Assess this list of demands for reform. We owe it to those bringing heat to police accountability, to offer up targets that are difficult to articulate in street-level demands for change.
Our testimony in Portland City Council last week sought to establish that body-worn cameras on police – directed at The People and disconnected from functioning accountability mechanisms – are surveillance devices, and not to be seen as remedy for misconduct. We note that colorofchange.org did not include a previous call for adopting bwc in this well-drafted list of demands informing a petition of the nation’s Chief Executive and his Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security.

Consider these points:

“I urge you to take definitive and immediate action, including but not limited to the following reforms:

A fully-resourced and rigorous civil rights and criminal investigation by the DOJ into discriminatory policing, excessive force, and death or injury by police in every state in the country;
A comprehensive, streamlined, public national-level database of police shootings, excessive force, killings, misconduct complaints, traffic and pedestrian stops, and arrests, broken down by race and other demographic data, with key privacy protections, the exclusion of personally identifying factors and information, and deportation immunity for civilians.
Mandating of Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission (POST) in every state and inter-state coordination between all POSTs.
An executive order that creates a strong and enforceable prohibition on police brutality and discriminatory policing based on race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, immigration status, disability, and housing status.
Increased funding for the DOJ’s Office for Civil Rights to ensure additional, accessible state-level responders for police and other civil rights violations. Divestment of federal anti-drug grants and federal funding for police departments that demonstrate abuse of power and massive reinvestment in community controlled and based policing practices.
Support for the passage of the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA)
Streamlined national use of force matrix and mandating that state and local police have clear and streamlined matrices.
Strict limits on asset seizure without due process and the transfer of any military equipment to local law enforcement under the 1033 program, guidelines that ensure that the equipment is not used on non-violent protesters, and an end to the requirement that such military weaponry is used within a year.”

Given that the City of Portland was investigated by the DoJ Civil Rights Division – and found to police us illegally – local authority has been in the spotlight. It’s been tough to broaden awareness to reinforcing roles played by Multnomah County and the State of Oregon. We applaud a state-by-state Federal analysis of civil rights violations. “It’s a Portland problem,” was a position taken by law enforcement lobbyists, to deflect our legislation for changes to state law.

We’ve already identified that the City/DoJ plea deal failed to implement a use-of-force matrix. The Albina Ministerial Alliance (AMA) Coalition for Justice and Police Reform informs us, “The Agreement is not explicit enough in calling for officers to use the least force necessary, doesn’t allow for a “matrix” tying maximum force levels to certain levels of resistance, doesn’t prohibit the use of weapons, animals or vehicles as intimidation when no threat exists, and doesn’t prohibit the use of force on downed/injured subjects.”

Researchers have been compiling data on the 1033 program, trying to establish what military weaponry Federal authorities have been giving our local police.

We take it as astute, the CoC demand to call attention to Federal anti-drug grants. We think it is high time the Executive ends the nation’s unilateral War on Drugs. Call it ‘de-escalation’ in national tensions. It was a race-based initiative that resulted in incarceration rates incomprehensible for an open society such as America purports to be.

From PPB PowerPoint Presentation, dated 7/17/2013.

We know anti-’gang’ is merely a pretext for anti-Black policies. As Oregon embraces the legalization of marijuana, some thought should be given to the debilitating effects of drug laws in general.

“Massive investment” in community-controlled and community-based policing practices has always been foremost at the core of our solution set.

American wisdom was evident at the conclusion of WWII … when the nation engaged in a Marshall Plan … to rebuild European economies.

Instead of massive police spending, in an era of declining calls for service and failure to implement span-of-control improvements in an oversized force, we think it is time to build an economy for the victims of racist policing.

Given our DoJ Settlement creates a nexus, bringing County Health into more formidable police roles already extant in anti-gang enforcement, we think these funding strategies must be reviewed as well.

We contend, from a health analysis standpoint, the victim class has experienced trauma that will continue to plague people of color for a generation to come.

Consult Hardesty was an active participant at the ACLU NW Civil Liberties Conference panel on ‘Can We Have Police Accountability?’ a week or so ago. Some would say we were hecklers.

In the sanitary environs of Lewis & Clark Law School, we bristled at clinical discussions and a genteel atmosphere that did not challenge a panelist who outright lied about the frequency of exonerations occasioned by a flawed arbitration process. The will of Portland City Councils has, over successive administrations, been persistently thwarted whenever they’ve sought to discipline officers for illegal use of force.

Panelist Ron Louie, former Chief of the Hillsboro, Oregon police department, was one of two who spoke in terms of a required culture shift, in a bureau finally ascertained to be violating The People’s constitutional protections (here). Chief Louie suggested we read the latest issue of mindful magazine. The text is not available online, but the innovative police training it depicts is truly remarkable, and well worth the read.

