Street Roots asked the new head of Portland Police Bureau about police oversight, protest response, gun violence and more
Portland’s new chief of police has had no shortage of media attention.
Following the police killing of George Floyd, protests calling for justice for Black lives and police defunding have enveloped the nation — and have most consistently sustained in Portland. As the national spotlight illuminates the city and its Police Bureau, which regularly meets demonstrators with force, Police Chief Charles Lovell has stepped up to the podium regularly to defend the actions of his officers and call on the city for an end to the destructive elements of nightly demonstrations.
But has he been taking the political climate in the city to heart? Will the chants on the streets inspire any internally initiated reforms?
We sat down with Lovell, virtually, to find out what he means when he says he’ll make meaningful changes to the Portland Police Bureau. We also asked where he stands on initiatives such the Community Police Oversight Board proposal coming before voters in November and Portland Street Response , an idea former Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw supported but a program the police union opposes.
We also wanted to know, what — exactly — is different about the way the bureau handles gun violence now as opposed to when the Gun Violence Reduction Team was active, as well as how he plans to address the recent and drastic increase in shootings that are traumatizing communities in the city.
What we found was that while Lovell says he wants to make improvements, it’ s not clear he’ s willing or able to do enough to satisfy many Portlanders’ demands for sweeping systemic change. For example, he wants to see a return to staples such as community policing, and while he said he would like to create more community partnerships and regain the public trust, he also believes the current police oversight system can be effective. Voters will be asked to approve a new, more independent oversight board this fall aimed at fixing problems that have plagued the current system.
But, Lovell is just two months into one of the most challenging leadership roles among United States police forces at this pivotal time. It’s still to be seen whether the new chief will tap into the momentum that’s pulsating through his city and harness this opportunity for enduring reform.
Joanne Zuhl: Y ou’ve said that you’re going to create meaningful change within the force to meet this moment? What specific directives or policies do you intend to enact and when?
Charles (Chuck) Lovell: We’re still in the early stages. I think I just hit the two-month mark. But, I have some visions for things that I want to do that’ll bring the Police Bureau closer to the community. But, I want to be really mindful, too, to gather input from a lot of stakeholders, community people and internal folks — we have a lot of experience here within the Police Bureau. I want to make sure I capitalize on that as well.
But, I envision us kind of getting back to basic police work, in a way. I think having officers reattach to neighborhoods and districts in a long-term fashion is what’s really important.
I know there was a time where we had officers who were out of their car, walking around, people in the community knew them, they knew the people in their districts, and there is a trust and a long-term relationship between officers and a community or neighborhood. And, I think we need to get back to that to really build trust.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some financial constraints in the near term that really limit our ability to do like some of the specialty work we’ve been doing and things of that nature.
And along with that, I really feel like doing things that really brings people together to have conversations. We have a training division where we can host dialogue circles and bring folks in the community to talk about what it’s like to be, you know, Black in Portland, what it’s like to immigrate to Portland. Have officers talking about what it’s like to police these different neighborhoods in Portland and really get an understanding of each other. But I think really, my vision kind of all relates back to, to trust.
Zuhl: My next question is regarding the Gun Violence Reduction Team that, as we all know, has been dissolved. But of course, shootings are still happening. What is the bureau doing differently now in how it investigates gun violence compared to what the GVR team did before July 1?
Lovell: Well, right now, I’ve assigned a sergeant and six officers to our Detective Division to help them follow up on the homicides and shootings we’ve had. We had a record number in July. And I wanted to be really proactive, not wait to gather data and look at it. It was pretty clear we had a problem with this escalation, so I wanted to make sure I dedicated resources.
When we had the Gun Violence Reduction Team, we had a dedicated team of detectives and officers: detectives who are doing the investigation, but officers who are out in a patrol-type fashion on an afternoon shift making stops doing follow-up. They served as not only a deterrent, but actually an intelligence piece.
But what really gets lost with their presence is the relationship and knowledge. I mean, they had relationships with a lot of people who were, one, doing gun violence prevention work, but also folks who were potential victims of gun violence maybe involved in activity that would put them at risk. So you know, having them gone has been a loss, but I feel like we do need a dedicated structure to focus on it. And I’ve been working with the mayor’s office and his staff to kind of reconstitute something. Not specifically, you know, a re-creation of GVRT, but something that would give us a full-time focus back on gun violence and still maintain those relationships.
