said Ricky Glen, who lives in the area. “Very disturbed, obviously, shouting out different kinds of things.”

“They were telling him to get on the ground, so I guess he acted like he was getting on the ground,” Glen added. “(He) picked the rifle back up, pointed at the cops, pulled the trigger and the gun jammed. So the cops got lucky.”

The sheriff’s office said this was the second time they had been called to the man’s house within a few days but would not comment on what the previous incident was about.

Next-door neighbor Sherry Statler said deputies had also been called out there a few months ago and that Anderson had been struggling with mental issues lately, which is what led his family to call the sheriff’s office in the past.

“I heard depression,” she said. “I heard that he was on some medication and they were concerned that he had taken too much. It’s kind of sad because he was a great guy and he tried really hard to, you know, do right by his family and everything. I’m sorry to hear it went bad for him.”

“He was a great neighbor,” she added. “He was always caring for – when we’d go on vacation, he’d take out our garbage. He was always looking after our home.”

Statler said she also talked with Anderson’s wife, who only found out what had happened when she got home and came across the police scene.

“(She was) so upset and so surprised,” she said. “I mean, you could just see she had no idea it was going to go so badly for him.”

Anderson’s family was too upset to talk to the media on Sunday. They are still trying to figure out why he went out into the street with a gun in the first place.

The shooting remains under investigation and two deputies involved in the incident are on administrative leave.

Aloha man shot by deputies died of gunshot wound to chest, abdomen, according to medical examiner’s office

From the Oregonian, July 09, 2012

An Aloha man who was shot by Washington County sheriff’s deputies Saturday night died of a gunshot wound to his right chest and abdomen, according to the state medical examiner’s office.

Jeffery David Anderson, 56, was pronounced dead early Sunday morning at OHSU hospital, according to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. Two deputies fired at Anderson, who authorities say was armed with a rifle, but the sheriff’s office hasn’t released how many shots were fired or how many times Anderson was struck.

Sgt. Bob Ray, a sheriff’s office spokesman, said deputies on Thursday responded to a call reporting that Anderson was suicidal. Deputies, Ray said, contacted Anderson at his home and they took him to a local hospital for further treatment. Ray wasn’t sure who called police during that incident.

Shortly before 8:15 p.m. Saturday, people began calling 9-1-1 reporting a man armed with a gun on Southwest 195th Avenue, south of Southwest Farmington Road, said Sgt. David Thompson, a sheriff’s office spokesman.

Anderson’s neighbor, Jim Briggs, said he called 9-1-1 Saturday night after a passing motorcyclist told Briggs’ mother-in-law to go inside Briggs’ house because the motorcyclist had seen a man carrying a gun down 195th Avenue.

Briggs said he watched out his door as Anderson, whom he described as unstable, sat on the curb across from Briggs’ house and pointed a rifle toward cars driving along 195th Avenue. He said Anderson, who lived two doors down on the same side of the street, was talking to himself and seemed drunk.

At least two deputies reportedly arrived shortly after the calls and found the man, armed with a rifle. Within a few minutes of the deputies’ arrival, Briggs said, Anderson took aim at them, and two officers fired back.

The sheriff’s office has not confirmed whether Anderson pointed the weapon at deputies. After Anderson was shot, he was taken to OHSU Hospital, where he later died.

The two deputies who shot Anderson were placed on paid administrative leave, Thompson said. They have not yet been identified, and Ray wasn’t sure when they will be interviewed.

The sheriff’s office is not releasing further information, citing the ongoing investigation, which is being conducted by the Washington County Major Crimes Team.

The shooting is the second deputy-involved shooting in Washington County this year. Last month, sheriff’s deputies fatally shot Robert Kimball Fox, 52, of Aloha, after authorities say he pointed a “loaded high-power rifle” at deputies and failed to respond to multiple commands to drop the gun.