Mental Health Association of Portland

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian, May 17, 2013

The City of Portland would pay $35,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a man who was injured during a March 2010 anti-police protest, under an ordinance that will go before city commissioners Wednesday.

The encounter, captured on television footage, resulted in injuries to Clifford Richardson. He was treated at OHSU Hospital after his head and face struck the pavement during a scuffle with an officer, according to city records.

During the 2010 protest, Portland police formed a line with their bikes to keep protestors from moving into the street. Richardson, according to city documents, pushed at an officer and officers moved in to take him into custody.

“During the struggle that ensued, Richardson’s upper body was struck by a police officer’s knee and as a result, his head and face struck the pavement,” according to city documents distributed to commissioners.

READ – Settlement documents (PDF, 291KB)

Richardson, then 24, was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, interfering with police and harassment. He was later acquitted of all charges at trial.

Richardson then filed a civil lawsuit against the city in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleging false arrest, battery and malicious prosecution. He was seeking $15,000 for past and future medical bills, plus $500,000 in general damages.

The settlement figure was reached after significant negotiations, according to the city.

“Approval of this settlement will avoid the cost and expense of a trial and a jury award that could potentially be significantly larger,” according to Randy Stenquist, of the city’s risk management office.

The protest was one in a series that followed two officer-involved fatal shootings that year: the Jan. 29, 2010 fatal shooting of Aaron Campbell by Officer Ronald Frashour, and the March 22 fatal shooting of Jack Dale Collins near a Hoyt Arboretum restroom by Officer Jason Walters.

Portland Police Bureau news release, May 15, 2013

In crisis? Call 503-988-4888.

The Portland Police Bureau investigated four incidents of suicide from May 11 to May 13, 2013, and wants to remind the community that suicide is preventable and help is available.

On Saturday May 11, 2013, at approximately 11:30 a.m., Central Precinct officers responded to Northwest Broadway, between Hoyt and Irving Streets, on the report of a male that jumped from the eighth floor of the Bud Clark Commons, located at 655 Northwest Hoyt Street.

Portland Police and Portland Fire & Rescue personnel arrived and determined that the 42-year-old man was deceased. Witnesses confirmed that he man jumped from the eighth floor of the Bud Clark Commons.

Officers learned that the man was from Aberdeen, Washington and had recently left a long-term drug treatment program.

On Sunday May 12, 2013, at approximately 9:00 a.m., East Precinct officers responded to a residence in the 4700 block of Southeast 71st Avenue on the report of a suicide by hanging.

Portland Police and Portland Fire & Rescue personnel arrived and determined that the 39-year-old man was deceased.

Officers learned that the man and his partner both lived at the home with their six-year-old son. The deceased’s partner told police that they had an argument the night before so she went to bed and he went to the basement. She told police that she discovered him deceased this morning in the basement. Officers also learned that the man struggled with mental health issues throughout his life.

Also on Sunday May 12, 2013, at approximately 9:00 a.m., East Precinct officers responded to a residence in the 1500 block of Southeast 150th Avenue on the report of a suicide by hanging.

Portland Police and Portland Fire & Rescue personnel responded and determined that the 24-year-old male was deceased.

Officers learned that the man was out with his mother the night before but both returned home and nothing seemed to be bothering the deceased. Officers located a suicide note in the man’s bedroom, which was turned over to the Oregon State Medical Examiner.

On Monday May 13, 2013, at approximately 2:30 a.m., Central Precinct officers responded to the report of a deceased male on Southwest Jefferson Street below the Vista Bridge.

Portland Police and Portland Fire & Rescue personnel arrived and determined that the 40-year-old man was deceased and that his injuries were consistent with a jump from the Vista Bridge.

Officers located personal effects belonging to the man on a bench near the Vista Bridge on Southwest Vista Avenue.

Suicide is preventable.

Help is available for community members struggling from a mental health crisis and/or suicidal thoughts.

Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare has an urgent walk-in clinic, open from 7:00 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.
7 days a week. Payment is not necessary.  Walk in or call 503-963-2575.

 The Multnomah County Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  Call 503-988-4888.

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.’’

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian, May 4, 2013

Ashleigh Brenton

On her recent night shift at Portland’s Crisis Assessment and Treatment Center, peer counselor Ashleigh Brenton, 56, was making 15-minute checks on a suicidal patient when another patient came running up to her crying.

Brenton didn’t have long to handle the situation before she had to continue on her rounds. The woman despaired that her abusive boyfriend wouldn’t let her back home.

“You’re going to have to listen to me,” Brenton told the sobbing woman.

She was straightforward, but firm: It’s good, she told the woman, that you can’t return to the man who harmed you because you shouldn’t. There are places to go, such as a women’s shelter, but you have to make an effort to find support.

“When we have hard times” Brenton recalled telling her, “it’s not forever.”

Brenton is one of the paid peer support counselors who work at the center — they’re a key component in the treatment. Two peer support counselors work each shift.

“Peer supports in a non-confrontational environment really are extremely effective in having people heard and understood,” said Dan Clune, the center’s administrator. “It grounds and normalizes people. They now recognize they’re not too outside the norm in their thinking.”

Brenton later shared her own story with the woman: How she was a survivor of child abuse and domestic violence who suffered a broken neck at the hands of her husband in 1997. How years later, she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and suffered a psychotic episode that led to her arrest.

Driven by delusions, she fled her apartment June 10, 2000, with her computer and important papers. She borrowed someone’s cell phone, but took off with it, throwing everything she had with her off the Morrison Bridge. She drove around the city, thinking people were after her — including the Northeast Portland gas station attendant who reached into her car to take her $10. She thought he was attacking her and sped off, leaving him clinging to her car before he jumped free.

