Man shot and killed by police at Portland Adventist Medical Center was an emergency room patient

A man shot and killed by Portland police Sunday night was an emergency room patient at Portland Adventist Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman said.”He came into the emergency department and then left the emergency department,” said Judy Leach, director of marketing and communication for the hospital.Police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said the dead man’s identity remains unknown. An autopsy is planned by the Multnomah County Medical Examiner on Tuesday.”We don’t know who he is, but maybe the M.E. can work their magic and help us find out,” Simpson.Three officers from the Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct, who all fired shots during the incident, were placed on paid administrative leave while the shooting is under investigation.

Simpson said officers were called to the employee parking lot at 9:24 p.m. on the report of a man in the hospital’s courtyard armed with a black handgun. As officers sped to the scene, dispatchers told officers that callers to 9-1-1 now said the man was patient at the hospital and that he had pointed the gun at a medical center security guard’s vehicle.

Simpson said officers and supervisors developed a plan to safely handle the situation, telling hospital staff to lock-down the building.

They also activated Project Respond member, which parks an officer with a mental health expert. The program provides 24-hour, 7-day-a-week coverage to help officers deal with people who are in mental health crisis.

Officers also called for the bureau’s air support unit, a K-9 unit and paramedics to respond to the scene.

During the encounter with the man, officers gave him several commands. All three officers then fired at the man, who fell to the ground.

The officers approached the man from behind ballistic shields and rendered first aid; paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene.

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The three officers involved in the shooting were identified as Sergeant Nathan Voeller a 12-year-veteran; Officer Andrew Hearst, a 3-year-veteran; and Officer Royce Curtiss, a 7-year-veteran.

Leach said the hospital activated an emergency plan known as “code silver,” which means there is an armed, combative subject on hospital grounds.

“We practice these scenarios all the time,” Leach said.

This is the first fatal shooting of a suspect since the Justice Department found in September that Portland police engage in a pattern of excessive force against people who suffer from or appear to suffer from mental illness, and the first fatal officer-involved shooting since Mayor Charlie Hales took office.

Simpson said Hales visited the shooting scene overnight, and received a briefing on the incident by Chief Mike Reese Monday morning.

Simpson said once the investigation is finished, details of Sunday’s shooting will be presented to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office and reviewed by a grand jury.

The last fatal officer involved shooting by Portland police occurred on July 28, 2012. Billy Wayne Simms, 28, was shot six times and killed by Portland police in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven at 6840 N. Fessenden St. Officer Justin Clary told a grand jury he fired his AR-15 rifle through the passenger window of Simms’ car after he thought Simms was reaching for a gun in the car’s center console.

A .22-caliber handgun was found tucked into his waistband, near his right rear hip. A grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing by police.

The last officer-involved shooting occurred on September 29. A Multnomah County grand jury also found no criminal wrongdoing by two Portland police officers who shot and wounded Joshua Stephen Baker.

Baker, 27,  was charged with attempted murder with a firearm, first-degree assault with a firearm, felony elude, fourth-degree assault involving domestic violence and two counts of menacing.

The incident stemmed from a domestic violence assault at the Hathaway Apartments on Southeast 134th Avenue. A Good Samaritan had tried to intervene, but was allegedly shot by Baker.

Man shot dead at Portland Adventist Medical Center was federal escapee

Portland Adventist Medical Center

By Bryan Denson, The Oregonian, Feb. 19, 2013

The man fatally shot by Portland police was identified Tuesday as 50-year-old Merle M. Hatch, a long-time convict who was supposed to turn himself into a Colorado pre-release center but failed to report.An autopsy is scheduled this morning for Hatch, who was released from the medium-security federal prison in Sheridan on Feb. 12 with orders to report that evening to the Independence House-South Federal Center, in Colorado.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons listed Hatch as an escapee at 9:01 p.m. that day.

Hatch checked into the emergency room Sunday evening at Portland Adventist Medical Center, then threatened a hospital employee with a gun, authorities said Monday.

He walked out abruptly and pointed the gun at a security car in an employee parking lot, police said. He was shot soon after emergency responders arrived.

Mary Hatch, Merle Hatch’s mother, said she hadn’t seen her son in two decades. She said Hatch lived in Colorado. She didn’t know how he ended up in Portland.

“He was troubled,” said Hatch, who lives in Iowa. “He was in and out of prison most of his adult life. He got into drugs early. There wasn’t much left of the person we knew as a kid growing up.”

She said her husband last saw their son 15 or 20 years ago and that he looked like he’d fallen on hard times. Public records show Hatch had an extensive criminal history, including arrests for drug-related crimes and a 2004 conviction in U.S. District Court in Colorado for bank robbery.

She said her son never married, had no children and no employment. She said he regularly got into trouble with the law. He stole to pay for drugs, she said. “Boy, does that ruin more people than we can even shake a stick at,” she said.

While serving a 10-year stretch for bank robbery at the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence, Colo., in July 2009, Hatch wrote a polite note to the judge who sentenced him in hopes of correcting the record on his criminal history.

“Your Honor, Good day and God bless,” he began. “I was convicted of bank robbery in your court 5 years ago. I received 10  1/2 years. At that time the court used a prior felony against me and counted it as violent.”

The prior violent crime wrongly tacked on time to his sentence, Hatch wrote, because the court believed he had robbed an occupied dwelling.

