Mental Health Association of Portland

Portland Police Chief Mike Reese

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian, June 11, 2013

The Portland Police Bureau Tuesday released a matrix showing how it is tracking the adoption of 80 reforms sought by federal justice officials after a scathing inquiry last year into police use of force against people with mental illness.

READ – PPB’s 80-item matrix (PDF, 104KB)

The matrix was released four days after the city and federal justice officials declared in federal court an impasse with the Portland police union over formal adoption of the changes.

Despite objections from the police union, the Police Bureau has moved ahead in recent months with changes to the use of force and Taser policies, training on those policies, the creation of a Behavioral Health Unit and advisory board and an Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team, a specialized team of about 50 officers who will become the go-to officers to respond to mental health crisis calls. The bureau also expanded its single mobile crisis unit, pairing an officer with a mental health worker, to a unit in each of its three precincts.

The bureau is in the process of training street-level supervisors on new responsibilities.

The bureau is also working with the Bureau of Emergency Communications to figure out how the new Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team officers should be dispatched to calls and work in the field, and how better to triage mental health-related calls.

Since the new team completed specialized training May 30, for example, dispatchers have noticed that there aren’t Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team officers working on all shifts.

What hasn’t occurred yet: The city’s hiring of a “Compliance Officer and Community Liaison” to oversee the reforms who has expertise in police practices, community engagement and crisis intervention. Creation of a 15-member Community Oversight Advisory Board. A new process to effectively evaluate training and bureau curriculum, a better way to track civil police liability cases and changes to the Citizen Review Committee.

What the bureau color-coded as the single red action item that is not moving forward because of what it termed “barriers to implementation that require attention” is the federal justice department’s desire for the bureau to require officers involved in shootings to be interviewed immediately by detectives, instead of allowing a 48-hour wait after an incident.

In the new use of force policy Chief Mike Reese adopted, there was no mention of such a requirement. Instead, the chief sought to have officers involved in shootings provide an “on-scene interview” to a detective, after given a reasonable chance to confer with a lawyer or union representative. It would be a briefing on what occurred, but a full sit-down interview could still be delayed for 48 hours, under union contract.

From the Oregonian, June 5, 2013

Portland’s City Council on Wednesday approved a $2.3 million settlement to resolve a federal lawsuit filed by William Kyle Monroe, a man diagnosed with bipolar disorder and permanently disabled after Police Officer Dane Reister fired lethal rounds at him from his beanbag shotgun two years ago.

Portland Police officer Dane Reister talks to his attorney Janet Hoffman, left, in May 2012.

The amount marks the city’s largest individual settlement in its history.

It was reached after negotiations between city attorneys and Monroe’s lawyers in two mediation sessions with U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken.

The City Council voted 4-0 to approve the significant payout. Mayor Charlie Hales was at an unrelated news conference and not present for the vote.

The cost to the city will be $965,000 and the remaining $1,335,000 will be covered by the city’s excess insurance carrier.

“I think it’s a reasonable resolution of the case. We made a mistake,” Jim Rice, a deputy city attorney, told the council. “Of course we want to learn from our mistakes. We were lucky it didn’t turn out worse than it was.”

Monroe’s lawyer Thane Tienson told The Oregonian that the money will help pay for Monroe’s ongoing medical costs and lost wages stemming from the June 30, 2011, shooting.

“I think it was the right thing to do,” Tienson said Wednesday afternoon. “If anything, the amount is a little conservative, but nonetheless fair.”

Monroe, who was 20 at the time, narrowly escaped bleeding to death only because OHSU Hospital was near the shooting scene, his lawyer said.

Reister’s gunshots fractured Monroe’s pelvis and punctured his bladder, abdomen and colon. The fourth shot, fired from less than 15 feet away, left a “softball-size hole in his left leg” and severed the sciatic nerve, according to Monroe’s suit.

Tienson said the situation should have been handled without force.

The day after the shooting, then-Mayor Sam Adams called it “a tragic mistake.”

Within weeks of the shooting, Rice said he, along with Assistant Chief Eric Hendricks and the Police Bureau’s then-director of services Mike Kuykendall approached Monroe’s lawyers.

Rice said he knew Monroe’s lawyers and suggested that they need not file a lawsuit. Rice said he told Monroe’s lawyers that the city was prepared to mediate the case to a financial resolution, considering the city accepted fault. Rice said he also offered to exchange any police reports and documents with Monroe’s lawyers.

