For years Portland's police watchdog has languished, neglected and
toothless, in the shadows of City Hall. That's why an ebullient T.J. Browning,
a would-be reformer, decribes last week's events as a "quantum leap."
On Jan. 11, all five City Commissioners sat in the council chambers, publicly
agreed that the police oversight system is broken and vowed to fix it.
The Police Internal Investigations Auditing Committee is supposed to oversee
the work of the internal affairs division of the Portland Police Bureau. It's
never had much of a bite, but it lost what little credibility remained in 1997.
That's the year two City Council votes recommending that officers be disciplined
were rejected by then-Chief Charles Moose.
Since then, some of PIIAC's best citizen members have left. Today the meetings
often seem like amateur night, with Capt. Bret Smith, head of internal affairs,
leading board members around by the nose.
All that seems about to change, although it's not clear how sweeping the reforms
will be. The key question is this: Will the job of investigating the police
still be left to the police, or will civilians be handed the responsibility?
Just a year ago, it would have been unthinkable for the City Council even to
ask that question. For example, when WW asked Mayor Vera Katz about PIIAC's
shortcomings last January, she said all it needed was some minor tinkering.
Last week, however, Katz seemed open to significant change. While she did not
embrace the idea of civilian review, she didn't reject it.
In fact, the only commissioner to show his hand last week was Jim Francesconi.
He threw in his lot with Chief Mark Kroeker, agreeing that no significant changes
should be made to PIIAC until more study is done. Commissioners Charlie Hales
and Erik Sten, meanwhile, clearly think PIIAC needs a serious revamp, leaving
them just one vote shy of shaking things up.
What's happened to change the political dynamic? A long year of police imbroglios
that has left many officers demoralized and many city residents disturbed.
In the wake of the controversial police crackdown of a May 1 rally, Katz set
up a task force to examine PIIAC. In October, a dozen of the 18 group members
voted in favor of civilian review. Under the current system, PIIAC audits only
a sample of completed investigations to make sure they were properly done.
Despite the recommendation of Katz's task force, it wasn't clear that the question
of PIIAC reform would get to the council. But then, in a Nov. 29 council hearing
of a PIIAC appeal, Hales blasted the work of Capt. Smith's unit as inadequate.
Coming just weeks after Kroeker's anti-gay comments were publicized, the matter
could no longer be put off.
Based on last week's council proceedings, it seems that the wild card is Commissioner
Dan Saltzman, who is very open to the idea of civilian review.
It is also clear that Kroeker's influence has suffered significantly during
his first 12 months on the job. He was not called upon for his views until two
hours and five minutes into the discussion, and when he did speak, it was a
far cry from his earlier uncompromising stance against civilian review. Although
he said he still favors police review, "the question is not who does it," he
said. "The question is the quality of the investigation."
The key opposition, then, seems to fall to a largely unknown figure within
City Hall: Robert King, the new president of the Portland Police Association.
Police union members, like many citizens, think PIIAC is a joke. They note,
as Katz did Thursday, that the current crew of citizens on the board often seems
baffled about police work. Officers understandably fear giving such a group
more power over discipline and their careers.
At the same time, King knows that to make no changes could be even worse. That's
because a group called the Police Accountability Campaign looms in the background
of the council debate.
Last year, PAC attempted to put a civilian-review measure on the ballot. After
the ballot language was held up in court, the group fell short of the 26,000
required signatures in the 10 weeks it had left. They're ready to go again in
2002. "We've got 52 weeks this time," says campaign organizer Dave Mazza.
King and the commissioners realize that if the council doesn't make real improvements
to PIIAC, it will give Mazza and his allies the ammunition they need to make
radical changes that could alienate the police union. Asked what compromises
his members might be willing to make to avoid even more dramatic changes, King
declined to show his cards, saying, "It wouldn't be prudent."
