The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-08-07
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (31,412 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
On 2025-08-07, the Portland City Council held a session that opened with roll call, a statement of conduct read by the city attorney, and a suspended-rules presentation by a councilor's intern on a radon testing research project, with a recommendation the topic be referred to a housing and homeless committee. The council then heard administrative summaries and public testimony on two settlement items: a $62,500 bodily injury lawsuit settlement involving a 2019 protest-related arrest, and a $3,750,000 wrongful death settlement involving a 2022 officer-involved shooting. Discussion covered use-of-force policy, training changes, retiree-hire program criteria, insurance and risk-management funding mechanisms, and disciplinary findings, with figures regarding internal affairs and police review board conclusions stated inconsistently among speakers. Votes occurred on both settlement ordinances, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The council also received the 2024 Portland Police Bureau Annual Report, with a staff summary, presentation by bureau leadership covering crime statistics, staffing, training, use-of-force data, and traffic stop data, followed by public testimony raising concerns about benchmarking methodology and transparency. A vote occurred to accept the report, with the outcome recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting included a recess and concluded after the report's acceptance.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
Procedural markers in this session
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0 Good afternoon. It is 2:00 on Thursday, August 7th. I am calling back to order the Portland city council meeting. Keelan, could you please call the roll?
1 Good afternoon. Koyama Lane Morillo here. Novick here. Clark, here. Green here. Chairman. Here. Avalos. Dunphy. Here. Smith. Here. Here. Here. Pirtle-guiney. Here. Here.
2 Perfect timing. Councilor. And could I have our attorney please read the statement of conduct for us?
3 Yes. Thank you. Council president, welcome to the Portland city council. To testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at w-w-w. Council agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found in the council clerk's webpage. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves on the council. Clerk calls your name. Thank you.
4 Thank you very much, madam.
5 Yes, madam president, I'd like to ask for unanimous consent to suspend the rules to allow my intern, amani lindsey, to provide a two minute presentation. Because there is no open public testimony today on the agenda.
6 Colleagues, does anybody have any concerns? Okay. And, counselor, I believe this is a presentation about the work she's been doing. Because tomorrow is.
7 Tomorrow is her last day, and she's been working on a radon project that's not totally finished. And she just wanted to update you all. That was supposed to be her end projects. I thought she was going to be here until the end of August, but she's not kootamani. Yes. Come up.
8 Please go ahead and come forward. We'll ask that you formally introduce yourself for the record, and then you are welcome to jump right in. And I believe we all have the packets up here with us as well.
9 Okay.
10 Greetings and humble salutation, counselors. My name is imani lindsay, a third year political science scholar with a minor in public administration hailing from wildwood, florida, attending the florida a&m university, and a current intern for councilor Loretta Smith at district one. Today, I stand before you to share my findings on a radon testing project I have dutifully worked on during my time here at city hall. Rating. Radon is a naturally occurring gas. It is odorless, tasteless, and invisible, and it can be found in homes and groundwater that is unduly affecting vulnerable families and older homes. Radon gas is the second leading cause of lung cancer, taking approximately 21,000 lives per year in the united states, in the united states and approximately 300 per year in Portland, Oregon alone. Because the state of Oregon only requires homeowners to get a radon test when they're selling a home, our goal is to have the city mandate or require radon testing every three years. With continuous studies and research, I believe the city can contribute greatly in educating its citizens of the harmful effects of radon and finding a solution to address this risk. As a result of the research I worked on with councilor Smith, she would like to put together a healthy home initiative that would educate portlanders on the effects of radon, mold and lead. I recommend this initiative be sent to the housing and homeless committee. Today, I have curated a radon info sheet packet that includes details of background information on radon. Radon gets in the homes, particularly in construction joints, cavities, cracks and sidewalls and sump pumps, as well as how radon is measured and the necessary measures to take forward. I'm happy to discuss any more on this issue with the council, but most importantly, as it is my final day of my internship, I hope my message, along with the research I've done, will encourage the council to act on initiating policies on radon testing or a committee, or a commitment to feasibility study that will address the political, financial, and health aspects of this project. Thank you for your time and consideration and I am open to questions if you have.
11 Thank you very much. Colleagues. Does anybody have any questions for amani while we have her still here with us?
12 Just a comment. Thank you so much for your hard work and I appreciate your referral to my committee. It is absolutely of importance, especially for our district, as we know, many of our communities will be at increased risk of having radon poisoning. So I'm looking forward to reading more about your report and thanks for all your hard work. Thank you.
13 Thank you, councilor.
14 Councilor Zimmerman.
15 Great thanks. Glad you came here from florida. I'm not sure that any of us have interns from the other side of the country, so thank you for giving us the grace to come here. If you had one piece of advice for a portlander, as they're looking to move into a different home or a different part of the city, what is that one thing you'd want them to ask before they made that decision? When it comes to your report and radon and where it's at?
16 Well, from my findings, I was doing research on of radon, but one of the stories I've heard about radon testing is this woman named jackie. She is a 73 year old citizen citizen. She was a healthy individual, you know, she exercised, never smoked, never did anything that would affect her health. But unfortunately, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. And the cause was radon. In my packet, I've included. Why? How? Radon is measured. Radon is measured in picocuries per liter of air. So the EPA recommends that you should get your home tested if the radon is at four. She found out that her housing complex had levels of 18. And of course, if radon is exposed for a long duration and it's not tested you, you don't know about it. And because it's a silent attack, it's odorless, tasteless, you can't smell it. She didn't know. And that did unfortunately lead her to get lung cancer. But what I would recommend and what she recommended is that do the testing, ask, you know, whoever you're leasing from has has this been recently tested? Know the numbers, know the mitigation efforts you can use to reduce radon levels. Just stay educated on it. Be aware.
17 Great. Thank you I appreciate it. That's good advice. I have a feeling that by working for councilor Smith, who spent a long time at Multnomah county, where the public health department is at, she had some ideas of the underlying disparities in our different health, parts of health in our community, and this is directly related to it, but we don't always hear about it at the city. So thanks for this course.
18 Thank you, councilor, councilor Smith.
19 Thank you, madam president. I just want to say thank you so much for your time and your research. And even though you're not here, I know you're going to be here in spirit. And I will continue your work and seek your guidance over the next few months. So thank you so much for all your help.
20 Thank you.
21 Marnie, thank you so much for bringing this to us. I'm looking at the map in the back and noticing that there are a lot of red areas, both in district one, but also in district two and maybe even parts of district three here. So we know that there are a lot of portlanders who are affected. And I appreciate that you have put in the time to help give us some ideas of how to make our community safer.
22 Of course. Thank you.
23 So much, colleagues. Any additional questions? Okay. Thank you so much for being here today.
24 Thank you.
25 Okay, councilors. We have four additional items on the agenda today. Two lawsuits, settlements, a report from the police bureau, and then the 9/12 item that we added earlier this week to continue discussing our upcoming council meeting schedule and changes to how we run our council meetings. Keelan, could you please call the first agenda item. Item 18 pay settlement of hannah aaron bodily injury lawsuit in the sum of $62,500 involving the Portland police bureau.
26 Thank you. And councilors. As typical with settlements, we'll have some folks here from our administrative side to give us a little bit of information before we hear public testimony, please go right ahead.
27 Good morning or afternoon? Rather. Councilor. My name is Dan simon. I'm from the city attorney's office. Joining us virtually is karen bond from the city's office of risk management. On August 17th, 2019, hannah ahearn was downtown walking from her place of employment to a TriMet bus stop. On the same day, the proud boys were gathered in Portland, along with a large group that were demonstrating against the proud boys. Miss ahearn decided to check out the protests. Miss ahearn walked past Portland police officers and began to film an unrelated arrest. Miss ahearn was directed by police to walk across the street away from the arrest, and did so complying with that order. As miss ahearn was crossing the street, a Portland police officer saw a pickup truck stopping and concluded from that officer's perspective that miss ahearn had caused the pickup to stop short, thereby interfering with traffic and committing the crime of disorderly conduct in the second degree. At the direction of that PPB officer. Miss ahearn was taken into custody. About four officers took miss ahearn to the pavement, and one of the officers appeared to fall on miss ahearn during the takedown. Miss ahearn complained of injuries and the police bureau called for an ambulance to assess her for injuries. Miss ahearn later submitted photos of some bruises on her arms. As part of the lawsuit, the Multnomah county district attorney office ultimately dismissed the charges against mr. Ahearn. Miss ahearn filed suit against the city of Portland and the involved police officers. The suit alleged that miss ahearn was targeted by police because she showed defiance, namely while walking away from the incident location as PPB instructed her to do. She spat in the general direction of an approaching PPB van with officers standing along the sides. The suit also alleged that there was no probable cause for officers to make the arrest. Finally, the suit alleged that police had disproportionate crowd management tactics related to proud boys versus black lives matter protesters, both on this particular day and generally during past protests. Miss ahearn suit sought monetary damages only, and the case was set for trial on claims of false arrest and battery. While trial was pending, the parties negotiated settlement directly and ultimately agreed on a settlement of $62,500. To fully resolve the lawsuit, risk management, Portland police bureau and the city attorney's office recommend that city council approve the resolution of this lawsuit. Thank you.
28 Thank you very much, miss bond. Is there anything that you'd like to add?
29 No. Dan.
30 Thank you.
31 Really clearly.
32 Colleagues, before we turn to public testimony, does anybody have questions for mr. Simon or miss bond? Okay. Thank you very much. Keelan. I believe we have some individuals signed up for public testimony.
33 We have three people signed up. First up is one chavez.
34 Welcome, mr. Chavez.
35 Good afternoon. Thank you. I'm going to right now share a powerpoint screen.
36 Which is.
37 Me struggling with technology. It's not usually live streamed, so apologies continue to share okay. So thank you for allowing me to testify I am one of miss ahearn's attorneys. I represented her from the very beginning of her ordeal with the city of Portland, as mr. Simon rightfully explained, she had been working that morning, the morning that the proud boys had gathered in Portland. At that time, we were about four years into proud boys and proud boys affiliates, using our city as a prop for their right wing propaganda. And unfortunately, I fear that we provided them the ground to test many of the tactics that they later used when they invaded the capitol. Indeed, on this day in question two later January 6th, insurrectionists joseph biggs and enrique tarrio led this group through the streets of Portland and the city, and the police bureau had mainly cleared a path for them to do so, including opening up a bridge, the Hawthorne bridge, to allow them to cross, leading to a rather notorious I think photo that was later featured in much of the proud boy social media and signified a something of a pr victory for them. Nobody else had been allowed to cross that bridge. Only the proud boys there. Center in the screen, of course, is mr. Tarrio and mr. Biggs. Now, miss ahearn was not there for most of the protests. She had been working that morning, and after she got off of work, she wanted to see what. Still, if anything, there was to counter protest. And I should say that the city of Portland really turned out to counter this. These right wing ideologues. And it was a very proud moment, I think, for many folks here that vastly outnumbered the proud boys who had arrived. But by the time she had arrived, most of the protests had already wound down. And what was left was a few straggling groups dispersed throughout downtown Portland when she happened upon a black woman who was being arrested, taken down very violently for dancing in a crosswalk, she decided to stay and take some video of that. Now, what was apparent was she couldn't exactly stay on the sidewalk at that time. She had to be pushed out or she couldn't stay there for long. And she was directed by two police officers to cross the street, and she complied. She complied. She walked across the street as directed. She even allowed some traffic to move through, doing her best to navigate the situation that she was in. And it was at this time that she looked to her left and saw a riot truck arrive, with armor clad officers responding to dancing protesters, and that filled her with shame and disgust for the response that our city was was giving to counter-protesters to this kind of incursion. So she spat. She spat in the street, not at the not not hitting an officer, not getting close to an officer. And that was the inciting incident that led to her arrest not jumping in front of a truck, not not doing anything other than doing what she was directed to do. However, detective kammerer's report tells a different story. He claims that there was a driver who had to brake so hard to not hit miss ahearn. Am I allowed to continue?
38 I do need you to wrap up. I think what we had shared was that you were welcome to share materials, but still needed to stay within the three minutes that we have for all testimony.
39 Very good. Well, I'll conclude here. And if any councilors would like to see the video, that tells a vastly different story, I'm happy to share that. Thank you.
40 Thank you very much for being here.
41 Next up we have hannah ahearn.
42 Doesn't appear that she can make it.
43 Okay. Thank you. Next we have mark horace Portland copwatch.
44 Welcome.
45 Thanks.
46 Hello, council. My name is mark horace.
47 I use he him pronouns and I'm with the group Portland copwatc. Since 1992, Portland copwatch has been working towards a police bureau that's free from brutality, corruption, and racism. We understand the parties have come to an agreement, and we have no objection to the city paying out another $62,500 for harm caused by detective Eric kammerer and five unnamed police officers. We testify on settlements like this as a prompt for you to discuss the policies that were either followed or disregarded when harm is caused by city employees, we appreciate the transparency and attaching claims data to this item, showing pbs's five year total of over $18 million in legal expenses, but not including today's two settlements. It feels like years ago that we testified on another settlement from pbs's actions on August 17th, 2019, at the be the spectacle counter protest to a proud boys protest. And it was years ago, on June 1st, 2022, your predecessors on council approved a $75,000 settlement for Elana Mitch, a young black woman who was violently arrested by PPB for twerking in the street. Obviously, she beat the charges in criminal court, sued the city and won because, come on, a violent arrest for twerking. In this case, miss ahearn did something much more terrifying for the riot gear clad PPB officers than twerking. She spit in the street. And for that, according to court records, detective kammerer singled her out for arrest, leading to his unnamed colleagues taking her to the ground, injuring her and exposing her body to the public. According to court records, the officers claimed she was resisting. However, the only resistance came from her arm. No longer being able to twist further behind her back in the direction the officers were forcing it. Now we hope miss ahearn has fully recovered from her injuries. Three months ago to the day you all approved a $375,000 payment to megan up brooke, who had chunks of flesh from her legs blown off by a flashbang fired by detective kammerer in June of 2020. Chief derr told you here yesterday that 12 of the 19 Portland police association members who are currently participating in the bureau's retiree hire program are detectives. Detective kammerer is one of them. He'd already been a detective for 16 years in 2019. He's a detective today, and as far as we know, there is nothing stopping the bureau from deploying detective kammerer to another protest. Last may, chief day told council there's a robust review process for admittance into the retiree hire program. They only accept officers who the community can be proud of, and that it's at his sole discretion. Which officers get admitted from city of Portland employee salary data published on oregonlive. In the 20 2324 fiscal year, detective kammerer earned over $300,000, nearly half of which was other income, likely due to his cashing in on accrued vacation time and sick leave. As chief, de signed kammerer's retire rehire offer letter in December of 2023, which is more than four years after this incident took place. When you allow police officers, including detectives who repeatedly abuse their power and cause harm over and over to not only retain their jobs, but to collect their pension and a full salary simultaneously. You all become enablers of this unaccountable system of policing in Portland. Thank you.
48 Thank you very much for sharing that information with us.
49 That completes testimony.
50 Thank you. Keelan colleagues are there, and is there any discussion on the emergency ordinance and the settlement before us today? Councilor Kanal.
51 Thank you. I have a few questions for risk management. If they're still in the room.
52 I believe that karen bond is online with us. Yes.
53 Great. Thank you, miss bond. Thank you for including the one year and five year information, the exhibits. Could you just state for the record if the dollar amounts that are in the exhibit? Just to clarify, they do not include either of today's two settlements. Is that correct?
54 That is correct. Yes.
55 Okay. So those are $3.949 million in the last year and 18.808 million in the last five years, correct?
56 Yes.
57 Thanks. I want to recap something your colleague said here, which was as miss ahern was crossing the street, a Portland police officer saw a pickup truck stopping and concluded from that officer's perspective that miss ahern had caused the pickup to stop short, thereby interfering with traffic and committing the crime of disorderly conduct in the second degree. Have we as a city? And that's why I'm asking you and not PPB, because I don't think this is specific to pbb. Have we as a city done anything to ensure that future exercise of first amendment rights are not restrained through the legal definition of disorderly conduct? That might be an attorney question. I want to be open to that.
58 Yeah. Is Dan still there? Dan simon?
59 Mr. Simon is coming back up.
60 Okay.
61 Thank you. Counselor, is a broad question that I don't feel comfortable answering here and now, but it is certainly a question that I'm willing to take a look back and provide a further update on.