The lawsuit ended up being filed earlier this year, and a settlement was reached last month.

Monroe’s federal lawsuit accused Reister, the police chief and the city of violating Monroe’s civil rights through false arrest, assault and negligence. The suit alleged that the police chief could have prevented such a mistake by prohibiting officers from mixing lethal ammunition with less-lethal munitions in their duty bags, as Reister did.

Further, the suit contended that the bureau had failed to adequately discipline officers who are “pre-disposed” to using excessive force. And, it demanded the bureau fire Reister.

According to the suit, Monroe lived in Hillsboro and had intended to drive to Bremerton, Wash., to visit his mother the day before the shooting, but he became disoriented and was suffering from a paranoid mania.

He ended up in Lair Hill Park the next morning, where children from a day camp were playing. Monroe pulled discarded flowers out of a park garbage bin and tossed them near the children. Camp supervisors told Monroe to leave. Police received two 9-1-1 calls from camp officials. The camp director said in the second call that Monroe may have had a pocketknife up his sleeve.

Portland Police Chief Mike Reese, middle, talks with then-Mayor Sam Adams, right, who showed up at the scene on Southwest Naito Parkway on June 30, 2011, soon after learning of Officer Dane Reister’s shooting of William Kyle Monroe.

Reister responded to the call. He spotted Monroe on Southwest Naito Parkway, commanded him to stop and get down on his knees with his hands behind his head. Reister asked Monroe whether he had any weapons, and Monroe emptied his pockets, discarding his miniature Swiss Army knife, the suit said. Monroe put his hands behind his head but asked why he should get on his knees. Reister grabbed his beanbag shotgun from his car as two more officers arrived.

Monroe assured police he hadn’t done anything wrong as he backed away, then began running and yelled for help. Without warning, the suit said, Reister fired five times, emptying his clip. The fifth round jammed because of Reister’s “excessively rapid firing,” the suit said.

No one from the Police Bureau was present at Wednesday’s council session when the settlement came up for a vote.

Last month, Chief Mike Reese released a statement: “The Police Bureau continues to hope for Mr. Monroe’s full recovery and the Bureau recognizes that this incident has been extremely difficult for everyone involved.”

Commissioner Amanda Fritz asked Rice what changes have been made to avoid a similar mistake.

The Police Bureau adopted new protocol four months after the shooting in late October 2011, at the same time Reister’s attorney Janet Hoffman was arguing in court that the bureau’s “gross negligence” and lack of safeguards for the handling and storage of police ammunition contributed to Reister’s shooting.

The new directive required that officers who are certified to carry the beanbag shotguns to check out the firearm from their precinct’s armory at the start of their shifts. They must only load the beanbag shotguns with bureau-issued, less-lethal ammunition that would be stored in a carrier attached to the side or stock of the orange-painted, 12-gauge shotguns. The guns must be loaded in the police vehicle from this supply only.

At the time of Reister’s shooting, he carried both the lethal and beanbag ammunition in his duty bag. He mistakenly loaded live buckshot rounds – which are yellow – into his beanbag shotgun, Rice said. The beanbag shotgun rounds are red-colored.

Fritz asked if police officers are tested for color blindness.

“To have a serious error like this, I think we should be looking at every factor,” she said.

(Sgt. Pete Simpson, who serves as bureau spokesman, said police applicants are tested for color blindness during pre-employment screening.)

The bureau chose not to pursue a step taken by many other law enforcement agencies to ensure against similar mistakes: Not allowing the use of the same weapon platform, a 12-gauge shotgun, that can hold both lethal and less-lethal rounds.

Local resident Joe Walsh addressed the council, questioning how a veteran officer can fire five successive shots from his shotgun before realizing he was not firing a beanbag, but lethal ammunition.

“He put a pineapple-sized hole in a man’s leg. The man was mentally ill, again!” Walsh told the council Wednesday. He asked if anyone from the city has personally apologized to Monroe or his family.

Though Tienson has said he believed a higher settlement could be justified given Monroe’s permanently disabling injuries, he told The Oregonian last month, “There’s value in settling a case early on. Mr. Monroe wanted to put this case behind him and get on with his life, and that’s a decision I respect.”

Tienson said earlier he also hoped the large settlement would spur substantial change within the Police Bureau on how officers respond to people in emotional crisis.

