What Happened to James Chasse

New Chasse Information at New Web Site

2009-05-06T20:50:00.001-07:00

Everything made publicly available about what happened to James Chasse until September 2008 is archived at this web site.

It will not be taken down. Email info@mentalhealthportland.org about broken links or for information about the site. Because of spam, no further comments are collected on this site.

For information about what happened to James Chasse which we have accumulated since September 2008, see the web site for the Mental Health Association of Portland.

Thanks!

Crisis training takes some cues from Memphis

2008-09-11T07:03:00.000-07:00

Portland program requires all street cops to be taught intervention techniques
From the Portland Tribune, September 11 2008

In Memphis, as in Portland, change started with a death.

In Portland, two years ago, the death of 42-year-old schizophrenic James Chasse Jr. at the hands of Portland police prompted public outcry for change in the way officers here deal with people suffering mental illness.

In Memphis, Tenn., a similar death 20 years ago — of a 27-year-old schizophrenic man who was shot by police after he brandished a knife — was the beginning not only of change for the Memphis police department, but for police throughout the country.

The outcry from the Memphis mental health community led the Memphis police department, in partnership with local mental health activists, to form the nation’s first Crisis Intervention Training program. It’s a program similar to one that, after Chasse’s death, Portland police have turned to as their primary response to the local call for change.

But the evolving Portland program is significantly different from the one in Memphis — for the better, according to some, and for the worse, according to others. The critics say the police don’t have adequate backup in their new efforts to help the mentally ill.

Crisis Intervention Training is based on 40 hours of classroom work designed to teach police officers to recognize the signs of mental illness in people they are dealing with, and then to use social worker techniques to defuse situations that might otherwise lead to use of force.

By the end of 2008, Portland will be the largest city in the country to have required all its street officers to be trained in crisis intervention.

Nevertheless, many experts say that Portland’s program, as currently configured, never will achieve the success that Memphis has had.

Memphis effort multipronged

According to Memphis officials, crisis intervention training is only one part of their overall solution, which includes a designated place for police to take people with uncontrolled mental illness, and a partnership between police and local mental health advocacy organizations.

“I believe the Memphis model is the gold standard,” says Bradley Cobb, executive director of the Memphis chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “I believe it is a lifesaver.”

A 2000 analysis of three cities and how their police responded to incidents involving people with mental illness showed that Memphis police rarely ended up arresting subjects with mental illness — only about two out of every 100 they dealt with on the street.

In some cities, as many as 20 percent or 30 percent of people with mental illness are taken to jail. In Memphis, a city comparable in size to Portland, almost all are directed into mental health care rather than the criminal justice system — an outcome mental health and police officials agree is preferable.

Departments in Memphis and Portland do not track police use of force involving people with mental illness. But Memphis police say they’ve got a pretty good idea that their use of force dropped when they instituted crisis intervention.

According to Sam Cochran, who has coordinated the crisis intervention program for Memphis police since its inception, in the first three years after the program was instituted, injuries suffered by police officers during crisis events dropped by more than 80 percent.

“If you’re seeing where officers are not getting hurt, you can pretty much conclude that (citizens) are not getting hurt,” Cochran says.

But the program being developed in Portland differs from the Memphis model in three significant ways.

All Portland street cops trained

In Memphis, not all officers are trained in crisis intervention, and that is intentional. In fact, Cobb says, after early successes, the Memphis chief of police told him he wanted to train all of the city’s officers, and Cobb says he told the chief that wouldn’t be a good idea.

Cobb says that — similar to a police agency’s special tactics team — not all officers are qualified to routinely deal with people suffering mental illness.

“It’s more than just training,” Cobb says. “You can get training anywhere. It depends on the officer. It really has to come from the heart.”

In Memphis, police officers volunteer to be trained in crisis intervention, and then are screened, so only those selected get to wear the crisis intervention badge and are in charge on calls involving people showing signs of uncontrolled mental illness.

Before Chasse’s death, about 250 Portland police had received crisis intervention training, following the Memphis model. Now, Portland is training all its street level officers. And that’s a good idea, says Jason Renaud, a longtime Portland mental health activist and former executive director of the Multnomah County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“They’re wrong,” Renaud says of Memphis. “I’m convinced James Chasse proves that. The people who took crisis intervention in the past (in Portland) were looking for promotions, or were people already sensitized to the issue (of mental illness) and knew it was useful. It’s the folks who think it’s not useful training who benefit the most from it.”

Training helps alliance form

Another difference between crisis intervention training in Memphis and in Portland is the training itself. In Memphis, mental health advocates take part in the classes, from describing their own experiences with police to role-playing.

Cobb says that approach has forced the mental health community and police officers into what has become a strong alliance. “They (mental health activists) feel they have ownership in this program because they help do it,” Cobb says.

Portland is training more than 500 officers. But Liesbeth Gerritsen, a crisis counselor hired by the city to coordinate its crisis intervention training, said that while the city once used mental health advocates in its training, it was unable to find enough advocates to continue participating.

Instead she uses a videotape of interviews with local advocates.

Still, even with an entire street level force trained in crisis intervention, Portland’s police are at a disadvantage in dealing with the mentally ill because of the city’s lack of a dedicated mental health triage facility, according to Cobb and Cochran.

Portland police don’t have a place to take people once they have them in custody — something Cochran, in charge of Memphis’ program for 20 years, calls “a tragedy.”

“You’re undermining crisis intervention training,” he says.

In Memphis, crisis intervention officers are trained to take subjects they suspect of having out-of-control mental illness to a special center set up at the University of Tennessee medical center. The officers are able to drop the subjects off there and leave within minutes, and by agreement with the city, no drop-offs are refused.

In Portland, police officers’ choices are usually jail or one of the local hospital’s overcrowded emergency departments, where the officers cannot leave until physicians have signed off on a transfer.

That process often takes hours, according to police officials. That makes dropping them off at jail a much more appealing alternative, even if officers know people won’t get the help they need.
Assessment center lacking

Multnomah County officials have plans for a mental health crisis and assessment center to be located in Northeast Portland, but details and funding have not yet been worked out. The facility, if funded, could be years away from opening.

Portland police get calls about people whose primary problem appears to be mental illness about 360 times a year, according to bureau statistics.

But Gerritsen says the collapse of the Multnomah County mental health system, from the near bankruptcy of Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, the county’s primary provider of mental health services, to inadequate state funding for psychiatric services for the poor, means there are more Portlanders with untreated mental illness than ever.

Add in the lack of an assessment center, and that means there probably will be another James Chasse event in Portland — despite improved policing.

Still, the new system appears to be working so far. Renaud says he hasn’t heard a complaint about police abusing someone with mental illness in at least six months — and those complaints used to come in regularly, he says.

“Portland has done a terrific job at getting prepared for the next experience,” Renaud says. “Perhaps the next experience has already happened and the crisis intervention training intervened and no one was hurt or killed.”