Zuhl: Those officers that were on that GVRT are still on the force. I guess I’m trying to understand exactly what would have changed on July 1, that they are now no longer able to do that. It seems like the process of investigating gun violence would still continue in the most effective manner that had been working before. So what’s changed?
Lovell: Well, it continues on the detective side. Those detectives have moved from the Tactical Operations Division to the Detective Division, but the officers were reassigned back to patrol. So now those officers, who were doing full-time gun violence prevention work, are now answering 911 calls for service in the different precincts.
And, a lot of them still get calls from family members or community members who are doing the work — outreach folks — can be like “hey, we had this shooting and we need this or that,” and they have a whole other assignment. Now, some are working different shifts, different days off. But that work still needs to be done in the real focused, directed way.
Jessica Pollard: Chief, you had just talked a little bit about how you were in conversation with the city about what sort of structure you might be able to enact to help curb gun violence, and I was hoping you could elaborate on that. What tools would you need to help the bureau rein in gun violence in the absence of the GVRT, for example, like a city policy or a state statute. What kinds of things are you looking at?
Lovell: That’s still really in the in the works. I think really it comes down to the structure of it. Is it community led? What role does the Police Bureau play? Who is brought into the table?
We’ve had Office of Violence Prevention from the Mayor’s Office, which has been a big role player. Rosemary Anderson High School has POIC (Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center), with some gang outreach type workers. We’ve also had JDH (Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Home) involved. We’ve had parole and probation. And it’s like, how do we bring our partners into this work in a real meaningful way? Who hasn’t been at the table before? I mean, I think some groups like, maybe IRCO (Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization) or AYCO (African Youth and Community Organization) even, that really does a lot of work with the Somali communities. Have they had a prominent role at the table? Is there room to work something out there? I really think it’s about the structure, how we partner with folks. How we define roles with a Police Bureau.
Typically, people look at us as just the investigative arm of something when it’s a community partnership. I think our role might need to be a little more expansive than that. So it’s just all those kind of questions. We’ve had this kind of work in Portland for a long time, under different names. So I don’t know if it’s really so much a policy thing. I think it’s really creating something that’s going to be sustainable and lead to better outcomes for people.
Pollard: Do you think a community-based violence prevention program, like Cure Violence or Ceasefire, could be something that would help reduce gun violence in Portland?
Lovell: Yeah, we’ve been in contact with Oakland and their Ceasefire model when Chief Outlaw was here. I think the model that we ended up building with GVRT was really — I wouldn’t say inspired by — but really kind of taken a little bit from that Oakland Ceasefire model when we try to incorporate it here, with the community portion really being the driver behind the prevention piece. And, I think that’s important. I think it’s, it’s a good model, and I think it, it allows people to have a chance to do prevention work, have a kind of a procedural justice piece almost before the police really get involved on the enforcement side.
Emily Green: I would like to ask about Portland Street Response, a program Street Roots had a hand in championing. PPA (Portland Police Association) President Daryl Turner opposed the program because he sees it as taking away jobs and funding from the bureau. But Chief Outlaw told Street Roots before we proposed it that it would be great to have a response service outside of the bureau responding to nuisance calls, such as calls for unwanted persons, so that officers could be freed up to tackle real crimes. Where do you stand on Portland Street Response?
Lovell: I am hopefully optimistic that Portland Street Response will be successful and can step in and take on some of those calls that probably, really, police don’t need to go to. I was never in the camp that police have to go to everything. I think there’s some benefit to having other people, other resources, who can show up and meet that need in a real deescalative way.
Portland Street Response, I know, I got to spend some time with the CAHOOTS folks in Eugene, seeing their model, and when we’re talking about bringing it here, I think they have the potential to really be impactful. I think, for me, I just want to make sure that we support it any way that we can. And I hope it rolls out quickly. I think in the meantime, we end up taking those calls until they’re in a place where they can step in and fill that void.
Green: I also wanted to talk about Commissioner (Jo Ann) Hardesty’s oversight proposal. Do you think the police oversight board coming before voters in November will be an effective and fair way to hold Portland Police Bureau employees accountable to the public that they serve? And why or why not?
Lovell: I think it’s really early to tell what that’s going to look like. I’m definitely a believer in police accountability. I feel it has to be done in a fair and sensible way. But, I think it’ll be interesting to see what the details end up being, and it’s one of those things where the devil is usually in the details.
