Letters....              

Dear Portlander,
 
Since becoming the Police Commissioner in 2010, I have worked closely with Chief Mike Reese and the professional officers who protect our public safety to continuously improve the services that the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) provides to our community. Chief Reese and I are committed to continuous improvement, and to systems of accountability within the PPB that are transparent, fair, and build community trust.  
 
Over the past two years, three groups have spent considerable time and effort crafting recommendations to improve operations and the public trust in the PPB's complaint-handling and internal discipline processes: The Citizen Review Committee (through its PARC Report and Structure Review workgroups), the Albina Ministerial Alliance, and the Police Oversight Stakeholders’ Committee. When the third of this series of reports was presented to City Council, I made a commitment to Portlanders that we would closely analyze and release responses to the over 100 recommendations.
 
I am pleased to provide you with this Draft Report on Recommendations Regarding the Portland Police Bureau (PDF). In addition to providing this to the three groups who submitted recommendations to the PPB for their review, I request the feedback of all Portlanders on these important recommendations and our responses.
 
We would like to specifically highlight a few of the recommendations and responses that, together, provide a very brief look at the entire report. The recommendations and responses provided in this email have been paraphrased. You will find more detailed responses to the recommendations in the full report, but take a look below to get an idea of this important dialogue between the community and our police bureau.
 
Our response to each recommendation in this report fall into three general categories:
Recommendations that are already current practice or have been implemented partially or fully to date;
Recommendations the City agrees with but has not yet been implemented; and
Recommendations the City disagrees with.
 
Recommendations that are already current practice or have been implemented partially or fully to date.
 
Some recommendations that are already current practice.  Some recommendations we implemented immediately, and other recommendations are not implemented completely, but have guided improvements. Paraphrased examples include:
The Bureau must involve community members in developing police training and policy.  (AMA #1.5) Agree. Community groups, the community academy, advisory group feedback, the Citizen Review Committee, and City Council currently give input directly to the Chief, and we are further strengthening our current practice.
Policy and training related to de-escalation must be enhanced. (AMA #2.1) Agree. The Bureau recently conducted Inservice training regarding deescalation. For situations requiring a multipleofficer response, Bureau members are trained to make a plan and have a leader responsible for coordinating the response.
The IPR Director or designee shall be called onto the scene of any shooting or death in custody. (AMA #4.6) Agree. Current policy since February, 2011.
PPB should ensure medical aid is rendered “as soon as possible unless the circumstances clearly demonstrate that to do so would unreasonably endanger the officers or the medical personnel.” (CRC PARC Workgroup #3)  The current Deadly Force Directive effectively requires this.  We have also deployed ballistic shields to facilitate faster response to downed suspects.
City Council should provide adequate resources for scenario-based training of PPB officers and supervisors.  (CRC PARC Workgroup #9)  City Council has approved funding for a dedicated training facility for the Police Bureau, and efforts are underway to obtain one.
The initial interview with officers involved in cases of serious injuries or deaths shall be immediate.  (AMA #4.1)  Internal Affairs has adopted a Standard Operating Procedure requiring officers involved in the use of deadly force to submit to a recorded interview as close as possible to 48 hours after the incident.  This is the earliest time allowed under the current collective bargaining agreements.  Witness members are required by Bureau directive to submit to an interview before leaving work for the day.
 
Recommendations the City agrees with but have not yet been implemented
 
Some recommendations will be implemented, but require changes to either Police Bureau policy or procedure, or City Ordinance.  These include:
Increase the length of term for CRC members from two years to three years.  (Stakeholders #II-C) Agree. IPR is working on necessary ordinance changes.
Give CRC the Authority to make policy recommendations directly to the Police Bureau.  (Stakeholders #II-D)  Agree. Requires a slight change to the City Ordinance. IPR is working to make this change.
Broaden the use of cameras with audio recording.  (AMA #10.3)  The Police Bureau is in the process of a pilot project to install cameras in patrol cars, and plans to equip all cars with this equipment.
 
Recommendations the City disagrees with
 
We found some recommendations to be unworkable.  Most of these fell into two general categories:
Inconsistent with current case law, employment law, or collective bargaining agreements.  This category included several recommendations for rigid policies regarding use of force, which were inconsistent with the US Supreme Court’s decision in Graham v. Connor.  This decision has become the standard for police use-of-force policies nationwide. Other recommendations violate current State law regarding the confidentiality of records pertaining to personnel actions.  These recommendations mandated things like public reporting of CRC review documents (Stakeholders #III-F) or a public response from the Bureau when the Chief’s decision differs from the Police Review Board’s recommendation (Stakeholders #III-J).
Inconsistent with the original intent of the Citizen Review Committee or Independent Police Review.  These entities were established in an effort to increase the transparency and fairness of the Police Bureau’s complaint-handling and discipline processes, not to supplant those processes or relieve the Police Bureau of the responsibility of holding its own members accountable.
Some of the recommendations addressed in this report seek to expand the mission of IPR and the CRC from that of review bodies to one of administrative bodies.  Among these are recommendations to require CRC review of proposed allegations before an investigation is started (Stakeholders #II-H), allowing CRC to hear new evidence and rule on that evidence rather than review the reasonableness of the Commander’s proposed findings (Stakeholders #II-A), and allowing the CRC to compel testimony (Stakeholders #II-B).
 