Some plans turned into action

In the wake of James Chasse Jr.’s death, Mayor Tom Potter launched a Mental Health and Public Safety Initiative, involving regular meetings by a wide variety of mental health providers, county and city officials, and advocates, that produced a 10-page action plan involving 14 separate recommendations.

Two years later, some have become reality and some haven’t.

Based on one recommendation, the Portland Police Bureau and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office have trained officers and law enforcement deputies with special Crisis Intervention Training classes. To address another recommendation, the county has increased its funding for Project Respond, a nonprofit group that specializes in crisis intervention with the mentally ill.

However, the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners did not fund mental health screening nurses for the jail booking area, and local jurisdictions have not produced funding for a new mental health coordination and oversight body.

The county is making progress toward setting up a 16-bed mental health crisis and assessment center, so police don’t have to take the mentally ill to jail.

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Julie Frantz and county Community Health Services Director Joanne Fuller chair the committee that was supposed to oversee the implementation of the initiative’s recommendations. The committee has shifted its focus to setting up a “mental health court” intended to divert the mentally ill from the criminal justice system.

Why did James Chasse die?

2008-09-11T06:09:00.000-07:00

From the Portland Tribune, September 11 2008

Police tactics and handling of mentally ill still being challenged two years after man’s violent death

James Chasse Jr. was a gentle but troubled soul in his youth. In 1980, he fronted a local band, the Psychedelic Unknowns. Over the next two decades, Chasse descended into schizophrenia until he was taken into police custody on Sept. 17, 2006, and died a short time later.

Almost two years ago, on a late sunny September afternoon, near the corner of Northwest 18th Avenue and Everett Street, a gaunt, 145-pound man behaving erratically came to the attention of Portland Police officers and one Multnomah County sheriff’s deputy.

He ran. They chased him. And then, somehow, he ended up with at least 26 broken and shattered bones in his rib cage and a punctured left lung. Less than two hours after the start of the encounter, after being taken to the jail, then toward the hospital, the man died in the back seat of a police car, at the age of 42.

Known to his many Portland friends as “Jim-Jim,” James Chasse Jr. had been a gentle but troubled kid who became a singer in local punk bands before descending into schizophrenia.

Since his death Sept. 17, 2006, he has become both a symbol and a rallying cry for mental health advocates as well as police critics, while for police he is viewed as yet more evidence that the mentally ill should be cared for by caseworkers, not cops.

But despite the tremendous attention given to Chasse’s death, the investigations, and a lawsuit filed by his family, there’s still uncertainty about how and why James “Jim Jim” Chasse died. His death remains an unsolved whodunit — or maybe, a whatdunit.

Conflicting accounts from those involved, officers contradicting the official story, and attacks on the state medical examiner’s autopsy have hung large question marks over Chasse’s death. And none of the officers who fought with him themselves admit to punching, elbowing, kneeing, kicking, tackling or otherwise making contact with Chasse with anything close to enough force to explain his injuries.

An old friend of Chasse’s, Jason Renaud, a longtime activist and volunteer with the Mental Health Association of Portland, says “the unanswered questions” about Chasse’s death have made his case almost a parable in the mental health community. “Everybody knows the case, every clinician, every patient,” he said.

Adding to the continuing questions, the city of Portland has persuaded a judge to keep secret key public records until the federal lawsuit filed by Chasse’s family either goes to trial next February, or is settled.

While the Portland Police Bureau has released records of a two-week criminal investigation into Chasse’s death, a nearly two-year internal affairs investigation will remain secret. A spokesman for Portland Mayor Tom Potter called that confidentiality a “routine legal step.”

As a result, the main source of new information concerning Chasse’s death has been his family members’ lawsuit and their lawyer, Tom Steenson, a civil-rights specialist with a reputation as a mild-mannered legal pit bull.

Players in Chasse’s death

The family’s disclosures, combined with public records and other information, give a glimpse into the various players who had a role, or may have had a role, in James Chasse’s death. Here are the details on those players:

• Cop No. 1 — Portland Police officer Christopher Humphreys

Several eyewitnesses, including a fellow cop, reported that Portland Police officer Christopher Humphreys tackled Chasse and fell on him. However, Humphreys denied it, saying he pushed Chasse, then flew over him.

Police officials say Humphreys forgot about landing on Chasse due to the excitement, and contend it was mainly that impact — not the ensuing fracas — that led to Chasse’s many broken ribs and other bones.

The State Medical Examiner, Karen Gunson, found that Chasse died of “broad-based blunt force trauma to his chest.” A second autopsy commissioned by the family, concluded that his injuries were from a beating.

• Cop No. 2 — Portland Police Sgt. Kyle Nice

Portland Police Sgt. Kyle Nice joined in the fight to subdue Chasse, who according to police and civilian eyewitnesses, was resisting vigorously. According to a police timeline, Nice called for an ambulance “for an unconscious male” about five minutes after the initial contact with Chasse.

Minutes later, medics from American Medical Response, the company that holds the county contract on emergency ambulance services, arrived.

Although the bureau maintains the medics cleared Chasse to be taken to jail rather than the hospital, Nice, when interviewed by detectives, suggested that the decision was his. He said the medics asked, “Do you want him transported?” and that he replied, “No, we have criminal charges. He’ll be going to jail.”

• Ambulance crew — American Medical Response

AMR’s medics said they found Chasse’s vital signs to be normal. They also reported Chasse fought them as they tried to render aid. Steenson, however, has suggested that there’s no way Chasse could have suffered the injuries documented by the state’s autopsy — let alone the additional ones found by the family’s autopsy — and still have normal vital signs.

The family’s lawsuit accuses the AMR medics of failing to do a complete medical exam.

• Jail medical staff

Although, according to the police bureau, the AMR medics felt Chasse was in good enough shape to go to jail, the nurses at the downtown Multnomah County Detention Center did not agree. Looking at him through the window of a separation cell, they told the officers to take him to the hospital, causing the officers to drive him toward Portland Adventist in outer Southeast Portland.

The lawsuit faults the jail nurses for not attending to Chasse in jail. However, a corrections grand jury later that year laid the blame elsewhere, saying the officers failed to inform the jail nurses of the extent of Chasse’s injuries.

• The system — the county’s mental health system

In the wake of Chasse’s death, Potter and Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer both said the county’s frayed mental health system should bear part of the responsibility.

According to a police report, Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare documents show that on Aug. 17, 2006, and Sept. 8, 2006, Chasse’s mental state was worsening and hospitalization was called for.

On Sept. 15, 2006, two days before Chasse’s death, a caseworker accompanied by a police officer conducted a welfare check at his apartment at Northwest Broadway near West Burnside Street, intending to try to put a mental- health hold on Chasse, only to have Chasse flee when he saw the officer.