“But the condominium was not occupied,” he wrote. “It was vacant and up for sale at the time of the offense . . . thereby making it a non-violent crime. I would like to ask if you would reconsider my sentence in light of this. Thank you for your time. Merle Hatch.”

No action appears to have been taken on Hatch’s request, based on available records.

Man killed by police at Portland hospital was an escaped federal prisoner

Merle Hatch

A man who was shot and killed by police officers in a Portland hospital parking lot Sunday night was considered an escaped prisoner after failing to report to a federal halfway house in Colorado last week.

According to court documents obtained by KOIN, on Feb. 12, 50-year-old Merle Hatch was supposed to report to the Independence House-South Federal Center in Denver after being temporarily released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan, Ore.

Hatch failed to report to the halfway house, and at 9 p.m. on Feb. 12, his status was changed to escaped, according to a letter sent Feb. 13 from Marion Feather, warden for FCI Sheridan, to U.S. District Court Judge Marcia S. Krieger.

Hatch was serving time for a federal conviction in 2004 for bank robbery out of Colorado. He was sentenced in January 2005 by Judge Krieger to 125 months in prison and three years of post-prison supervision.

According to Paul Thompson, satellite operations administrator with FCI Sheridan, Hatch was given a commercial airline ticket and an itinerary. He was not accompanied on the trip. Thompson did not confirm what prompted Hatch’s transfer to the halfway house.

Merle Hatch’s father, Robert Hatch, described his son as troubled.  Robert Hatch, who lives in Iowa, told KOIN by phone early Tuesday morning that the Multnomah County Medical Examiner notified him and his wife that their son had been killed.

“We hadn’t seen him in 15 to 20 years,” Hatch said.

Hatch said homicide detectives with the Portland Police Bureau have not provided the family with any details about what occurred Sunday night.

Portland police responded to Adventist Medical Center after a man reportedly threatened an employee and claimed to be carrying a handgun. Officers found the suspect in a parking lot. At some point, after yelling commands, three officers shot him dead. The involved officers, identified as Sgt. Nathan Voeller, Officer Andrew Hearst and Officer Royce Curtiss, are on paid administrative leave.

Officials confirmed that Hatch checked into the hospital as an emergency room patient. The details of his visit were not released because of privacy laws.

Hatch said his son continuously go into trouble as a child and adult.

“I think that would be a fair way to put it,” Hatch said.

The family struggled at times because Merle Hatch started using drugs.

“He’d use just about any kind of drug,” Hatch said.

Hatch said he did not know why his son would have checked himself into the hospital. He said the last time he and his wife saw their son was 15-years-ago in Colorado. Robert Hatch said his son was not married and did not have any children. He described his upbringing as typical.

“He played football,” Hatch said. “He grew up here in Iowa.”

The medical examiner will perform an autopsy on Hatch’s body sometime Tuesday.

Portland Police said homicide detectives will continue to investigate the circumstances involved with the shooting. Once their investigation is complete, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office will present the case to a grand jury.

Merle Hatch goaded Portland police, raced toward officers before they shot him

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian, Feb. 21, 2013

Police said they believed Merle Hatch had a gun. It was actually a phone receiver.

Merle M. Hatch taunted police, telling them to “Come on, play,” after they rushed to Portland Adventist Medical Center on reports of a man threatening staff and security guards with a gun.

In the darkened employee parking lot Sunday night, Hatch can be heard on a cellphone video yelling: “Close as you gonna get? That ain’t close enough, come on.”

Hatch shouted that he “ain’t gonna draw” and goaded the officers with obscenities to “come from behind you all, do something” and “One a ya, anyone a ya. I can’t see ya anyway.”

When an East Precinct sergeant and two officers — huddled about 80 yards away in the driveway outside the emergency room — didn’t react, Hatch yelled: “I’m coming to you then, pig. Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Hatch ran toward them. Police shouted “Stop” and “Hands up!” Hatch responded: “One! Two! Three!”

When he got within 14 yards of them, the sergeant and officers each fired multiple rounds, killing Hatch. He fell on his back.

WATCH – press conference on Merle Hatch’s death

Police on Wednesday released the video taken by a resident who was leaning out his window across the street from the hospital and confirmed that Hatch didn’t have a gun.

After the shooting, officers found half of a black telephone handle a few inches from Hatch’s right hand that they believe he used to simulate a handgun.

In the minutes leading up to the shooting, officers can be heard on police dispatch audio alerting their colleagues emphatically several times that the suspect had a gun.

LISTEN - 911 dispatch tape

“He does have a gun, probably in the right hand,” one officer radioed. Just before the shooting, an officer radioed, “He’s got the gun in his hand.” Even after Hatch went down, an officer radioed: “Shots fired, Code 3 medical. He’s still got the gun in his hand.”

Hatch, 50, had stolen the plastic phone handle from the hospital’s emergency room earlier that night, police said. They say he used it to simulate a gun when he threatened a female security guard inside the hospital and then pointed it at a security vehicle in the parking lot.

The shooting occurred at 9:36 p.m., just 12 minutes after police were called to the parking lot and before other help that police had summoned could get there.

“I think it’s safe to say everyone thought it was a gun they were looking at,” Assistant Chief Donna Henderson said.