62 Thanks. What is the official name of the court case?
63 Official name of the court case. The caption. Yeah, it is hannah ahern versus Eric kammerer. City of Portland. And john does one through five.
64 Okay. Do you know why the five other individuals are not named in that?
65 Individuals whose identities are unknown to parties are often referred to as john doe parties.
66 Okay. And then last question, I think for you and then I have one other thing is, is it possible to list the name of the case in the settlements in the future when they come to counsel.
67 The full caption of the case?
68 Yeah, just what you just read a moment ago, but for future cases.
69 I would want to check with the higher ups in the city attorney's office before I answer that for you, but I'll be sure to do that.
70 Thank you, thank you. I also just wanted to state publicly I appreciate dca and chief de getting the information we brought up yesterday. There was a question in the in the retiree hire, the letter of agreement on what the criteria were, and I appreciate that being sent over to us. I will make sure that I'm able to release that before I state it. But I do appreciate the sort of short description there, and I'll I'll leave it at that. But I do intend to vote yes on this. Thank you, madam president.
71 Thank you. Counselor. Colleagues, any other questions or discussion? Okay. Seeing none keelan, could you please call the roll?
72 Koyama Lane I Morillo I Novick I Clark, I Green, I Zimmerman.
73 I.
74 I Dunphy. I Smith. I know I Ryan I pirtle-guiney. I the ordinance passes with 12 votes.
75 Thank you and keelan. Could you please call our next agenda item?
76 Item 19 pay settlement of van loo fiduciary services, llc as personal representative of the estate of emmanuel jaquez Clark. Wrongful death lawsuit for the sum of $3,750,000 involving the Portland police bureau.
77 I think we have a team for this one, so go right ahead.
78 Good afternoon. Kerry caldwell with the city attorney's office. With me is joe jesse from risk? Chic de and commander bell from pb. This settlement relates to an officer involved shooting from November 19th, 2022. Just after midnight that evening, an attempted robbery was reported at the super deluxe on 50th and powell the victim. The victim reported 3 to 4 men and a dark, unknown colored sedan. Dispatch broadcast officers to be on the lookout for a dark colored sedan with 3 to 4 people, with at least one white male wearing a hoodie and ski mask with a gun. Shortly afterward, an officer saw a car consistent with the description of the suspect vehicle turning from 23rd onto powell. Eastbound against traffic, the vehicle turned on to cesar chavez, heading southbound at approximately 75 to 80 miles an hour. The officer lost sight of it. South of holgate. Air support had been requested and it identified a rapidly moving vehicle near 29th and steele. The air unit reported the vehicle entering the parking lot of the friends church and parking in a back section of the parking lot. Officers in the area convened at the entrance of the church parking lot and, based upon the report of an armed robbery, formed a plan for a high risk stop. Officers approached the parked car into two police suvs. Once near the car, they turned on their lights, stopped the suvs, and an officer gave command to surrender. Two occupants, one in the driver's seat and one in the front passenger seat, immediately exited and began to run away. Officer christopher saathoff reported that he saw the person exiting the driver's side, reached towards his pocket and turned his head. Saathoff reported that he believed the person reaching for a gun, and so he fired on. The individual hit him in the lower middle portion of the back. The individual. Emmanuel Clark died as a result of the officer's use of deadly force, based on video obtained later from the super deluxe and the description of the armed suspects, the vehicle mr. Clark was in was not the vehicle involved in the attempted robbery, nor was mr. Clark armed. The attorneys for mr. Clark's estate brought claims on behalf of the estate for excessive force and wrongful death against the city, and officer saathoff, the attorneys representing the estate are respected civil rights attorneys who are familiar with the facts and law related to this case. After extensive mediation, the parties agreed to resolve the claims in the lawsuit for $3.75 million. Based on these extensive negotiations with plaintiff's attorneys, the city attorney's office and risk management recommend approval of the settlement. After chief dave provides comment. I'm happy to answer any questions to the best of my ability.
79 All right ahead, chief.
80 Good afternoon, council. Bob day, chief of police. Since I started in this role, I have consistently emphasized that law enforcement's first and foremost responsibility is the preservation of life. And I have stood at the scene of too much death and tragedy in this city in the last 23 months, and at every press conference highlighted the sanctity of life. And I believe that not only as your chief, but also as a fellow portlander, whether it be at homicides, traffic fatalities, overdoses, suicides or deaths that are the result of police action, there is no dispute that mr. Clark's death is a tragedy. And frankly, it should anger us. It does me, as with many police involved incidents, we encounter those who have fallen through numerous systems that are complicit in their failure to adequately interdict behaviors that ultimately lead to police and public interactions, adding to the complexity is the humanity we all share and the individual actions of everyone involved, from the original victims and suspects who were doing their diligence, to calling 911, to the call takers, to the dispatchers, to the police officers and everyone in the car that was approached. As councilor Kanal has noted, I am a fan of james baldwin and in his book if beale street could talk, he states neither love or terror makes one blind. Indifference makes one blind. I do not want any of us, PPB or otherwise, to ever be indifferent to the loss of life in our city, regardless of the circumstances. The decision that is often most brought into question, and that I'm available for you today, is why the officer was not disciplined for this action. That decision was mine. I'm required by law to be able to take that anger and that frustration and that loss, and approach my decision making from an objectively reasonable standard. The Portland police bureau directive states, in part, the reasonableness of a use of force is based on the totality of the circumstances known by an officer at the time of action or decision making. It shall be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene. Without the clarity of 2020 hindsight after the event has concluded, the measure of reasonableness gives consideration to the reality that officers are often forced to make split second decisions in circumstances that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving in the application or evaluation of the use of force. Uses of the terms reasonable and reasonable in this policy refer to objective reasonableness. The police bureau did not create that standard that actually comes from a supreme court case that was unanimously decided in 1989 called graham versus connor, which was a police use of force. And what the court said is that when a police officer uses force, the law looks at whether that force was objectively reasonable, meaning would a reasonable officer in the same situation have done the same thing? The court actually says that we're to view this as if we were on scene. The judgment is made based on what the officer knew or believed at the time, and not what anyone learned later. Officers often face situations that are fast moving, confusing, and dangerous. They may not have perfect information. They might be dealing with someone who's acting unpredictably, refusing to follow directions, or possibly armed. In those moments, the officer has to make decisions quickly, sometimes in a matter of seconds, to protect themselves and others. The law says that the officers don't have to be right in the end, but they do have to act in a way that makes sense, given what they reasonably believed at the time. This does not mean that this is a free for all that officers have carte blanche, and the court went on to establish three key areas for the officer to consider, and that I looked at as we look within the policy of reasonableness. The first is the court has directed us to look at the severity of the suspected crime. Was it something serious or minor in this particular situation? The officer was reporting, excuse me? Reporting, responding to report of an armed robbery, which is a felony and considered a violent crime. The other thing the court asked us to consider is whether a person was resisting or trying to run away, were they cooperate or not. When the officers tried to stop the suspects, the officers in this car ran away, which made the situation more dangerous and unpredictable. And the third standard is whether the police officer believed the person was dangerous. Did the officer have a reason to think the person might hurt them or others, because the call did involve the report of a weapon and fleeing suspects, the officer had reason to believe the person might be armed and be willing to use force. Courts do not judge, and neither does bureau policy. An officer with perfect information after the fact. Instead, they ask what a reasonable officer would have believed in that moment based on the seriousness of the crime, the behavior of the suspect, and the need to act quickly. This went through the traditional, very robust process that we have for reviewing these incidents. Officers on scene shared the same reasonableness belief that officer saathoff took action on the prb, which in officer involved shootings is comprised of seven members, two citizen members, two peer members, other officers and four other members, including the ipr director, the assistant, excuse me, three other members, the ipr director, the assistant chief, excuse me of operations and the rue manager, the commander of the precinct. That vote was four three in to not sustain believing that officer sato's actions met the reasonable standard. And then, of course, we have the grand jury, which did not return an indictment. With that being said, I want to emphasize in closing that we are not the same police bureau we were three years ago. This case came to my desk shortly after arrival in in the fall of 23, and began to give direction immediately around our approach, particularly in the area of use of force, as well as specific to the rifle program that was used. The rifle was used in this. I'll highlight a couple things and close my remarks. Our force numbers from 2024 to 2023 showed a decline of almost 7%, while at the same time calls for service increased 1%, in custodies increased 5%. So with an increased amount of activity level in 2024, the police bureau overall force decreased 7% within the rifle program. Specifically, we've authorized additional training days and that training days are now based around scenario based training, critical decision making exercises, guided discussions about critical incidents, including this critical incident rifle program has a stronger emphasis now on decision making, communication and tactical judgment. While they consider both intent means and opportunity, operators have a responsibility to ensuring safety during critical incidents, exercising effective communication, coordination and judgment, and we reinforce the officers the operator's role as an active contributor to peaceful and safe resolutions, not just a technical expert. Historically, I believe the rifle program did rely upon the technical expertise of the rifle operator, and we are now imploring them to be more of a leader in these situations, because the rifle does allow for distance, it allows for standoff, it allows for space. And when you have that, you have the opportunity to assess the situation differently and maybe reach a different conclusion. It's important to remember that we don't have to do anything wrong to strive to be better. And although the situations like this are are deeply saddening and frustrating, I want to assure you that the growth and development of the police bureau over the last three years, I think, will limit or hopefully reduce the risk of it replicating itself. Thank you.
81 Chief.
82 Anything additional? Okay, colleagues, questions before we move to public comment. Councilor Morillo.
83 I don't have a question. Just something more for discussion later.
84 Okay.
85 Counselor Dunphy.
86 I have a couple of questions for our panel specific to the details of the case. Go right ahead to whomever is able to answer these questions. Do we know the amount of time that elapsed between when the officers entered the parking lot and mr. Clark was shot?
87 I don't know the exact amount of time. I believe the many of the counselors and their staff were able to witness that. It's a fairly short amount of time between the time that the officers stop and the time that the occupants of the vehicle begin to flee, and then they shut up.
88 Yeah, my viewing of it, and it's imperfect in terms of timing, but it seemed was between 12 and 13 seconds between when an officer was visible sight line of mr. Clark and the other occupants of the vehicle. And by the time mr. Clark was shot, is it standard operating procedure to open fire at fleeing suspects?
89 No.
90 Okay.
91 Currently, ppb's use of use of force policies are considered constitutional at this point, and the officer was found to be within city policy. Has any policy changed as a result of this incident?
92 I don't know that we have made some use of force directive updates specific to this incident. More of the emphasis has been around the training and the development in the rifle program, and specific to also use of force.
93 What was the amount of time between when mr. Clark was shot and when he received medical attention? And do we know if he was conscious while he was waiting?
94 He was conscious while he was waiting. The time was, I believe, somewhere around 23 minutes before he actually received medical attention.
95 With regard to the specifics of this settlement, can you please explain to me how the city pays for these types of settlements, and is that a best practice compared to other cities?
96 That's outside of my purview. I would defer, I think, in some level to risk in terms of that, but I'm not sure that the full information that we have, the full information respond to your question the entirety.
97 More generally. Can you explain that where the dollars from this settlement are coming from? Are they coming out of a supplemental insurance policy? Are they coming out of the Portland police bureau's budget? Is it coming out of the city general fund?
98 I would defer that to the risk manager, patrick hughes, and he is here today. So.
99 We'll give you just a minute to get up here.
100 Thank you for your patience. I was hiding in the back. Patrick hughes, nice to meet you. Risk manager for the city. I can I believe I can answer your question because I still remember it. Right now, we have an internal fund that manages settlements. That fund will essentially write the check to pay for such settlement. All the way down to all the way up. Then over a space of about four years through the interagency agreements, bureaus are charged what we call internally a premium. But it's a combination. That internal premium is for the fund, and it is asking for an allocation of your insurance premiums. Your portion of that, per bureau. What claims that bureau may have that goes through a formula two. So that internal premium is slowly having affected bureaus who have claims reimburse that fund. However, in this case, we do purchase commercial excess liability insurance that covers all general liability and including law enforcement. Those policies come with differing deductibles or self-insured retentions. The police self-insured retention for a law enforcement liability claim is 3 million. So if you do the math on this case, 3.75 I'm just talking numbers. This is a very emotional situation. $750,000, just on the number side is coming from the excess commercial insurance carrier. So we will front the money out of the fund. We will gather that money back from the excess carrier for whatever level they get into. Past 3 million at our internal cost. That gets put into that bucket, too. So the insurance carrier in this case, I put that together with our settlement, the internal costs for defense, outstanding expenses. We are asking the insurance carrier, in this case for $906,000 to be reimbursed to us under the commercial insurance scheme, but the 3 million is internal. It is not general fund in the sense that it's coming out of the ire. So I want to make that clear. It's not like a general fund bucket that we are pulling out of, okay.
101 I mean, but most of the police bureau funds come from the general fund in the first place. And so this is considered as part of the broader budget of the PPB or all all affecting bureaus broadly, how.
102 You've probably reached the end of my financial understanding, how they are paying the aia wouldn't be for me to ask. Fair enough.
103 Is this a standard way of paying for settlements like this compared to cities of our size?
104 Certainly, this is a form of running an internal pool, and in one way or another you have to buy insurance, pay for claims, and you have to reallocate it back in. So yes.
105 Is the $900,000 payment that we're expecting the supplemental insurance company to pay out, does that come with additional. Is that going to affect the city's premiums? Are there policy levers that the insurance company does in response to a settlement like this for I mean, the closest analogy is if I crash my car, my premiums go up.
106 Yeah.
107 Is that is this the is there a repercussion to the city for us having to draw from this supplemental insurance?
108 In a sense, the answer will be yes. It depends on the totality of you know, we're looking at a ten year claims run when we're going to buy insurance. Many multiple large settlements. Yes. That will affect you either in premium or the ability to get coverage. However, it's not an individual case by case, okay.
109 But the vast majority of this settlement specifically coming from the self paid means that it won't we there will be no external party providing some level of accountability for our actions or demanding change in any sort of payment level or or policy change.
110 Yes, if you're asking if the carrier is going to turn around and say, we are going to spike your rates, yeah, I would say that is a very low chance of happening. Okay. Thank you. Okay.
111 Councilor were your questions answered or should we bring anybody else up for the one that didn't quite get fully answered in the middle there?
112 I'm satisfied for right now.
113 Okay.
114 Thank you. Councilor Morillo.
115 Sorry, I can lower my hand. I was there for discussion.
116 I apologize councilor Novick.
117 This might be naive questions, but are there any ways to limit the circumstances where you're chasing a car that may or may not be the car that a suspect is in, or to inform an officer, hey, we're chasing this car because it was going fast in the vicinity of the crime. But that doesn't necessarily mean that these are the suspects and these are armed people. I mean, maybe that couldn't factor into an officer's decision, but it seems to me that maybe if an officer is like, well, we chase these people, they may or may not be the armed people we heard about before and might have some impact on their thinking.
118 Yes, councilor, that would all be part of the scenario based training conversations, creating situations just like that, taking into consideration, you know, time of reporting, you know, description, verifying communication. As I mentioned, you know, highly quickly evolving situations involving a lot of different parties. It certainly wasn't just officer sadoff on the scene. There was, you know, supervisors and other officers. So, you know, officers responding to the original call for service, all of that factors in that, you know, the to be more challenging of that, you know, quick judgment to assume or but instead to establish they did have, you know, reasonable suspicion to be in this place. So, you know, that action was is considered lawful. But I agree with you. And that is part of our scenario based discussions today.
119 In this case, would the officers have known that they weren't told this is the car. They were told this is a car that is doing certain things in this general vicinity. So would they have known that it wasn't necessarily the right car?
120 I'm going to defer to carry on that in terms of some of the. Sure. So she's a little more up to speed on that.
121 The car identified by the victim of the attempted robbery was dark or unknown colored sedan. The car initially identified by I believe it was officer spear matched that description. He called it a gray sedan. This vehicle. So air one had come in and it uses a camera that follows a heat signature. The engine, the heat of the engine signature gave indicated that this had been running very, very hard. And so to that extent, this vehicle matched the description as given by the victim as identified by spear, and then as seen by air one.
122 Okay. But the officers would have known that it's it was a pretty vague description of the vehicle, but it met this vague description and it was running really hard as opposed to, we've been told this is the vehicle.