“We’d like to think another multimillion-dollar settlement involving claims of excessive force by Portland police against someone who has a mental illness will provide further pressure on the city” to get reforms underway stemming from a recent U.S. Department of Justice investigation of Portland police, he said last month.

The investigation found that Portland police engage in a pattern of excessive force against people with mental illness.

Nearly two years after the shooting, Reister has faced no discipline and remains on paid administrative leave.

Yet Rice signaled Wednesday that the Police Bureau’s internal review of Reister’s actions are “somewhere near completion at this point.”

“The guy should be fired,” Tienson said Wednesday afternoon, of Reister.

Reister also faces pending criminal charges.

Reister has pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging him with third –and fourth-degree assault. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office added a negligent wounding charge, but whether that charge can stick is a matter pending before the Oregon Court of Appeals.

The indictment marked the first time in the county’s history that a grand jury brought criminal charges against a Portland officer for force used on duty.

Portland Copwatch, in an email to city commissioners, urged the council to consider pursuing a charter amendment that would require officers to buy their own professional liability policy, though the city could pay for it.

READ – Portland Copwatch’s letter to City Council in response to the Reister Settlement.

Officers who engage in repeated acts of misconduct could eventually become uninsurable, and unable to continue to work as police officers, said Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch. He said that such a policy – also being floated in the city of Minneapolis – would rid Portland of “frequent fliers” who end up being the subject of multiple lawsuits and costly settlements to the city.

READ – Nope, the City’s Embarrassing $2.3 Million Payout Can’t be Explained by Color Blindness, Portland Mercury, June 5, 2013
READ – Portland agrees to $2 million deal with man shot by officer, KPTV.com, June 5, 2013
READ – Council OKs Payout In Wrong Ammunition Police Shooting, OPB.com, June 5, 2013

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian, May 22, 2013

Portland Police Chief Mike Reese has been known to fill patrol shifts for officers  named employees of the month as a way to reward them with a day off.

But this week, Reese has left his office on the 15th floor of the Justice Center to ride around downtown, filling three consecutive day-shift patrols to reduce overtime costs. Each time this week, he’s taken a lieutenant with him.

On Tuesday, the chief tweeted a message from his police car: “Working patrol today in downtown with Lt. (Jim) Dakin.”

Just before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, the chief, riding with Lt. Mike Marshman, tweeted his latest assignment: “Received a call at 10th and Yamhill on an overdose. Assisted medical.”

And Thursday, he’s scheduled to fill another day shift downtown.

Bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said the chief is on patrol this week “to reduce backfill overtime,” meaning he’s working patrol shifts to avoid bringing an off-duty officer in on overtime pay to fill vacant shifts.

There have been shifts left open this week because officers have been sent for additional training as part of the bureau’s new Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team. Under pressure from federal investigators to improve officers’ response to calls involving people with mental illness, the bureau has returned to having a specialized team of officers to be the go-to cops called out to such crisis calls.

About 50 officers were selected for the team and are receiving an additional 40 hours of training this month.

The police bureau budgeted $7.8 million for overtime this fiscal year. As of February, the bureau spent $5. 8 million and is projected to spend $8.6 million by June 30. The mayor and two commissioners who studied the bureau’s overtime spending have recommended the Police Bureau, among other bureaus, take immediate steps to reduce its overtime costs.

The commissioners suggested the Portland police place tighter controls on overtime; move officers from specialty units to fill gaps in patrol; appoint command staff who don’t earn overtime to take on public information duties on nights and weekends; limit the number of officers that prosecutors subpoena to appear in court on pending cases and assign someone to manage overtime.

Looks like Chief Reese has taken the message to heart.

“The mayor appreciates that the chief is stepping in,” said Dana Haynes, the mayor’s spokesman.

Asked if Reese is continuing to technically serve as chief or has appointed one of his assistant chiefs as acting chief while he’s handling emergency calls, Simpson simply said: “Still the Chief.”

News release, Portland Police Bureau, May 22, 2013

The Portland Police Bureau’s Service Coordination Team (SCT) has scheduled a graduation for Thursday May 23, 2013, from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m., in City Council Chambers at Portland’s City Hall.

City Hall is located at 1220 Southwest 4th Avenue.

Coffee and cake will be served immediately afterwards in the foyer on the first floor.

The Service Coordination Team is a Portland Police Bureau program that provides drug treatment to chronic offenders as an alternative to incarceration, working to address the root cause of their criminal activity.

