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As Portland Mayor Charlie Hales seeks ratification of a controversial new contract with the Portland Police Association, tensions between police and the policed are high here and across the country.
Police critics say part of the problem is the racial and cultural divide between cops and regular citizens. Here in the nation's whitest big city, and its even whiter suburbs, that's also an issue.
In the metro area's four largest law enforcement agencies, the numbers are mixed: In the Multnomah and Clackamas county sheriff's offices, the percentage of African-American officers is higher than the percentage of African-Americans in the counties they serve. Latino officers, however, are in short supply everywhere.
In Portland, Hales has an opportunity to address the makup of the force—the bureau has 65 open positions, and he's pushing to raise pay to make filling those jobs easier.
The chart below shows the number of black and Hispanic officers in each agency and compares it to the percentage of those minorities in each county.
Willamette Week