As mentioned, Chief Reese and I are committed to continuous improvement of the Portland Police Bureau. We hope to file this report with the City Auditor's office on Wednesday, November 9, for an initial hearing before City Council on Wednesday, November 16 at 2pm. Additionally, we plan to maintain and improve the bureau's relationship with community groups, oversight organizations, and stakeholders to ensure that the PPB is a public safety agency that represents the values of Portlanders.
 
Sincerely yours,
 
Sam Adams
Mayor

November 2011 

Answer to Sam Adams:
 
Since becoming the Police Commissioner in 2010, you have worked a bit too closely with Chief Mike Reese and the professional officers who protect our public safety, and sometimes they have not improved services the PPB provides. Chief Reese seems less committed to continuous improvement and to systems of accountability within the PPB that are transparent, fair, and build community trust and more committed to covering up errors.

The Bureau must involve community members in developing police training and policy.  (AMA #1.5) You may agree, but community groups, the community academy, advisory group feedback, the Citizen Review Committee, and City Council currently give input directly to the Chief, but he
then chooses to ignore them and thus we still get rogue cops on the street and little accountabilty and ineffective management.

Policy and training related to de-escalation must be enhanced. (AMA #2.1) You may agree, but while the Bureau recently conducted Inservice training regarding deescalation, for too many officers this was a joke. For situations requiring a multiple officer response, Bureau members are trained to make a plan and have a leader responsible for coordinating the response. Of course, this has repeatedly failed.  Officers who have killed citizens have not been held responsible.

The IPR Director or designee shall be called onto the scene of any shooting or death in custody. (AMA #4.6) Agree. This may be "current policy since February, 2011," but this is closing the barn door a bit late.

PPB should ensure medical aid is rendered “as soon as possible unless the circumstances clearly demonstrate that to do so would unreasonably endanger the officers or the medical personnel.” (CRC PARC Workgroup #3)  The current Deadly Force Directive effectively requires this, but
it is not happening!!!

The initial interview with officers involved in cases of serious injuries or deaths shall be immediate.  (AMA #4.1)  Internal Affairs has adopted a Standard Operating Procedure requiring officers involved in the use of deadly force to submit to a recorded interview as close as possible to 48 hours after the incident.  This is the earliest time allowed under the current collective bargaining agreements.  Not enough, 2 days later is not immediate!!!

Give CRC the Authority to make policy recommendations directly to the Police Bureau.  (Stakeholders #II-D)  You may agree, but it has not been done. If it requires a slight change to the City Ordinance, then the IPR needs to get it done.  So do it.

 "In the process" of a pilot project to install cameras in patrol cars, and plans to equip all cars with this equipment.... is not good enough.  Get it done.

Recommendations mandating things like public reporting of CRC review documents (Stakeholders #III-F) or a public response from the Bureau when the Chief’s decision differs from the Police Review Board’s recommendation (Stakeholders #III-J) are necessary and prudent. Get it done.

If this is inconsistent with the original intent of the Citizen Review Committee or Independent Police Review, then the intent must be changed.
These entities were established in an effort to increase the transparency and fairness of the Police Bureau’s complaint-handling and discipline processes and this is not happening.

Some of the recommendations addressed in this report seek to expand the mission of IPR and the CRC from that of review bodies to one of administrative bodies.  Good, go for it, get it done!

Sincerely yours,
 
Tim Flanagan

Associate editor of the Portland Alliance

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1. KBOO Controversy   News Flash!!! 

The court case is over, the judge ordered Mr. Papadopolis reinstated!   

