Skip to main content
Street Roots Donate
Portland, Oregon's award-winning weekly street newspaper
For those who can't afford free speech
Twitter Facebook RSS Vimeo Instagram
▼
Open menu
▲
Close menu
▼
Open menu
▲
Close menu
  • Advertise with Us
  • Contact
  • Job Openings
  • Donate
  • About
  • future home
  • Vendors
  • Rose City Resource
  • Advocacy
  • Support
News
  • News
  • Housing
  • Environment
  • Culture
  • Opinion
  • Orange Fence Project
  • Podcasts
  • Vendor Profiles
  • Archives
The Citizen Review Committee watches a video of Matthew Klug's incident with Portland police at his appeal hearing on May 4.

Update in Taser complaint against police

Street Roots
New evidence could influence decision to exonerate
by Emily Green | 20 May 2016

 

The Portland Police Bureau's error in supplying the Citizen Review Committee with the wrong set of protocols may have influenced its decision to exonerate one of the bureau’s officers. 

The officer was accused of using excessive force in 2014 when he used a Taser multiple times on Matthew Klug, a Portland man with epilepsy, a traumatic brain injury and diagnosed mental illness. Read more about Klug’s complaint and watch a video of the incident here.

The version of the rules the bureau gave to the committee to use in its decision making process was in effect from 2009 through 2013. A different version was in effect for the duration of 2014. 
A list of all the dates these rules governing stun gun use have changed are easily accessible on the bureau’s website. 

Had the bureau given the volunteer oversight board the correct version, it may have affected the committee’s decision to exonerate. 

The most relevant difference between the two different versions of the directive was a change to an item listed below "Prohibited Use of the Taser." 

Language that protects suspects in Klug's position – on the ground under multiple officers – from Taser usage was not in the outdated version that police gave the committee, but it was in effect at the time Klug was Tased. 

Language was also changed to indicate that a struggling suspect was not reason enough to deploy a Taser. New language indicated the suspect had to pose “substantial risk of injury.” 

It will be up to the Citizen Review Committee to decide if these differences in policy will affect its previous decision to exonerate. 

There will be a recruitment information session for citizens interested in joining the oversight committee, which currently has one vacancy, at 5:30 p.m. on May 25 in the Rose Room at Portland City Hall. 

Tags: 
Matt Klug, Portland police, Portland Police Bureau, Taser, DOJ settlement, Emily Green
  • Print

More like this

  • Police oversight panel clings to wrong policy before critical vote in Taser case
  • Stunned: Matthew Klug and the 'pattern and practice' of police force
  • Where Oregon stands in the drug war
  • Portland, the DOJ and the slow moving gears of mental health services
  • Portland’s low-income clinics pioneer safe health care for transgender patients
▼
Open menu
▲
Close menu
  • © 2021 Street Roots. All rights reserved. To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org.
  • Read Street Roots' commenting policy
  • Support Street Roots
  • Our Annual Breakfast Broadcast will stream live at 8 AM, October 5th! Click the button to RSVP, donate and learn more about our biggest event of the year.

  • LEARN MORE