• The mayor and the police chief — Potter and Sizer

In the wake of Chasse’s death, Potter said Sizer told him the officers who arrested Chasse were under pressure to reduce public drunkenness and other public antisocial activities. The family’s lawsuit faults a variety of city policies, including what it calls an unwritten one of trying to remove the mentally ill from downtown.

Finally, it claims that Portland city officials should have known that Humphreys had a history of excessive force and misconduct. After Chasse’s death, a Portland Tribune public records request showed that Humphreys was one of the most prolific users of force in the police bureau, with 78 reported incidents in his seven years on the force.

Though critics claim a variety of breakdowns and misconduct led to Chasse’s death, a federal court hearing in June suggested his family’s lawsuit faces tough odds.

There, in the federal courthouse downtown, Steenson, wearing a dark suit, sat alone at one table while his four opposing lawyers —one for the county, two for the city and one for AMR — sat at two others.

Judge Garr King, a former Multnomah County prosecutor, was openly skeptical of some of Steenson’s legal arguments, and ruled against him by directing that the case be split into two. One trial will involve the officers and the other will consider whether city policies were to blame. Legal observers say the ruling will make the case more difficult for the family to win.

Renaud, however, thinks the family has a strong case. “They are very determined,” he said. “They’re not going to settle. So it’s going to be public, and it’s going to be ugly.”

EXTRA - What Happened to James Chasse

Judge Orders Chasse Trial Split In Two

2008-06-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

from the Portland Mercury, June 4, 2008

A Federal Judge has ordered that the James Chasse jr. trial be split in two this morning, between the individual police officers and the City of Portland, in a move that could drastically affect the outcome of the case.

Chasse Family Attorney Tom Steenson: Determined before court today…

Federal Judge Garr King this morning approved the city’s motion to bifurcate the case, splitting it into two trials, one to decide whether Officer Christopher Humphreys, Sergeant Kyle Nice, and Sheriff’s Deputy Brett Burton were liable for Chasse’s death, and one to decide whether the city, (and also the county, and American Medical Response, the ambulance firm) were responsible for Chasse’s death by failing to adequately train and supervise those officers. There’s lengthy analysis after the jump.

While the city and county will end up paying for damages in both trials, the decision to split the case in two is controversial, since Steenson has been arguing all along that the city and its cops were dually responsible for what happened.

Importantly, Judge King granted the motion to bifurcate the case based on the city's assurance that it will not rely on a "qualified immunity" defense. In other words, Officers Humphreys, Nice and Burton, do not plan to argue that they are immune from prosecution because the law, and the city's policies, did not explicitly prohibit them from handling Chasse the way they did. Often, police officers use the qualified immunity defense to avoid prosecution in cases like these. For example, a boiled-down qualified immunity defense is: "You didn't tell me I couldn't hit him in the head with my fist."

It's likely that the city would prefer to split the cases in two so that Steenson is less able to show a jury that the officers involved are representative of the systemic failure of the police bureau to train and adequately supervise its officers. Strategically, it makes the case harder for Steenson to win by breaking it down into smaller, less emotionally loaded chunks. But waiving the qualified immunity defense also places the individual officers at higher risk of being found liable for what happened in the first trial.

Evidently the city feels it has a pretty strong case.

Judge King also denied the city's motion for summary judgment to dismiss injunctive relief in the case today. Essentially, the city was arguing that if it is found guilty of causing Chasse's death through lack of proper procedures, by, for example, ignoring one of the key recommendations of the 2004 Parc Report to raise the level of impact strikes to the head, sternum and ribs to "deadly force" level, it shouldn't have to do anything to change its policies and procedures after the trial. Judge King said it's way too early to tell.

Chasse's father, brother, and mother were in court today. So was Sheriff's Deputy Brett Burton.

Chasse's father, James Senior: Walks into court this morning...

Before court this morning, Steenson said: "The Chasse family has been very committed to seeing that the city makes changes to its policies and procedures." On the bifurcation, he said the city and individuals' responsibility "should not be separate," and he is likely to be disappointed by today's outcome.

The case continues. Currently a trial date is set for September 2009, although Judge King this morning talked about moving for an earlier trial, possibly in early 2009. You can also find out more about the case here.

Familiar Face to Sue City After Cops Bust Down Door

2008-05-29T23:49:00.000-07:00

From Willamette Week, May 27, 2008

A Portland State University student who's been a persistent headache for local cops is back in action.

Richard Prentice, 34, gave notice to the city last Friday that he intends to sue for $10,000 after police allegedly broke down his door without a warrant.

"The whole apartment was shaking," Prentice tells WWire. "They said, 'we're coming in no matter what.' "

Prentice says the incident happened in part as retaliation by police for his role in a well-publicized incident June 14, 2007. Prentice was arrested that evening while taping posters to the wall of the federal courthouse downtown that accused officers of murdering James Chasse Jr., a schizophrenic who died in police custody in 2006.

Prentice told reporters he was intimidated by officers in his cell after he was arrested that evening. He notified the city of his intent to sue over that incident, but a lawsuit has not yet been launched.

In his latest court filing, Prentice says he also plans to sue after police responded Feb. 12 to a neighbor's noise complaint at his apartment at 3110 SW 13th Ave. He says police broke down his door and arrested him. His trial for disorderly conduct is scheduled for June 2 in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

Prentice says he has no doubt his latest arrest was connected with his poster incident last year. "They know who I am. They don't like me," he says.

The police and the city attorney's office do not comment on pending lawsuits.

‘Alien Boy’ makes guest appearance in Portland lawsuit

2008-05-18T14:50:00.000-07:00

From the Portland Mercury, May 17, 2008

City attorneys say Chasse film could stoke hostility against police officers

“Alien Boy,” a local documentary about a schizophrenic man who died in police custody in 2006 has been dragged into a legal tug-of-war between the victim’s family and the city of Portland.

Portland filmmaker Brian Lindstrom has only just begun shooting the project, which focuses on the life and death of James Chasse Jr., a 42-year-old Old Town resident who succumbed to blunt-force trauma after being tackled and tazered by police officers outside the upscale Pearl District restaurant Bluehour.

But city attorneys say the film, together with continued media scrutiny into the episode, could stoke hostility toward the officers involved and make it impossible for them to get a fair trial in the civil wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Chasse family in U.S. District Court.

At stake is a gag order imposed in October by Judge Dennis Hubel, who sealed key documents in the case, including an internal police bureau investigation; Independent Police Review records; records of previous disciplinary action against the officers; cell phone records; and medical records.

Lawyers for the Chasse family and the news media (including the Portland Tribune) have asked the judge to release those documents; lawyers representing the city have tried to keep them under wraps.

As long as the order remains in place, it remains unclear what information the documents contain. But city lawyers now argue that the documents could turn public opinion against the officers, even if they are ultimately withheld from a jury.

