To the members of City Council, the staff of the Independent Police Review Division (IPR), the Citizen Review Committee (CRC), Auditor Gary Blackmer, Chief Rosie Sizer, Captain John Tellis of the Internal Affairs Division (IAD), and whom it may concern:
At its April 11 meeting, the City Council postponed a vote to fund four non-sworn positions of “Internal Affairs Investigators” for the Police Bureau. Apparently, the idea is to move four sworn Sergeants out on the streets from the Internal Affairs Division (IAD) and hire four “civilian” investigators to take their place. One element of the Mayor's Portland's Police Internal Investigations Auditing Committee Work Group (PIIAC, 2000) was to give the review board (now the Independent Police Review Division, or IPR) independent, civilian investigators. As such, City Council should consider re-allocating these funds to hire full-time civilian investigators under the direction of the IPR.
After we raised concerns about making this change, the mayor agreed to withdraw the ordinance until further discussion could occur. The proposed ordinance would create the new classification and set aside money to hire these investigators for some of fiscal year 2006-07. At this point, it is unclear what qualifications investigators must meet and whether former Police Bureau personnel will be eligible to fill the positions. Clearly there is a strong probability that the bureau will hire some retired officers waiting to “double dip” city funds with their pensions and these new positions. In this case, the City will miss an opportunity to give the IPR the opportunity to conduct investigations of police misconduct without the conflict of interest that now plagues IAD investigations. But we don't know, because there was no public discussion of this ordinance. Director Leslie Stevens says that this issue was “discussed” at a previous CRC meeting. From what we can tell, that “discussion” consisted of the IAD’s Capt. Tellis stating in one sentence at February's meeting that he has eight sergeants, but that is “in flux” because the City “may” hire four non-sworn personnel to replace four of them. The discussion at City Council consisted of a Bureau of Human Services manager stating that the new positions were non-sworn. His testimony lasted less than one minute.
Although Stevens claims that “nothing changes” in how the investigations will be done, this is a monumental shift in how and who does these investigations. The IAD sergeants in the past have been in that Division as a stepping stone to further promotions. They have learned how to examine other officers' behavior for misconduct. As valuable a lesson as this structure provides, it has raised serious questions about the level of independence, objectivity and reliability of the investigations and the wisdom of having police officers investigate their own.
There has been enormous turnover over the years, one of the reasons for the long delays in investigations. With non-sworn personnel, it is likely that investigators will stay put for a longer period of time. Since they are not sworn sergeants, there are going to be contractual issues regarding whether officers can be ordered to cooperate with the new investigators.
It is unclear what level of training they will be required to have and to whom they will be required to report. It is also unclear whether the police chief, the bureau, the police commissioner, the IPR and City Council considered the alternatives proposed in this letter: any money available to hire civilian investigators should be allocated to the IPR instead of to the IAD.
At the April meeting of the Citizen Review Committee, Auditor Gary Blackmer stated that he and Chief Sizer consider the hiring of these civilian investigators an experiment that he “is willing to have tried out. But,” he continued, “I'm not willing at this point to think about assuming responsibilities for conducting investigations.” We are concerned that the appointed police chief's recommendations of public policy changes can sway the elected auditor, but it may require action by City Council to have the investigators included as part of the IPR.
All of these issues, and these questions, are ones that would need to be answered if these new investigators were put in the IPR instead of the IAD. One reason the IPR ordinance has not been changed to provide for such investigators is that a review of the system, initially promised for “one year” after the IPR went into effect (which would have been January, 2003) has been funded since June, 2005, but still has not taken place. While the City delays review of the system, they are making a fundamental change that should have been made as part of any review and overhaul of the system itself. If the system itself fundamentally changes before that audit happens, the external review of the system will be dismissed as being based on “how things used to work.”
Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.
Dan Handelman,
Portland Copwatch
JoAnn Bowman,
Oregon Action
Diane Lane (Woodcock),
Private investigator
Bryan Pollard,
The Cherokee Phoenix
Alejandro Queral,
NW Constitutional
Rights Center
Darleane Lemley,
Member of the Storrs Commission
The above are all members of the 2000 Mayor's Workgroup on PIIAC or their representatives.
