Murmurs: State Police Find Gaps in County Investigation of Jail Deaths

STATE POLICE FIND GAPS IN COUNTY INVESTIGATION OF JAIL DEATHS: The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office quietly released two state police reports last month identifying gaps in the sheriff’s internal investigations of two recent jail deaths. The two reports, authored in February by Oregon State Police Lt. Sarah Kelly, offer a second opinion on the sheriff’s investigations of the suicide of Donovan Wood and the overdose of Josiah Pierce. They identify what appear to be a series of oversights by investigators, particularly in their scrutiny of Pierce’s death. Interviews with staff at the jail, in some instances, were cursory and done over email, Kelly noted. Objects at the scene had been moved prior to the medical examiner’s arrival. Kelly also noted that investigators didn’t document whether Pierce’s cell had been searched the day before his death, which would have been logical: He’d been “exhibiting odd behavior” and had been sent to the hospital for observation. The state police reports recently appeared on a county website for its new “Corrections Recommendation Project,” alongside a series of other reports critical of the county’s jail system, in which seven inmates died last year. The project, which was previously announced in April, will last one year and is meant to address criticisms and improve conditions at the jails. Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell commissioned the OSP reports last summer. “This request was to create another layer of accountability,” her spokesman, Chris Liedle, says. “We are incorporating the OSP considerations into our overarching corrections recommendations project.”

CITY WILL VOTE TO BEEF UP SECURITY CONTRACT: The Portland City Council will vote tomorrow on an ordinance that would pour an additional $8.5 million into an existing security contract with Allied Universal Security Services, which provides security officers at city facilities. The ordinance, if approved, would also extend the contract by three years, until 2027, increasing the contract’s total price tag to $24 million. As WW previously reported, city officials handling the new government transition have grappled with how to standardize security protocols across the four new voting districts where members of the 2025 City Council will maintain offices. The upshot: Contracted city security may be working in all four districts. “This increase and contract extension will enable the City to address the increased service requests from various bureaus and ensure business continuity while the City transitions to a new form of government, and while City leadership works to develop and implement a fully integrated citywide security division,” the ordinance reads.

PARADE MAINTAINS WIDE BERTH FROM DOWNTOWN: For the third year in a row, the Grand Floral Parade, one of three parades held during the Portland Rose Festival, did not snake its way through downtown last Saturday. The parade was rerouted to Northeast Portland in 2022, after being canceled in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. WW asked Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office what it’s doing to return the Rose Festival’s flagship event to a downtown straining for a rebound. “While the mayor would have liked to route the Grand Floral Parade through downtown, this year’s available resources made it unfeasible,” Wheeler’s spokesman Cody Bowman said in an email to WW. “Instead, the city worked to support all events, including CityFest and the downtown Starlight Parade, to ensure safe and successful celebrations throughout the central city.” The event went off (almost) without a hitch. At about 11:15 am, Portland police and Multnomah County sheriff’s deputies arrested eight people for blocking the parade route with a die-in to protest the war in Gaza. “They were welcome to be there and engage in free speech,” the Portland Police Bureau said in a press release. “However, they were warned not to disrupt the parade.” (See photos, here.) Nick Brodnicki, chief operating officer of the Rose Festival, said it was too soon to say whether downtown will be on the route next year. “We’re not ready to speak to this topic at this time,” Brodnicki said in an email. “Please feel free to reach out later in September.”

FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: WW received 13 prizes, including five for first place, at the Society of Professional Journalists Region 10 Excellence in Journalism Awards. The five-state contest covers Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. WW’s five first prizes include general excellence for a medium-sized newsroom, which SPJ defines as six to 20 newsroom employees. For general excellence, the awards committee reviewed 10 stories produced by WW in May 2023 and compared that work to the 10 best stories produced by similarly sized newsrooms. Other categories in which WW received first-place awards included Government Reporting for Sophie Peel’s chronicle of Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan’s demise (“Up in Smoke,” May 3, 2023), LGBTQ+ Reporting for Anthony Effinger’s story on gender refugees coming to Portland (“They Arrived,” July 5, 2023), and Business and Economics Reporting for Effinger and Lucas Manfield’s study of the role played by private equity in Portland’s ambulance staffing shortage (“Junk Ambulances,” July 12).