“Releasing irrelevant information, which is inadmissible at trial, could prejudice defendants by resulting in hostility towards them,” wrote Deputy City Attorneys James G Rice and David A Landrum in a May 6 court brief. “City defendants’ concern about potential hostility due to dissemination of irrelevant discovery material is exacerbated by the media scrutiny of Mr. Chasse’s death, including the documentary film, ‘Alien Boy,’ being made about Mr. Chasse.”

The brief was filed in response to a motion by Tom Steenson, the Chasse family’s lawyer, requesting that the documents be unsealed. Steenson had no comment about the motion, the lawsuit or the film.

Deadly encounter in the Pearl District

The deadly encounter took place on Sept. 17, 2006, when Portland police officers saw Chasse walking down Northwest Everett Street near the I-405 overpass. According to published accounts, the officers believed Chasse was “acting odd” and suspected him of urinating against a tree. They followed him for several blocks, catching up with him near the intersection of Northwest 13th Avenue, where they ordered him to halt. Instead, Chasse attempted to run away, prompting Officer Christopher Humphreys to knock him to the ground.

In the ensuing melee, Chasse was tackled, tazered, punched, kicked and hogtied as he struggled desperately against Humphreys, police Sgt. Kyle Nice and Multnomah County sheriff’s Deputy Brett Burton.

The altercation occurred near Bluehour, where several patrons dining al fresco — including developer Homer Williams — witnessed the struggle.

Chasse died in the back seat of a police cruiser of the injuries sustained in the encounter, which included a punctured lung, 16 broken ribs and multiple contusions.

The Multnomah County medical examiner ruled that Chasse died of blunt-force trauma to the chest, but declared the death “accidental.” A grand jury later cleared the officers of criminal wrongdoing.

The family, however, believes Chasse was beaten to death.

Documentary dragged into hall of mirrors

The Chasse case has become a flashpoint in the ongoing debate about police brutality and the larger issue of how police officers should approach people with mental illness, who sometimes react in unexpected ways, and whose symptoms may mislead officers into thinking they are drunk or high.

Chasse, who was also known as “Jim-Jim,” was a well-known figure in the Portland music scene who lived independently in an Old Town apartment building, and had no criminal history.

It was with the aim of rendering a more complete, three-dimensional portrait of Chasse, that director Brian Lindstrom embarked on “Alien Boy.” His last film, “Finding Normal,” a documentary about recovering addicts in Portland, won wide praise for its sensitive approach and has been screened in City Hall.

Other contributors to “Alien Boy” include reporter Matt Davis of the Portland Mercury, who broke crucial elements of the story; and advocate Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland, who knew Chasse in high school.

The film’s title comes from a song written about Chasse in 1979 by his friend, Greg Sage, lead singer of the seminal Portland punk band, the Wipers.

Keeping documents from the public

Initially, filmmakers simply wanted to shoot a film about the tragedy. But now the project in being dragged into the legal battle.

“We’re disappointed, but not surprised,” says Renaud. “The city is trying to use the film as a rationale to keep these documents from the public.”

Renaud agreed that the film’s viewers might walk away from the theater believing that the officers involved in the incident were responsible for Chasse’s death. But, he said, the vast majority of potential jurors were unlikely ever to see the film; and those who were swayed by it would be excluded from the jury pool by the city’s lawyers.

No date has been set for arguments on whether the documents should be released.

Portland police, firefighters unions mostly sitting out politics this year

2008-04-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

The groups say they're frustrated with a general lack of respect from City Hall
From The Oregonian, April 9, 2008

Most election years, Portland's police and firefighters help play kingmaker, giving thousands of dollars and priceless get-out-the-vote help to a slate of carefully chosen candidates. This year, however, they're largely sitting it out.

They're fed up with the guys who currently occupy City Hall and frustrated by what they say is a general sense of disrespect.

For certain candidates, it's a real blow. Symbolically, what's better than appearing in a campaign ad or flier next to a firetruck? Practically, what candidate can't use the telephone banks and lawn sign parties both unions are well-known for?

"Not getting involved represents a dramatic response for both of our unions," said Robert King, a Portland detective and president of the Portland Police Association. "Part of what it indicates is that we would both like to see more support out of the people in leadership positions than what we've gotten. The people who work in public safety in this city do not feel respected or heard."

King's more than 1,000 members decided to endorse Nick Fish, Amanda Fritz and Commissioner Randy Leonard in the three city commissioner campaigns. They're staying mum in the race to replace Mayor Tom Potter, the first time in years they've chosen neutrality.

The cops say they've spent the past four years feeling scrutinized and painted as thugs by city leaders.

They point to the outraged responses among elected officials to the death of a mentally ill man named James Chasse Jr. in police custody in 2006, to the City Council's decision to end Portland's drug- and prostitution-free zones, to Potter's decision to fire a respected lieutenant in an on-duty shooting last year even though Chief Rosie Sizer recommended a lesser punishment.

"In this election, we really are hoping for a change," King said. "We hope for a group of people who are more understanding of what we're doing, who are more likely to look at the good work that so many of us do every day.

"In the mayor's race at least, it just seems like the best way to ensure that is to stay neutral."

Both major candidates for mayor, City Commissioner Sam Adams and travel business owner Sho Dozono, sat through endorsement interviews with the police, and King said there were things that union leaders liked about both of them. There are also things they worry about.

Adams has suggested that if elected, he might give control of the Police Bureau to someone else -- perhaps Leonard, a retired firefighter, something that intrigues union leaders. Adams has worked hard to be a friend to labor during his first term on the City Council, including working to stop Wal-Mart, famously anti-union, from building in Portland and devoting one part-time staff position to a labor relations expert.

But Adams can be abrasive and stubborn, as the union leaders know from watching him operate for more than a dozen years, during his time as a city commissioner and the decade he spent as Mayor Vera Katz's chief of staff.

Dozono has generally been on the pro-cop side of downtown safety issues as a leader in the Portland Business Alliance and its predecessors. But he's also new to government -- something of an unknown quantity, in other words -- and won the endorsement of Potter, the union's public enemy No. 1.

There's a certain irony there: Potter, after all, was a career police officer and retired as Portland police chief in 1992. Yet he was never beloved during his days in uniform and has made even fewer friends as mayor.

Four years ago, the police union endorsed Potter's opponent, Jim Francesconi, although the union rescinded that after Francesconi ran a radio spot criticizing Potter -- and, union members thought, the police as well -- for his handling of a disciplinary case.

Officers feel as if they've spent four years paying for the original Francesconi nod, King said.

Portland firefighters have a more specific grievance: They want a healthy raise.

Last year, the union's 680 members elected a slate of new leaders who ran on a promise to get them more money. The problem: City leaders have changed their approach to bargaining and say they've already conceded a lot in trying to get all the city's unions on the same contract schedule.