Dear Editor,

Mention by a "KBOO Staff Collective".  of a federal statute isn't surprising  -- but pretending that any
statute justifies removal of a member-elected KBOO director is outrageous when there is no case-law
explaining how -- and indeed if -- the statute applies to KBOO.  KBOO is  rare; it’s membership
nonprofit corporation.
KBOO claims that its Board may not include more than two non-citizen directors without risking loss of its
FCC license.  There is no applicable case-law and KBOO has not petitioned the FCC to rule on the
correctness of that belief. And there's only guesswork about how US Courts will treat any FCC
ruling on a yet nonexistent KBOO petition.  How the FCC might rule involves only
guesswork because there's no case-law applicable to KBOO
In the absence of membersip nonprofit precedents It's incredible that KBOO management relied on two FCC
attorneys for their guess about the meaning of the Communications Act. KBOO's staff collective goes
beyond its abilities to guess what the Act means.  Guesswork has no value where KBOO claims
federal law authorized my removalas an elected director.
Faced with the fact that KBOO had three non-citizen Directors after the September 2009
election KBOO had several choices based only on speculative reasoning ;
  (1) it could have asked the FCC for a ruling to remove reliance on guesswork,
       perhaps completely eliminating KBOO's worries.
       Beyond the filing of an FCC petition it was also possible for the possible problem to just go
       away by any legal method of reducing to two the number of noncitizen directors. But
  (2) There's no evidence that KBOO asked any of the three noncitizens to resign voluntarily.
        Board removal of member-elected directors is allowed by Oregon Law ONLY for the
        reasons authorized by the Bylaws in effect at the time of the Director's election [ORS
        65.324(9)]. Therefore
  (3) KBOO should have examined its own Bylaws to learn how to reduce the
        number of noncitizen directors legally.  Those  bylaws provide for legal removal of
        directors by the Board
  (a) only for non-attendance at meetings, or (b) for cause.
        Therefore
  (4) KBOO could have examined the published attendance record of the two
        non-citizen directors serving before my election but it did not do so.
        In the collective letter Justin reports that warnings from two FCC attorneys
        is "the only reason" for me to be removed after my election. KBOO makes
        no claim that there was cause for my removal. Nor was there any hint of "cause"
        for removal of the other two non-citizens.
Because removal for cause was not an option, KBOO’s only remaining way to  remove an
elected Board member, with or without cause, requires a membership vote. The board did
not invoke that process.  The "KBOO Staff Collective" believes it must" “hold paramount
the interests of the KBOO Foundation and its members, its compliance with all state and
federal regulations , and the many diverse communities that we serve."

KBOO has made an incorrect choice, it has not complied with all state and federal
regulations and it's stuck with legal expenses because it chose to ignore both its own bylaws
and ORS 65.324(9). The KBOO Foundation has chosen to waste the Foundation
substance. Doesn’t that look like mismanagement.?

KBOO leadership  owes a duty of explanation to the membership. The collective  letter
doesn't provide an acceptable reason for breaking the law - ignorance of the law is no
excuse even for activist nonprofit corporations like KBOO,

Michael Papadopoulos
5379 NW Lawrence Ave.
Corvallis, OR 97330
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Dear editor & readers...

A Post Script:  Friday 13th of May -- Multnomah Cunty Circuit Court

Both parties asked for a Summary Judgment in their favor.

KBOO's Motion was denied and ours was granted.

The Judge found that I should be reinstated a Director to the end of the term I was elected to
-- i.e. until September 31, 2012 -- and asked my counsel to prepare an Order for him to sign.

In other words the reinstating is required to  be done only after the judge signs the Order.

Michael

2.   Open Letter to President Obama: Bin Laden Assassination Is Not Something to Celebrate
May 2, 2011
By Dan Handelman

Mr. President:

We were very troubled by your announcement Sunday night about the death of Osama Bin Laden. You described his assassination at the hands of a secret U.S. operation as “justice,” an “achievement” that “should be welcomed by all people who believe in ce and humanity.”

You also invoked the roughly 3,000 people who lost their lives on 9/11, speaking of the families torn apart by their deaths. We mourn their deaths just as we mourn the deaths of the hundreds of Pakistani civilians who have been killed by the CIA’s drone program, the tens of thousands of Afghanis who have died since the U.S. attacked that nation — which never attacked the U.S., and the millions of Iraqis who have died under bombs and as a result of sanctions and the infrastructure destroyed by the U.S. and its allies.

And yes, we also mourn the death of Osama bin Laden, not because we agreed with his tactics or message, but because our government has killed him in our name with no trial, due process, or other forms of justice that we used to pride ourselves on as a nation. And then, you had his body dumped at sea.

The fact that so many have been killed with the purported goal of making America safer does not make our country immune nor acquit our nation of murdering innocent people. If you truly believe our policies are justified, it is time for the U.S. to re-join the International Criminal Court and accept the rule of law of the rest of the planet.

Mr. President, we also recognize the significance of the announcement of this assassination on the 8th anniversary of George W Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech. Here is what we beg of you, a Nobel Peace Prize winner: If Bin Laden’s death is a strongly significant act of “justice” and closure for the 9/11 families, let us now take all of our troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, stop the airstrikes in Pakistan and Libya, and work toward a truly peaceful means to resolve international conflicts.