Thursday, the SCT will be honoring 14 graduates from the Central City Concern Housing Rapid Response Program and the Volunteers of America Day Treatment and Residential Support Programs.

This will bring the total number of SCT graduates to 116 people.

Darryll White, Class of 2009, will be Master of Ceremonies, Commissioners Amanda Fritz and Steve Novick will be making welcoming remarks and Portland Police Chief Mike Reese will be presenting the certificates.

Expected to attend are the 14 new graduates, including several of whom are referrals from the Drug Impact Area (DIA) Program. Additionally, 13 previous graduates will be honored as they have achieved a year or more of sobriety.

The graduation program is a moving opportunity to see the power of change at work and the success of the Service Coordination Team’s partnerships.

The Service Coordination Team is a partnership between the Portland Police Bureau, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, Portland Patrol Inc., Project Respond, JOIN, Transition Projects Inc., Volunteers of America, Central City Concern and the Portland Business Alliance Clean and Safe program.

For additional information about the Service Coordination Team, contact Program Manager Austin Raglione at Austin.Raglione@PortlandOregon.gov

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian, May 7, 2013

Mary Beth Baptista

Mary-Beth Baptista, who has served as director of Portland’s Independent Police Review Division, is leaving the job in mid-June, Portland’s city auditor announced Tuesday.

Baptista has led the division, the intake center for complaints against Portland police, since 2008 after working as a Multnomah County deputy district attorney.

City Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade said she plans to appoint the assistant director, Constantin Severe, to serve as the next director. He has worked as assistant director since 2008.

“Mary-Beth is a courageous leader and a force to be reckoned with,” Griffin-Valade said in a prepared statement. “I was incredibly saddened when she told me she was ready to move on in her career. She had made an important impact on how Portland police officers interact with their community.”

Baptista will complete the hiring of three new IPR investigators and oversee the division’s annual report for the year.

Baptista was involved in helping craft changes to the Independent Police Review Division in 2010 that increased the division’s police oversight powers.

Recently, Baptista was outspoken in her criticism of Police Chief Mike Reese‘s decision to demote Todd Wyatt, instead of firing him for his inappropriate touching of women employees and escalation of an off-duty road rage encounter.

“When I arrived at IPR in 2008, I had a distinct plan of action in mind. I’m proud that IPR has moved a long way toward ensuring greater civilian oversight of the police thanks to hard work and supportive leadership,” Baptista said.

“I wish her well and am hopeful that the CRC will have a good working relationship with Constantin Severe,’’ said Rochelle Silver, a member of the Citizen Review Committee. The committee hears citizen appeals of the police findings stemming from complaints of alleged officer misconduct.

Attorney Jamie Troy, who serves as chair of the Citizen Review Committee, said her departure is a surprise.

“I commend Mary-Beth for ushering in some true reforms during her tenure at IPR and agree these have allowed IPR to play a more hands-on and powerful rule in police oversight,” Troy said. “I’ve always been impressed by her doggedness and determination and wish her well.”

Troy said he’ll welcome Severe to the director’s job.

“I think he’s a great choice,” Troy said. “I find him to be approachable, frank and fair and look forward to working with him at the helm of IPR.

Officer Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association,  said he always had a good working relationship with Baptista.

“She did a tough job and I wish her the best in whatever she decides to do in the future,’’ Turner said.

Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch said he doesn’t expect much change with transition in leadership. He did note that Baptista has provided written director’s reports at each Citizen Review Committee meeting that includes updates on the status of police internal affairs investigations.

“While it has mattered who the IPR director is to some extent, until the institution is fixed, it doesn’t really matter,’’ Handelman said. “Over the years, all the directors feel okay with the constraints that are handed to them and haven’t pushed for a stronger review board as the community has pushed for over the years.’’

County Chair Jeff Cogen

Mayor Charlie Hales stunned Multnomah County officials Tuesday when he announced that the city would no longer pay its share of a 16-bed secure mental health treatment center that opened two years ago after the death of James P. Chasse Jr.

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian, April 30, 2013

Dane Reister

The city of Portland will pay $2.3 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed after Police Officer Dane Reister wounded William Kyle Monroe in 2011 when he mistakenly fired lethal rounds at him from a beanbag shotgun.

The proposed settlement was reached after city attorneys and Monroe’s lawyer met Monday in a mediation session with U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken.