The new leaders among Portland's firefighters weren't part of those meetings and say their members have been underpaid for years compared with other departments in Oregon and elsewhere. At various points over months of negotiations, they've argued for a 3.5 percent, across-the-board pay increase -- on top of an annual cost of living increase -- a shorter workweek and higher overtime pay. The city has offered smaller raises and bonus pay for officers during shifts spent operating heavy machinery.

But the two sides haven't been able to craft a contract, and things have grown tense. The city and the union seem headed toward arbitration this summer.

So, the union's leaders opted not to endorse anyone this year. What, they decided, is the point? "There's really no reason we're going to arbitration except for poor communication," said Ken Burns, the union president. "We think, quite frankly, that's a commissioner's job."

Burns and his colleagues are even on the outs with Leonard, a former firefighter who ran the union before entering politics. Leonard said his endorsement interview with union leaders focused solely on the details of the contract and ended with both the candidate and his questioners feeling angry and insulted.

How will it end? Both unions still have plenty of time to change their collective minds.

In the meantime, the two mayoral candidates bear the stamp of approval from other labor unions: Adams got the nod from the Northwest Council of Laborers, and Dozono has the endorsement from the Carpenters Union Local 247.

Commitment Issues: Chasse Death Cited in Involuntary Detention

2008-03-19T20:21:00.000-07:00

From the Portland Mercury, March 20, 2008

Multnomah County's commitment court ruled at the end of 2006 that an allegedly mentally ill woman should be locked in a psychiatric hospital, because it would be safer than wandering the streets like James Chasse — where the person risked being "beaten to death" by cops, according to the judge.

The Oregon State Appeals Court overturned the woman's involuntary commitment last Wednesday, March 12—and, in the process, revealed the judge's statements—saying Judge Lewis B. Lawrence (pictured) was wrong to draw the conclusion that the woman "was a danger to herself because some officer, at some unknown point in the future, might kill or harm her."

The woman, who was not named under commitment statutes designed to protect her confidentiality, had fought with police when she was originally taken into custody on a mental health hold.

Referring to this, the commitment court took "absolute judicial notice" of the fact that "fighting with police... is certainly something that puts mentally ill people at risk of death or serious physical injury," according to the appeals court verdict.

"The court commented on the then-recent death of James Chasse, stating that Chasse, an unarmed mentally ill person, 'was confronted by police, and he was beaten to death,'" the appeals court verdict continues.

Significantly, the commitment court took "absolute judicial notice" of Chasse's having been "beaten to death." In legal terms, a judge is only supposed to take judicial notice of a fact when it is obvious and undisputed.

Chasse, a schizophrenic, died following an altercation with police officers and sheriff's deputies on the corner of NW 13th and Everett on September 17, 2006, though the exact circumstances of his death are mysterious. His family is continuing to pursue a lawsuit against the City of Portland, Multnomah County, and the ambulance firm American Medical Response, who cleared Chasse for transport to jail.

Commitment verdicts are sealed from public scrutiny once they are made, unless they are overturned at appeal. However, the appeals court has overturned 23 commitments in Multnomah County since December 2006, either because the commitment court had insufficient evidence to commit the person, or because procedures weren't followed.

In one case, a commitment was overturned because it was held "in the hallway of a hospital while appellant was naked in a hospital room, in the midst of a medical crisis, and unable to hear or participate meaningfully in the entire proceeding," according to the appeals court verdict.

Usually, a person is ruled a danger to themselves or others because of, for example, repeated suicide attempts, thinking bleach is a magic drink sent from heaven, carrying a knife around and believing they are on a divine quest, or believing they are impervious to gunfire.

Simply having a tendency to fight with police isn't sufficient, says the appeals court, no matter how dangerous a judge may believe the police to be.

Policing the Mentally Ill

2008-03-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

From OPB.com, March 18. 2008

LISTEN TO "Policing the Mentally Ill" (24MB MP3)

In September of 2006, a schizophrenic man named James Chasse died in police custody, sending shockwaves throughout Portland and the state. At the time, Mayor Potter promised an overhaul of the system that failed Chasse.

A year and a half later, the Mental Health Association of Portland is working on a documentary to make sure we never forget James Chasse, and Portland police are well into a training program designed to help avoid any repeat incidents. The Crisis Intervention Training program, which used to be voluntary, is now required for all current officers and a new law this year made this sort of training mandatory for all new police officers statewide.

Is this enough? What else needs to be done to ensure the inevitable interactions between law enforcement and the mentally ill are as positive as possible?

GUESTS:

* Jason Renaud: Volunteer with Mental Health Association of Portland and former executive director for local National Alliance on Mental Illness chapters
* Raul Ramirez: Executive Director of the Oregon State Sheriff's Association
* David Zeiss: Coordinator of White Bird Clinic's "Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets" (CAHOOTS) program

Report faults jail care

2008-03-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

County memo says two in-custody deaths will not be charged as homicides

From The Portland Tribune

A 43-year-old man told nurses he had chest pain. He received anti-anxiety medication, only to die of a heart attack.

A 36-year-old woman told nurses she had pneumonia – and that her spleen had been removed, making the disease particularly dangerous to her. Already coughing, she was given an inhaler, which did not stop her from asphyxiating on her own lung fluid early the next morning.

Both were inmates at the Multnomah County Detention Center, and both told the admitting nurses not just of their current symptoms but of red flags in their medical history. And in both cases the nurses did not consult with doctors before administering medications which, in the end, did not work.

These, at least, were the findings of criminal investigations into the deaths of Jody Gilbert Norman and Holly Jean Casey, released Thursday by the Multnomah County district attorney’s office.

Despite the findings, the March 10 memo detailed why no one would be prosecuted for the inmates’ deaths, although it raised questions about the quality of care received in jails.

In the memo, Senior Deputy District Attorney Don Rees wrote that “after reviewing the facts and circumstances surrounding the deaths of inmates Holly Jean Casey and Jody Gilbert Norman I conclude that no single person or persons can be held liable for any degree of criminal homicide as defined in (state law).”

Reese added, “To the investigators who worked on these cases and I, the deaths of inmates Casey and Norman seem to raise serious questions about inmate management and health care practices within the Multnomah County corrections system and the level of health services.”

While prosecutors will not charge anyone with homicide, they are pursuing charges against two nurses who worked in Multnomah County jails. One, William Lee James, is alleged to have altered patient records to falsely suggest he consulted with a doctor prior to prescribing anti-anxiety medication to Norman. Another, Kimberly Joers, is accused of falsifying drug records.

Moreover, Casey’s ex-husband has retained two local attorneys, Hala Gores and Matt Kaplan, to sue the county.

One nurse still on leave

Asked about the jail deaths, county health Director Lillian Shirley, who oversees the corrections health division, said, “This is something that we take extremely seriously and put a lot of planning time around analyzing what went wrong.”

