WW welcomes letters to the editor via mail, e-mail or fax. Letters must be signed by the author and include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Preference will be given to letters of 250 words or less. DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES In last week's story "Friendly Fire" [Feb. 23, 2000] about the Police Accountability Campaign, in focusing on the disputes, Phil Dawdy left out the guiding principles that all those concerned agreed upon. Those principles are based upon the premise that our current civilian review board is powerless and should be reformed. The reformation should allow the board (through the City Council), not the police chief, to have the final say as to alleged police misconduct, to have independent investigatory power, to be able to review police shootings and deaths in custody and to hold public hearings on issues of police policies. This past Saturday, the Portland Chapter of the NAACP voted unanimously to take a leadership role in pushing for the implementation of the above four principles for police accountability in part due to the daily reality of racial profiling by the Portland police. Although I expressed some doubts about the viability of the proposed initiative because it goes beyond the above four principles, I believe it still is superior to the current system, which gives the police department almost carte blanche authority to exercise power over citizens without any real accountability for their actions. By giving the appropriate tools to our current civilian review board, we citizens can reinvigorate democracy in Portland and prevent what has recently occurred in New York and Los Angeles from happening here. I am hopeful that our City Council will show some foresight and take the lead. Alan Graf Co-Chairman, Litigation Committee Portland Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild LET'S REVIEW I was disappointed by Phil Dawdy's story on the Citizens for Police Accountability Campaign ("Friendly Fire," Feb. 23, 2000). I was at the same meeting and witnessed no "attack" over political issues. What I did see was a process by which 50 people concerned about police brutality, harassment and corruption voted on ways they want to see the current police review board strengthened. I am a member of Portland Copwatch, and our organization has never taken a stand that a review board should have "broad disciplinary powers." In fact, both Copwatch's proposal for a stronger police review board and the Feb. 15 vote by CPAC called for a review board that recommends discipline after making a final determination that misconduct has taken place. This is a key element, since the current review board has twice had their findings overturned by the Chief of Police. Furthermore, I didn't hear anybody at the meeting who was "anti-cop." People were talking about ways to improve the bureau by holding police accountable to the community. One proposal is to mandate changes in police policy--not "set policy," as reported in the article. It's too bad Mr. Dawdy tried to criticize the Fox TV network to divert attention from his own style of journalism, inflating disagreements to the level of "damn near [feeding] on one another." We hope the Willamette Week will in the future keep their news briefs focused on issues which affect the people of Portland and not minor disagreements among activists. Dan Handelman Portland Copwatch Southeast Portland Philip Dawdy responds: Dan and I must have been at two different meetings Feb. 15. The one I was at included some participants screaming at Alan Graf, and, in a veiled sense at least, it was over his more pragmatic political approach to reform PIIAC. This was not a "minor disagreement." How Dan could have failed to hear some of the clearly anti-police forces in the room is far beyond me. They were loud, they were proud and some were laughing about it. IN DEFENSE OF THE CAR KING We are writing this letter in response to the Feb. 9, 2000, article on Scott Thomason ["Car King"]. We attend Linfield College. Neither of us would be here at Linfield if it weren't for the generosity of Mr. Thomason. We first met Mr. Thomason when we were playing football at Grant High School and working at a place where he did business. Even though we never worked for him, he always took an interest in how we were doing and remembered our names. He has always treated us with respect. Without any fanfare, he made sure things were made available to the football team if we needed them. When we were accepted to Linfield, Mr. Thomason helped us by providing us both with scholarships. We feel we needed to write this letter to let others know about the different ways Mr. Thomason gives back to the community and how he helped two African-American kids attend college. Marty B. Williams Jr. Darryl W. Kelley Jr. Southeast Baker Street, McMinnville - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published March 1, 2000