SR Editorial: The people are speaking – the time to begin dismantling the police is now

Portland should begin the process of transitioning to equitable emergency response and away from an oppressive system of violence that’s proven it’s unsalvageable

by SR editorial board | 5 Jun 2020

There’s a reason protests in Minneapolis following the police killing of George Floyd resonate with residents of cities across America: Police brutality against black people is rampant everywhere in the U.S. It always has been, and under the current system, it always will be.

Portland is no exception, and for many, protests in recent days aren’t just about George Floyd, they’re about the young black lives taken by police right here at home: Quanice Hayes, killed by police at age 17; Kendra James, an unarmed 21-year-old mother of two; Aaron Campbell, who at 25 was killed while he was suicidal over the death of his younger brother; Keaton Otis, a 25-year-old with a history of mental illness — punched, hit with a Taser three times and then shot 23 times; Jason Washington, a Navy veteran, 45, shot nine times following a bar fight; James Jahar Perez, shot while unarmed during a traffic stop at 28; and Andre Gladen, the 36-year-old legally blind man who had schizophrenia and was killed when visiting Portland from Sacramento last year.

Each senseless death leads to public protests decrying the continued killing. “Rally for Justice, Stop Police Violence,” reads a flier for an event on March 5, 2010, at Emmanuel Temple following the killing of Aaron Campbell.

But will police violence ever stop? It’s been nearly 30 years since the Los Angeles Police Department was filmed violently beating Rodney King. Decades have passed and the police killings and beatings of black Americans continue unabated.

Now, as thousands of Portlanders across the city leave the safety of their homes amid a pandemic to join together to denounce this unjust violence, they, too, have come under police attack.

Protests that have largely remained peaceful end in clouds of tear gas. Rubber bullets fly and the flash bangs reverberate through the streets. Police shared the crowd control tactics and munitions they’ve been using in recent days: tear gas, pepper spray, stinger grenades and rubber bullets. Make no mistake — these are weapons that can cause serious injury and an abundance of evidence is piling up that shows Portland police are using them indiscriminately against crowds where the majority of protesters are law abiding.

To use tear gas on crowds of people while the county is still trying to stop the spread of the coronavirus — a respiratory illness — is a blatant disregard for human life.

It’s time to ask ourselves whether progress is possible at all.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice found the Portland Police Bureau was finally in compliance with a 2012 settlement agreement. After the DOJ found the bureau too often used unnecessary force against people with mental illness, it required a long list of actions to remedy the situation, including enhanced training, changes to policy and tactics and ways for identifying individuals with excessive complaints against them. But even with all the steps the bureau has taken over the past eight years to meet the requirements of the settlement, its officers still killed five people experiencing mental health crises last year.

If the Stanford experiments have taught us anything, it’s that when you give one group of people — even good people— absolute power over another group of people, it has the potential to set off the ugliest and most carnal of human impulses.

Enough. It’s time to end this cycle of killings followed with protests followed with tear gas and arrests. It’s time to defund the police and begin transitioning to a more equitable emergency response.

Q&A: Do away with policing? Alex Vitale says it is time

This is not about teaching an oppressive system to function equitably — it’s about tearing it down and starting over from scratch. It might be difficult to imagine a world without police — it’s all we’ve known in our lifetime. But that doesn’t make it right. The system of policing was borne out of oppression. In urban areas, the first police forces were established to control social disorder, as defined by commercial interests. In the South, they were borne out of slave patrols. There is no fixing a system so deeply rooted in oppression.

The people are speaking loud and clear: The time for change is now. And finally, some lawmakers are listening. In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Wednesday that he is cutting upwards of $100 million from the proposed budget of the law enforcement agency that so brutally beat King all those years ago.

And in Portland, following police actions Tuesday night that forced hundreds of protesters and bystanders to walk through tear gas to escape police force, local lawmakers are taking a stand. Portland City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly called the use of tear gas “sadistic,” and Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty called for the defunding of the bureau’s Gun Violence Reduction Team, its transit police program and School Resource Officers. On Thursday, Portland Public Schools Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero announced his plans to discontinue School Resource Officers, finally removing police from school campuses. Could Portland State University be next?

We’ve never seen momentum to reform police of this magnitude before in this country. And, the timing is perfect for Portland to make lasting systemic change.

For one, the city’s contract with Portland Police Association — the police union — expires at the end of June. With no replacement contract yet agreed upon, there’s still time to create a contract that reflects the best interest of the people whose taxes pay police salaries.

The union has too much power. Overwhelmingly, city bureaus, politicians, community groups, activists, nonprofits, businesses and private citizens have shown support for the establishment of Portland Street Response — emergency response teams of social workers and medics that would compassionately assist people in crises on the streets instead of police, a program Street Roots has championed. But we’ve learned from city officials that the one roadblock to getting Portland Street Response off the ground, even though its pilot has been funded, is the police union’s president, Daryl Turner.

Why is a union representing several hundred public service employees able to stop progress the public it serves so clearly wants?

Unite Oregon, along with signatories that include the Portland NAACP, Urban League of Portland and many other social justice oriented organizations and leaders of faith, has issued a letter calling upon the City Council and Chief of Police to institute reforms that will give some of the power back to the people. That includes making it possible to hold officers accountable for their actions and enabling citizens to become more effective watchdogs of the bureau. Unite Oregon is also calling for the defunding of special units, including SERT, which responds to protests.

More than half the city’s budget is dedicated to public safety — the majority to police.

“How we spend our public funds expresses our values as a city, and we do not believe that our city should continue to over-invest scarce resources in the Portland Police Bureau,” states Unite Oregon’s petition. “Especially at this time of unprecedented crisis, we must invest our scarce resources in the health and well-being of our communities: programs like rent and mortgage assistance for working-class folks, housing for our unhoused neighbors, food assistance programs for people having trouble making ends meet.

We agree.

We’re taught from a young age, the police are necessary. They are here to protect and serve. And they do serve and protect — but not the people — it’s become clear that it’s an antiquated system of oppression that’s under protection and only those at the top rung of the ladder who are truly served. The time to defund and dismantle the bloated, militant operation masquerading as a public service on our dime is now.

We are not suggesting anarchy, but rather to move toward the establishment of actual peacekeepers, working in tandem with Portland Street Response and other public services.

The history of oppression, practice of othering and deeply ingrained fear is too embedded in the culture of the Portland Police Bureau — or any police department — for it to be salvaged.

We must begin narrowing the police bureau’s scope and limiting its officers’ power over civilians while transferring resources to programs that actually serve the public interest, until one day, the last dollar is reallocated, the last badge surrendered, and then there will finally be an end to the unconscionable police killings of black Portlanders.

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