Shirley added, “Now that the criminal complaint is done we can proceed with our personnel investigation, and I promise you it will be completed within a week.”

The first of the two deaths investigated occurred in 2005, after Norman, a petty thief, was admitted to jail while complaining of chest pain and a history of angina. The nurse, James, gave him Ativan and indicated in records that he’d spoken with a doctor before administering the drug.

Contacted in December, James told the Portland Tribune he was following an unofficial policy at the corrections health division and said he felt terrible about Norman’s death.

Shirley denied that her department had tolerated the practice described by James.

The second death, that of Casey, occurred Jan. 4 of this year.

Casey, with a history of drug abuse, was booked for failing to appear in court on a second-degree theft charge. She was given an inhaler after reporting difficulty breathing at 11 p.m. She “reportedly” showed some improvement, but then continued to complain about stomach and breathing problems, the Rees memo said.

At about 5 a.m., the deputy on duty advised a jail nurse that Casey was continuing to ask for medical care, but the nurse “declined to contact or treat Casey,” Rees wrote.

She was found to be dead at 7:30 a.m.

The nurse involved, Glenda Baxter, remains on leave while the county decides whether to discipline her for the treatment of Holly Jean Casey, according to Shirley.

Asked hypothetically about the standard of care when a patient with no spleen complains of pneumonia, Dr. Scott Fields, the vice chairman of the family medicine department of Oregon Health & Science University, cautioned that “confounding factors” can complicate cases, and that it’s hard to generalize when a pneumonia diagnosis depends on detectable symptoms.

However, he said the spleen “happens to be very important” for removing the bacteria responsible for strep pneumonia, meaning a patient lacking that organ could receive special attention.

He said he would evaluate that patient to confirm signs of pneumonia – check the heart rate, listen to the lungs and perhaps do an X-ray. Once the symptoms were confirmed, antibiotics would be administered.

Cases include Chasse in 2006

These are hardly the first controversial deaths to occur at or be involved with Multnomah County jails.

In 2003, an unemployed bricklayer who was well-known in the Portland music scene, Nick Baccelleri, died when corrections health personnel gave him an overdose of methadone rather than his prescribed medication. The county paid $200,000 to his family in that case.

In the past three years, according to County Attorney Agnes Sowle, the county has paid out $233,000 to settle four claims against the corrections health division. The largest of those, for $200,000, was paid to the family of Anthony Delarosa in January 2007.

According to a lawsuit filed by his estate in 2006 that accused corrections health of inadequate medical care, Delarosa died on Oct. 1, 2004, while suffering heroin withdrawal symptoms. He vomited and slipped into a withdrawal coma in his cell, but, according to the lawsuit, the jail defibrillator either was missing or did not function properly.

And in 2006, a corrections grand jury faulted the jail’s handling of James Chasse Jr. on Sept. 17 following a controversial altercation with two Portland police officers and a county sheriff’s deputy that led to his in-custody death.

According to the grand jury’s report, the jail nurse was not informed of the extent of Chasse’s injuries, the inmate was not taken immediately to the closest hospital when it looked as if his injuries might be life-threatening, and the jail lacks a protocol requiring arresting officers to specify the extent of any physical force used on an inmate being booked.

Jail’s not ‘a well population’

Shirley said that after any death at the jail, her department takes action to prevent any contributing factors in that death from happening again.

She noted that her unit examines some 40,000 inmates each year, many of them in poor health, drunk or on drugs, and with prior medical problems. So are deaths inevitable?

“This is a very tough job,” Shirley said. “Every day with the prison population, the people that are charged to take care of their health have to make a tremendous amount of decisions. And we’re not talking about a well population here.”

Rees’ memo also notes that Joers, the nurse prosecuted for tampering with drug records, was an admitted drug abuser who was hired by the county just one month after being fired from a Portland hospital for “misconduct involving the loss of a narcotic medication.”

Two weeks ago, in a separate case, a former county jail nurse, Catherine Earp, filed a threat of lawsuit, saying she had been forced to resign after blowing the whistle on poor oversight in county jails and observing substandard medical care.

The county has not yet responded to her allegations.

Alleged Mentally Ill Person At Risk Of Being “Beaten To Death” By Cops, Said Commitment Court

2008-03-13T16:02:00.000-07:00

From the Portland Mercury

Multnomah County’s commitment court ruled two years ago an alleged mentally ill person should be locked in a psychiatric hospital because there was a risk she might be “beaten to death” by cops like James Chasse, if she were left to wander the streets, it was revealed yesterday.

The appeals court yesterday overturned the woman’s involuntary commitment, saying the conclusion that she “was a danger to herself because some officer, at some unknown point in the future, might kill or harm her is unduly speculative and does not establish, by clear and convincing evidence, that appellant is a danger to herself.”

The woman had fought with police when she was originally taken into custody on a mental health hold. So the commitment court said that “fighting with police…is certainly something that puts mentally ill people at risk of death or serious physical injury,” according to the appeals court verdict.

“The court commented on the then-recent death of James Chasse, stating that Chasse, an unarmed mentally ill person, “was confronted by police, and he was beaten to death.”,” the appeals court verdict continues.

Nevertheless, that’s not her fault, according to the appeals court.

It’s significant that the commitment court took “absolute judicial notice” of the fact that “fighting with the police” is “certainly something that puts mentally ill people at risk of death or serious physical injury,” because in legal terms, a judge would only take judicial notice of a fact when it is obvious and undisputed.

For example, a judge might take judicial notice of the fact that the Mercury is an alternative weekly newspaper, or of the fact that the sun set yesterday just after 7 pm. For a judge to take “absolute judicial notice” of the fact that mentally ill people are at risk of being beaten to death by police is a strong position.

Usually, a person is ruled a danger to themselves or others because of, for example: repeated suicide attempts, or thinking bleach is a magic drink sent from heaven, or for carrying a knife around and believing they are on a divine quest, or believing they are impervious to gunfire. Simply having a tendency to fight with police isn't sufficient, says the appeals court. You can read more about the commitment process here.

The appeals court verdict is unlikely to help the person who was committed, however. She has already spent up to 180 days in the psychiatric hospital, and has no legal recourse. 23 commitments in Multnomah County have been overturned by the appeals court since December 2006, either because the Commitment Court had insufficient evidence to commit the person, or simply because procedures weren't followed. In one case, a commitment was overturned because it was held "in the hallway of a hospital while appellant was naked in a hospital room, in the midst of a medical crisis, and unable to hear or participate meaningfully in the entire proceeding."

Critics of the system say civil commitment should not be used as a dumping ground for a failed public safety or mental health system. They argue that you can't just lock people up because society doesn't want to take care of them, or because it doesn't know how to.