123 Correct? There was there was no distinct identifying information provided that would have like a license plate number or model and make or anything like that. So it's the suspicion of the actual vehicle and based upon its behavior, is why the high risk the attempted robbery and the behavior of the vehicle was why the high risk stop was made.
124 Thank you.
125 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal.
126 Thank you, madam president. I'm just going to follow up a little bit on counselor dunphy's question for a second here. And I think this might end up being a question for jonas beery. Pbb has roughly $316 million budget this year. Next year, there'll be an inflation similar to inflation calculation done, in which case there'll be a amount of money necessary to retain the current service level. That's that's I think the a fair assessment of what we do for all bureaus, based on what councilor Dunphy asked and the answer that the $3 million will be split over four years. So $750,000 per year. That money is going to come out of the next four years. Allocation to the police bureau. Will the cal target go up by $750,000 to.
127 That's a good question, councilor. It's a technical question, as you know. I mean, I think at the end of the day, what's relevant is that there's two pieces to this, right? I mean, from that sort of budgetary impact standpoint, there is an increase in the ia specific to the risk premiums, as the risk manager described, that will flow through. And there's the piece, the sort of connectivity to what's projected. And so it's a little difficult to draw a straight line and say this immediate thing is a direct increase to the budget and the forecast. So I'd be happy to have a conversation. I mean, I'm happy to have it here as well. You know, that's certainly going to come up in the context of budget. We, the risk team, along with the finance teams from the bureaus, all bureaus that participate in the risk allocation matrix have ongoing conversations to sort of foresee those those costs coming and make sure that those are reflected appropriately in the budgets.
128 Thanks. I'll leave the technical piece to later, and maybe I'll just ask the least technical piece here. At some point we're going to get every bureau saying we need this amount of money to retain the level of service you are getting this fiscal year into next fiscal year. Can we reasonably assume that that dollar amount for the police bureau will be $750,000 higher next year than it would otherwise be if we, based on whether or not we approve this settlement or not?
129 That's a good question. I don't know if we can assume that we need to engage probably the public safety staff, because, you know, this is one of many. Claims that are in various states of activity and motion. And so there's sort of a, a iterative process and looking at what's paid, what's projected, etc. And so I can't tell you with a straight face that this is a one for one increase of 750,000. It certainly is a contributor to their budgetary requirements over the next four years, but I can't tell you that it's a one for one impact.
130 Okay, thanks for risk management. I have two questions. One is, is this the largest police related settlement for an individual plaintiff that we've ever had?
131 To give you an accurate answer, I would have to go back and check. Okay. I wouldn't want to say it is or it is not, because I would have to go back and look at my claims runs, which I'm sorry, I just can't memorize.
132 Okay, then that's great. I'm happy to wait for that. I'll note that all this was updated in October 2023. Data that was sent to my office from Portland, copwatch indicates that the largest police related settlements we've ever had are 2.3 million, 2.1 million, 1.6 million, and 1.2 million. And those are the only individual plaintiffs above $1 million at present. So going from 2.3 as the current highest to 3.75, if that data is in fact complete, would be a very large change to the maximum we've ever paid out.
133 In my general recollection, I believe I would say those numbers are likely accurate, but I, I just can't say until I look at it.
134 I appreciate that. And then the other question I had is, was your assessment of the risk as part of the settlement process, based off of all the information in the disciplinary record to, for example, the parts of the process that chief day laid out where there was that that robust process that chief de described, was that something that that is part of the totality of data that you used in assessing the level of risk as part of the settlement process?
135 I'm going to let joe talk on that.
136 Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry, joe, with city risk, I. We take all information that we can get in regards to evaluating risk and exposure. Anything like that. I mean, generally just in regards to that also. So I would say yes. Yes to that. It's I.
137 Can be more specific. Was the was the recommendation from independent police review a portion of your assessment.
138 The determination. Yes. The evaluation by independent police review was something. Yeah I would say yeah. I mean it's I guess what I'm saying is that we it's, it's something that we definitely wanted to know what the results of that investigation was.
139 Can you can you describe the full sentence of how you think, how you interpreted independent police reviews assessment?
140 I'm sorry. We were given information from your office about what independent police review said at two stages in the process. Could you could you tell us what that was?
141 I'm sorry.
142 And allow me. Are you talking about ross caldwell?
143 I'm talking about the, the finding that they recommended at two stages in the process was described to us by risk assessment. Can you just tell us what what those two steps were. And this is my second to last question.
144 Take your time.
145 Is there a specific something specific councilor About those findings that you were and I apologize, I'm as confused as mr. Jesse in the sense that are you talking about ross caldwell's finding.
146 I'm not sure if it was prepared. Yes. Actually, yes. This was prepared by director caldwell. In my recollection of mr. Caldwell's finding no relation was that he he believed that there was not an immediate risk of death or serious bodily injury, but that there was a potential risk of serious death or serious bodily injury. That's my recollection of the distinction that he made.
147 Yeah. I guess to clarify, it was described to us as originally ipr recommended a finding of in policy and then changed their opinion and their recommendation to out of policy.
148 Correct. I believe there was a document that was without an analysis that said in policy that came out of ipr.
149 Okay.
150 The reason I'm asking it here is because it was a part of your assessment in the settlement. It's relevant here. I have talked to ipr about it. I have their memo, and it does not say that. It says that they believed it was out of policy the entire time, as I believe did. The internal affairs investigator. And so I am concerned about the information attached to this proposed settlement that was provided to city council by risk management as it relates to the way in which data that may not have been accurate was incorporated into your assessment of this case and its level of risk to the city. That's why I'm bringing it up here.
151 I could say from the perspective of the city attorney's office, the memo that you're referring to would be the substantive data that would be important for any sort of analysis, any any shift that might have come to cause that would not be a significant without divulging attorney client confidences, it's difficult for me to opine on that without doing that.
152 That's fair.
153 And that's why I was asking a little more opaquely at first as to trying to find the ways to not violate that.
154 To mr. Jessee's commentary, all data, be it from the attorney filing the suit to whatever jurisdiction it is, is important in the evaluation of the suit.
155 Okay. So then I would I would suggest for the future, actually, I'll wait until after the testimony because that is substantive to make that point. But I will follow up on that in a moment. Thanks, madam president.
156 No further lines of questioning, counselor. Okay. I counselor Smith.
157 Yes, madam president. Chief day, I have a question. I have a couple questions. I was listening to your testimony, and you said that you had the discretion to determine whether or not officer christopher saathoff, whether or not he was in policy or not in policy. And you determined that he was in policy. And as I've been reading about this for the last few days, I looked at an article that said that the internal affairs did their own separate investigation, and miss stacy ravanelli wrote in a 41 page report that you all were out of policy based on the three shootings that happened instead of one. So can you tell me what is standard operating policy? Can you shoot three rounds and still be in policy or not? Because she seems to believe that the officer was out of policy and it was directly opposite of what you had indicated, and how do you reconcile that?
158 Yeah. And I, I want to speak to that in a moment. I want to give commander bill a chance to speak about the process in terms of just the administrative side. He's with the professional professional standards division, and I'd just like him to identify her role in the purpose of that recommendation. Then I'll speak to my conclusion.
159 Go right ahead.
160 Good afternoon. Jeff bell, commander.
161 With the Portland police bureau. So what the chief was talking about is, and I can give a very broad overview of the process. And if there are any questions, I'm happy to go into more detail.
162 I and I don't mean to be disrespectful because I know we have such a short time and we can take the time to have a work session for you to explain to us the process. But I'm trying to get to this point. One group of law enforcement officers say that he was in policy. Internal affairs says he wasn't because of the three times that he shot. And it is my understanding that you're supposed to shoot, stop, reassess and then shoot if necessary. And to be clear, emanuel Clark johnson is his name. That's his official name. He was shot in the back and he was shot with three rounds. And one of those rounds made him fall to the ground. And what I'm trying to find out is when you have a difference of opinion from law enforcement, how do you reconcile whose policy is correct? Is internal affairs correct? Or is the police chief correct? Was the officer truly in policy or out of policy?
163 Okay, councilor, thank you for that clarification. And ultimately it is my decision. I interpret the.
164 It's discretionary.
165 I interpret the policy. And in regards to the number of shots fired and the evaluation piece of that, we do have an expectation of that evaluation to occur. It is discretionary in terms of, you know, how that works, whether it's one shot look 1 or 2 shots and then assess to be able to be able to articulate why the need was for the additional rounds. And I know that that particular investigator you mentioned did not see the need. I believe it was for the third round, if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong.
166 And she didn't. She didn't she didn't believe the second and the third round were necessary and said that, that the police were out of policy, which would suggest why some of my colleagues are asking the question about policy. I don't believe connecting the policy to a settlement is particularly appropriate, because I think that we need to allow the opportunity for the family to heal and to and to go forward. But I do want to be clear, because you brought it up and there are. People who are listening to this and they're going to say the chief said that he was in policy, but I want to make sure that the record is straight, that there was another interpretation of what happened by internal affairs, by miss stacy, and I wanted to put it on the record, and I also want to put it on the record. The fact that the 911 tape said that these were white men who robbed in that particular part of town, and we know that manny is a black man, and we know that he had another black man in the car. And so for us to be so cavalier and say that we didn't have description of the car, but we did know the description of the robbers, and the robbers were white. And man, he is clearly black. Manny was running in one direction and the police were following him. They assumed that he had something in his waist and that's why they shot. But manny was shot straight in the back. He didn't have an opportunity. And as for the record, when they checked him, he did not have any sort of gun on him. So I just want to be clear, because there's there was a I was listening to and I was trying to close my eyes and listen to this, and if I would have listened to the just your description of it, I would have had a different leaning toward this. But I want to be clear that there were some unknowns. And then there were some knowns. The knowns were that the people they should have been looking for were were white men, and manny was not. And he got shot three times. So the clarity that I need to be able to support this because. I don't want to have to make a decision on a settlement, on a tragic case like this. But I think we need to be very clear on how we. Exercise our policies. We had a man the other night in hazelwood, and we've talked about hazelwood before. It's a really hot neighborhood in terms of crime. And he was up on a building. He was a white man. He had some mental health issues, and we talked him down and we were able to get him off unharmed. But oftentimes we are hearing more and more about how unarmed black men, mental health issues, running away from police, they're getting shot because people are afraid. And keep in mind, the reports also said that those other two officers that were standing next to the officer that shot, they had not pulled their guns. So when you make a discretionary decision. For me, I want you to consider all the facts because there are some discrepancies. And that's why we're paying today, because someone died and this was tragic. And I agree with you what you said to be able to have to talk about people in our community who's dying, who. Who are, who are involved with wrongful death cases as a result of the hands of the city of Portland that hurts. And their families are hurting. But I want us when we tell the record. Tell the record straight, tell all the information, not just one sided, that shows that you were correct in making the discretionary decision that you made. I may have made another decision. Our risk management may have made another decision, but you had all the information in front of you. And so I don't know how to judge. I don't know how to judge. How do you make those decisions when there's discrepancies from one law enforcement group to the next? That's all I'm saying. I don't know how to reconcile that because I'm seeing some different facts about the case, and it doesn't move me that the grand jury failed to indict. That doesn't cause me to have a different thought. But what causes me to have a different thought is when your description and the other description are dramatically different. So I that's what I can't reconcile with my heart. I would appreciate us having a bigger conversation in a work session, so that I can understand when you're making these decisions, how large your discretion is and what what is in policy and not. And I don't want to get confused with with with force in aws. And that I just want to. It just seems sometimes common sense is just not common anymore. And that's all I have to deal with, is my own common sense and what's right and what's wrong and what's in front of me. And when people listen to this and they see this, they want to understand, because all too often there are so many black men who are getting shot in this community, and we're having to say the same thing every single time. So I appreciate you. Stepping into this and being really clear on what happened. But there is some other clear eyes as well. Thank you.
167 Thank you.
168 Councilor, councilor Green.
169 Councilor, thank you for asking those questions. Chief. The only question I have is earlier it was established that it was about a 23 minute window after the, the firing and then aid being administered. Can you just give us an explanation why that window was as long as it was just so we understand. Thank you.
170 Yes. So the officers had a couple people in the car that they were still addressing, so they were taking them into custody. Another passenger was in the blocks. And so they had set up a they were setting up a perimeter to try and have containment around that, not knowing if or who was armed. Once those things were taken care of, they quickly approached mr. Clark johnson and within about four minutes of making contact with him and hearing from him, they moved in, rendered medical aid and summoned, you know, medic to come in. So the 20 minutes or so was all of the other aspects. And then it was about four minutes back and forth when they felt comfortable, they could move up and take him into custody.
171 Okay. Thank you. I guess what I'm struggling to understand is there was a number of officers on scene, correct? There was about 5 or 6, is that correct?
172 I believe so, yeah.
173 I just I guess I don't understand how one officer can't go administer aid while several other officers are securing the scene, because I've seen soldiers do that kind of maneuver in battle. In combat, you can secure someone and administer aid while your buddies are also engaged in live combat. And it's really hard for me to square that with a situation where 23 minutes goes by, where somebody is taken a high velocity bullet to their back. And I just is this a directive issue? Is this a policy like, can you give me a little bit more.
174 Yeah. So we do have a directive that requires medical aid. And that was not part of this settlement. As I understand it.
175 It was not a claim.
176 But that also was a training piece I would highlight. You know, we're not in combat. It's not a military situation. I appreciate that example and service, but I do believe there's a significant distinction there for us, importance wise. I will say that once again, our growing knowledge and awareness around medical aid is has increased significantly even since 2022. But at the time, the officers were making decisions that they believed were in the best safety of everyone involved. And so current practice would suggest that, you know, they took steps. Current practice at that time was to just they took the appropriate amount of caution before approaching him. Were that situation to play out today, is it possible that it could be different, given the ongoing training that we've been doing around shields and the use of shields and being able to safely approach downed suspects, as I think we're all aware and I mentioned, I mean, every situation is different, every situation is fluid. So I'm not going to prescribe a specific response to a specific incident. We have to allow for some of that discretion in the field and then evaluate, learn and adjust.
177 Okay. Thank you.
178 Chief. We're here today to talk about a settlement. But for better or worse, this is the forum that we have to ask about policies and what policies look like today. And I said early on, I think, over a non-police settlement that I wanted to make sure that when we took these votes, we understood what had happened or what should happen to change the situation the next time, so that we don't keep ending up with the same situations that aren't good for portlanders, that are in cases like this, tragic for portlanders, and that cost the city a lot of money. And so I have two policies that I want to better understand. And the first is following on the question that you just got from councilor Green. What is the policy right now around how quickly aid is administered? Because I heard you say two things. I heard you say officers weren't available because they were doing other things. And I heard you say that we've had changes where we now might shorten the four minutes when officers were interacting before giving aid. But what about the other 19 minutes? What is our policy around prioritizing aid versus other things one might need to do in a situation like that?
179 Thank you. So as we talk about policy, there's a intersection between policy and training. Right. And so policies are designed to be broad and to have the guardrails and the expectations. And then the training is the application of that policy. So the policy around rendering aid is a directive that we will render aid. It doesn't say you have to render aid in 5 minutes or 3 minutes or whatever. The policy directs us to render aid. So then we go to the training aspect of it. And two things. One, the training piece of it is always going to center around safety for everyone involved. So that includes the additional people in the car. That includes the person who fled. That includes the officers on scene. So they're always going to be prioritizing that as they make their overall decisions so that they don't add to whatever harm may have already occurred. And those situations are certainly dynamic. I misspoke if I said officers available, I don't know specifics. And I you know, carrie can maybe if he wants to address it, I don't know that it's necessary. How many officers are present. It is possible in a situation, if you had more officers present, they may have been more comfortable approaching mr. Clark johnson while there were other officers addressing the car at the same time that may. That's not inconsistent with policy. It would be an option that would be available to them. So I think you mentioned about, you know, how things are different. As I spoke, for example, about the rifle program, things that could be different this next time from a training standpoint is, you know, how close to the car they got. Could they have been farther away from the car? Could that distance have created other options and other decisions? Does that mean the next time that an officer approaches a car similarly close, that they're out of policy? Not necessarily. But we will have that training to lean on and say, okay, what decision points did we make? So it's it is it is very subjective, time specific. But our expectation is that they will render aid in this manner as quickly as possible when safe to do so.
