Just a little over four weeks on the job as Portland’s chief of police, Jami Resch has been asked a lot of questions. She’s been with the bureau nearly 21 years, but she only recently drew the spotlight when Mayor Ted Wheeler appointed her to the top position immediately following the resignation of former Chief Danielle Outlaw. Virtually overnight, everyone wants to know her position on contentious issues, including crowd control, citizen oversight, use of force and crisis intervention.
Our conversation with Resch focused on two areas, homelessness and the city’s on-again, off-again relationship with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, or JTTF.
While the city pulled out of the JTTF early last year, the Portland Police Bureau has had an agreement to cooperate with the FBI and other federal members of the task force since May 1. A PPB report on that working relationship was accepted by the City Council on Wednesday. According to the report, the FBI hasn’t requested any assignments of PPB officers for an investigation since the May agreement was signed by City Council, but did refer 10 cases to Portland police, predominately threats of violence that were not perceived as criminal offenses. The police referred 12 cases to the FBI for review, however the nature of those were not revealed in the report.
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The relationship between the city and the FBI remains a topic of concern among residents who distrust the FBI’s tactics and possible encroachment in local law enforcement. So this is where we began our conversation with Resch.
John Emshwiller: What are the PPB’s current relationship and dealings with the JTTF, and what has changed since the city decided to leave the JTTF?
Chief Jami Resch: When the resolution passed, it removed the Portland Police Bureau from the JTTF. What the resolution did allow — because I think everyone understands that there are certain circumstances in which we need to be involved — is if I have information which I feel needs to be presented to the FBI, I can do so. I’m just speaking in general. And then if the FBI has something that they have looked at, and they are not going to look at a federal nexus, they can pass that information on to the Police Bureau.
That is the extent of the relationship right now. There is the option should a situation arise where the FBI felt that they needed the participation of the Police Bureau that they could request that permission from the chief of police and I could grant that permission. That has not happened since the resolution passed.
Emshwiller: You were quoted at one point as thinking it was a mistake to leave the JTTF. Is that still your feeling?
Resch: I feel it really limits what we know because what I tried to articulate when I was speaking on this before is that the JTTF still exists and it’s still functioning. But we don’t know everything that they are doing. So, they could have something in Portland that they don’t feel rises to the level that we need to know about. And we wouldn’t be made aware of that. It doesn’t allow us to necessarily put the Portland Police Bureau influence on certain things, which I believe is important, and I think it really does, it limits us.
Emshwiller: Have you seen any instances that have surfaced since Portland left the JTTF where you think that has happened, where something came out of the federal government where you said, “I wish we’d had some input on that before”?
Resch: No, and I’m thinking more along the lines of incidents that would occur that maybe we wouldn’t have been brought in until the very end until we are needed, where if we were brought in more at the beginning or if we were a full partner, we would have all of our knowledge, all of our officers’ knowledge, all of our resources to add to those things, as well. So, in all honesty, I don’t know because I’m not a part of it.
Emshwiller: Have you gotten any sense there is any movement toward going back into the JTTF?
Resch: I do not feel that would be supported right now.
Emshwiller: In response to the Oregonian reports of the percentage of people arrested who were homeless, the Independent Police Review office did an investigation and issued a report with a number of recommendations for reforms. (The Oregonian reported that homeless people accounted for more than 50% of PPB arrests in 2017.) What changes have been implemented, so far, as a result of the IPR recommendations?
Resch: When the numbers came out and it showed how many people were being arrested, I think one of the things the bureau and the county really looked at is the reasons why people were being arrested. A lot of those were non-discretionary reasons. (For example,) if you have a warrant. A lot of our officers were coming into contact with people who had warrants, and then we don’t have the choice on whether or not we arrest you. And a lot of these warrants are what we call FTA warrants, failure-to-appear warrants. People can have many of these.
(Failure-to-appear warrants are issued by judges, at their discretion, if a person misses a court appearance. Court appearances are often scheduled for minor offenses if a person is unable or unwilling to pay a fine to avoid going to court.)
We are looking at ways we can limit FTAs. I know that some people have talked about programs where you send a text message to somebody reminding them they have court; please come. Is there a way that we can go back and look at some of these older ones, try to contact people and say you can take care of all of these at one time?
What we’re trying to do is work with our partners on all of this to how can we address this issue together. We need to make sure we are holding folks accountable. They need to come to court; they need to take care of their issues. But we also, it doesn’t make any sense to continually arrest somebody and then have them go back out and then we arrest somebody and they go back out and we are doing this eight, 10 times. So, we’re trying to figure out what’s the solution to that.
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Emshwiller: There are also issues about how much information you gather when you encounter a person. In the whole reporting process, you don’t really have a way to say how do we know whether someone is homeless. Is there any way to address that?