Mindfulness-based Resiliency Training, as described in O’Hagan’s article, has potential to produce revolutionary results. Mired in fear, protecting both Training and the delivery of Psychological services from citizen input, Portland City Council is unlikely to even take note of these unorthodox approaches.

Although the sniper’s endorsement of ‘tactical breathing’ (what you and I might call ‘meditation’) was chilling, awareness and contemplative practices could humanize a culture mired in poor conduct. The article is billed as:

“… a story on a mindfulness program being offered to members of the Hillsboro Police Department in Oregon — the first of its kind. It’s designed to teach mindfulness techniques so that officers not only cope better with the myriad stresses of their jobs, but are better able to serve their communities, with greater awareness and empathy.”

To be fair, a Lewis & Clark faculty member warned Roger David Hardesty, prior to the ACLU panel’s address of a hypothetical on police accountability, “not to get your hopes up.” In a debrief following, with Bobbin Singh, ED of the Oregon Justice Resource Center, the event Co-Chair relayed this convocation was designed to deliver educational credits to lawyers. Civil liberties advocates experienced poorly-facilitated, point-of-view presentations … never intended to engender better outcomes. It’s not as if these wealthy men, oft-quoted, with access to power, didn’t already have a means of advocating for their constituencies. Absent from discussion were voices of the oppressed, however. We but glimpsed the potentially mortal consequences of failing to successfully negotiate a ‘stop ‘n frisk.’

It’s a pity that ACLU participants did not explore pathways to police accountability. Portland Mayor Hales’ office was represented by his Chief of Staff, although not his Police Liaison. A results-oriented approach might have led – if not to a pathway – at least to the stumbling blocks that prevent the broad application of justice, including cultural deficiencies in the Portland Police Bureau which hinder reform.

Consult Hardesty concurs with the widening understanding that any sincere desire to reform PPB can only begin with the replacement of Chief Michael Reese. This hierarchical organization must be led though transition by a ‘culture change agent’ whose pay incentives are tied to performance improvements. Hales has retained the role of Police Commissioner in his portfolio. This audience of learned, fortunate people represented serious political clout, organized and prepared to address the denial of civil liberties. The failure to close the loop, to press the Mayor to abandon his position as PC if he will not dismiss the Chief who ran the bureau during tragic civil rights violations, missed the ‘teachable moment.’

But it is important to note that police training, particularly when influenced by enlightened guidance from those who deliver psychological services to the boys in blue, also determines police culture. I urge you to find a copy of the October issue of mindful, and to read the cover story, Pause and Protect.

The imperative behind this post, however, is to get you to spend five minutes in someone else’s shoes. This video, takes you outside the law school classroom, far from hors d’œuvre. Without understanding police practices … at a visceral level … the mindful article remains a ‘puff piece,’ and while do-gooders walk away from cogent lectures with vague feelings that something is wrong, real people, in considerable numbers, experience trauma that privileged folks would never put up with.

Watch at least the first five minutes. Know that Portland Police operate in the same way, far beyond the clean white rooms of genteel, theoretical debate. Visit a world where economic opportunity has been staunchly denied to a minority. The victims are incredibly articulate, given that they likely arose from environments (Camden, NJ) where academic opportunities were dismal. Their conduct, in the face of oppression, is actually noble. Their experience informs our mission.

Our challenge here, as social justice advocates, is to encourage a readership to understand what it is like to be profiled and then rousted. We expect, if you ingest these harms at an emotional level, you will make more of an effort to bring justice.

Our task is to lift you over your complacency, to appreciate that this denial of liberty has gone on for generations. We know there is a broad, sustained, AND UNCHECKED mission by Portland police to act just as Philly cops have in this unedited document. We know that (plot spoiler) even if the filmmaker had been arrested; eloquent, well-dressed DAs will portray bullies as trained observers. We know city administrators and attorneys present police policy and procedures as if they are the guiding principles of what actually transpires in the streets. We know juries will hear of commendations these officers have received … presented by their peers … and that juries will not hear countering, civilian complaints. We know city leaders have not invested in the means to treasure the kind of record-keeping that would end misconduct, that they lack the political will to have allegations investigated by any who are not emotionally invested in leaving cops to police themselves.

What’s ironic is that advocating for these victims – now – is actually in the best interest of the dominant culture: as Powers that Be criminalize more and more conduct, lConsult Hardesty concurs with the widening understanding that any sincere desire to reform PPB can only begin with the replacement of Chief Michael Reese.aw enforcement will gradually come for more and more of ‘us,’ who today think this is how ‘others’ should be treated.

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Police Body Cameras: A Tool for or against the People

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Consult Hardesty | Strategize ~ Implement ~ Succeed

Call to action:

Call to action:

Consider these points:

What’s to Say?

It matters little that Fritz was not telling the truth.