As with the death penalty (which was hastily applied to Saddam Hussein by a fledgling Iraqi court system), nothing can be done now to undo what has happened. But you, Mr. President, can prevent more loss of life by ceasing our military operations overseas.

We await your reply.

Sincerely,

Dan Handelman and other members of Peace and Justice Works’ Iraq Affinity Group, PO Box 42456, Portland, OR 97242; (503) 236-3065; pjw@pjw.info;  http://www.pjw.info. Φ

3.  What Can We Do?

This one is from:  aloysiuswilderburr@gmail.com
Hi,
My name is Brian Watson, and I am writing to ask how to become involved in active resistance to the current Republican congress and their proposed waves of cuts. I’m a (very) small independent business owner in Portland, OR, running a guitar repair shop. Although I work a skilled trade for a living. I also hold an MFA in poetry and many of my friends are educators and public workers.
In discussion with my community, I find most people I know are feeling dismayed and powerless at the moment. They are watching our government continue its tide of handouts/tax breaks to the richest few, while simultaneously eliminating assistance to working people in every way possible. They are seeing wealth continually concentrated in the hands of the richest, with the least interest in the “common good,” as the income gap widens into a chasm in this country. My father, who leans politically to the right and has been a public worker in the Mansfield, Ohio, circuit courts for 30 years, has seen his wages stagnate over the past 10, with no raises in 5 years, as his cost of living has gone up and up-- and he has no idea when or if the current round of layoffs will hit him, but he has no sense of job security.

A number of my friends who are talented, brilliant young educators have been unable to find work, and are seeing nothing but increasing cutbacks, budgets and amendments being passed that take away their hopes of achieving tenure one day, worsen classroom conditions, and strip them of rights and protections that older generations fought so hard to win for US, to give us a better life than they had. Across the board, we are seeing our living conditions and hopes for the future worsen.

In my own field of instrument repair and construction, our trade deficit and lack of protection for American industry has resulted in a loss of jobs as cheaper competition has been imported from China and Korea, and a loss of quality, as American manufacturers have reduced their standards in both materials and workmanship. Every day, I replace parts (with the same name brand as those made in the US in the 60’s, which lasted 50 years) with components I know will last 5-10 years at best.

The people I know  who are paying attention to politics these days are outraged, but feel powerless and don’t know where to turn. Worse, they feel alienated, looking around and seeing that most of their fellow citizens appear misinformed, complacent, and drugged. I feel that people want to awaken and make changes and stand up for themselves, but they don’t know how.
I’m writing because I’m not sure how either. Our congressmen seem deaf to this situation. It’s hard to understand why there are not ongoing, vociferous protests in every city in the country, to the current legislative attack on the middle class. Is there something we can do or get involved in? Petitions, protests, mailings? I’m very interested in doing what I can to enact change, both in the short term, and in the upcoming elections. It seems that the large swings in the past 2 election cycles have been expressions of the same kind of general outrage, and neither has produced results. Obama was elected by voters truly desperate for change, and the swing to the right in the last election seemed like a reflection of frustration that change didn’t seem to be working. It feels like people want something more, that speaks directly to them. What can we do?

Please reply,

Thanks,

Brian
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Dear Brian,
Active resistance can take many forms. Your skills can make a difference.  Social change is about communication and action.  Artists, writers, and poets define our cutting edge, educators communicate critical ideas and public workers can implement solutions. 

The best cure for dismay or feelings of powerlessness, is simple courage. Instead of helplessly watching corporate welfare mushroom while working people become more and more vulnerable, we can stand up, organize, agitate, and legislate. This is class war.  We did not start it, but we can let them know we’re not gonna take it anymore.

It is time for a ‘ New Deal, war on poverty and great society legislation.’  Talented, brilliant young educators can demand overdue investments in jobs and infrastructure. It’s time for accountability.  We can write legislators, send letters, submit articles, or support local media.

When overwhelmed by outrage, we can regroup, unite, and organize to defeat those who would misuse and abuse the most vulnerable among us.
There are ongoing, sometimes vociferous protests in every city in the country to the current legislative attack on the middle class.  To get involved, checkout KBOO Radio, Jobs with Justice, and the Community Calendar of The Portland Alliance.  Any or all of these vehicles for communication need volunteers.  

Obama was elected by voters truly desperate for change, and his surrender to the right is discouraging.  But if we want real change for everyday people, alternative media lets us speak truth to power.  Volunteer for the Alliance!

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4. A Bridge Over Troubled Waters...

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