The case will now go to a Multnomah County grand jury for review during the first full week of March, said Don Rees, a chief deputy district attorney. The grand jury testimony likely will be recorded, with a transcript made public.

Chief Mike Reese said the officers “intentionally kept their distance,” but the encounter unfolded quickly. On the way to the call, a police sergeant had asked for a mental health crisis worker, a police dog and a police plane to respond, “but there was no time for these resources to arrive,” Reese said.

Police declined to say how many gunshots were fired, but at least eight are heard on the video. They withheld information that Hatch didn’t have a gun until Wednesday “basically for the integrity of the investigation,” Henderson said.

Nathan Voeller, the East Precinct afternoon shift sergeant, and Officers Andrew Hearst and Royce Curtiss each fired shots. They were interviewed by police detectives Wednesday morning, more than 48 hours after the shooting. Voeller, 34, has been with the bureau for 12 years, Curtiss, 31, for seven years and Hearst, 25, for three years.

Voeller was involved in the fatal police shooting of unarmed fugitive David E. Hughes in November 2006. He fired seven rounds from an AR-15 rifle. Two other officers also fired their handguns.

Voeller also worked as one of the Police Bureau’s lead defensive tactics instructors before his recent promotion to sergeant. In February 2012, he was among police trainers who was set to testify in support of Officer Ron Frashour in federal court. Frashour shot an unarmed man in the back in 2010. Voeller noted that Portland officers are trained that they don’t need to see a gun before using lethal force if they believe a suspect poses an immediate risk of death or serious injury.

Two years ago, Hearst was among the officers who responded to the same hospital after a man had suffered a heart attack and crashed his car in the hospital’s lot. Hearst had tried to summon medical help from the ER, only to be told to call 9-1-1.

Police did not say why Hatch had gone to the hospital’s emergency room. Police didn’t know until later that Hatch had an extensive criminal history, including arrests for drug-related crimes and a 2004 conviction in U.S. District Court in Colorado for bank robbery.

At the time Hatch was shot, he was considered a federal prison escapee for failing to report the night of Feb. 12 to a halfway house in Colorado after his release from federal prison in Sheridan that same day on a bank robbery conviction. He was supposed to board a plane bound for Denver.

Police have since tied him to a robbery of a Wells Fargo bank in Clackamas last Friday and the robbery of the Albina Community Bank off Northeast Sandy Boulevard last Wednesday.

Autopsy says Merle Hatch, killed by police after threats, died of multiple gunshot wounds

Federal fugitive Merle M. Hatch died of multiple gunshot wounds after three police officers fired at him Sunday night outside Portland Adventist Medical Center, according to autopsy results released Tuesday.Hatch was a career criminal with arrests in California, Arizona and Colorado on various charges, including burglary, bank robbery, theft and homicide, Portland police said.He had been released from the federal prison in Sheridan on Feb. 12 with orders to report that evening to the Independence House-South Federal Center, a pre-release facility in Colorado.

Hatch was driven from Sheridan by car that day with a ticket and an understanding that he would get on a plane bound for Denver, according to the U.S. Marshals Service in Portland.

But he didn’t arrive in Colorado as scheduled and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons listed Hatch as an escapee at 9:01 p.m. that evening.

On Sunday evening, Hatch checked into the emergency room at Portland Adventist Medical Center, 10123 S.E. Market St., then threatened a hospital employee, saying he had a gun, authorities said.

He then walked out and allegedly pointed a gun at a security car in an employee parking lot, police said. Police responded to a 9-1-1 call at 9:24 p.m. and some of the officers found Hatch and began giving him commands. A short time later, they shot him.

Asked Tuesday if a gun was recovered from Hatch at the scene of the shooting, police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson would say only that the bureau would release additional details late Wednesday “after all the interviews are complete.”Mary Hatch, Merle Hatch’s mother, said she hadn’t seen her son in two decades. She said Hatch lived in Colorado. She didn’t know how he ended up in Portland.

“He was troubled,” said Hatch, who lives in Iowa. “He was in and out of prison most of his adult life. He got into drugs early. There wasn’t much left of the person we knew as a kid growing up.”

She said her husband last saw their son 15 or 20 years ago and that he looked like he’d fallen on hard times. Public records show Hatch had an extensive criminal history, including arrests for drug-related crimes and a 2004 conviction in U.S. District Court in Colorado for bank robbery.

She said that to her knowledge, her son never married, had no children and no employment. She said he regularly got into trouble with the law. He stole to pay for drugs, she said. “Boy, does that ruin more people than we can even shake a stick at,” she said.

While serving a 10-year stretch for bank robbery at the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence, Colo., in July 2009, Hatch wrote a polite note to the judge who sentenced him in hopes of correcting the record on his criminal history.

“Your Honor, Good day and God bless,” he began. “I was convicted of bank robbery in your court 5 years ago. I received 10 1/2 years. At that time the court used a prior felony against me and counted it as violent.”

The earlier crime wrongly tacked on time to his sentence, Hatch wrote, because the court believed he had robbed an occupied dwelling.

“But the condominium was not occupied,” he wrote. “It was vacant and up for sale at the time of the offense . . . thereby making it a non-violent crime. I would like to ask if you would reconsider my sentence in light of this. Thank you for your time. Merle Hatch.”

No action appears to have been taken on Hatch’s request, based on available records.