180 And is the current directive specify that it should be as quickly as possible?
181 I don't know the wording specific to quickly as possible. Could have jeff look it up. I just was reviewing it the other day, but the wording I just know that it was specific to. We are required to render aid, but we can take a look and see and get that to council.
182 And then you talked about changes in the rifle program. That's not the weapon that an officer has immediately on their body. Councilor Dunphy asked some questions about how long it was from when officers pulled into the parking lot after this vehicle before shots were fired. Where? I'm wondering how we understand when an officer would have made the decision to use a rifle. Was that before they got after the car? Was that before the individuals in the car with manny got out of the car? Was that before he started to run? How long does it take to actually remove a rifle from where it's stored within a police vehicle? And what does that tell us about when that decision was made by the officers?
183 I believe.
184 So the officers convened once the vehicle was identified in the back of the parking lot, the officers convened outside of the parking lot and formulated a custody and approach plan. And at that point, officer saathoff was identified as the lethal cover. So to have that rifle and so he had removed it from his own vehicle at that time. And I believe it was speer was the one coordinating the I apologize if I get the names mixed up there was coordinating that high risk stop plan. And so there was a canine officer, there was a cover officer, there was a communication officer. And each each officer had a role in approaching this team. And that happened to be satoshi's role was to be the lethal cover.
185 And in terms of the decision to fire that weapon instead of anybody else moving in a different direction, I'm trying to understand the decision making, and if there are any changes that have been made in the program around the use of those weapons, that would be different today, or if those changes wouldn't have actually changed anything in a situation like this.
186 I believe the comments that I made regarding the focusing our tactical judgment on intent, means and opportunity as outlined before, you know, the court talks about severity of the crime, resisting or trying to run away. And when the officer believed was a level of threat or danger, we're talking we're we're building upon that and asking our members to really think about intent, means and opportunity. So, for example, what could be different today is there may still be the same intent, but is there a means to councilor Smith's point about opportunity? What position does the person have, etc? So yes, I believe we have increased our training, the understanding and the expectation to in line with what the law says, but giving it a little bit more clarity as well as a little bit more strength in that decision making process.
187 Thank you.
188 Councilor Koyama Lane.
189 Thank you. Council president, can one of you.
190 Please share what, if any, disciplinary actions took place for this officer.
191 And there was no discipline?
192 And is this person still currently with the Portland police bureau?
193 Yes.
194 And so their role position, nothing changed. Nothing has changed.
195 Well, they are in an off street assignment.
196 My reaction is that surprises me to hear that. That's all I'll say for now.
197 Thank you.
198 Councilor councilor Smith.
199 Oh, okay.
200 Colleagues, are there any additional questions before we hear from the public? Okay. Thank you all.
201 Thank you.
202 Councilor Kanal you had an additional question. Do we need somebody to come back up?
203 I'm not sure who could answer this. Has the city issued any sort of. Apology for the events that took place on that day? And I would love to know if anyone has that answer. I'd love to hear it. I apologize for waiting as you were getting up to ask it.
204 I assume that's something that the attorneys might be able to speak to.
205 We can wait until after the testimony to get.
206 You like us, to wait a moment. Okay. Why don't we wait to receive that answer after public testimony? Keelan, could you please call up the first members of the public?
207 We have three people signed up. First up is odelia zuckerman.
208 Thank you for being here.
209 Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is odelia zuckerman. I use she her pronouns, and I'm the co-chair of pccep, the Portland committee on community-engaged policing. Honestly, what I heard today from the city's presentation was pretty frustrating. I think they were not telling the full story. As councilor Smith pointed out, all of the people who were suspected were white. Yet when they're telling us the story, they said only one of them was white. It was also left out that the vehicle that manni Clark was in was going the opposite direction of the suspect's vehicle. That hasn't been brought up yet. So there's a lot of things that are missing from the story still, and that's really disappointing when we're coming here today for transparency and to know everything that happened. It's deeply frustrating to hear that. I would also like to say it's unconstitutional to kill someone running away to shoot them. They're back. Right. And I think today brought up more questions, honestly, than things I can say. So I'm a bit scrambled. I'm going to try my best. I think it's really important to understand where the money is coming from in the insurance and claims fund and how that works, and how that's separated out and disaggregated by bureau. I think that'd be interesting for council to look into and to analyze those numbers from the past. But also like 3.75 million. That's a lot of money. But it's never enough money. Right. And his life was priceless. And there's no adequate amount you can provide to this estate that makes any of this okay. And I think. A big part of what I'm hearing today and concern from you all is not with the settlement itself, but with the investigation and how that happened and how there was no nothing was found to be out of policy. Right. And so there was no consequences for the officer. The officer is still in. Officer. Right. And so from my understanding, I've been told that the independent police review found that the case the officer was within policy. So I'm really confused to hear. That that but regardless how oh I only have 30s shoot how this works is that the then mayor and police chief get to make the final decision no matter what an investigator finds. They had the last say. And with this new process coming up, the kbpa that will hopefully be different. But we recently saw the death of damon lamar johnson at the hands of the police, and I don't think the kbpa will be intact by the time his trial and investigation comes around. And so my question is, will we let this happen again? Thank you.
210 Thank you very much.
211 Next up we have ashlee albies.
212 Welcome miss alves.
213 Good afternoon. Thank you. My name is ashley albies. I use she her pronouns. I'm one of the attorneys on the legal team representing the estate of mr. Clark, along with jesse merrithew, juan chavez, amanda lamb, franz mayer and maya rinta. Council president. May I have an extra minute just to make sure I can represent everything, given that there was a very large panel that was here talking about the case.
214 Let's add one minute.
215 Thank you. And can you add juan chavez as a participant so he can show some video. He just did the powerpoint presentation.
216 You should be able to have access. Yep, yep. Should be the same.
217 So it sounds like many of you have reviewed the video in this case and have an understanding of the facts. I want to go over them very briefly. The incident started with a call to 911 of a robbery at a super deluxe on southeast 50th and powell. The caller identified 3 to 4 white males. This description was broadcast over police radio and printed in the cad logs in all police vehicles. So all officers that responded had this access to this information. The police started following, but then lost sight of the alleged car with the robbers in it, and ended up following manny Clark and his companions into a church parking lot. The. When the police approached manny's car, they found a white female, two black men, and a hispanic male, none of which matched the description of the rogers the robbers. Manny was, of course, one of the black men in that situation. None of these people were the robbers from the super deluxe incident, and the police had no reason to believe they were armed or dangerous. And despite this, they continued with a high risk stop as the police vehicles approached, officer saathoff exited from the passenger door and trained. His department issued ar 15 rifle on manny Clark. As manny emerged from the parked car and in an internal affairs interview after the shooting, saathoff justifies his use of force by describing manny pause and reach for his waistband or reach for his pocket as he ran around the back of the car. So towards the police. Yet the video that we're showing you and that some of you have watched tells a markedly different story. In this video, manny can be seen running away without pause, without apparent reach for a weapon, and around the front of the car, away from police. As manny passed between two parked cars while running away, officer saathoff fired three rounds from his assault rifle, hitting manny in the back. Officer saathoff shot manny at 12:41 a.m. On November 20th. Pb and the medics left him for 26 minutes, enduring substantial pain without medical care or pain management. On the pavement in the parking lot where he was shot. He was taken to OHSU, where doctors attempted to save his life and perform two surgeries trying to repair his injuries. But they were unsuccessful, unfortunately, and he died at 4:38 a.m. On November 21st of 2022, in the intensive care unit. After a thorough internal affairs investigation, internal affairs concluded. As you all have recognized, that officer saathoff conduct violated bureau policy and the constitution. Yet, mayor wheeler and police chief de reversed the internal affairs findings. They found officer saathoff and all involved police personnel to be within policy. No officer was disciplined, as you've already heard, and we heard about some changes, but it's not clear to me whether the changes in training would have resulted in any different finding by the chief or the mayor if they had conducted a review, and the training was different, I would posit that it would not have a different outcome in terms of the accountability process. Next on your agenda today is the Portland police bureau's 2020 annual report. And in that report, they note that the uses of deadly force that occurred last year were thoroughly investigated, consistent with the stringent policies of directive ten, 1010. And this case was not one of the 2024 uses of force, but the decision affirming and finding this within policy was within 2024. We to be clear, we believe that chief day and mayor wheeler got this wrong substantially. And while she can't be here today, I asked julie, the mother of mr. Clark's kids, if she had anything she wanted me to share. And she is still deeply, deeply grieving his loss. She says that manny is gone forever, and nothing she says can bring him back. She wants you to know that she misses him and his son misses him. And she wants you to know that this is all very unfair. What the Portland police bureau did to manny Clark, and she is not wrong. So we appreciate you being here today, being thoughtful and considerate, and we urge you to approve this settlement as compensation for the victim's family.
218 Thank you.
219 And to my understanding, no apology has been issued by the city or none that I've seen.
220 Next up is mark portis, Portland, copwatch.
221 Welcome.
222 Hello again. Council. My name is mark portis. I use he him pronouns and I'm with the group Portland copwatch we understand the parties have come to an agreement and we've got no objection to the city writing a check for $3.75 million, which, according to our records, is the largest police brutality settlement in Portland yet to mr. Clark's family. And we express our deepest sympathy to mr. Clark's loved ones. Mr. Clark was an unarmed black man who had nothing to do with the robbery at the super deluxe that precipitated this bungled police operation. The suspects in the burglary were described as being white, and while the car that mr. Clark was driving may have looked similar to the one involved in the burglary, the people in the car did not match that description. Manny Clark should still be alive today. The internal affairs investigation agrees with that assessment, as it found that all three shots fired by officer saathoff were out of policy. This is on page 38 of the report. A police review report, a police review board, which consists of four police bureau employees and three civilians in deadly force cases, voted four three that the shooting was within policy. Chief dane mayor wheeler dismissed the ia report, agreed with the review board, and officer saathoff, as you heard, is still employed by opb today. Instead of repeating what you've already heard, I want to read some excerpts of officer saathoff grand jury testimony. When he was asked about the ar 15, the apb service rifle that he used to shoot mr. Clark, he's asked what the purpose of the rifle is for a patrol officer and his response. So the rifle allows us to when we respond to certain calls that involve people with firearms, that's the one that we mainly take them to, is when people have firearms, because we want to be able to have a tool that allows us to use precision shooting, especially when it's a very high stress situation. The other benefit of the round is it has a very low chance of overpenetration. When asked why that is, he responded because it's built so it's a hollow point round, and what that allows it to do is when it hits a target, an organic target, it disperses all of its energy into the target, or at least most of its energy. As long as the round works correctly and keeps it from penetrating and then potentially going into a person's house or hitting another person accidentally or something like that. So it allows us to have a better tool for those situations. It's also a de-escalation technique. When asked to explain that, he said, we talked about it in the rifle school is when you get out a vehicle and you're addressing a person who may be armed or is armed, there's a tendency for them to change their behavior after they hear a rifle cracking. And so we talked about that was one of the things that we talked about. So just having it's I guess psychological compliance. Chief day in the Portland police bureau have shown that they cannot keep tragedies like this from happening without your help, without the help of the community reminding you that this is unacceptable. The system that is currently in place is inadequate for holding individual officers accountable for the harm they cause, and it is incapable of holding the bureau's leadership accountable for massive failures like this one. Nearly every friend or relative of someone killed by the police that we know wants to make sure that what happened to their loved one doesn't happen to anyone else's. And we agree. Thanks.
223 Thank you.
224 That completes testimony.
225 Thank you. Keelan colleagues, is there any discussion? Councilor Morillo.
226 Thank you, council president. I feel pretty deeply disturbed by how some of the facts were presented here, and I'm honestly sorry that the community had to witness how this was presented. The fact that we expect that our officers who are trained individuals, should be given grace when they're making split second decisions, but that our community members who are regular people, who don't have any training, who have a rifle pointed at them, or a gunshot, or police officers coming after them, are supposed to respond in a completely calm, rational manner, as if that's not an extremely terrifying thing to have happen to you. Obviously someone is going to run away. Obviously someone is going to act erratic. That is a terrifying situation to be put in, and it is absolutely chilling to me that it was 26 minutes after he was shot before assistance got to him. You can take away all the other stuff, all the difficult split second decisions that officers have to make, and I actually don't think the analogy of a combat veteran applying medical aid that councilor Green brought up is unfair at all, because for black men on our streets, they are being treated as enemy combatants by our police officers. When a call to 911 says that the people that our police are supposed to go after are absolutely white, that was, I believe, the phrasing that the 911 call taker used. And yet you go to a vehicle that does not match that description, and none of the people there match the description. I just this is just such a massive injustice, such a massive in calculation miscalculation. And there is nothing that we could do to possibly make up financially. For what? For this man's life being taken. And there are obviously policy changes that have to happen. But I also think that when we're talking about matters of discretion, the split second decisions are actually signs of bias from our police officers, because when you're making a split second decision in a high tension situation, you're going to fall back on the biases that you have been imbued with. And there's not a single person in this society that does not have anti-blackness as part of our the fabric of white supremacy within American society. So this is I would urge my colleagues for us to support this settlement in any way that we can. This does not in any way make up for the loss of emmanuel's life, and I think we have some serious decisions to make in the coming years about what we want policing to look like, what we're going to define public safety as, and what we're going to do in other cases, like the ones that have come up more recently with our officers when it comes to other types of calls, because this type of thing should never happen. Thank you.
227 Thank you, councilor, councilor Avalos.
228 Thank you. First, I want to deeply thank my colleagues for their line of questioning. It is so important that we continue to raise these issues and bring to light the inconsistencies that we're seeing and hearing. Councilor Morillo used the exact word that I am feeling, which is disturbed, disturbed by the inconsistency of information that we are receiving, disturbs that disturbed that this incident was determined to be in policy. I don't understand how shooting someone in the back while they run away could at all be considered in policy, disturbed that this officer remains on our police department. Disturbed that portlanders Portland taxpayers continue to pay the financial price for the endless amount of settlements that we are paying out. But most of all, disturbed that manny Clark paid the ultimate price with his life. I have been doing police accountability work for years and years, and I continue to be again disturbed by the absolute lack of progress that we are making in actually changing the way that the police are interacting with our community and the price that they're paying with their lives. When we fail to hold them accountable. I'm frustrated. Obviously, I will be supporting this settlement, but it is not enoug. Hearing from manny's partner. This should mobilize us urgently to really start taking into account the policy work that we need to do, but also the cultural work that is clear that we need to do to transform the ways that the government interacts with portlanders. Thank you.
229 Thank you, councilor, councilor Green.
230 I just have to say that when you watch that video, you see the officer step out of the vehicle with an engine block between him and the target he's got. He's got the benefit of cover and a long rifle, and the target is running away from him. That is an unreasonable use of force. There is no there is no reasonable interpretation that says this was the good thing to do. And this was in policy. We cannot tolerate this anymore. $3.75 million would be money better spent keeping tenants in their homes, frankly. So I will be voting in favor of the settlement.
231 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Dunphy.
232 Thank you. I'm I'm disgusted by how this has happened. And it continues to happen that no officers were found in needing discipline or training, that this officer was patted on the back and given an attaboy and sent back out to do his duty. I'm I'm shocked that in 2025, we are continuing to have this conversation. I am I think that councilor Green was correct in using the analogy of treating of this as open warfare, as though this were combat, because that's how we seem to be training our officers. This is not community policing. This is not what anybody in our community expects. This was done with callous hearts. This was done with in a way that dehumanized everybody in our community and robbed a family of their father. And I'm. I don't know how we're going to change this, this culture or this bureau. I cannot believe that we are sitting here after the fights that we've had in this chamber. About dollar amounts to try and fully fund a public safety bureau that we are now having to continue to find ways to fund deeply unaccountable police officer's actions. I cannot believe that this officer is on the streets. This and dozens of other officers who are just willfully hunting people in our community who had nothing to do with this. I'm beyond disturbed by this. I'm I will be working with my colleagues to figure out if policy was not violated. Then policy needs to change and I will be bringing policies to affect this bureau in some way, whether it's financial and going after the purse strings or policy around personnel, because this cannot be how the city of Portland operates. It cannot be acceptable that this ever happened. I'm beside myself at this moment. I'm. I'm done.