Resch: It’s hard because if you don’t want to tell me your address, you don’t have to tell me your address. So, that’s difficult. I know that when I got hired, if they didn’t want to give you the address, you would just write “homeless.” And what we’ve realized is that really skews our stats because it looks like we are contacting a whole bunch of people who are homeless when they may not be. And I may think that you’re homeless but you’re like, “Nope, I’m not homeless. I could go to my friend’s house, I could go to my mom’s house, or I could go wherever. I don’t consider myself homeless.” So, sometimes it’s a judgment call on our part. But it has a significant impact when it’s just put out as data.
Emshwiller: Do you think that 50% number is anywhere near accurate or from your knowledge is it much lower, much higher?
Resch: You know, what I haven’t looked at is if that 50% is the arrest of a small group of people multiple times. I would be interested in seeing if that’s really what the case is.
Emshwiller: Aside from the arrest warrant issue, is there anything you can see coming out of the report to somehow better address the homeless situation?
Resch: As I’ve tried to explain in various interviews or talks with people, we’re kind of the forward-facing, visible answer to what people think is the homeless crisis. And we’re really not the answer. You know there are crimes that occur, and we need to address that. We need to address the criminal component of it. But when we get there and we’ve addressed that and there are still other people that need resources, it would be great if we were the liaison to those resources. We could say, “Hey, I see you are experiencing this. I can give you this resource, and I know you can go here and you can get help.” That would be greatly beneficial.
And we do have some of those. We just don’t have enough of those. And I don’t in any way want to talk negatively about the people who are providing these resources. They do a fantastic job. The people in the mental health field, I’ve worked with them in various capacities over my career, and they are very kind, compassionate, caring people who really do a very difficult job, often not at great wages. But they just don’t have enough resources for everybody. So a lot of times things are full or they don’t have the adequate level of resource that’s needed. It would be great if we had those resources. You’ll probably hear that a lot from me. What the Police Bureau needs is we need a place to send people.
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Emshwiller: Are you sensing, as you go around the city, a growing anger or frustration among the population toward homeless people generally, and homeless camps? If so, what kind of consequences do you think that’s having in the city?
Resch: I think people are very frustrated. They’re frustrated when they feel like there is no solution to this. And you drive around and you look and you see large camps, and a lot of times there is a lot of debris and garbage or just things about. And people are frustrated by that. They think the police should fix that. And it’s not necessarily a criminal issue. So, we do what we can and we work with our community partners to get the camp cleanups and stuff as we can. But, yeah, people are frustrated.
Emshwiller: Are you seeing that frustration manifesting itself in tangible ways?
Resch: I think the patrol officers are running into more and more extremely frustrated people, especially like if you’re a business owner and you’re coming to work every day and there are piles of garbage and stuff in front of your business. That can be very frustrating. We are an easy target to take that frustration out on, and that’s completely understandable because they are constantly asking, “Why can’t you fix this?”
And then the officers get frustrated because they don’t have a really good answer. So, we’re going to see this increasing level of frustration.
Emshwiller: At this point, how big an issue is the question of hate crimes against homeless people? Are you seeing enough examples to get you worrying about it?
Resch: I think we’ve had some. I don’t know if they’ve actually been classified as hate crimes. I’d have to look.
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Emshwiller: How often are homeless people being targets of crime?
Resch: That’s difficult, too, because they are victims of crime quite often. But I don’t necessarily know they are victims of crime by people who aren’t homeless. So, I’d have to go back and look whether it’s another homeless person or it’s somebody who’s not.
Emshwiller: And you don’t necessarily know if a crime victim is someone who is homeless.
Resch: No, because again we would be using what the officers write. We are continuing to work on how do we define someone who is truly homeless so that when we put that in our reports, it’s an accurate statistic.
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Emshwiller: Any ways you’d like to see the police’s role in working with the homeless change?
Resch: I would like it if we were not the first answer, if we were allowed to address the criminal component but that there were other resources that could go out and provide other options for folks before it got to the need of calling the police.
Emshwiller: So what’s your view on the Portland Street Response plan?
Resch: I think if it can be done safely, I think it is a good idea. My concern is that, you know, we have seen folks that can go from not agitated to agitated very quickly. And I want to make sure that if we’re sending folks out there, that we’re sending them to the correct call. We have to have a protocol in place to make sure we are sending them to the right calls. And we’re working on that, and we’re going to work with BOEC (the city’s Bureau of Emergency Communications, which oversees 911 calls), and we’re going to work with the fire department and the mental health provider that they choose to pilot this program. But, I don’t think you’re going to find a lot of officers who, if I said we are going to have somebody else address this issue and you’re going to be able to go over here and do true police work, that they’re going to argue with it.