It must still go before the City Council for approval. If accepted, it would mark the city’s largest individual settlement in its history.

“Honestly, I think in the grand scheme of things, it’s not an unfair settlement,” Thane Tienson, Monroe’s lawyer, said Tuesday.

Tienson said the money will help pay for Monroe’s ongoing medical costs and lost wages.

Reister’s gunshots fractured Monroe’s pelvis and punctured his bladder, abdomen and colon. The fourth shot, fired from less than 15 feet away, left a “softball-size hole in his left leg” and severed the sciatic nerve, according to Monroe’s suit.

Monroe, who was 20 at the time and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, is permanently disabled and narrowly escaped bleeding to death only because OHSU Hospital was near the shooting scene, his lawyer said.

The day after the shooting, then-Mayor Sam Adams called the shooting “a tragic mistake.”

Mayor Charlie Hales said Tuesday he was aware that a proposed settlement had been reached.

Chief Mike Reese released a statement: “The Police Bureau continues to hope for Mr. Monroe’s full recovery and the Bureau recognizes that this incident has been extremely difficult for everyone involved.”

Though Tienson said he believed a higher settlement could be justified given Monroe’s permanently disabling injuries, he added, “There’s value in settling a case early on. Mr. Monroe wanted to put this case behind him and get on with his life, and that’s a decision I respect.”

Tienson said he also hopes the large settlement spurs substantial change within the Police Bureau — “not only in training, but in the way the Police Bureau responds to claims of people who are in emotional crisis. The record speaks for itself.

“We’d like to think another multimillion-dollar settlement involving claims of excessive force by Portland police against someone who has a mental illness will provide further pressure on the city” to get reforms underway stemming from a recent U.S. Department of Justice investigation of Portland police, he said.

The investigation found that Portland police engage in a pattern of excessive force against people with mental illness.

Monroe’s federal lawsuit accused Reister, Police Chief Mike Reese and the city of violating Monroe’s civil rights through false arrest, assault and negligence.

The suit alleged that the police chief could have prevented such a mistake by prohibiting officers from mixing lethal ammunition with less-lethal munitions in their duty bags, as Reister did. Further, the suit contended that the bureau had failed to adequately discipline officers who are “pre-disposed” to using excessive force.

“Defendant Reister’s conduct was so extreme that it goes beyond all possible bounds of decency, and it constituted conduct that a reasonable person would regard as intolerable in a civilized community,” Tienson wrote in the suit.

According to the suit, Monroe, who lives with his father in Hillsboro, had intended to drive to Bremerton, Wash., to visit his mother the day before the shooting, but became disoriented and was suffering from a paranoid mania.

He ended up in Lair Hill Park the next morning, where children from a day camp were playing. Monroe pulled discarded flowers out of a park garbage bin and tossed them near the children. Camp supervisors told Monroe to leave the park. Police received two 9-1-1 calls from camp officials. The camp director said in the second call that Monroe may have a pocket knife up his sleeve.

Reister responded to the call. He spotted Monroe on Southwest Naito Parkway, commanded him to stop and get down on his knees with his hands behind his head. Reister asked Monroe if he had any weapons, and Monroe emptied his pockets, discarding his miniature Swiss army knife, the suit says. Monroe put his hands behind his head, but asked why he should get on his knees. Reister grabbed his beanbag shotgun from his car, and two more officers arrived.

Monroe assured police he hadn’t done anything wrong as he backed away and then began running and yelled for help. Without warning, the suit says, Reister fired five times, emptying his clip. The fifth round jammed because of Reister’s “excessively rapid firing,” the suit says.

Four months after the shooting, the police chief issued a new policy, requiring that beanbag ammunition be stored only in a carrier attached to the side or stock of the orange-painted, 12-gauge beanbag shotguns.

Five years earlier, the suit noted, Reister mistakenly fired a loaded riot-suppression launcher during training, injuring an officer posing as a protester with a smoke round.

The suit had called for Reister to lose his job. That’s not part of the proposed settlement, Tienson said.

“That’s a decision the city has yet to decide,” he said. “I think my client would like to see that happen.”

Nearly two years after the shooting, Reister has faced no discipline and remains on paid administrative leave.

He also faces pending criminal charges. Reister has pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging him with third- and fourth-degree assault. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office added a negligent wounding charge.

The indictment marked the first time in the county’s history that a grand jury brought criminal charges against a Portland officer for force used on duty.