Portland police shooting: Grand jury transcripts released in case of fugitive Merle Hatch

From the Oregonian, March 20, 2013

The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office just released the transcripts from a grand jury review of the Feb. 17 Portland police fatal shooting of Merle M. Hatch, 50, outside Portland Adventist Medical Center.

Read the transcripts:
Merle Hatch Grand Jury testimony #1 PDF
Merle Hatch Grand Jury testimony #2 PDF
Merle Hatch Grand Jury testimony #3 – Redacted version PDF

The grand jury in the Hatch case found no criminal wrongdoing by a sergeant and two officers who shot and killed. Police had been called to the hospital on reports of a man threatening staff and security with a gun.

East Precinct Sgt. Nathan Voeller and Officers Andrew Hearst and Royce Curtiss found Hatch in a darkened hospital employee parking lot. A cellphone video recorded by a witness and released by police shows Hatch taunting police.

“Close as you gonna get? That ain’t close enough, come on,” Hatch is heard yelling. When the sergeant and officers — huddled about 80 yards away in the driveway outside the emergency room — didn’t react, Hatch yelled: “I’m coming to you then, pig. Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Hatch ran toward the officers. Police shouted “Stop!” and “Hands up!” and fired multiple rounds at Hatch when he was 42 feet from them, police said. Police found half of a black telephone handle beside Hatch’s right hand that they believe he had stolen from the hospital and used to simulate a gun.

Police haven’t said why Hatch had gone to the hospital’s emergency room. At the time he was shot, Hatch was considered a federal prison escapee for failing to report the night of Feb. 12 to a halfway house in Colorado after his release from federal prison in Sheridan that same day on a bank robbery conviction. He was supposed to board a plane for Denver.

Merle Hatch, killed by Portland police, was in mental health wing at Portland Adventist

By Helen Jung, The Oregonian, March 21, 2013

Merle M. Hatch came to Portland Adventist Medical Center on Feb. 17 convinced that two people were out to kill him. But he didn’t appear to have a medical complaint.

Instead, the 50-year-old seemed paranoid, focused on his alleged pursuers and at one point said, “Tonight is not a bad night to die.”

That’s according to Richard Butler, a security guard who sat with Hatch for about an hour as he waited for a doctor in a wing for mental health patients.

Butler was one of 18 witnesses to testify before a Multnomah County grand jury about the shooting. The grand jury cleared Sgt. Nathan Voeller and Officers Andrew Hearst and Royce Curtiss of criminal wrongdoing in the fatal shooting of Hatch outside the Southeast Portland hospital.

On Wednesday, prosecutors released transcripts of the grand jury testimony, revealing new details of what happened.

Hatch had voluntarily come to the hospital earlier that Sunday evening, under the name Daniel Fox, according to Butler and another security officer, Carol Graff.

He told a nurse that he had used methamphetamine about three days earlier, Butler recalled. State medical examiner Karen Gunson also noted scratches on Hatch’s arms that are common among those who use meth or cocaine.

Around 9:20 p.m. he came out of his room, said Graff, who was watching him. She offered to get a nurse or a doctor for him, but he told her that he was going to leave and she was going to go with him, Graff testified.

Hatch told her he had a gun, threatened to shoot her if she didn’t do as he said, and lifted his shirt where she saw something black tucked into his waistband. The item was later found to be a broken telephone handset.

He had Graff walk with him out of the secured mental health wing to the ER waiting room as she mouthed “help” to staff.

Hatch then ran out of the doors of the emergency room, she said, and she radioed for help alerting others to the “code silver” indicating there was an armed patient.

Two students from the neighboring nursing school campus noted that Hatch was acting strangely as he walked around the parking lot outside the hospital. Butler, who was driving in the parking lot, came across Hatch. Hatch appeared to point a weapon at him.

As police officers arrived, Hatch started making a lot of noise, Sgt. Voeller testified.

Seeing the man in the darkened parking lot, about 70 yards away, Voeller recalled that Hatch looked “almost like a gorilla in a cage pacing back and forth, trying to make himself look kind of big.”

At one point, Voeller said, Hatch appeared to point a gun at the officers. But Hatch was still a fair distance away, Voeller said, adding that he hoped to de-escalate the situation.

Officers ordered the hospital locked down and made their way into the fenced parking lot where Hatch was, Voeller said.

But they missed an opportunity to use a beanbag shotgun when Hatch was briefly within 25 yards, Voeller said. A canine unit hadn’t yet arrived on scene, Voeller said.

He saw Hatch sit down on the roof of an SUV in the parking lot and hoped he was losing steam, Voeller said. If Hatch calmed down enough, it could allow a mental health counselor to make contact, he said.

But Voeller saw Hatch jump down from the SUV. Hatch yelled more taunts at the officers, at one point shouting: “I’m coming to you then, pig. Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Hatch headed toward Voeller and the other officers, the sergeant testified, closing in from about 70 yards away. Hatch quickened his step, first to a jog and then sprinting from about 30 yards away with what appeared to be a gun aimed at them, Voeller said.

Despite a police officer’s calls to stop and “Hands up,” Hatch yelled: “One. Two. Three” according to smartphone video taken by a witness.

Voeller interpreted the counting as “an ultimatum…He’s going to kill us.”

