News The city Human Rights Commission on Thursday heard three cops sound off on their concerns about City Hall's efforts to improve police oversight. "We have an emergency situation going on in our relations with the community," Assistant Chief Brian Martinek told the commission. "We agree with that. But we aren't sure if this ordinance is the way to address that problem." As reported last week, ...   More

News U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today received word that the FBI is on the case in the Jan. 29 fatal shooting of Aaron Campbell by Portland police. Campbell was unarmed when he was shot in the back outside a Northeast Portland apartment. U.S. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich assures Wyden in a letter (PDF) dated April 12 that the FBI has been asked to open an investigation. He says the results ...   More

News Battered by public outcry over two shooting deaths this year, Portland police are characterizing a recent call as a potentially violent encounter that cops successfully defused. The case, as described in a police news release Saturday, is markedly similar to the circumstances when the cops fatally shot Aaron Campbell on Jan. 29. Campbell was reported armed and suicidal, and possibly a danger ...   More

News Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer has reversed course and says the police bureau will accept a citizen panel's findings that the officer who fatally shot Aaron Campbell wrongly fired his Taser in an earlier case. In a brief letter (PDF) sent Tuesday to the city's Independent Police Review Division, Sizer says the bureau accepts three findings by the citizen committee. Among the three findings ...   More

News Portland Police Officer Ronald Frashour has been ordered on leave after a review board recommended firing him for the Jan. 29 fatal shooting of Aaron Campbell, WW has learned from three sources in the police bureau. Frashour was put on leave late last week after the bureau's Use of Force Review Board recommended that Chief Mike Reese fire Frashour, but Reese has not yet made a final decision, ...   More

News News that the Portland police Use of Force Review Board recommended firing Officer Ronald Frashour for the fatal shooting of Aaron Campbell was met with cautious praise from activists today. "This is an appropriate response to the tragic death of Aaron Campbell," said Rev. LeRoy Haynes of the Albina Ministerial Alliance. "He died through error. He died through negligence." The AMA has called ...   More

News Police Chief Mike Reese made an announcement today on discipline for two recent high-profile incidents. Reese said he found that Officer Christopher Humphreys' shooting of a 12-year-old girl with a beanbag gun last November was within police bureau policy. And Reese said the public will have to wait to hear his decision on discipline in the January fatal shooting of 25-year-old Aaron Campbell, ...   More