But, I do think the system we have now with IPR (Independent Police Review) can be effective. I don’t know if, if we’re better off with a new system or tweaks to the current one, but I do feel that accountability is something that needs to be well thought out. And it has to be administered in a way that’s going to be fair and balanced and have outcomes that not only benefit the community as far as the accountability, but is fair to officers as well.
Zuhl: Do you think any changes need to be made to the accountability system that’s in place now?
Lovell: I think it can always get better. I think if you talk to a lot of people, they come up with things like “well, it takes too long.” I think there’s pieces of it that could definitely be changed. I don’t know necessarily if changing the system we have now would be more beneficial than doing something different. Or maybe it’s a, you know, a piece of a bigger system where IPR has a piece of that puzzle. I’m not sure, really, but I think there’s definitely room for improvement.
John Emshwiller: Chief, you probably saw an ad recently in The Oregonian purportedly from spouses of Portland Police Bureau officers. And one of the claims it made in that was, let me read it to you: “Portland Police have been ordered to stand down and not prevent any vandalism, looting or arson throughout the city.” To your knowledge, is that an accurate statement?
Lovell: I wouldn’t say, “ordered to stand down.” I think some of the frustration and the difficulty they might be trying to express is really around some of the obstacles that have been placed on our ability to do that mission of protecting life and property. I mean, there have been several temporary restraining orders on our use of gas, our ability to livestream, our interactions with media, things of that nature that have really made it more difficult to manage violent crowd-control situations.
There are so many marches and free-speech events that take place in the city every day, that really get no attention. And they’re peaceful’ they’re well attended’ folks come out, exercise their First Amendment rights, have their voice heard. And it’s the singular, violent event that takes place at a precinct or downtown that gets so much of the attention. I think that’s sad, but in order to bring these to a close, it’s going to have to be a combined effort. It’s going to take some political will. It’s going to take community members feeling like, you know, “We’ve had enough of this. We want our city back. We don’t want nightly violence in our downtown or our neighborhoods every night.”
Emshwiller: (District Attorney Mike Schmidt) made this announcement about charging decisions (saying that he would not be charging protesters with certain low-level crimes that police were arresting people for). You had a statement saying basically that the arrests (you) make often come after hours of damage to private property, disruption of public transit, traffic on public streets, thefts from small businesses, arson, burglary, attacks on members of the community and attacks against police; you’re waiting hours sometimes to go after crimes that your officers see in progress. Why is that? Is that because you’re feeling constrained by these court orders or what? I mean, that would seem to be one of your main basic jobs in the police force, is when you see a crime, you try to stop it.
Lovell: Yeah, no, I agree. But I think what happens a lot with us, we’re in a position where we want to be very deescalitive. There’s been a lot of talk of what you prefaced there, of escalating the violence. “Some of the things that you’re doing are escalating” — and you know, we’ve taken a position. One, we don’t have a ton of resources. We’ve been at this 75-ish nights in a row. And we’ve had to get help from our partners at Oregon State Police and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. So we really take a position like, we’re not going to do anything on the front end, to escalate. But once violence starts or criminal activity begins, we get pushed into a position where we have to take action. And, we spent a lot of time giving warnings, waiting, giving people opportunities to comply. And then when that doesn’t happen, we’re forced to come in and make an arrest or move a crowd.
Emshwiller: Given the DA’s position on what he won’t prosecute now, will you still have your officers making arrests for those crimes, if they see them? Even though they won’t be prosecuted?
Lovell: The DA’s office has always had the final say on what is going to get prosecuted and what is not going to get prosecuted. So, I think we’re mindful of that. But I don’t think that that can put us in a position where we don’t do our jobs. I think if we have good arrests, where people are committing crimes, I think we make those arrests and we take them to the DA’s office, and if he declines to issue them, we can’t control that. The feeling like, “Well, since the DA won’t prosecute this, then we won’t do anything about it as a police agency,” is just not the right approach.
Emshwiller: What, if anything, do you think you can do, or need to do to try to help keep up the morale? And secondarily, are you seeing any evidence that you’re getting an exodus of officers, you know, from the police department taking early retirement or whatever?