Film will examine Chasse's life, death

2008-02-12T19:06:00.000-08:00

Documentary - "Alien Boy" deals with the case of James Chasse Jr., who died in police custody

From The Oregonian

The Mental Health Association of Portland will be working with a Portland filmmaker to produce a documentary about the life and death of James P. Chasse Jr.

The title, "Alien Boy," refers to a song written by a friend of Chasse, Greg Sage, the lead singer of The Wipers band. As a young teenager, Chasse described The Wipers as "my fave local band" in a magazine he wrote called "The Oregon Organism."

Sage dedicated the lyrics from his 1979 song "Alien Boy" as a memorial to Chasse, a 42-year-old man who died in police custody Sept. 17, 2006. Chasse, who suffered from schizophrenia, died of broad-based trauma to his chest after police struggled to take him into custody in the Pearl District.

Sage's lyrics are: "Go and grab your gun; Got him on the run; Cause he's an alien; They hurt what they don't understand."

The association will work with Portland filmmaker Brian Lindstrom to make the film, and follow the family's civil case against the city and police.

The federal lawsuit, pending in U.S. District Court in Portland, contends that the officers involved violated Chasse's civil rights and that the city has a pattern of failing to discipline officers involved in use of deadly force.

Lindstrom has made two other documentaries, called "Kicking," about drug detoxification in Portland, and "Finding Normal," about recovery from drug addiction, also made in Portland.

"Our hope is to create a film powerful enough to persuade other cities to make the changes Portland did after James died -- before someone like James in their hometown dies," said Jason Renaud, a friend of Chasse's and a volunteer board member of the mental health association.

The film's Web site lists the following positive changes made since Chasse's death: the requirement that all Portland officers complete 40 hours of crisis intervention training; Multnomah County's call for a sub-acute center to treat people suffering from a mental health crisis; and changes to the Portland Police Bureau's Use of Force policy that encourages officers to use the "least force reasonably necessary."

More information about the film can be obtained at the Web site: www.alienboy.org. All donations to the Mental Health Association of Portland this year will go toward the production of the film.

"Only a full, public account of who James was and what happened to him can prevent another tragedy," the film's Web site says.

County Boss Soul Searches on Mental Health Center

2008-01-24T07:34:00.000-08:00

from the Portland Mercury

"Disappointment..." - County Boss Soul Searches on Mental Health Center

County Chair Ted Wheeler met with 60 mental health advocates last week to confess his disappointment over the county's ongoing failure to reopen Portland's sub-acute facility for people in mental health crisis.

Since the closure of the crisis triage center in 2003, cops have had no option but to transport people in such crises to jail or, if they've hurt themselves, to an emergency room.

Reopening a sub-acute facility was the number-one recommendation of Mayor Tom Potter's Mental Health/Public Safety initiative formed in the fall of 2006, following the death in police custody of James Philip Chasse Jr., a 42-year-old schizophrenic, in September of that year.

Since then, Potter has funded crisis intervention training for all the city's police officers to the tune of $500,000, and Police Chief Rosie Sizer has overhauled the cops' use-of-force policies to hold officers more accountable over allegations of excessive force. Meanwhile Wheeler, who took over from Diane Linn as county chair in early 2007, hasn't held up the county's end of the public safety bargain.

Chasse's parents sat intently in row six of a 60-strong audience last Friday evening, January 18, at the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on NW 19th. Wheeler, half-protected by a modest wooden lectern, faced the crowd, which included three county court judges, the head of the state's psychiatric review board, and the heads of two local mental health treatment centers.

He began by justifying his decision last October to vote against a proposal to fund the sub-acute facility by diverting $4 million of county subsidies from Gresham, County Commissioner Lisa Naito's idea ["Less Than a Crisis?" News, Nov 1]. Wheeler said the Gresham money is used to fund essential police services there, and that he did not believe in solving one crisis by creating another.

He also announced plans for an experimental, county-funded Mental Health Court, beginning some time in late spring. The court, which was explained to the group by Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Julie Frantz, will aim to offer a choice of treatment to those with psychiatric needs who are caught up in the criminal justice system.

In the first year, the Mental Health Court aims to divert up to 100 people into treatment, according to the county's director of mental health and addiction services, Karl Brimner. Brimner insisted the treatment services for those people are funded and ready to go, although he faced doubt from the audience about the on-ground availability of those services.

Then the tough questions started. Wheeler was asked how satisfied he is with the state of mental health services in Multnomah County, right now. He responded by mentioning the county's new crisis hotline—a 24-hour phone service for people to call a mental health responder if they're worried about someone in crisis. But he confessed to frustration with the state legislature's refusal last spring to fund the ongoing cost of running the sub-acute center to the tune of $3 million a year—despite his promise to build it with $2 million of one-time county money.

Wheeler was asked when the sub-acute center would be open.

"I think it would be irresponsible to state a date," he said.

He was asked whether he would have failed as county commissioner if the center does not open by the time he's up for reelection in 2010.

"No, I don't think I'll have failed as county chair," he said. "We've done a lot of talking about the importance of this center, but it's not just about me. If we're still talking in three years about how we're going to fund the biggest gap in mental health, that's not just a gap for me, it's a failure for the entire community. There's going to be a lot of disappointment to go around."

While continuing to lobby Salem for the money to run the center—alongside mental health advocates and representatives from Washington and Clackamas Counties—Wheeler is also considering putting a public safety levy on Portlanders' election ballots this November.

Such a tax would require three votes from Wheeler's board of county commissioners and a public hearings process. Voters approved similar levies for schools and libraries last May, but his office will delay a decision on the new tax until late spring.

"Multnomah County voters have shown a willingness to support well-planned ideas," says Wheeler's communications director, Rhys Scholes. "I think that a lot of people understand the depth of this problem."

In the meantime, there's still no sub-acute center, but advocates are hopeful.

"Wheeler is ambitious, optimistic, dynamic, and has a strong personality," said Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland, after the meeting. "The question is, can he get enough people on the bus with him to Salem to make the difference?"

Brett Burton involved - Woman sues for false arrest, battery

2007-12-15T12:55:00.000-08:00

Use of force - The suit is the third filed since last week involving Portland police

From The Oregonian

A 45-year-old mother of eight whose arm was broken when a police officer and a sheriff's deputy put her in a control hold is suing the city of Portland and Multnomah County for false arrest and battery.

According to the suit filed this week in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Lyudmila Trivol arrived home at her Southeast Portland condo on May 27, 2006, to find a tow truck hooked up to the family minivan. The minivan was parked in its proper spot, but its wheels were intruding a half-foot into the condominium association's bark dust. Trivol's husband had already been arguing with the tow-truck driver and had sliced the truck's tire with a knife.

Two Portland police officers and two Multnomah County sheriff's deputies responded. Trivol -- a Ukrainian immigrant who already felt targeted by what the suit describes as repeated, xenophobic harassment by the Cherry Park Condominium Association -- was furious, concedes Gregory Kafoury, Trivol's attorney.