Portland police chased her car and stopped her, ordering her to the ground at gunpoint. She refused, thinking they were imposters. Officers had to force her down and then arrested her. She pleaded guilty except for insanity to robbery and assault, and was committed to the Oregon State Hospital.

Once on medication, Brenton was able to resume a stable life. She earned a bachelor’s degree at Portland State University and now works full time to help others at the crisis center.

“To me, it’s people’s lives at stake here,” Brenton said. “I want them to have a quality of life, and I tell them they can.”

She wishes such a center had been around years ago when she was severely troubled, she said. Instead, her four years of hospitalization cost Oregon taxpayers $164,141, documents show, and she has Measure 11 felony crimes on her record, she said.

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.

Kendra James 10 Years Later Memorial Vigil
To Remember Woman Slain by Police in 2003
Sunday, May 5, 2013, 5:00 PM
931 N Skidmore

On Sunday, May 5, the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform will lead a memorial vigil for Kendra James, the young woman killed by Officer Scott McCollister exactly 10 years ago on the Skidmore overpass in Portland. The memorial will be held outside the Greater Faith Baptist Church at 931 N Skidmore, just yards away from the spot where McCollister discharged his pistol at James, who was behind the wheel of a car. The vigil will begin at 5 PM. Members of James’ family will be in attendance.

Despite McCollister’s claims that he “feared for his life,” the AMA Coalition presented a detailed analysis that McCollister was not in any danger, knew who the unarmed Kendra James was and could have found her even if she had driven away, and raised serious questions about whether he had collaborated with the other officers on the scene by meeting at a restaurant to get their stories straight before they talked to investigators. McCollister was given 180 days’ suspension,
but that discipline was overturned by an arbitrator after the Portland Police Association grieved the action.

Kendra James

James’ death was a touchstone for many in Portland who saw the shooting of an unarmed African American woman as a symptom of a Police Bureau needing major reforms. In many ways her death led the accountability efforts down the path to the changes now being sought as a remedy by the Department of Justice in their lawsuit against the City.

The event is endorsed by Portland Copwatch and other community organizations. For more information or if your group wishes to endorse, call Dr. LeRoy Haynes, Jr at 503-287-0261.

By Andrea Damewood, Willamette Week, April 26, 2013

An engineer at Adventist Medical Center filed a claim for damages against the city of Portland, saying his SUV was hit with bullets as the police fired upon and killed federal fugitive Merle M. Hatch in February.

Kevin House says his wife, Karen, who also works at Adventist, parked their 2007 Dodge Durango in the employee lot for her shift the night of Feb. 17. The SUV wound up in the line of fire when officers opened fire on Hatch as he ran toward officers, counting down from three and holding what appeared to be (and what police had been told) was a gun.

Hatch was killed, struck by six shots fired by three Portland Police Bureau officers on scene. And Hatch, it was later found, was actually holding a piece of a broken phone receiver.The entire incident was caught on video by a nursing student filming from inside a doom room near the scene. The video largely helped reverse the public’s growing negative perception of the cop shooting.

Multnomah County Grand Jury reports show that officers fired a total of 19 shots, a few of which also hit House’s SUV. House says his car was hit in the front and passenger sides, and offered an initial estimate of $7,000 for repairs in the claim he filed in March. House is asking for $7,000 in his claim.

“Portland police were defending themselves and did what they had to do to defend themselves from harm,” House writes in the claim. “We appreciate PPD and understand why this happened. They were only doing their job.”

House then thanks police for providing a rental car to use in the interim.

Portland’s Bureau of Risk Management, which handles such claims, was not immediately available to confirm if the city has already paid the claim.

By Bob Heye, KATU News, April 10, 2013

A new Portland police unit is about to enter training to cut down on violent confrontations between police and people with mental health problems.

Police hope it will cut down on the chances they’ll encounter people with mental health problems, and when they do, these specially-trained officers will lessen the chances those encounters will turn deadly.

Last month two Portland police officers shot and killed Santiago Cisneros III after he opened fire on them. Cisneros was a veteran who’d reportedly been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

In 2010 police shot and killed Aaron Campbell. They’d been called in by Campbell’s family who was worried about Campbell’s grief over his brother’s death.

In 2006 it was James Chasse, a man diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, who was beaten by police. Chasse died in the back of a police cruiser.

Police say their new unit is aimed at cutting down those deadly encounters.

“To get them out of a crisis-cycle so we’re not encountering them on a regular basis,” said Sgt. Pete Simpson, a Portland Police Bureau spokesman.

Every Portland police officer gets training to deal with people having mental health problems. In September, a Justice Department investigation into those previous cases said that wasn’t enough.

Now 50 Portland officers will get extra mental health response training. It is training unique to Portland.

“There’s really nothing like it in the country that we’ve been able to take out of a box and say, ‘this is what we’re going to do,’” Simpson said.

Mental health advocates believe that extra training will pay off and know the federal focus on Portland police problems will get attention from cities around the country.

“Because we have had this additional attention on these use-of-force issues, Portland is now way out ahead of the rest of the nation,” said Jason Renaud of Mental Health Association of Portland. “It will be the other cities coming to visit us to find out how to make this happen.”

To make it work police need a place to take people in mental health crisis other than jail or to the hospital. Under the agreement with the federal government, that’s supposed to be a mental health walk-in center.

But nobody has come up with the $1 million it will take to get the center running.