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U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.) is set to host a town hall at Lake Oswego High School on the evening of June 16.
The Lake Oswego Police Department says it plans to send three police officers to the event for security.
But the decision to send those officers came only after the department initially declined last week to provide on-site security for the congresswoman’s event.
Two things occurred between the two decisions.
First, on Saturday morning, a gunman killed Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, a killing that authorities described as a political assassination. (The suspect, 57-year-old Vance Boelter, also broke into Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman’s home and shot him and his wife. They are in the hospital with severe injuries. Law enforcement officials say they recovered a hit list in Boelter’s possession that listed dozens of politicians’ names.)
Second, WW sent an inquiry Saturday asking why the police department would not send officers to Bynum’s event, as most police forces do for visiting officials.
The LOPD took issue with the characterization that it backtracked. “We did not decline to offer security for the Representative,” LOPD spokesman Sgt. Tom Harper said in an email to WW on Saturday. He said the department had always planned to provide security for Bynum, just not on-site security.
But that’s not how Bynum’s team characterized the LOPD’s original offer, nor what an email between the representative’s office and the LOPD obtained by WW last week would suggest.
According to Bynum’s office, the representative’s team requested over the phone earlier this month that LOPD provide on-site officers for the Monday town hall.
But in an email sent to Bynum’s office on June 13, Lt. Mike Scott wrote that LOPD would “stage the two officers at the middle school” across the street from the town hall instead of at the town hall itself.
And he said Bynum’s team could call 911 should an emergency occur.
“After reflecting on our conversation, I think 911 is probably the best number to call first in an emergency,” Scott wrote. “The backup should be nonemergency.”
Koray Rosati, a spokesman for Bynum, said on Friday that it was “disappointing that the Lake Oswego Police Department isn’t willing to commit to keeping the community safe.” Out of eight town halls Bynum has held since she took office Jan. 1, Rosati said, this was the “first time that the police have declined to provide security.”
But the LOPD changed course Saturday afternoon shortly after WW asked for comment. The agency rejected the characterization that it had declined to provide security for Bynum, and maintained that it had always planned to provide some level of officer protection nearby.
In a Saturday email to WW, a spokesman for the LOPD said the agency had been “in communication with Rep. Janelle Bynum’s staff and have worked with them to determine the appropriate level of security that we will provide for the event.” The spokesman added: “We are aware of incidents that have happened in other parts of the country and will continue to communicate with Rep. Bynum’s staff to adjust our response as needed.”
Just 15 minutes later, Lt. Scott wrote to Bynum’s team on Saturday:
“In light of what happened in Minnesota this morning, we are going to staff a third officer for Congresswoman’s event on Monday, and the officers will be on the LOHS campus rather than staged nearby,” Scott wrote.
In a follow-up email, Sgt.Harper told WW that the agency was concerned that “if we were inside, that might make people feel uncomfortable sharing their thoughts with the Representative. We planned to be in the area, out of sight, to hopefully allow for the free exchange of ideas.”
Harper wrote that after the events in Minnesota, “we added staffing out of an abundance of caution. We will be on site and are continuing to work with Representative Bynum’s staff to ensure they have the security they need.”
Blakely Wall, a spokeswoman for Bynum, says the representative is “disappointed that it was only after the incident in Minnesota over the weekend, and subsequent inquiries from journalists about an unwillingness to provide security, that the request was accepted.“
Wall added that although Bynum is “frustrated with the department’s process,” she is “thankful that protection will now be provided.”