Judge Aiken has brokered other large settlements between plaintiffs and the city of Portland.

She helped broker a $1.2 million settlement in February 2012 between the city and the family of Aaron Campbell, an unarmed African American man shot in the back in 2010 during a police standoff. She also helped in the mediation that led to the $1.6 million settlement between the city and family of James P. Chasse Jr. in May 2010, the largest settlement then in the city’s history.

From The Skanner, April 18, 2013

The police union is in court-ordered mediation with the City of Portland and the Department of Justice, after challenging their settlement agreement on police reforms.

Meanwhile Police Chief Mike Reese is pushing ahead with hiring for the new Behavioral Health Unit. But critics say Reese’s hiring choices are eroding community confidence.

Bret Burton Hired to Mobile Crisis Unit

Portland Police Chief Mike Reese defended the bureau when the Department of Justice report was released

Reese recently appointed Bret Burton, for example, as Portland Police Bureau’s first, and for months the only, Mobile Crisis Unit officer. Burton is the former sheriff’s deputy who used his Taser on James Chasse during the September 2006 confrontation that ended with Chasse’s death in police custody.

“We were very surprised that Burton was selected of all the officers taking courses,” says Jason Renaud, co-founder of the Mental Health Association of Portland. The mental health association position is that officers who are responsible in the death of a citizen should not remain in the police force, Renaud said, and the Chasse case raised troubling issues about the officers actions.

“So we asked for his resignation and we asked the city not to hire him.”

Burton was one of three law enforcement officers at the scene of Chasse’s arrest. His employer at the time, Multnomah County, paid $925,000 to Chasse’s family to settle a civil suit. The City of Portland, who employed the other two men, Officer Christopher Humphreys and Sgt. Kyle Nice, paid out $1.6 million to settle the civil suit. An ambulance company, American Medical Response, paid $600,000.

Renaud, who knew Chasse and produced the documentary Alien Boy about his life and death, says the association asked for all three officers to be fired. But the city went on to hire Burton from the county. Last year he appeared in an Australian video, apparently as a PPB spokesperson on Taser use.

Watch the video here

Portland Police Bureau spokesman Pete Simpson, said the Behavioral Health Unit will be supervised by a sergeant and a lieutenant, under the command of Capt. Sara Westbrook.

The other two teams are: the Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team and the Service Coordination Team. One full-time officer has been assigned to the Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team as the coordinator and another full-time officer has been assigned to the Service Coordination Team as its coordinator.

Burton was the first to be hired to the Mobile Crisis Unit. Asked whether Burton was considered for a coordinator position, Simpson said he was not, adding that because the mobile crisis unit has just three officers, it doesn’t need a separate coordinator.

“The ECIT has 50 detached officers so a coordinator is needed,” he notes. “Same with SCU, although I don’t have the list of officers, but it’s more than a dozen.”

Renaud says Burton could have chosen the job because his experiences in the Chasse case taught him an important lesson.

“Perhaps he is the person who is most affected by this work and has somehow been transformed. Perhaps he is more conscious of people with mental illness,” Renaud said. “The other thing we will benefit from is that he will spend a lot of time working with professional psychotherapists. The psychotherapists with Project Respond will spend a lot more time talking to Burton, their co-worker, than they will talking to people with mental illness.”

Reese’s Hiring Decisions and Community Relations

Dan Handelman, of Portland Copwatch, said Reese’s track record suggests he doesn’t consider the impact of his personnel decisions on police community relations.

“It’s surprising on the one hand, but it fits the pattern,” he says of Burton’s appointment. “He appointed Capt. [Mark] Kruger, known for dressing up like a Nazi and for violence during protests, to teach tactical teams how to respond in crisis situations.”

Handelman also points to the chief’s decision to appoint Todd Wyatt, who inappropriately touched women colleagues, to supervise sexual assault and human trafficking investigators. Wyatt also violated other use of force and professional conduct rules, according to The Oregonian, and the police review board voted to fire him.

“It just keeps chipping away at community confidence in the police,” Handelman said. “They talk about community policing all the time, but they never think about how the community might react.”

Handelman said a pattern was set early on when Reese appointed Mike Kuykendall, a friend who played in a band with him, to a top administrative position. In doing so he lost the opportunity to hire someone who would expand community confidence in his leadership, Handelman says.

