With its $1,000 admission price, exclusionary Meet the Heat event promotes narrow agenda, protesters say
Attendees to a fundraiser at the Portland Police Training Center in Northeast Portland the morning of Friday, April 1, were greeted by a group of protesters opposed to what they saw as an exclusionary event insensitive to Portland’s low-income, minority and mental health communities. The event, called “Meet the Heat," was a fundraiser for the nonprofit organizations Portland Police Foundation and Citizens Crime Commission, an affiliate organization of the Portland Business Alliance’s charitable branch.
According to the Meet the Heat event promotional material, for $1000, invitees received a “never-been-done before, exclusive look into the challenges, the danger, and the successes of Portland Police officers,” as well as the chance to meet members of the police force and dogs from the K-9 unit. The price of admission also included memberships into the two benefitting organizations.
Mike Reese, former police chief and current interim executive director of the Citizens Crime Commission, told Street Roots that Meet the Heat is based on the organization’s past community academies, in which community and civic leaders are invited to go through a simulation of police training and “hear from the police chief on 21st-century issues around policing.”
Reese stated that in addition to the fundraiser ticket holders, youth from the Boys and Girls Club would be in attendance.
“Our invitation must have gotten lost in the mail,” protest organizer and NAACP Portland branch President Jo Ann Hardesty told protesters gathered outside of the year-and-a-half-old training facility. In a public statement released that morning, Hardesty objected to the event marketing’s “glorifying police violence” as well as its potential draw on public resources.
“Why would we allow a business lobbying organization that has a very narrow agenda charge the public to enter a building that the public paid for and frame it in such an aggressive way?” said Hardesty in her statement. “Do you think Black Lives Matter could hold a fundraiser here if they said they would use the money to teach young people their rights when they encounter the police? No, it would not be sanctioned.”
The statement goes on to criticize Reese’s past leadership as police chief and detail Hardesty’s attempts over the past month to communicate her objections to the event to city leaders.
In printouts of a March 17 email from Policy Director for Public Safety Deanna Wesson-Mitchell to Hardesty, provided by Hardesty at the protest, Wesson-Mitchell said that funds raised at Meet the Heat will go toward expanding the Community Academy program from an annual to a more frequent event in which more members of the public could participate and learn about police training. Wesson-Mitchell defended the purpose of the fundraiser, but admitted “the messaging in the advertising was poor.”
Despite the Meet the Heat organizers’ statements, the protesters gathered outside of the fundraiser were unconvinced of the bureau’s good intentions.
“I think Portland Police is trying to glorify violence,” said Kathryn Kendall, one of a handful of members in attendance from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Portland. “In a time where black lives matter and the police department is not honoring that, I think it’s very important for people who are nonviolent to stand up.”
Marlana Milne, holding a sign in memory of Fred Bryant, father of Keaton Otis, an African-American man killed by Portland Police officers in 2010, also expressed disappointment with the event, specifically citing the use of language such as “high speed chase” in its marketing. “This is a training center, and we should be training people to mediate and de-escalate.”
Several protesters at the event held signs memorializing victims of the Portland Police Bureau’s past incidents of force and calling for greater police accountability.
After the fundraiser’s scheduled 9 a.m. start time, Hardesty read her statement aloud outside the training facility entrance, saying she would have supported the event had it been open to members of the public and focused on how officers had been “retrained to de-escalate situations” and “value all human life.”
Afterward, she invited the protesters to follow her into the lobby of the Portland Police Training Facility to ask if they would be allowed entrance to the event. All were immediately met by PPB Assistant Chief Kevin Modica, who, after a brief private conversation with Hardesty, addressed the protesters defending the positive intentions of the event and urging the crowd to drive carefully on their ways home, ending by telling them, “I appreciate you.”
Meet the Heat and the accompanying protest came just under two months after the Portland Tribune acquired and released a Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office internal audit that found officers at county jails disproportionately used force against black inmates. Additionally, the Portland Police Bureau is in the second year of a five-year settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, who found that the bureau routinely used excessive force against people perceived to have a mental illness.
In response to the protest and Hardesty’s public statement, PPB spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson told Street Roots via email, “The Police Bureau’s Training Division was honored to host the event on behalf of the Portland Police Foundation to bring business leaders, community leaders, and young people to have a quick look into the world of police training. We are aware that not everyone in this community is supportive of our efforts but we will continue to work to build strong, lasting relationships with everyone in our community.”