233 Thank you. Councilor. Colleagues. There was some conversation, both from some of you on the dais and some of the folks who were at the testimony table today about discipline. And I have to be honest, I'm not after discipline. I'm after change. I'm after things like this not happening in the future. And I have some really lovely remarks that my staff wrote for me. But I'm going to say something different and I apologize to them for that. My mom was a law enforcement officer. I grew up with a state issued gun in my house, and I was taught from a very early age some very specific standards around weapon use, based on what she was taught in her training as a law enforcement officer. And one of those was that you don't shoot unless you intend to, and are willing to kill someone, that otherwise you don't fire your gun that was issued by the government, by the people to protect her in her job. And in this case, we have two things that happened. From my perspective. We have somebody who was killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, who was not involved in the police activity of that night. But we also have a set of policies that say that it is okay to kill someone because you should not shoot unless you are willing to kill. I don't believe that the training here could be that much different from the training she received for a robbery, that the response to a robbery is losing your life. And I struggle to sit with that policy, and I struggle even more to sit with the fact that that policy was applied to manny for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, not even involved. So, because it hasn't been said, I want to say very clearly to manny's family, I am sorry. I am sorry that this happened. This should not have happened, and I'm sorry that you didn't receive an apology from our city sooner. I know that an apology is not enough. I know that this settlement is not enough. It is not justice. I do think it is appropriate, though, which is why I'll be supporting it. And I will also ask the folks in our public safety division and in our police department how we can look at change to make sure that this never happens again. Councilor Smith.
234 Madam president, I just like to say ditto, ditto, ditto to everything that you said. In the Portland police bureau's annual report, which is our next agenda item. The first of three stated goals is to transform the dynamic between police and the people in which they serve, and transforming that dynamic must occur on a daily basis, so you will never have to come before us again with a wrongful death lawsuit. I am supporting this settlement because we must provide some healing for the family, and an opportunity for them to move on from this very untimely and tragic death. So I urge you, council, please approve and support this settlement.
235 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Koyama Lane.
236 Thank you, council president. I heard something today that I've heard a few times, which is that we're not the same bureau or in the same situation as we were a few years ago. I've heard this. It's not the same as it was in 20, 25 years ago. Or fill in the blank. And every time I have heard that, I do believe that there is a sentiment of real hope and desire, that things are changing and will continue to change. And I do want to believe that we're in a different place. And also when trust is broken and needs to be rebuilt, I think I believe as a value that those who have been harmed really need to lead the way in what that rebuilding looks like, and also get to decide when there is real change. So I'm going to say I don't really want to keep hearing that. I want to hear from manny's family when they are going to be looking to those community members to hear when things are changing. And I plan to support this today.
237 Thank you, councilor. Councilor canal.
238 Thank you, madam president. I remember when this event occurred. I was in an ironic condition of trying to build a new system for police accountability. It was during the police accountability commission's work. I was a project manager. I remember very vividly this coming up and members talking about it in the meetings. And, you know, in the difficult position of being in the bureaucratic side of the city and saying, here's the process, here's what plays out, and there's criminal investigations. There's the administrative investigations, which will be led by internal affairs, because right now, in the current system, deaths do not go primarily to independent police review. They can review internal affairs investigations. And then eventually there'll be a civil lawsuit. I did not at that time, imagine for a moment that I would be in a position to vote on that civil settlement. A few years later, and it's a it's a strange feeling. I, I don't personally have. My primary concern is not with the training here. It's the concern with the policy itself that was being trained. Ppb directive 1010, as pointed out, lists the three factors to consider for an officer and it conflates in the same category active resistance and evasion. That's a problem just on its face. And there are many more policies that must change. And part of that is on the bureau. But part of that is on us. When we consider things like collective bargaining agreements and recommendations for policy change that may come from the new cba, which will be able to recommend directive and policy changes to us in the event that they have a disagreement with the police chief, and there will be conversations that need to happen after this moment about questions like how an officer was able to see in the low light that that mr. Clark was making eye contact with, quote, an indication of confrontation and allegedly reaching for a weapon, but was not able to determine that mr. Clark was black and not white as the suspects were. While looking at his ungloved hands. There's a lot of issues that don't add up here, and the one that that I wanted to highlight from the point that was made by a couple colleagues is was brought up in the testimony that it's also the use of an ar 15 is a de-escalation technique. This is a haunting statement for me because the officers actions were described in damien lamar johnson's death in June as, quote, de-escalating him as if de-escalation is something we impose on someone instead of a mutual evolution of an incident to a more peaceful condition in place. Put simply, you cannot deescalate someone with an ar 15. I am disappointed in our risk management staff's descriptions of these to us, not only for the incompletion pointed out in testimony, but for the categorical misstatement about where independent police review came in on this. When someone describes you as changing your mind, it implies it was a 5149 decision to say it was one outcome, and then it switched to 49, 51 the other way. And they were they were of the opinion that it was out of policy the entire time. I'll circle back to that in a moment. And so we are setting we're getting more information from the public, though, and I'm grateful for to community for tracking better than our staff the amounts of money we've paid out. We are setting a new record in Portland today, and it's not one we want to set, but it is the right decision. And so in a few minutes, I will be voting yes. And I want to just note that we will be asked at some point in the next year for a dollar amount by every bureau. We'll be told that that amount will be necessary to retain the current service level that that bureau provides. We must remember now that the amount we're told not only by PPB, but by the water bureau and by the fire bureau and all the other bureaus, parks that have lawsuits that come out will include some portion of these settlements. And every other settlement we have. We will pay for this through that. And as a result, we will have less money for rent assistance again, or homes for restoring black portlanders to historically black neighborhoods in north and northeast Portland. And this will be dissatisfying to us then, but it will have a root cause here. And one of the hardest things about running for office is to understand that you now own the legacy of the city as part of sitting up here. We all own not only our own actions here, but we own the legacy of early actions. And so I will join and be grateful for the council president for saying to the family and friends of manny Clark and to the broader community, I too, am sorry for your loss and for the actions that led to this moment. I want to conclude by reading two things. Actually, two things in a sentence. So I'll just note that the from the independent affairs sorry, internal affairs investigator. Although the officer and I'm just going to paraphrase and not use the name here because I don't want to fall afoul of the embarrassment clause. Although the officer was in a high stress encounter and had to make split second decisions, his decision to use deadly force did not meet the standard outlined above in the graham standard, which is from graham versus connor. The officer did not fulfill the requirements of a position and accomplish his functions at the scene in a satisfactory manner. This review concluded the officer violated bureau directors when he shot three times, hitting mr. Clark johnson once. Each application of deadly force was out of policy. Other than reciting parts of the directive, the officer gave vague reasonings for firing the three rifle rounds, except to say he continued to shoot until Clark johnson's behavior changed. For the above reasons, this review concluded the officer's use of deadly force was out of policy from the ipr report. The standard of use for use of deadly force gives significant deference to the perspective of the involved officer. But it is not complete deference. It is not enough to simply describe fear of death or serious physical injury. That fear must be reasonable. In this incident, the evidence demonstrates a potential threat, but not an immediate threat as required by directive. I do not believe the evidence demonstrates that a reasonable officer could have perceived mr. Clark johnson's behavior posed an immediate threat of death or serious physical injury, and so I believe the correct finding is out of policy. I think it's important that we talk about this, and the last thing I'll say is why that is because, in the words of james baldwin, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. Thank you, madam president.
239 Thank you, councilor, councilor Zimmerman.
240 Thank you. I have every intention of voting for this as well. I think I'm hearing that from my colleagues, so I appreciate that. I think that's the right settlement, and I've largely stayed quiet in this. Because I, I think these questions are really important. I think this sediments that folks are, are conveying and concern that folks are conveying is really important. I want to the reason I've stayed quiet during the question period is I'm trying to recognize the position we're in with respect to this. Action. Is a settlement closure with with the estate and the family and I and I think that this conversation actually should have more time, but not relative to the settlement. We should put this to, to rest so that this doesn't appear that the council is waffling in, in anything. I don't think we have indicated that. But sometimes when we go down the questioning, that might be the indication. So I think from the two co-chairs of public safety and the and the council president, it might be worth our time to consider. How do we have this policy discussion, whether it be policy in action or financial policies or risk management funds policies that we've gotten into today, but have it after a settlement is over so that we can put ourselves in a learning and changing perspective without it being part of the settlement discussion, because I think that would be well worth our time. I also think when the legal question of this action is over, I actually think we'll probably get a more robust conversation from our city staff and our our regardless of the bureau, regardless of the department. When the legal case is signed. Because I think we do need to spend that time understanding these differences in policy, out of policy, those competing memos that a few of us have have noted. So thank you, everybody who's indicated that they're going to be supportive of this. I again, to the family, to any American who's sitting, we're not all perfect people, but we do have the right to be imperfect in our cars and go unmolested through these streets. And so we should settle this. I appreciate the depth in which the team came forward. It sounds like we have much more to learn, but on this matter we should vote to settle. Thank you.
241 Thank you, councilor, councilor Ryan.
242 Thank you, madam president. This is a real terrible, tragic incident that we're discussing today. And a lot has been said by my colleagues. I deeply appreciate and respect many of those comments. We must take time, as was just mentioned by councilor Councilman Zimmerman, to discuss policies and practices that were mentioned today. Today I'm truly sad, especially for the family of emanuel. I apologize and I will support this settlement.
243 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Clark.
244 Thank you, madam chair.
245 I intend to vote for the settlement. I just want to say a couple of things that it's very emotional and very horrifying to watch the video, and I'm feeling very emotional. I apologize to the family. I appreciate all the comments of my colleagues. I've been listening and to the witnesses that came today. I appreciate your testimony. I look forward to learning more about the changes that our police bureau is making and the recommendations that may come from our policy committee after this discussion. Thank you.
246 Thank you, councilor. Seeing no one else in the queue for discussion, keelan, could you please call the roll.
247 Koyama Lane I maria. I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Avalos. I dunfee. I Smith. I no. I Ryan. I pirtle-guiney I the ordinance passes with 12 votes.
248 Colleagues. We are a few hours into this meeting. We have two things left. But I have promised to be better about taking breaks. So I am going to have us take a ten minute recess. We will reconvene at 410 and try to squeeze in our final two issues today.
249 Okay. That was great. Auditor rede the most brilliant.
250 Back. We are reconvening our council meeting. We have two items left on the agenda and we're scheduled until five colleagues. I will try to get a sense of whether folks can stay late or not. I know a number of us have events this evening. Keelan could you please call our next agenda item.
251 Item 20 accept the 2024 Portland police bureau annual report.
252 Thank you and colleagues. This came out of the community and public safety committee. I believe we have a committee staff summary from christopher haire.
253 Good afternoon, madam president. Councilors for the record, christopher haire, policy analyst with council operations, and I serve as staff to the community and public safety committee. The report before you document number 2025 280 was considered in the community and public safety committee on July 15th, where it was referred to council with a recommendation to accept this item, accepts the 2024 Portland police bureau annual report. The full impact statement on this item includes community impacts and community involvement. Three people testified in committee prior to committee action. General themes of testimony included methodology and metrics used to assess traffic stop benchmarks and demographic disparities, compliance with department of justice settlement agreement reporting requirements, and data on use of force and investigative outcomes. This concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.
254 Thank you. Christopher councilor Kanal I believe you presided over this meeting. Do you have anything that you'd like to add.
255 Madam?
256 Thank you, madam president. Yeah, it was a 3 to 1 vote with one member absent. I think the content wise was was summarized pretty well by by christopher and I. I'm not sure if there was any update on the file itself, but there were all the threads that you mentioned for discussion I think are still applicable here. And so I wasn't we'll see in a minute here. But yeah. Thank you.
257 Okay. Thank you councilor Colleagues, we do have some people signed up for public testimony. I know that director cozzie and the chief have asked to provide some information to full council, as well as to the committee. Are there questions that anybody would like to ask first, or should we move straight to giving them an opportunity to present a little bit of information here? Councilor? Okay.
258 You're going to have them present.
259 They've asked to provide a little bit of information to full council as well, instead of just to the committee. Okay. Go right ahead.