Lovell: This going to be a big month for us, retirement-wise. We’re forecasting, I think the last number I heard was in the mid-40s, as far as retirements for the month of August, and that’s a lot for an agency our size. But a lot of those were planned retirements. August (2020) and January of 2021 are both times we’ve forecasted a large amount of officers to go.
And I think as far as morale goes, you know, the morale is actually surprisingly good. We’ve been at this for over two months. And it’s been hard on our folks. It’s been hard on their families. We’ve had a lot of people injured. But I don’t think people are leaving because of that. The people we have leaving are leaving because of planned retirements at the end of their career.
But I do want to say I’m really proud of our officers. I mean, in the last 75 days, we’ve done more crowd control events than your average officer probably does in their career. To come back every night, have your people standing next to you on each side getting injured here and there, and just to really be committed to keeping the city safe, committed to one another, really says a lot about the people (we have) working here.
Green: With so many officers retiring, what are you doing to recruit new officers in such a kind of critical environment that there is in the city right now?
Lovell: The recruiting, to me, is very important. I spent some time as our recruitment manager in the personnel division. I think the people that you bring on is the key to really changing the culture of any organization. So it’s important you bring on people who are like-minded with the vision about community service and really have a heart for public service and a really caring approach to how they do this job.
Unfortunately for us, there’s some real financial realities. One, the budget cut we took July 1 encompassed about 84 positions, which was all of our vacant positions and then some. We actually were forced to lay off some people in our personnel division who were doing backgrounds, and our civilian recruiter.
Right now we don’t have the budget for the positions to recruit into, which I think is something that’s concerning for us going forward. You look at the amount of retirements we just had, and those are veteran officers. If you figure 40-something people with 25 years of experience means that’s 1,000 years of experience that leaves out the door in a month.
We have some folks who haven’t even been to the academy yet because of the pandemic. So we have a lot of folks whose training has been stalled because of the academy issues and our ability to put on advanced academies and things of that nature. So our back end that would normally come in and fill that void has been stalled as well. Those are just some of the real challenges we’re faced with right now.
Emshwiller: Are you saying you’re not going to be doing any new hiring for the foreseeable future, of officers?
Lovell: Not, not in the immediate future. We don’t have the money or the positions to do so.
Zuhl: I’m curious as to what outreach the Police Bureau is doing beyond the confrontations to reach out to protesters and their communities, both those who are peaceful and those who have been certainly more active and perhaps destructive. What conversations are happening there?
Lovell: We have regular conversations. I talked to some folks yesterday. Early on in the demonstrations, we deployed DLOs, Demonstration Liaison Officers. And you might have seen them; they were out sometimes by the fence or in the crowds in white shirts, khakis. And they were having a lot of conversations, trying to identify folks who would be willing to come talk. I’ve talked to some of them since. A lot of community conversations going on.
I’m doing a town hall Monday. I’ve had conversations with people from the Citizens Review Committee, the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing, faith leaders, community leaders, Black Male Achievement, just a whole bunch of different organizations and people who are like, “Hey, we want to have our voice heard.” A lot of faith leaders have put on events where we’ve had either myself or bureau members at.
I think it’s important for us to get a sense of what the community’s looking for. And I think some of the real troubling part with the violent protests at night is that it’s very hard to identify who you can have a conversation with, who wants to actually have a conversation versus just kind of engage in violent activity.
Emshwiller: The mayor has, at times, condemned violence that’s occurring and sort of indicated that he thought the time would come to kind of really stop it somehow, crack down on it. As police commissioner, has he given you any suggestions on what he thinks might need to be done that is not being done now?
Lovell: Nothing specific. We talk about this issue a lot. I’m on the phone with his office daily. It’s difficult. The real question to me is what do you do to get 300-ish people to stop coming out in the evening with the intent to commit criminal acts, throw things at officers, do vandalism to buildings. That’s what’s difficult. If there was a way to end this, I think we would have employed it by now, had we found it.
But I think it’s an ongoing thing. I think it’s going to take political will from people other than the mayor. I think it’s going to take messaging from the community in some ways to say, “You know what? This violence in our city is not what Portland’s about. We want it to stop.”
This is not something necessarily that’s just at the feet of the police to fix.
This interview was conducted by Street Roots Executive Editor Joanne Zuhl, Staff Reporter Jessica Pollard, Interim Editor & Senior Staff Reporter Emily Green, and Reporter John Emshwiller.
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