Seconds later, Voeller and the two officers fired 19 rounds at Hatch. Six shots struck him and two were fatal, with one hitting his right chest and the other piercing his liver, gallbladder and left kidney.

At the time he was shot, Hatch was considered a federal prison escapee for failing to report the night of Feb. 12 to a halfway house in Colorado after his release from federal prison in Sheridan that same day on a bank robbery conviction. He was supposed to board a plane bound for Denver.

Hatch was also identified as a suspect in two bank robberies between the time he was release and when he was shot. Authorities say he robbed an Albina Community Bank along Northeast Sandy Boulevard on Feb. 13, and a Wells Fargo bank in Clackamas on Feb. 15.

Baruti Artharee

By Andrea Damewood, Willamette Week, Jan. 23, 2013

Chief Mike Reese

The thought was hard to escape. If life had gone just a little bit differently—if the feds had waited to crack down on Portland cops for years of rough treatment of the mentally ill, if Occupy Portland hadn’t sprouted right when it did in 2011, if last year’s mayoral election hadn’t shaped up as a frantic fundraising race—Mike Reese might still be sitting down with me.But he wouldn’t be in uniform.We’d be a few blocks away from his spacious office on the 15th floor of downtown’s Central Precinct. We’d be on the third floor of city hall—in the mayor’s office.

That isn’t, of course, what came to pass. Reese, who became chief in May 2010, only briefly chased the job eventually won by Charlie Hales. He bowed out just early enough to keep things from being too awkward when Hales officially became, as of this month, Reese’s boss. And now? Reese says he wants to stay right where he is—joining, if Hales lets him, the ranks of Portland’s longest-tenured police chiefs.

That won’t be so easy. Though he could choose at any point to float off into a young retiree’s life of guitar practice, youth sports coaching, and running, Reese will instead guide the police bureau as it enters into its most tumultuous chapter in decades.

Federal reforms will force new limits in how officers use force, fire Tasers, and interact with mentally ill people—a potentially unsettling shift for the rank and file that’s already sparked tension with the police union, the Portland Police Association (PPA). Money is tight, raising the specter of job cuts. And police accountability groups, despite a palpable opening of the bureau under Reese, still rail at an institution they see as too insular and self-interested to ever create real change.

The chief talked about all of it during a wide-ranging interview earlier this month. Responses are slightly edited for length and clarity.

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MERCURY: Let’s start with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) settlement. The court process is obviously still unfolding, but the federal judge overseeing the agreement has also said the city and the feds are free to privately implement whatever they want while waiting for his blessing.

REESE: We’re moving forward on critical issues irrespective of what happens at the courthouse. We’re forming a behavioral health unit—selecting officers and creating an advisory board. We’re working on training for crisis intervention officers and the selection process for those folks. We’re going to move forward as quickly as possible, being mindful that there is a process. We want to get the advisory board in place and have them help us design some of the training.

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Who are you recruiting for that panel?

I’ve met with the head of the [local chapter of] the National Alliance on Mental Illness [NAMI] and some of their constituents. We want Cascadia and Central City Concern and Transition Projects to be part of that, and other treatment providers, too.

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How close is the crisis intervention team to launching?

We had 55 people apply. We’ll take everybody who meets the standards. So if we have 55 officers who want the job, and they have no performance issues and they’re hard-working and their supervisors think they’re right, we’ll train them all.

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What will be the policy changes on use of force?

We want to move forward on the Taser policy. We want to make sure our officers are trained on recent court rulings and community expectations. We are at the final stages of getting feedback from the Portland Police Association and the Department of Justice. Then we’re going to start training on it. And our overall use of force policy? Same thing.

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What are you hearing from PPA President Daryl Turner? He’s been critical of the process.

The PPA was frustrated that they weren’t at the table during our negotiations with the DOJ. But the DOJ was very clear that conversations were confidential and between the city and the Department of Justice. We recognize there might be labor contract implications, and that’s written into the agreement.

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Some changes, like assigning sergeants to go out to do hands-on use of force investigations, happened months before the settlement took shape. But you told community groups you wanted to wait before tightening the bureau’s Taser policy. How did you draw that distinction?

With the Taser policy, we had a lot of conversations with community groups. So that took a while. And then there were some court cases before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that we were waiting for, to give us guidance on overall Taser policy. That happened probably in July or August. By then we knew the Department of Justice findings were going to come out. They were telling us it was going to be soon, so we said let’s wait on what happens with that before moving forward.

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The deal calls for a new medical facility where officers can drop off people in crisis. It’s supposed to open this summer. I’m not sure that’s going to happen.

Some of those things are out of my control.

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How did that get into the settlement?

Both the Department of Justice and the police bureau sought a different model than the one we have. The DOJ had looked at other cities that had a single location to drop people off. We used to have that model. It worked very well for us, so we strongly advocated for it.

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The county pretty recently opened its own Crisis Access Treatment Center. How well has it been working?

I don’t know. It doesn’t work for us. We’ve never taken anyone there.

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What about it isn’t working?

They have procedures against it. I can’t take anybody there.

[Asked for comment, Multnomah County spokesman David Austin clarifies that police are free to take people in crisis to the CATC, provided they call first to start the admissions process. “The police absolutely have access to the CATC and to other critical mental health services designed to help people in crisis. Because we’re all partners. This is a community issue, and we all have a stake in figuring out the best ways to serve anyone a mental health crisis.”]