260 Thank you.
261 Good afternoon. Council. Bob day, chief of police. So I'm here to present the police bureau's 24 2024 annual report. This is the last step in our annual report process as the city's settlement agreement with the department of justice requires that we present this report to city council, we recognize that 2024 seems like a lifetime ago, but this process takes considerable time. This year, we actually were able to move some of the processes along at a faster rate. Creating this report includes gathering the data from 2024. That data is not generally available to the end of the first quarter. From there, our team writes and designs this report and provides it to me and my executive team for input. We then provide to the members of pccep to review it for 30 days before their public meeting, asking for public comments. Then we incorporate their feedback before conducting meetings in each precinct. We advertise these meetings on our social media platforms and invite neighborhood associations, business associations, advisory committee members, and others who regularly engage with our precinct. But it is open to all. Before, again, I just want to say how proud I am of the sworn and professional staff of the police bureau. Their hard work throughout 2024, as well as the compilation compiling compiling the information for this report and my gratitude to be able to serve in this role for pb. Next slide please. As mentioned in the earlier testimony, my three primary goals for the organization are to transform the dynamic between the police and the people we serve, reduce crime and the fear of crime, and focus on organizational growth and development. Next slide please. As we talk about transforming police community relations and those that we serve, some of our biggest changes in 2024 was obviously the implementation of body worn cameras. After many years of trying to make that work, we were able to get complete deployment in 2024. I also believe this is going to continue to help in the accountability with both police and community relationships, and hopefully through that, transparency will begin more of an attempt to transform that dynamic. In the area of community engagement. We have a number of events listed on the slide. I won't read them all, but we continue to utilize all aspects of the police bureau to connect with the community in a variety of different ways ps3's our cadets, our behavioral health unit, etcetera, our advisory councils, and the walking beast that we've traditionally done. Next slide please. In regards to the area of crime reduction and prevention, you can see the stats from 2024. We were able to overall person crimes decrease by 4%. Homicides down. Currently this year we have 23 homicides. This time last year we were at 44. So we continue to see a decrease in that. Gun violence went down again in 2023 compared to 24. And right now gun violence is down 32% from this time last year. I want to emphasize that these dramatic and very positive steps are not solely at the response responsibility of the police bureau. This is a community led effort. We work closely with ovp ceasefire community outreach. I mean, there is so much that goes into and I know councilor Novick has highlighted somewhat the unpredictability of crime and crime rates. And although these numbers are much to be proud of, I want to recognize the many, many partners that contribute to this. As all portlanders are responding as well as we seized in 2020, excuse me, 2024 received over 1400 firearms. That's actually more firearms than was seized in either seattle or oakland. That's about a 17% increase from the year before. So we are getting those firearms off the street. Next slide please. In regards to property crimes, we continue to see a decrease overall in property crimes. We've highlighted our stolen vehicle efforts, including reaching a ten year low in 2024. We see an increase in shoplifting, and we believe that is based upon our increased efforts around retail theft missions and the asking of retailers to be more intentional about reporting. So we do believe we're seeing more on that next slide, please. We continue to highlight our mission work as we've talked about really began around the stolen vehicle operations, using that data to kick off a more of an evidence based policing model. These precincts conducted six stolen vehicle missions so far this year, recovering 31 stolen vehicles. I will say it's getting harder to find stolen vehicles. Fortunately in the city of Portland, but I know for those that may have suffered loss within the last week, that's not very comforting. But we are continuing to be resilient. We just completed our 61st stolen vehicle mission. Overall, this past few months, we've also been doing several efforts around illegal speed racing. The retail theft, etc. And of course, human trafficking. In 2024, we conducted 14 human trafficking missions. This crime greatly impacts the neighborhood livability while also being connected to guns and drugs. Many of this effort has been focused around 82nd, where we're in constant engagement with community up there trying to address this really tragic crime, finding ways to connect the victims of human trafficking and sex trafficking with services, and only focusing arrests on the more violent offenders. Next slide please. In 2024, there were 274 overdoses reported to PPB. That does not mean there were there could be more overdoses, likely in Multnomah county or in the city of Portland. Those are only ones that are reported to me. If somebody overdoses and is a victim is taken to a hospital, we are not notified. But those 274 we went to in 2024, we continue to utilize the deflection services, working with Multnomah county, working with their outreach teams. In 2024. We also added additional officers and investigators to our narcotics and organized crime unit, specifically to try and interdict higher level drug dealing, as well as complete more cases on overdose deaths. So when somebody dies from an overdose, we have the opportunity to follow up on that investigation and potentially prosecute the person who sold the drugs. And we have had some successes recently with cases that have come forward in that work. As of last week, there were 131 overdoses reported to PPB last year. At this time, it was 187. So we're seeing about a 25 to 30% decrease in overdose reports to PPB this year. Next slide please. We lost 66 people in traffic crashes in 2024. That's down from 75in 2023 but still too high to date. We have 20 that have died in traffic crashes this year. Eight are pedestrians including sadly one earlier today at the safeway over on mlk. We will continue to prioritize traffic and traffic safety. Next slide please. As we look at organizational growth and development, as we've discussed many times, the challenges as we continue to make staffing one of our top priorities, along with training and retention. We hired 74 sworn members and 35 professional staff members in 2024. But as you can see, we also processed 70 sworn and 39 professional staff separations. So we really just basically broke even the last few years, we've seen a number of folks retire. We're hoping 2025 and right now the retirements and separations are trending lower than they were in 24. We anticipate almost 100 new officers completing training this year, which will directly benefit us in the patrol ranks. We were as of today, we have 709 798 sworn members. That includes me all the way down to the 12 that we hired last Thursday. Right now, we're averaging about 151 applicants a month, which is 40 more than we were this time last year. And we currently have 489 candidates in pre background phases where our social media and recruitment efforts continue to see a lot of response. Next slide please. Some of the challenges around growth and development aging infrastructure. We have you know several challenging around vehicle replacement. But last year two initiatives that I'm really excited about. One is we are beginning the process of an ev patrol and an electric vehicle patrol pilot, and the infrastructure is being added to the facilities as we speak. And then we're also to upgrade one of our mobile precincts or mobile precincts for over 30 years old. These are used at major crime scenes, community events, etc. That has really been a great asset. Next slide please. We've touched on training right now with the advanced academy. That's about 30 weeks a year, and we have about 29 weeks a year where we do in-service training. And as well as the other academies and trainings that we do really proud of the hiring of our civilian dean of training director. Rodriguez came on board and has really taken the lesson plans and the training to a new level. So as we continue to hire, we may be looking at adding a fourth advanced academy depending on resources and space, but we continue to emphasize the importance around training and learning. Next slide please. As we look at force and overall the use of force attract, we want to ensure, as it says here, that we hold officers accountable when they're outside of policy regarding the use of appropriate constitutional force. And the policy includes the wording there about the community expects and the Portland police requires. The members use only objectively reasonable force necessary to perform their duties and overcome the threat of resistance of the subject under the totality of the circumstances. Next slide please. So in 2024, we had six uses of deadly force three fatal, three non-fatal and one in-custody death. Obviously, those went through the same processes that we've already discussed as well as, you know, a deep awareness that I share and the organization shares on the overall impact that has on the community as well as on our members. I would like to recognize that we have a summary of all of these incidents, and every deadly force incident since 2010 is on our website and includes on an open door to open data portable and is open to anyone who would like to review. Next slide please. As I said, all uses of force are tracked and 2024 community members are visitors initiated. Just over 209,000 calls for service. And in these 209,000 calls, force was used about 0.17% of the time. Of these calls, 238 resulted in use of category 2 or 3. Force 128 resulted in use of category four for council's benefit two and three. Three level force would be, say, a taser or a takedown. Level two would be maybe a less lethal shotgun round. Not a shotgun round, but a losing the term now. But but it would be. It would be a less lethal force above that of a taser. And then category four force is what we consider to be handcuffing, resistance. Handcuffing. Just if somebody pushes against us or or just tries to pull away as the lowest level of force. So you can see the results in that next slide please. In 2024, officers initiated over 61,000 calls for service. Many of those are centered around traffic, which we're going to talk in a minute. Of these calls, 176 resulted in use of category four, 2 or 3. Excuse me. 29%, 0.29% and 39 resulted in category four, which is 0.06%. Next slide please. Of the custodies that we took in 2024, 5.9 resulted in force. And then once again, you can see the breakdown between 2 and 3 and four. And as I stated earlier about the in-custody deaths or shootings, all of this information is available on our website and our open data portal. All force reporting is listed in that area. Next slide. Please. Stops data 2024. Stops data is on our report prior years as well as quarterly reports. And 2024 we performed a little over 24,000 traffic stops. That's a 41% increase, largely because of the increase of the traffic division and our emphasis on reducing traffic fatalities. So we are seeing an increased amount of traffic stops, although some of the other divisions have also increased their efforts around traffic stops. Next slide 40% of driver stops are in east precinct, 33% in central and 26% in north. That is the precinct where the stop occurred. It does not necessarily mean that east precinct is making 40% of the stops, it's just simply identifies where the stop ended and using the injury collision benchmark study, we did not find any drivers were overrepresented when compared to that. Similarly, the Oregon criminal justice commission 2024 stops. So oc, jc the Oregon criminal justice commission reviews all of our stops data. They use a different benchmark called the veil of darkness methodology, and did not find any significant differences in the rate of stop drivers by the bureau. I understand there are many different ideas or concepts around there about what benchmarks to use when doing stop data, and I believe or would hope that you resent information you were supposed to have been sent information prior to this meeting regarding more about the benchmarks we use, which is injury, collision, and the state uses on veil of darkness. I can touch on that if we want to go ahead to the next slide, please. In 2024, 98% of drivers were stopped solely for traffic, speeding being the primary primary offense. And then when it came to the traffic division and then other stops from non traffic personnel focused on primarily missing expired license violations, etc. On that next slide, please. In 2024, approximately one out of every 158 stops included a discretionary search, and 60% of the time that result resulted in found contraband. Next stop please. Next slide please. In our precinct meetings, we continue to remind people that stops and searches are governed by both the us constitution as well as Oregon law. We are always in an effort to try and advise and help community members understand their rights and responsibilities that when stopped, they have responsibility to comply with the officer's direction. In an attempt to reduce confusion. And that will be reflected as we speak on consent searches on the next slide. Go ahead please. So we implemented a new practice in 2022 to be consistent with legislative changes. But when we are going to conduct a consent search, officers always will create a record. And our efforts actually go beyond state law. We have a policy that requires the handing out of a document that explains to them when they can refuse, and what a consent search is about. If you go to the next slide, that should be on there. So this card is in five languages. It talks about their rights as it relates to consent search when they can, you know, stop that search, etc. If an officer this does not prohibit an officer from making a legal search, such as if they have a warrant and they're taken into custody, there will be a search if they have probable cause, etc. But we are trying to do our best to educate community on what their rights are and what they can expect in these encounters. And so the next slide and our bias free policing policy remains in effect. We continue to make a tremendous effort around outreach, as well as going beyond the requirements of state law. Certainly, all our officers have been trained in implicit bias. I intentionally went over this quickly for a couple reasons. One, I know that the caps team has already seen it. I know you've had some information. I know that time is short, so please don't take my quickness here as an attempt to get out or get away if we want to go into more detail, I've got all evening, but I do want to say that it would be virtually probably unreadable to go line by line through this thing, but we are one of the most transparent agencies in the country. And if you go to your website, our website, you can find crime reports, statistics, use of force stop data and so much more. I know caps had some questions. As I said, I'm hoping those responses were sent. If they were not, I have some responses. If we want to talk about that now or at another time. Thank you.
262 Thank you, chief colleagues. Questions that we need to make sure to get answered before we take public testimony. Councilor Kanal.
263 Yeah. Thank you. I don't think I got any additional information on the benchmarking, so I'll just mention that here in case there's anything that can be done. In that time. I did get a lot of the other information through this. I just from the committee. So I just wanted to express gratitude for that. But if there is something that was emailed, I'd love to see.
264 I will get that to you. Yes, sir.
265 Thank you, councilor Clarke.
266 Thank you, madam chair. I'm not sure these are appropriate for the report, but I didn't see anything about. And the report missions or anything around open air drug use and arrests around open air drug use. And a day doesn't go by that I don't hear about that in district four. And people asking, why aren't there more arrests? This is illegal behavior going on all around my district or our district here, and I didn't see anything in the report about that. And then another question. We can talk about it later. It may not be appropriate now, but I was just at the national night out, really enjoyed that. And I know we have neighborhood emergency teams around the city, but we don't have neighborhood watch anymore, do we? Is that something that we can talk about later, or maybe about bringing back or how to build off of the nets? Possibly because I think we need more neighborhood eyes.
267 Yes. Councilor regarding the open drug use, there could be a section in the report that we just didn't add in this condensed version. I don't recall, but I will go back and look. But certainly and that information is on our on our data portal. But I'll make sure that you get some specifics on that. And I was always a fan of the neighborhood watch program. A lot of changes in the city over the years governing that, but can remember the work they did around, you know, septet, community outreach. They were a real bridge between community and the police. Certainly be glad to have more of a discussion about that another time.
268 You councilor Councilor Smith.
269 Yes.
270 Thank you, chief de. I saw an amazing number. It was 50% increase in shoplifting and I was wondering if that had anything to do with unemployment numbers, homelessness, I don't know. Did they give any indication why that has increased so much?
271 Well, there's certainly a lot of things that may be causing that. Our primary belief is that we have been working closely with retailers regarding reporting of shoplifting, and we've been more intentional about following up on that. And so I believe, you know, organizations as a retail organizations, they're reporting more. So, for example, you know, the new season's over on mississippi was receiving a tremendous amount of just daily theft, not high dollar amount, but daily theft from some repeat offenders. So, you know, north precinct has been working with them. But, you know, you get somebody who steals multiple times over the course of several months that can certainly inflate the numbers.
272 And that's what I was wondering, is it because people are hungry and they're going into the stores and they're stealing just because they don't have food? And it was an alarming number.
273 Yeah. And we choose not, you know, as we look at theft and theft reporting, certainly realize the, the spectrum of which people, you know, do steal for, you know, basic survival. One of my, you know, favorite plays being les miserables. I always think of that in that regard. So that's certainly one aspect of it. We want to be sensitive to those human interactions and needs. We are really focused. Our retail theft missions are really focused on the larger, greater impact, organized retail thefts, which we have seen the service of search warrants on storage lockers around the city just in the last six months, recruiting hundreds of thousands of goods. Most major retail theft has moved online. And, you know, historically people would steal, go sell it and buy drugs. We're now finding that the fences are online through facebook marketplace, ebay, others. And they're actually employing people to go out and do theft on their behalf. So that's where the increase, I believe is coming from.
274 But then online theft, that's that's the fbi. Right.
275 Well, we work closely with the online partners. I mean, you know, so there are systems being put in place by some of that, but the fbi may or may not participate depending on interstate and things like that. If there's interstate crime okay.
276 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Dunphy.
277 Thank you. Chief, I'm looking at some of these numbers that are tracking a lot of national decreases in violent crime. I'm also looking at these statistics that we have on here with regard to retail theft and mission specifics. I'm not seeing call response times on a lot of these things. And I'm wondering, the biggest complaint I get in district one is that they call the police and no one shows up in a situation in which somebody's calling for help. The grocery outlet in parkrose is an example calling for help, and it takes sometimes over 45 minutes for an officer to show up if they show up at all, how would that information be appear in this document?
278 Yeah, I don't I mean, I so let me back up it whether it's and I don't think it's in the document itself. It is on our website. But I can tell you that our response times right now to high priority calls, we call one, two and three high priority calls is running about 17 minutes, which is an improvement. It was about 24 minutes when I first started, so we're at about 17 minutes now. Earlier this year we were 16 minute mark. But I hear you and I think that is a significant concern. And that's something if we'd like to see added to the report specifically, I'm happy to do that.
279 Well, related and similar, if a call for assistance comes in and it is deemed as a low priority call, say it is. Yeah, grocery outlet, someone's stealing bags of chips and it's not deemed at the time worthy of a police officer's time or a response based off of capacity as compared to 2023, for example. Would that call appear in this report in terms of the overall way that the police have been responding to the needs, or would that would that just simply not be considered? I mean, it seems like if you could have responded in 23 and you couldn't respond in 24, would that look like a decrease in the number of calls in this report?
280 That's a that's a good question. It's not one that I had considered. I think what you're asking, and I'm going to I'm not going to ask you to respond at the moment, but I'm thinking in terms of this needs to be something that we probably need to look at jointly between boec and us to make sure that's the case, because that could certainly influence the numbers. Right? If this was something we would have done in 23 and we no longer do in 24, we dismiss in 24. So I appreciate you raising that. I don't know the answer, but we can definitely have a conversation about that.
281 Thank you.
282 Thank you councilor, councilor Avalos.
283 Kind of going in the same vein as councilor Dunphy in the fact that district one residents very much complain that they don't get a response, but even more so, I have a in my own personal experience, a gripe that I have is, for example, a few months ago I was trying to file a report. I looked online and looked at the criteria for the way the online filing of report and the thing that I was trying to report did not meet the criteria. So I was calling the police to do this. And because, you know my life, I can't just call the police in the middle of the day to file a report. Right. So often I was doing it like after work kind of thing, like six, seven. And then I they would say that they would get back to me. Right? And I would get a phone call at two in the morning, at four in the morning. And when I would call the next day, I'd have to start over because they were like, well, we called you back. My phone was on silent at four in the morning. And so that's really frustrating for people because I think there's also this like in my experience, just in that experience, not a good system of follow through. Right. And I see, for example, in the scenario that councilor Dunphy was saying, like, what are your systems for, at a minimum, giving a phone call? Because I think even just acknowledgment that it was received and there's a next step would go a long way for district one, because again, it's just an inconsistency in the way that we receive any kind of response. But especially if, you know, I'm you're giving me a call in the middle of the night and then I have to go, like I literally tried three different times to do it and I finally gave up. Can you speak to how you all operationalize your follow up?
284 Yeah. So a couple things. One, I apologize for that. I agree that's frustrating and disappointing approach. We've tried a couple different methods for a while. We had a supervisor that was filling in up at boec that was actually triaging those and responding back to people. We had to, you know, mitigate that because of costs and so forth. But we were seeing some success there in reducing that delay for folks just to say, hey, we got your phone call and we're trying to get, you know, we're trying to get to it, but if we can't get to it tonight, maybe we can get to it, you know, tomorrow and set up a time. We also are looking at opportunities to use officers. In the past, we've used officers who were not able to work the street, but they could take those calls and do that kind of follow up, you know, by looking at the board and going, okay, this call has been holding, let's call this person and just say, hey, it's only been this amount of time. The third aspect is supervisors on the street working with them and getting them more engaged in that process, which is not been typically part of what's been expected of them, but it has been part of the discussion about figuring out how to increase that responsiveness. So well aware of that concern, I also know that we're looking closely at our online reporting system, which I believe is inadequate. And we have been working with a couple of different vendors to see if we can improve on that, because I do think our online reporting system is not meeting the standard number one and two. It is a very common way now for people to engage with public service. So we will we will continue to try and be diligent. I don't have an answer for you right now, but I'll take that information back and continue to remind our officers that at least that outreach can make a difference.
285 Yeah, and I think at a minimum, it would be good to look at what are the things that you have, like the list of what you can report online, maybe expanding that, especially given the fact that it's hard to get in touch with the police. The situation that I was trying to report, you know, it was like a reporting, a threat that I had of someone. And again, per the list, it said that I couldn't do it online, but because I tried so many times and then I ultimately couldn't get through, I just feel like, let's lessen that barrier of the online reporting so at least people can put on the record things, because really, I was just wanting to start a paper trail for myself to protect myself. So I would encourage you looking at those criteria for online reporting. Thank you.
286 Thank you councilor. Any other questions, councilor Zimmerman?
287 Thanks for the report. Obviously, there's always a million directions in which we can grow to improve, and I've always appreciated that perspective that you brought. Chief, in terms of closing question for me is like, what are the things that you would need from this city council or from this mayor in order to improve faster? Whether it be time calls this type of system that is more, you know, apt to how we communicate in this decade, what do you need to bring us into the police department that you envision this city needs at this point to better our metrics?