Kuykendall resigned in February in a text message scandal, again involving Kruger. At the same time he also resigned from the board of the Police Activities League, which had just announced it had run out of money and would have to close its youth centers. OSHA recently fined the organization for lax health and safety at the East Portland Youth Center, including failing to deal with asbestos flooring in the girls and staff restrooms.

Seven Years After James Chasse’s Death

The other two officers who were involved in James Chasse’s arrest and subsequent death also are still in law enforcement.

In July 2012, an arbitrator overturned the city’s disciplinary action against both men. They had been given 80-hour suspensions without pay.

Sgt. Kyle Nice was returned to street patrol in East precinct in September 2012. Previously he had been placed in a desk job after an April 2010 road rage incident, where he pulled his weapon and flipped off a motorist.

Officer Chris Humphreys was involved in another controversy in 2009, when he shot a 12-year-old girl in the thigh with a beanbag gun at close range. She was struggling with another officer after being arrested for being on the MAX train. She had been barred from TriMet.

Five Hundred PPB officers staged a demonstration wearing tee-shirts that read, “I am Chris Humphreys.” Humphreys collected disability for job-related stress until November 2010 when he was medically laid off. He then ran for Sheriff in Wheeler County Oregon. His only opposition was a write-in candidate and he was elected in November 2012.

The Department of Justice report found Portland Police had a “pattern and practice” of violating the civil rights of people with mental illness or perceived to have mental illness. It also raised questions about police relationships with communities of color.

The agreement is meant to resolve the Department of Justice finding, by changing policy on use of force and changing how police deal with people in crisis.

But Portland Police Association challenged the reform efforts, saying many provisions are subject to contract negotiations. Now the police union is in court-ordered mediation with the city and the DOJ. The union will have the right to appeal if it disagrees with the outcome. The Albina Ministerial Alliance has a seat at the table, but no power to challenge or appeal the decision.

Judge Michael Simon, who happens to be married to Sen. Suzanne Bonamici, has ordered everyone involved to keep a strict silence about the negotiations.

Jo Ann Hardesty, who represents the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform in the mediations, says the tradeoff is worth it.

“It’s so important for the community to have a seat at this table,” she says. “The Department of Justice believes it represents the people, but they don’t have the deep history of the injustices that go way back in this community.”

The mediation is supposed to be coming to a close with the parties ready to report back to Judge Simon on April 24.

President Obama recently nominated Thomas Perez the attorney who led the investigation for the federal Office of Civil Rights, for Secretary of Labor. His nomination is facing strong opposition, however, from Republicans.

Portland police officer involved in James Chasse case now part of mental health unit

From The Oregonian, April 21, 2013

One of the officers who had contact with James P. Chasse Jr. before he died in police custody in 2006 is now part of the Portland Police Bureau’s expanded mobile crisis unit.

Chasse, 42, suffered from schizophrenia and died from blunt force trauma to the chest on Sept. 17, 2006, after officers chased him and knocked him to the ground in the Pearl District. Officer Bret Burton, then a Multnomah County deputy, had used a stun gun on Chasse.

Paramedics came to the scene, but didn’t take Chasse to the hospital. Instead, police drove him to jail, but jail staff refused to book him. Police then drove him in a police cruiser to the hospital, and he died on the way.

Chasse’s death resulted in $3.1 million in settlements by the city of Portland, Multnomah County and American Medical Response to Chasse’s family. It also prompted the Police Bureau in 2007 to require all officers be trained in crisis intervention.

Burton, who was subsequently hired as a Portland officer, now is one of three officers who are paired with Project Respond mental health workers. They connect mentally ill people who have frequent contact with police to local agencies for treatment and help. He doesn’t respond to emergency calls for service.

Portland police expanded the unit from one officer to three this year as part of the pending city settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, which found that Portland police engage in a pattern of excessive force against people suffering from mental illness.

Portland police and Burton didn’t immediately return calls for comment Thursday.

In an interview February with KGW, Burton said the encounter with Chasse was “something I think about every day.”

“It’s definitely something that’s changed my life and changed the way we do police work here in the city,” he said.

Jason Renaud, co-founder of the Mental Health Association of Portland, in the past called for the officers involved in the Chasse case to be fired or resign. He said Thursday he still believes they should have lost their jobs, but he admires Burton.

“I think it’s impressive that he wouldn’t run away from it and instead is using his experience to do more to get involved,” said Renaud, who produced a documentary on Chasse. “We can’t always get what we want. But some times, we find that some things can change.”