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The mayor has repeatedly stressed the need for a “culture change” in the bureau. What comes to mind when your new boss says that about an organization you’ve run for nearly three years?

He heard from a lot of folks in our community who want the Portland Police Bureau to be in sync with their values. You know, these are challenging times for police organizations around the country, because as crime has fallen, the work that officers do has fundamentally changed.

As I have said since I became chief, our officers have to have better relationships with social service providers than they do with the jail. Homelessness and drug addiction, poverty and mental health issues are not problems easily solved by society, much less law enforcement.

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Has the bureau’s new training advisory committee started meeting?

I don’t know if Bryan Parman, the training captain [and also president of the city's other police union, the Portland Police Commanding Officers Association], has made final selections or not.

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Will you release their names?

Absolutely. We had, I think, 41 people put in for it. I didn’t look at all 41 résumés. But I saw the list and thought it was a great group. We were hoping we would get nine to 12 people to participate. Obviously a group of 41 is hard to manage. But I told Bryan I don’t want nine or 12 happy people and another 29 who are pissed off at me.

Let’s take this opportunity to reimagine what we thought about the training advisory committee. So we’ll have three different subcommittees looking at defensive tactics, our patrol tactics, and looking at, maybe, firearms or Tasers. And you have a smaller executive committee. We would let people pick which area they were most interested in. I’m hoping everybody who put in will get to participate.

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And, let’s confirm: Despite initial reports, the meetings will be open?

The meetings will be open. If the committee decides there’s something confidential to review, then it can close the meeting. But otherwise the meetings will be open.

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Let’s talk about your relationship with the PPA. Daryl Turner has said the DOJ reforms are already causing injuries, citing an unusual spike in hurt officers late last year. Is he correct?

I haven’t seen any of the recent injuries tied to the settlement agreement. One, the agreement hasn’t been finalized yet. It’s in the court process now. Certainly officers now are, I think, considering it. They want to know what our Taser policy will be, where it will end up. And our force policy, where will that end up. They want to be trained so they can be in sync with court rulings around Tasers and use of force. Those officer injuries occurred because we interacted with people who were violent and intent on hurting us and the community.

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And you don’t foresee injuries being an issue when the settlement is finalized?

All those injuries came in a very short amount of time. We’ve had a couple of months since then. Things seem to be moving along as they always have. Use of force is down. We just had our most recent report for 2012, and force incidents have continued to drop. Our officers continue to be very thoughtful, and judicious, in how they approach their job. Force is very little of what we do. In a city of 600,000 people we use force on average twice a day to take someone into custody or enforce the law. It is a quarter of a percentage of all contacts. It’s only 3 percent of all arrests.

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Daryl Turner also has come out and accused you—after Sam Adams challenged an arbitrator’s reinstatement of Ron Frashour, the officer who killed Aaron Campbell—of lying and conspiring in the case. He’s attacked Lieutenant Robert King, formerly your top spokesman and a co-author of Frashour’s training review, implying he wasn’t truthful during arbitration. What’s it like being in the same room with Turner?

Daryl and I get along very well. There’s always going to be tension between labor and management. He has a role to play. He has a bully pulpit as the elected union president. Some of it’s because we are in a contract year, so he’s positioning for a contract. You’ll have to ask Daryl why he’s messaging things that way. Certainly, just on a personal level, Daryl and I like each other. We get along very well.

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So when he says those things about you, those strong statements he’s put out in the press, that doesn’t…

Well, that’s in the press. I don’t know if he has said them or not.

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Yes, but he’s also written them. He’s put them out in the union newsletter.

I disagree with his characterizations of the arbitration process. Certainly Robert King is one of the most respected people in this organization, a person of high integrity and ethics. I stand behind his work on the training review. Robert did an exceptional job. It’s interesting that no one is picking a part of the training review and saying it’s wrong. They’re going after the process. The training review, if you read it, is spot on. It is a very accurate reflection of the issues in play in the Frashour case.

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You mentioned the media. You’re alluding to the fact that reporters may not shade things correctly.

I don’t mean that. I just mean that Daryl will say something, and different media sources pick that up. You know, controversy sells papers. I respect the fact you guys have a job to do, and a little tension between labor and management doesn’t hurt things.

We are both on the same page in terms of keeping our officers safe, and doing everything we can to train our officers. There is a process that gets us there. And that process, because of the federal investigation, was a little compressed. We tried to get the policies done quickly. We may have not followed the best process at times. At the end of the day, Daryl and I really agree that we want the members of the bureau to be safe and well trained. We both agree we have exceptional officers here.

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Which reporters do that the most? I fully realize you might be looking in my direction.

The media can create a perception that government isn’t working. And it really matters that you get the story right. If we are doing something wrong, and you want to outline whether or not we’re doing our best work, I’m okay with that. But I don’t think it helps to create controversy just to create controversy. Does that make sense? I have a responsibility to this community. You have a responsibility, too. You have to provide balance. If it’s there.

Sometimes it isn’t.

True.

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Charlie Hales has told me he won’t declare—during the budget process—that the police automatically will suffer less than other bureaus. What does a 10 percent cut for the bureau look like?

Those are going to be difficult decisions for the city council. I really respect the fact that they have difficult decisions to make and balancing to do.