288 Well, I appreciate the question, councilor, and the resource conversation that we've had since, you know, the first of the year certainly comes top of mind. And I don't want to be just focused on that alone. I think that messaging and demonstrating a commitment as a city and as a council and as leadership as a city, that we're committed towards moving forward in all aspects of city service. So public safety being one of them, and the police bureau as well, has a very competitive time right out there for hiring. We make an emphasis around hiring. I spoke with the mayor of seattle on Saturday, along with mayor wilson, and they've hired almost 100 officers this year. Now, last year they hired about 20 or 30, he said. But last year they weren't offering $50,000 signing bonuses. And that's what seattle is doing right now. And they had over 4000 applicants this year and are growing. And so obviously that's not applicable in Oregon. There's reasons why we don't offer those bonuses, etcetera, etcetera. But my point is, is that we are in a very competitive time. And I think messaging to community the importance around public safety, all aspects of it, not just policing, and that we're committed to improving the overall quality for portlanders, is really key.
289 Can you elaborate? Why is that not applicable? I know that in an industry I've spent a long time, and we offer some pretty darn big bonuses to recruit people into the ranks. Why is that not applicable?
290 State law prohibits us because of fair wage rules, so we can't do that here in Portland.
291 So another example where our hands are tied by good intentions okay.
292 That along with.
293 Deeply disappointing.
294 Say I'm sorry that.
295 Last I said that along with polygraph for hiring because we are the only state in the western united states that doesn't use a polygraph either for hiring. So there's always a few things that we can consider and look at. And I'm not saying that I'm a huge proponent of polygraph, but there are some things that are unique to Oregon when it comes to hiring law enforcement that I think would be worthy of a discussion.
296 That's very helpful. Thank you. Chief.
297 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Ryan.
298 Council president, I don't need to go now. I think I could wait until after the testimony. I want to make sure we get to that soon.
299 Okay. Thank you, councilor Novick.
300 I'll take councilor Ryan's lead.
301 Councilor Kanal. Okay. Thank you all. We may call you back up, but I think we'd like to hear from members of the public before we reach 5:00 today. Keelan, could you please call up our first testifier?
302 First up, we have charlie, michelle wesley joining us online.
303 Welcome, charlie. Go right ahead.
304 Hi.
305 So I'm still a little shaken about the maddie Clark all the testimony and stuff, so bear with me. I'm charlie, michelle wesley, I'm tribal member and a survivor of police. Excessive and deadly force. And I'm here to represent Portland copwatch as well as some of my own thoughts and feelings. This is a very abbreviated summary of Portland copwatch is continuing concerns about the 2024 PPB annual report, which left us with many more questions than answered. And as someone with direct directly impacted by police violence, the statement on page three should be a major goal, not just embedded under homicide, which states preserving human life remains our top priority. I mean, what about the many Clark johnson's lives? And some of these things have probably already been added to the final report, but I'm still going to state the concerns and hopefully they won't repeat themselves next year, given the concerns over the last 25 years where police data show black portlanders being stopped at a 3 to 4 times the rate of their representation in the population, we're just concerned. And with the analysis and data that I heard a little while ago from chief de. Also in the report, doesn't mention the goals of transparency that I could see. And in various places where accountability is mentioned, it barely touches on holding police accountable for violating policy. And with no mention of the new oversight system to be independent of the police. And in previous years it mentioned houselessness. But this report avoids the topic, even though a large percentage of ppb's resources are used for this dire issue. And once again, there is a little information about officer use of excessive and deadly force, including people with mental health crisis, which has been proportionally doubled since 2023. There are links I know. Anyway, the other information minimized in the report is the necessity for Portland street response, which brings new policies to expand resources, personnel hours and abilities to respond to mental and behavioral health crises, saving the lives of some of our most vulnerable. This program needs permanence, and it needs a proportionate funding to meet these community needs. Also, if there is an authentic response to the five year racial equity and inclusion plan, which was barely mentioned except they completed their first year, it should reflect the statement in the plan, and I quote, the organization must be able to see itself not only through its own perspective, but through the perspective of those who it directly impacts. This should include the corroding threat of racist white supremacy, which anti-racist moral character, action of honesty, healing, growing and transformative opportunity, which is change in nature, taken seriously as a priority of extreme prevention and real de-escalation, and a tool throughout employment. I just want to say one little quote and then I'm done.
306 Thank you. Charlie, go right ahead. But then we do need you to wrap up, okay.
307 At the recent pcc listening meeting last week in regards to daniel, I mean, damon lamar johnson, tragic death, a mental health provider testified. And I paraphrase, we treat mental health folks in crisis on a daily basis and have never had to kill one, not one. Thank you.
308 Thank you very much.
309 Next up we have kip silverman.
310 Welcome. Thank you for being here.
311 Yeah. Thank you for having me. And I'll try to keep this under three minutes. So first of all, hello, counselors. Chief de city staff. My name is kip silverman. I use he him pronouns and I am co-chair of the policy and reform subcommittee on the Portland committee on community engaged policing. That's a lot to say. I've held this position for nearly two years now, and I find it both a privilege and a challenge to serve my community in this role. As I take of great seriousness and gravity, the work we do. And I'm going to go off script, so I apologize. But the last couple weeks have been really difficult. Sitting in here today listening to testimony has been very difficult. I do want to acknowledge that the Portland police bureau, including chief de, are regularly engaged with our meetings and provide support and input and conversations for us to navigate these complicated and serious challenges. The conversation around the 2024 report is something that did come through our committee. We had not revisited some of the recommendations we made, and I haven't seen them in the report, but I want to say that while I appreciate the reporting and the dedicated team of analysts, that the settlement agreement helps pay for after two years, I'm still not seeing the level of information and data that I think is necessary for us to keep evolving towards what we all agree publicly that we want. This report is more accessible than some previous ones, but also picks and chooses where to dive into details and where to provide a high level statement, which I find problematic. A few examples stops data. We've talked about a lot. Use of force data is just touched on the bias crime section and training transparency. Ideally, the full report should contain all the information or at least reference, where information can be found in the same level of detail. I'm going to jump ahead and share something that I shared a judge simmons courtroom last week. I think it was it's easier to be in compliance or policy when the directives and policies are not tested or pushed to the edges. However, when a choice is made by an incident commander on the scene to escalate or engage, the outcomes are generally no different than when the settlement agreement, which is why pccep exists, was signed 13 years ago, and damon lamar johnson's case, if it's found the officers involved, followed the directives, we need to acknowledge the directives are still not adequate. If they didn't, it will be interesting to see what accountability looks like and whether the community accepts it. I want to state that intentions do not equal outcomes, and without substantially better reporting that is consistent in all categories of details. It's very difficult for committees such as pccep, our elected officials and Portland residents to provide meaningful input and feedback and keep rebuilding the trust with PPB, which we know still needs to be improved across multiple communities. Briefly, my recommendation to this council, which I heard echoed earlier, is I think we need a frank, honest conversations about how to connect the intents to the outcomes and visit every opportunity to ensure the outcomes match them with hard conversations and humility. Thank you.
312 Thank you very much.
313 That completes testimony.
314 Thank you council.
315 I just signed up. Sorry.
316 Sorry I missed you. Come on up. Sorry.
317 Thank you.
318 Hi everyone again. My name is odelia zuckerman. I'm the co-chair of pccep, which kip is also a part of. Apologies to folks on the caps committee. We've already heard what I'm going to say here today, but I'm going to say it again. So I just I also want to note that the internal affairs investigation of the manning Clark case was completed in 2024, so presumably it would be a part of this annual report. I didn't see it mentioned there, but for the most part, today I want to talk about stops data more specifically, I think that the purpose of the annual report, as I understand it, is to inform the public about progress and challenges at PPB. And I think sometimes the latter is missing from reports like these. Specifically, it needs to include more information about the ongoing challenge of ensuring police stops are free from racial profiling. As we know, PPB releases a separate report entirely about stops data, including the nature of stops and a racial disparity analysis using the benchmark collision that chief de mentioned. So, per ppb's 2024 report, a benchmark value depends on the extent to which it can help explain alternative reason why stops, why stop rates might be different among different groups of people. So essentially the reason PPB says it uses the injury collision benchmark and crime victimization as a benchmark is because I believe it's saying that drivers of different races are more likely to experience traffic collisions. So therefore, PPB stops drivers of different races at higher rates because they are worse or more dangerous drivers. Pccep has always considered this data practice to be confusing at best and problematic at worst. It's difficult to grasp why we wouldn't instead use readily available census data. Pccep has long questioned this practice, and last year recommended to pbb that they utilize an additional analysis called veil of darkness that the state uses, though we do appreciate that PPB has committed to referencing this, bpb did reject our recommendation. I want to emphasize again that pccep has long taken issue with the injury collision benchmark for many years and fails to understand. Why stops wouldn't be compared to baseline census data. And then lastly, I just want to end with a few numbers that I think are really important to point out that while we're hearing that there's no racial disparities, I think the numbers tell an extremely different story. So 46% of the focused intervention teams are the fit team stops where black people and 21% were latino. Out of all of ppb's non-traffic stops, 22% of people stopped were black. This exceeds the collision benchmark that PPB uses. Sorry, I'll wrap up. And yeah, I guess I would just urge you all to consider this data more deeply and why it's not a part of the report, and why a lot of challenging aspects and things folks are critical of are kind of missing from the report. Thank you.
319 Thank you very much. Okay. Councilors, I believe that wraps up our testimony. And we had a few people who were ready to speak before we moved into public testimony. So let's get back to that list. Councilor Ryan.
320 Thank you, madam president. Thank you, chief jay, for being here today and to dc bob cozzie and the leadership team for providing counsel with this update today. I think it would be wise, chief dave, if you came back up to the dais. Thank you for doing that. I thought it was important that we got the testimony all the way before five. So thank you, council president.
321 Thank you, councilor.
322 I appreciate your willingness, first of all, to come to council time and time again, especially today after that emotional settlement item we just completed, perhaps the most challenging pairing of two council items that have gone back to back in my time on city council. And so I just like the testimony we just heard. I think we're all trying to get present with now this report, after we experienced that very emotional item. Chief day, your engagement with the community is so consistent and appreciated. I went to three national night out events on Tuesday night and in all three, not just the one I saw you at directors park, but at all three. I had people come up to me to talk about you personally. They said that they see you out in the community all the time, that you're very approachable, and they give you that. You alone give them hope that the police bureau is being reformed and that things are on the rise in the city of Portland. So I know we were talking about retiree hire, and I know that you're actually in that category. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you for coming back and providing the leadership that we need at this time. I really don't think you get enough attention for your relentless 24 over seven hours that you put in as a public servant to the city, so I just had to give you that. And your voice is so consistent. Also, when you're welcoming members of the police force, I try to get to most of the swearing in ceremonies. I do that for a couple reasons. One is it's I love listening to their biographies and I encourage all council members to try to get to as many as they can, because it humanizes them as human beings that want to be public servants. And when I listen to their backgrounds, I'm actually quite taken with hope that we are reforming. They sound like people who could be social workers. When you listen to much of their biographies, and then it also is nice to be there with their families who are proud of them. But there's a hesitation to is Portland want to welcome police officers? So it's a way to help them with their own self respect that they can have and dignity in doing this very difficult job. Being on the front lines. So I just wanted to start with that. I do have a few questions about the report. It was heartening to see the numbers be reduced for many crimes in 2024. They're still higher than they were in 2019. However, like councilor Smith, I saw the shoplifting numbers and they were really startling. Yet I wasn't surprised because in the multiple conversations with storefront owners and our main streets, especially across district two, it's something I hear over and over again, and it's just one reason why it's tough for them to make any profit. Is this this concerning upward trend from last year? Are you seeing that again in 2025 with limited data that you've seen so far this year?
323 I haven't got the data right in front of me, but I would say it continues to be a point of emphasis where we have been struggling and I've been trying to get implemented more of a property crimes overall follow up. You know, even though we have seen a decrease 23 to 24, I think that that misdemeanor crime that you're speaking of, particularly in the individual businesses, could use more attention. So I haven't like I said, I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but I don't have reason to believe that it has decreased based upon my conversations and interactions, both with officers and community. The comment you made, I hear as well, frequently when I'm out and about, especially from small shop owners, it's really impactful.
324 And I've heard we're talking about organized crime when we're talking about shoplifting. Can you share if this is true and how we can effectively address the crime plaguing our business? Also, do you have any staff that are specifically focused on this detail, and how many are currently allocated to that?
325 Yeah, we do have an investigator that works with the broader organized retail task force for the metro area that's in that's in relationship with them. It's not assigned to them, but we have a connection to the broader organized retail theft effort, deterrent effort that's going on in the metro area. So as I mentioned earlier, we are seeing a lot of this moving online and in significant numbers. So but as we look at property crimes overall and then also looking at burglaries, trying to you know there's a lot of tie in. So think of theft. Obviously burglaries are a separate category, but there's a lot of connectivity there. So we're also trying to identify and I'm working with really appreciate the da working with me and seeing if we can't maybe stand up for a short period of time. A task force that can address burglary specifically and see if that maybe isn't another way to approach the theft problem, because there's no shortage of that. And we're only, you know, touching a very small percentage of those burglary reports as well.
326 Thank you. I've also heard from my colleagues that the desire to utilize public safety support specialists differently. What are some ways that you could see expanding this role?
327 Yeah, I'm really encouraged. As we came out of the budget cycle, it was clear from my experience as well as I think counsel's observations, that we have not been maximizing the use of our ps3's, and we have put together a task force on that. It's moving quickly, and I was just briefed on it last week. So immediately, right now we're just looking to get our house in order around policies, as well as making sure they are meeting the expectation of their current assignments. But I do think there will be opportunities in the future for them to be able to, you know, add to that. But I don't believe we're maximizing what current expectations are just in terms of call response. For one example, boec does not dispatch the ps3, so we identified that as a mistake. It's essentially the ps3 can just sort of pick and choose and wait to decide. And not that there's any ill intent, but sometimes people need some prodding. And so, you know, we're going to start getting them dispatched, getting them recognized and assigned, and then we can look at other opportunities. There's also bargaining implications there because of the role of ppa and etc. But I'm really hopeful that probably by the first of the year, or certainly by the time we're into next spring, we're going to have some really good reports for you in terms of the use of ps3's.
328 Your colleague next to you was a little animated for you. Bob. Did you want to add anything to that?
329 You know, as I think about the resources and now in my in my interim seat, I'm beginning to see a lot of the pieces starting to it's a puzzle for me, and I'm a puzzler. I love putting puzzles together. So I see all of these resources and I'm hearing all of the stories the past two months and learning what those resources are. And I'm very interested in helping chief day, helping the police bureau, and really helping the public safety service area really put all of these pieces together in a way that works more effectively for our entire community. The ps3 is a good example of that. I know the chief mentioned earlier, you know, expanding the use of the of the web reporting tool and councilor Avalos that's something I think that would have helped you in that particular case. But knowing what some of the constraints are, if you have suspect information, the web portal wouldn't work. So you have to call and wait through that process. I'm also very interested in seeing the reimplementation of the police liaison at boec, because I believe we really got a lot of bang for the buck there. It's just a matter of trying to find the right resource to fill those shoes. And that's what the what I understand a lot of the dilemma is in being able to re-implement that, that in and of itself, the initial data that I saw a few years ago with the pilot was effectively about two and a half fte on the street. So there's a lot of work that can be accomplished by by something like that. So thank you.
330 That's a good conversation. I also see that there are 142 public safety support specialist applications processed in 2024. What is the plan to bring that number of applicants up?
331 Right. We had a briefing today at 11:00 or 1:00 this afternoon about our recruitment and our efforts around hiring and retention and training, and including the professional staff. And so, you know, we are really tying in the ps3 is, you know, it's really a two, three options. Hopefully we'd like to get to a third option. Two right now. One, it's a great public service opportunity. We have people come in the ps3 program. That's what they want to do. They want to serve as a ps3. At the hiring ceremony last week, one of the new ps3 hires is an immigrant from algeria, and as I spoke with him, he's, you know, learning that he speaks english, arabic, french, italian, and now he's learning vietnamese and certainly made me feel inadequate in my conversation with him. But also, he just deeply desired wanting to serve Portland and wanted to be in that role. But we're also seeing some ps3's come in because they want to go into police work and into law enforcement. So we're looking at, you know, what are some opportunities around that? There may be some opportunities if we would be comfortable lowering the age requirement, maybe for a ps3. I don't know if that's a good idea, but I just want to say that's that's out there in terms of recruitment. And then finally, if we are successful over the course of the next year with the revamp of the project, we will have a ps3 lead position, which will give them some upward mobility within the program to maybe aspire to attract other applicants. Those are the three areas that I'm seeing right now is a focus for recruitment.