It can be counterproductive to community safety to close a community center—where kids have opportunities to play and interact in a positive fashion—just to save police jobs. Or to lay off firefighters to save police jobs.

And I respect the members of the council. They are good people, very thoughtful. We will provide them with information about the police bureau’s priorities, but We are not policing in a vacuum. We police in a community that has a lot of competing issues.

For example, our top priority with our school police officers is the safety of kids and staff and visitors. But our second priority is to help kids graduate. That has very little to do with our mission as a bureau, but everything to do with the future health of the city and long-term public safety issues. If we can get kids to graduate and become productive members of society, then they’re not in the criminal justice system. We’re all about looking at long-term ways to reduce people’s intersection with the criminal justice system.

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It sounds like you’re at least contemplating the possibility of layoffs.

I don’t know if it’ll get to layoffs. We may have vacancies we don’t fill. There are some opportunities to look at other cuts. In the past we’ve paid for some functions at the county. The county may have to pick those up. We fund a couple of deputy district attorneys. We pay for identification techs who work in the jail. We’ve got the Hooper Detox Center and the CHIERS service. Those are all areas that elected officials can work through.

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Some reports have come out, recently, charting racial disparities in police statistics. The most controversial looked at the bureau’s traffic and pedestrian stops. But a lot of people were heartened when, at a community meeting where those stats were revealed, officers actually said that yes, maybe, racism might be a factor in police work. Do you agree—and does that merit more introspection?

It does, and also the fact that there is a disparate impact on people of color throughout the criminal justice system—both as victims and as people who are incarcerated. We have to look at that impact, but it crosses so many different lines. You look at schools. Kids of color—there is a disparate impact in the discipline process there. You look at graduation rates. It’s everywhere in society.

It’s not just in law enforcement. And I really think it requires us to take a very frank look at everything we do with an equity lens.

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The bureau is improving how it collects and tracks data. Will that lead to answers?

Yeah, I mean, certainly you want to look at that. Because that can help you question why it looks that way. But, um, you know, sometimes the answer is obvious. You look at gang violence right now. Some 75 percent of the victims in gang shootings are African-Americans. That is a disparate impact. Most of the gang problem in Portland involves African-American gangs. So we have to ask ourselves as a community why a young person of color sees more hope in joining a gang than staying in school. Certainly, because of the role we play in law enforcement, we need to be at the forefront of that discussion.

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Only two people died last year as a result of officer-involved shootings. Other shootings obviously also happened, but that number is down. What’s changed?

With officer-involved shootings, again, we are a city of 600,000 people. They fluctuate. Last year we had six. Before that we had four. The year before that, six again. It goes up and down. They are such a small number that it’s hard to say it’s going this way or that for any specific reason. You have to look at larger trends.

Nationwide, if you look at us in terms of population, we are at the lower end of major cities in terms of shootings. If you just look at the metrics of it, the drop in our force numbers has been significant over the past five years. Not just officer-involved shootings but in broader categories where there’s enough data to actually get a sense that this is changing the culture of the organization.

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I was reminded of something that emerged in the transcript of the Frashour arbitration hearing. You said, “We don’t have a right to shoot him. He never displayed a weapon. He didn’t take any offensive action for the officer.” That’s a strong standard others have taken umbrage with. Officers don’t think that’s realistic. It also could apply to some of the other police shootings last year. Is that the lens through which you see discipline?

All of these situations, you have to look at them individually. Specific to Aaron Campbell, and not any other incident, you had a young man who had not committed a crime, who had not threatened to harm anyone except himself, who hadn’t displayed a weapon, and who was running away from the officer. So all of that goes into the totality of the circumstances that I weigh when I look at whether that shooting was justified. My answers in arbitration were specific to that set of circumstances.

In other circumstances, we will look at those on an individual basis.

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So if an officer is reading those remarks in the paper, on our blog, on the union newsletter, they shouldn’t assume that it applies to them?

Yeah, again, officers have a duty and a responsibility to protect themselves and the public from imminent danger. It’s hard to sit in hindsight and look at those incidents and judge them—but I have to. It’s my job. I respect that officers have to make split-second decisions. And I think we make really good decisions in the vast majority of cases. In the Campbell case, the officer didn’t make the best decision.

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The mayor has said he doesn’t support the ongoing court fight against Frashour’s reinstatement. Right now, he’s not on active duty. Will that change under Charlie Hales?

That’s a question for the mayor.

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That’s not something you’ve discussed yet?

No.

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If he asked you to do that, would you?

I respect the arbitration process. The city entered into it with the PPA in good faith.

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The arbitrator said he should be on active duty. So if Hales agrees, then…

At this point the council and the mayor have made a decision. I work for the mayor, and I’m going to follow his direction.

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Hales said pretty early that he wanted you to stay. And it’s January, and here you are. Has he laid out any goals for you? You’re eligible for retirement.

Now why did you have to go and say that?

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I’m just asking. Are you here to help him get on his feet? Or do you want to see this through longer than you actually have to be here?

I really believe that stability of leadership through this organizational change is critically important for the bureau and the community. I serve at the will of the mayor. I have a civilian boss, and I give him my best advice and I follow his direction.

But I would like to stay for a few more years, and the management team I have up here, I hope, can stay with me. I believe this is one of the longest tenures, since I’ve been a police officer, of any chief’s office.

It is two and a half years for all of us, and that’s a long time for a group of leaders to stay in place. I feel like I’ve got a team, with [Assistant Chief] Eric Hendricks and [civilian director of operations] Mike Kuykendall and [Assistant Chief] Larry O’Dea, who are just superb. I really appreciate the fact that they are willing to keep at it.

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One last question. Will you run for political office again?

I have a great job.

[Laughter erupts. Reese's current spokesman, Sergeant Pete Simpson, chimes in with: "Did he ever run for political office before?" Reese replies: "Yeah, exactly!" Reese, in late 2011, had set up a fundraising committee to run for mayor and was reaching out to endorsers and donors, but decided against formally filing papers.]

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People don’t consult [political adviser] Mark Wiener just to consult Mark Wiener.

I am very humbled by the opportunity to serve. And I really like our new mayor. And the council. I respect every one of them. This is going to be a really good year.

Chief Mike Reese (center)

Twice a year since 2011, the Portland Police Bureau quietly posts the work of its Police Review Board (PRB)—the group of civilians, cops, and city officials who weigh the most serious misconduct cases facing officers and then tell the chief, if they agree a cop has done wrong, what should be done about it.

The reports provide a compelling glimpse of the seamy underside of a police bureau with nearly 1,000 cops, and an equally frank look at how city and bureau officials respond to it. Details about police shootings and force cases mingle with accusations of cops driving drunk, hitting strip clubs, inappropriately touching subordinates, acting unprofessionally, or using their on-duty time to shop for personal electronics.

DOWNLOAD - PRB files (PDF, 2.75MB)

The board and the release of its documents were hailed as key triumphs in a 2010 police accountability push. But the reports, heavily redacted, also have some flaws:

They don’t include the names of accused officers. They don’t make clear how individual PRB members voted in a case. They also never include what discipline, if any, Chief Mike Reese actually metes out to cops. And that last issue, especially, is causing a minor stir in city hall. The latest batch of reports (PDF) revealed a nearly unanimous decision to fire a commanding officer accused of improperly touching female subordinates, lying, and pulling out his gun in an out-of-state road-rage incident. The Oregonian had previously reported the officer in question had been demoted.

Lt. Todd Wyatt

Mary-Beth Baptista, the city’s independent police review director, has taken the unusual step of publicly condemning Reese’s decision. Her comments appeared in the Oregonian, which reported, a few days before the bureau posted the PRB reports, that former traffic division Captain Todd Wyatt had been bumped down to a lieutenant. And accountability activists are keenly watching whether the war of words leads to greater transparency.

“It’s unprecedented,” says Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch, who has long demanded that review board hearings be open to the public.

The PRB reports show just one member voted against firing Wyatt—but the person is not identified. The five-member board includes civilians like Baptista, but also police officials—including an accused cop’s direct supervisor and an assistant chief.

The board’s recommendation was unsparingly forceful—finding Wyatt’s biggest problem came in telling the truth about the allegations he faced. Wyatt, besides speaking to internal affairs investigators, also addressed the PRB.

“Some members of the board felt that even a street patrol position was questionable given the gravity of the issues of poor judgment and untruthfulness/untrustworthiness,” says the report, which is prepared by the board’s nonpartisan facilitator.

Reese’s office has declined to release the letter it sent to Wyatt laying out his reasons for a demotion. That demotion was backed by then-Mayor Sam Adams, who also reviewed Wyatt’s file and joined the chief at a hearing where Wyatt was allowed to personally plead his case one last time and offer up “mitigating circumstances.”

“Individual discipline cases are confidential personnel matters. Neither the chief nor the bureau can comment on cases where an officer receives discipline,” Reese’s spokesman, Sergeant Pete Simpson, told the Mercury, calling the Police Review Board “only a recommendation and one step in a complex process.”

“Chief Reese takes discipline decisions very seriously and conducts a thorough analysis of the investigative materials, meets with the member officer, and discusses proposed discipline with the city attorney’s office to make sure that the police bureau is being fair and consistent with past discipline decisions,” Simpson continued.

State collective bargaining law, however, allows for officials to release discipline information if there’s a compelling public interest. The Mercury has asked the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office to release the letter, arguing Wyatt’s case qualifies for a “public interest” exemption. That request joins another from the Oregonian, the DA’s office says.

Interestingly, Wyatt wasn’t the only officer in the latest reports recommended for termination.

In one 4-1 vote, the board found against a cop accused of lying to his commanding officer after he got caught some 80 blocks outside his assigned district—apparently so he could purchase a TV. Then, in a unanimous vote, the PRB urged Reese to dismiss a cop accused of failing to file a special “use of force” report and then lying to cover his tracks.

Simpson, citing state law, also declined to comment when asked if discipline in those cases also differed from the PRB’s recommendation.

Asked about what seemed like the bureau’s proactive release of discipline letters in cases involving Captain Mark Kruger (accused of hanging Nazi memorabilia in a park), Officer Ron Frashour (fired for shooting Aaron Campbell in the back), and then-Officer Chris Humphreys (cleared of misconduct after firing a beanbag shotgun at a preteen), Simpson said the bureau likely released information only when ordered by the DA.

“I’m nearly certain,” Simpson said, “that in all of them they did.”

The DA’s office, meanwhile, says it expects to decide on releasing Wyatt’s letter as soon as January 23.