332 Sorry. Now I'm curious. We're all curious, what's the age requirement now?
333 Age requirement right now is the same as an officer at 21.
334 It is 21. Okay, great. Just a couple more. Again related to staffing. You've talked with counsel throughout the budget process about the relationship of hiring more officers and reducing overtime. It's obviously quite complex. We heard frustrations from some council members and of course from portlanders about response times, about police reports. Clearly there's always been capacity issues of late. Is there any specific target number you've identified in this fiscal year, next fiscal year, for new officers hired as part of the overtime reduction plan?
335 Right. We are targeting a goal of 21 officers a quarter. So that would put us at, what, four quarters? 84 would be the goal. And this is all sort of a work in progress. As as we go forward, I will tell you, we hired 12 here in July and we're having another hiring ceremony the end of September. I think September 29th, we'll probably have upwards of 15 or more, but that would be the that would be the hope. And also we're seeing a decrease in separations. And it's really going to be largely contingent upon may of 26 retirement.
336 Thank you.
337 I'm gonna end with two things. One, I really enjoy when you ask the members of the police bureau to get out and enjoy the city, you say that every time I'm at one of the swearing in ceremonies because they're they're forced to see the most challenging things in our city. They deal on the front lines with some very depressing, traumatic events that they take home with them as well. And so I really appreciate that you asked them to go out and experience the joy of Portland, to bring some balance into their service. So thank you for always doing that, and I hope I'll just end with this. Also, I hope my colleagues will consider continuing to do ride alongs in all three shifts in your districts. And also, if you haven't yet, please consider participating in the community police academy. I know I participated this last winter, councilor Smith was there, councilor Novick was there and it was so eye opening. Thank you so much, chief dave, for your time and for being here at the dais with us. Once again.
338 Thank you, councilor.
339 Thank you, councilor, councilor Novick.
340 Thank you, madam president. Chief, I wanted to second councilor Ryan's observation that it was inspiring to go to a swearing in ceremony. I've only gone to one of them, but it was great. And I also really appreciated hearing your remarks. There it was it. Listening to you. I felt like if I were joining the force, I'd be honored to have you as a leader. So thank you. During our settlement discussion just before this, it suddenly occurred to me to look to see if there's any statistics on variations in police shootings between cities. And I found a website which maybe it's not legit, but it looked pretty legit. That had some startling numbers. The variations this is as of 2018. It was like data from 2020 18, but the variations were astonishing. In new york city, police shot 0.2 people per 100,000 population between 2000 and 2018. In saint louis, police shot 36 people per 200 000 per 100,000 population in that time period. And there's some other variations that are kind of surprising. I mean, like fort worth was one of the best 25 cities in terms of lack of shootings. Denver was one of the worst. And we were in either the top 25 or the bottom 25. And I was just wondering, have you taken a look at that data? And it seems based on that, that there's got to be differences in training and policies that lead new york to have spectacularly lower police shootings than any other city. Is that something you've taken a look at directly?
341 That comment? No, I have not. I would have to circle back with training division. I am a believer in getting out and stealing any information we can find from other agencies. I'm a big proponent of that. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. There are about 18,000 police departments in the united states, and so the varying, you know, standards, expectations, communities, they police, it's so different. One of the challenges we face in America with policing is there is no best practice. We use that term, but there really is not a best practice. And the reason I say that is because every individual community has a different expectation of their police and how their police perform and what they want their police to emphasize or be a part of. So there are some challenges there, but I'd love it if you'd email me that website. We'll definitely run that to ground and circle back.
342 Thank you. One question I had you talked about the drug seizures, gun seized from high level drug dealers, etc. And I have I mean, I do not like drug dealers. I think arresting them and taking away their, their, their drugs and the abstract, I have no problem with that. But I am curious about the effectiveness of it. How much evidence is there that seizing drugs and arresting even high level drug dealers makes any difference as to how many people use drugs and how many overdoses there were? I was taking a look last night to see what studies there are in this, and the one thing I saw that was consistent was a number of studies have shown that overdose deaths tend to increase in the immediate aftermath of a drug seizure. And what they the explanations they offered for that is the drug supply might be interrupted for, you know, a couple of weeks and then and people stop doing the drug and then once they get access to drugs again, their tolerance has gone down and they take the same amount they used to and they die. And the other explanation was they start going to less reliable sources and get contaminated drugs. And I just wonder, I mean, as compared, for example, to spending more resources as a addressing, as councilor Clark was saying, open air drug markets, which are livability issue, does it really make any sense to be devoting resources to arresting drug dealers and seizing drugs?
343 I think.
344 In all of these conversations, I don't think you can draw a straight line from law enforcement to this. I don't I don't think that's the case. I really strongly believe that a safe society is based upon the social contract that exists among them. And pardon me, council president, you're running out of time. But a quick story from a safari we did in east africa. And we landed, of course, out in the middle of the savanna. And of course, everybody's black because we're in east africa, and it's just my wife and I. And we get into a jeep and we're being taken to a lodge. And I was on the way to the lodge. The guide says, hey, do you mind if we go by the market and I want to provide some money to my wife who's at the market? Well, I'm not going to say no. Plus, we're curious people, so now we're way out in the middle of nowhere, we're off course, and we're the lodge things to be. And we show up into a village. It's got about 500 masai tribal members in it, and they're buying sheep and goats and cows, and there's chaos around. And he gets out of the jeep and it's an open air jeep. And my bags are sitting there. And I said, what are we going to do about my bags? He looks at me and he said, your bags are going to be fine. Now, you know, I'm 30 year cop. I don't trust anybody. And all of that bias that I think somebody mentioned earlier is coming. This flooding over me as I'm sitting and standing in this place. And he said he said, bob, he said, all of these people are masai and we don't steal from each other. Now, you can sit here in the jeep or you can go look around. And unfortunately, I married up and my wife's like, come on, get over yourself. And we went and looked all around and we had an amazing experience in this unique way and came back and our stuff was untouched. And as we got in the car to drive away, he looked at me and he goes, now, I wouldn't do that in nairobi. And the point being is that we weren't safe because there was a police officer there. We were safe because there was a social contract. There was an agreement of behavior among 500 people, whether they all knew each other, I don't know. They didn't know me. I didn't know them. What I will say, going back to your point, councilor, is that we are doing a ton of work with Multnomah county and outreach workers and others. So I think the driving down is not directly related to the arrest of drug dealers. I believe it's also our interaction with Multnomah county health, our interaction with outreach education. Everybody has narcan. Today. We're administering narcan multiple times a day. But I don't believe that we can not be at the table, that there's a there is a role for law enforcement and policing in the area of drug enforcement. But the numbers that we're seeing in the decreasing we're seeing, I think, is once again, similar to the shooting size. It's a holistic effort.
345 Yeah. And I mean, I'm not saying there's no role for the police when it comes to drugs. I think that open air drug markets are something that you can break up or at least try. And that's a liability issue. And even we're going to be talking about the deflection center in committee next month. And I think that it's possible that arresting drug users and diverting them makes actually a bigger difference in terms of use than arresting drug dealers. Counterintuitive that might sound. Couple of quick other questions I had of the. Car crashes where there's an injury or death. Do you know what percentage of those alcohol is involved?
346 Not off the top of my head, no.
347 Okay.
348 And then I was going to suggest that. I read that a fairly large percentage of homicide victims are homeless. Have also read that a fairly high percentage of traffic crash deaths involve people who are homeless. And I was just going to suggest that that might be something to talk about in the next report and talk about what some of the reasons for that are, because, I mean, the perhaps encouraging thing about that is maybe if we could if we're successful in addressing homelessness, we can reduce the number of homicides and traffic deaths. But there's also a question of is if those that population is particularly vulnerable in both those ways, is there something we could do about it. So that's just a suggestion for next time, right.
349 Thank you sir.
350 Thank you.
351 Thank you councilor, councilor Canal.
352 Thank you, madam president. Thank you chief. And also I, I think I saw earlier some of the folks from enterprise services here as well. So thanks as well. I did find much of the information that was provided since the committee very helpful to me, and I appreciate the information that's in the I think it's called abbreviated. Yeah, abbreviated annual report. I think that that covered a lot of the things that I brought up in committee. So I just wanted to start by acknowledging with some acknowledgments here, in addition to saying that I think the hiring data was really helpful for me to understand, and I'm really glad to see progress towards filling vacancies. It doesn't get said a lot. Pb has, I think, the most or second most in terms of hours of training of any, I believe, of anyone on the west coast. The data that we saw this is a year and a half old, but it was around the time of the hiring of the civilian dean that that came out, and it's worth bringing it up. And finally, I did want to commend assistant chief lavelle and officer harnsberger for the work that they do, including the presentations on the road show for the draft version of this report with relation to other, other departments around the country. I've said before, I'll say it again. I would not trade for seattle's police bureau under any circumstances. And it's not just a seattle bias or sports thing, but I think it's worth pointing that out. I would like to suggest taking a look at newark, which has gone through a lot, and but also had an entire year in 2020 of all years where they did not fire a single shot. No police officer in newark over the course of a year. And I also note that it was the first year of COVID. They did lose six officers to COVID, but not to any other anything in the line of duty in that regard. So I just wanted to mention that I, I want to maybe look at two things specifically here first, and I know this probably isn't going to be a conversation around this report, but just to ask for next year, I do think that it would be worthwhile to put more information around the use of force, because it is helpful to have that understanding. And I specifically would love to see the names of folks in there this year. You know, matthew, for 2024, matthew greer, nicholas thorne, richard sean perez and matthew holland were all killed in 2024, three through shooting and one the death in custody, which was mentioned in there. But I think that's worth explicitly acknowledging as it relates to stop data.
353 Is interrupt.
354 You just.
355 A minute.
356 To find that. Is there a chance that we can get together and flesh that out a little bit more?
357 Absolutely.
358 Really clear on it. I heard what you said and the names, but I just want to make sure that we get you. So maybe we can set up a time to do that.
359 Absolutely. Okay. Thanks.
360 Thank you. Yeah.
361 So I.
362 Appreciate that. I think there's three different parts to this conversation. And I asked when the joint terrorism task force report came up earlier in the year, the question I asked then was, how and when do we start? What's a good timeline to talk about what we might need as a council for next year's report. And the information? Information I was given was August. And so we are actually starting that conversation. So I'll ask here for next year. And I know you do quarterly stops, data reports as well as annual. What's a good timeline? If there were to be a change in the benchmarking, how long does that take to implement in a in an annual report?
363 Yeah, that's a great question that I don't have an answer for right now. My first thought was, you know, we would want to make that decision now so that we can adjust. You know, it's going to take like it was going to take a year. Right? Data. That data is going to flush through the system, the benchmark, the expectation. You know, we do these as you mentioned quarterly. So there may be some other opportunity there. But but that's another thing we should we should put our list and get an answer for.
364 So great. Yeah. And I'll.
365 Oversimplify and say there's data collection. There's data presentation. And then there's sort of the interpretive aspect of it with, with the benchmarking. And I think the quarterly, the quarterly reports just kind of have those the presentation of.
366 Data presentation.
367 Yes.
368 Without the benchmarking. So I think it's there I have no concern about the quarterly side. I actually do want to flag. So there's the injury collision benchmark. There's the, the I can't remember what the one is called off the top of my head. I just lost it. But there's the and then there's the veil of darkness conversation, which I think was answered. I've received a lot of data on that, and I appreciate that. The injury collision one. And I think what we're ultimately looking at is how accurate, how do we interpret when we hear 13 or 14% of drivers stopped are black? Are we comparing that to the 6% of Portland that's black, 6 or 7%, or we're comparing that to some other number, and if so, what? And we're being asked to compare through this process to about 14% of people who are drivers involved in a, in a collision that resulted in injury, which was reported to police. And it acknowledges a couple weaknesses in the census data, in the information that's in the report, which includes and I think this is notable, includes the fact that people drive into Portland and that there are people who are in Portland during the day, in particular, who are not necessarily residents. And so census data wouldn't capture that. And I think it's fair to say that, that there are weaknesses to census data. I also think it's notable that portland's the folks in the suburbs are less racially diverse on the whole. And so as a result, it actually makes the point slightly more salient that there is a disparity between the demographics of those who are in town during the day and those who are being stopped by police in traffic stops. The other thing I'd mention, and I'd love to help solve this with you, because I did go on a ride along with the xt, and I'm grateful for that experience. And I one of the things that that I learned through that is how the physical form by which we collect the data on stops has a lot of weaknesses to it. And so the benchmarking and the presentation of data is only as good as the collection. And I think there's some, some weakness there where we are asking officers to give information based off of what they thought at a time. That was in the past. There's a there's a couple sort of chronological issues with that. And I think this is one of those things that got, it seems, imposed on the police bureau. So I believe there was a statement earlier, but I don't know what the exact words were, but the, the unintended consequences of some good intentions there. And so I'd love to help solve that in a way that both meets the needs of the settlement agreement and helps the public understand exactly what's going on. And then separately, I think as councilor Morillo brought up the benchmarking aspect of it is also important. One thing that that councilor Ryan also has mentioned in the past to, to build off of that in other contexts, is the need for numerical data and kpis, for lack of a better word, on on different parts of our city's work. And one of the ones that we've talked about in the past is clearance rates. And so I'd also like to see in next year's report clearance rates by type of, by category of, of allegation in order to help the public understand where there may be better or better parts of the performance or places in which there needs to be some work done, some room for improvement, that's a thing that we hear about quite a bit as counselors is, you know, there's this situation of a person not being caught. There's the same person coming and breaking windows or, you know, vandalizing at a at a place up in saint john's that's a dojo up there that they come and they've talked to us at a couple of, of our town halls. And the idea that it's catch and release, partially because we haven't had any, any charging done. And I know that that's partially the da. And I don't mean to put that all on the people on, on pb, but I think the clearance rates would help us there because then we could go to the county and say, actually it's on you. It's not actually on the city right now. So that would be really helpful for, for me in this regard for next year.
369 Councilor noting that I got all of our staffs and the professional staff on board with staying until 530. Do you think you're close?
370 I yeah, okay.
371 One thing.
372 I'll let you go first.
373 I just.
374 Well, for the record, I just had to look this up because I thought this data was true. Beaverton is actually more diverse racially than Portland, and so is Gresham.
375 Let's take this conversation offline so that councilor Kanal can wrap up so that we can vote and let our staff.
376 And I'll.
377 Also just.
378 Yeah, I'll.
379 Take that offline.
Procedural episode · turns 380–388
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380 Thanks. That we were the most diverse.
381 I.
382 I said the suburbs as a whole. But we can talk about that more later. And I love to have the conversation about kpis more broadly than just clearance rates as well. Thanks.
383 And I'm sorry to cut you off, councilor. I, councilor Smith, in one minute.
384 I just want to thank everybody for giving the presentation. But just as a point of order, madam president, I didn't get a chance to go back to something that I said yesterday. I wanted to make sure I got that on today. We had we were given some information. I asked the city, you know, the city administrator, a question about $52 million. And I had some information wrong. And I just wanted to say to you that you don't have to worry about that. We got we got the information wrong. And so in the future. And I did call jonas and said, I will call him first if I have any concerns like that, because that was a big number. And I thought, wow, good times. Thank you. All right. Bye bye, counselor.
385 Thank you for modeling, bringing that back. Keelan seeing no one else in the queue. I believe as a report, we need a motion on this. Is that correct? Is there a motion to adopt the report?
386 So moved.
387 Second.
388 Colleagues, keelan, could you please call the roll?
389 Koyama Lane. Maria.
390 Hi, Novick.
391 Hi, Clark.
392 Hi, Green.
393 Hi.
394 Zimmerman. Avalos.
395 Hi, Dunphy.
396 No.
397 Smith I.
398 No.
399 I.
400 I'm sorry, was that I okay. Thank you.
401 Ryan I. Pirtle-guiney I.
402 The report is accepted with nine yes votes and one no vote.
403 Thank you chief and mr. Bob cozzie and colleagues. Thank you. Councilor Kanal. I'm sorry to cut you off there. I just want to make sure that we get folks to the other things they have. This evening. I will adjourn tonight's meeting.
404 To the next one.