Kafoury said Officer James Botaitis and Deputy Brett Burton had no justification for putting Trivol in a control hold.

"She had not assaulted anyone; she was an upset lady," Kafoury said.

Burton was one of the officers who wrestled to subdue James Chasse Jr., who had schizophrenia, shortly before the mentally ill man died in September 2006.

Trivol was charged in circuit court with resisting arrest, harassment, disorderly conduct and assaulting a public safety officer for kicking Burton in the shin as he lifted her from the ground. Prosecutors, however, dropped the charges in December 2006.

The Portland Police Bureau and the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office do not comment on pending litigation.

The suit seeks $221,000 from the city and the county and $700,000 from the condo association and the association's president.

The suit is the third claiming false arrest and excessive force filed against Portland police since last week.

The City Council on Wednesday is scheduled to approve a $150,000 payment to settle a federal lawsuit against a Portland officer accused of using excessive force against a woman after she swore at him following a traffic stop.

Barbara Weich, formerly of Portland, filed the lawsuit March 23 in U.S. District Court against Officer Gregory Adrian and the city of Portland, also accusing him of malicious prosecution and battery. She suffered a head injury and a broken left arm, according to her lawyer.

Pre-Trial Hearings in the Cop-Related Death of James Chasse Jr.

2007-11-14T17:41:00.000-08:00

The Chasse Files

from the Portland Mercury

It is arguably Portland's most controversial cop lawsuit ever. And even though it will be almost two years before a jury is scheduled to sit down and rule on the case, the pre-trial hearings are already heated, with both sides accusing the other of trying to prejudice a fair trial.

Civil rights attorney Tom Steenson, who is representing the family of James Philip Chasse Jr., won a record half-million dollar settlement against the city in a officer-involved lawsuit last Thursday, November 8, but appears to be pursuing this case with more than just a financial settlement in mind. The Chasse family, along with Steenson, all want sweeping changes in the way the police bureau operates.

James Chasse's father, James Sr., and his brother, Mark—both of whom bear a striking resemblance to photos of James Jr.—have sat patiently behind Steenson on the hardwood courtroom benches on the ninth floor of the Federal Justice Center downtown since the pre-trial hearings began in earnest earlier this year. Mark's jaw occasionally tightens listening to city attorneys make their arguments before Judge Dennis J. Hubel. His father's solid stoicism is unnerving, and both men bring a palpable pressure to the room.

WHAT HAPPENED?

The details of Chasse's death were shocking. Chasse, a 145-pound, 42-year-old schizophrenic, was spotted by police in the Pearl District urinating in the street on September 17, 2006. After a scuffle with police, Chasse died in a squad car being driven by these same officers.

The squad car was en route to Portland Adventist Hospital, 8.4 miles from the Multnomah County Detention Center (MCDC) on SW 3rd—not the Good Samaritan Hospital, 2.6 miles away from the jail, or the emergency room at OHSU, 2.1 miles from the jail.

It remains unclear why Chasse was confined to a holding cell for 23 minutes, and what happened there before a jail nurse looked through the window and noticed he was unconscious. Chasse had been medically cleared at the scene of his arrest earlier on NW 13th and Everett by a team of paramedics. However, an autopsy found extensive evidence of external and internal injuries when Chasse died—including 16 broken ribs, and abrasions and bruising all over his body.

Since his death, several people have come forward to file tort claims and lawsuits alleging they have been beaten by sheriff's deputies—and, occasionally, cops too—in holding cells and the booking area at MCDC, where James was held for 31 minutes before dying on his attempted transport to the Adventist Hospital ["Jail Guards Run Wild!" News, Sept 13]. The alleged beating of 40-year-old Michael Evans in the lobby of the jail was captured on video just six days before Chasse's time there, on September 11, 2006 ["Summary Injustice," News, July 19].

One of the officers involved in Chasse's death, Christopher Humphreys, was found to be the police bureau's second-highest user of force in statistics released last November. Humphreys also has "a history or pattern of falsifying police reports," according to attorney Steenson ["Death in the Public Interest," News, Oct 18], who says his office has evidence to support this allegation. Humphreys had been the subject of seven Internal Affairs Division complaints when the numbers were released, and has subsequently become the subject of another unrelated lawsuit. He still patrols for the police bureau.

THE PAPER TRAIL

Legally speaking, Steenson's pursuit of this case against the city is broader than in previous lawsuits he has filed, because this time he's asked for more documents. Fittingly enough, these documents have become a huge source of contention between the two parties.

"The plaintiffs are asking for all the underlying documents for things that happened years ago in the police department," said Deputy City Attorney Jim Rice in court last Wednesday, November 7. "Tracking this down takes an inordinate amount of time."

Indeed, Steenson is not only asking for documents directly associated with Chasse's death—which include officer disciplinary records and a copy of the police bureau's (still incomplete) internal affairs investigation into the incident—but police files on officer-involved deaths dating back to the 1980s, copies of external reports on those deaths along with the supporting documentation gathered to produce those reports, not to mention reams of training documents and other supporting information.

At issue for Steenson and the Chasse family is that the police bureau could not only have prevented Chasse's death, but the bureau's lack of adequate training and disciplinary procedure directly contributed to his demise. They want to prove that the City of Portland has Chasse's blood on its hands.

The Chasse family gave the police bureau a two-page list of things it wants to see changed after filing the lawsuit on February 14 this year, including: Implementing a more effective early warning system to better deal with officers using high rates of force, and making the city's so-called Independent Police Review truly independent by having investigations conducted by independent attorneys, rather than internal affairs detectives. ("It's kind of like leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse," said Steenson.)

Further recommendations are: Changing the bureau's written policy on mental illness to include an anti-discrimination clause; changing the bureau's foot pursuit policy to prohibit taking innocent citizens to the ground unless officers have probable cause to believe the suspect is highly dangerous; changing the bureau's policy on officers using hands and feet to make impact strikes to a person's vital areas; and raising the burden of proof on an officer using deadly force from a "reasonable belief" that a suspect is dangerous, to "probable cause" that they pose an imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury.

So far, the police bureau and the city have implemented none of those changes. However officers are now required to obtain paramedics' permission to take someone in Chasse's situation to a hospital from MCDC, as well as inform paramedics on how much force was used.

In October 2006, Mayor Tom Potter mandated 40 hours of widely touted crisis intervention training for all officers, 25 percent of whom are now trained, but an urgently needed 16-bed crisis triage center—somewhere for officers to take mentally ill people in crisis—appears to be slipping further down the county's list of funding priorities with each passing month ["Less Than a Crisis?" News, Nov 1].

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

Steenson has been frustrated by the city's failure, so far, to produce any of the documents he's asked for—despite Judge Hubel's order on October 16 for the city to complete discovery by three weeks ago, on Friday, October 26.

"I've seriously considered filing a motion for contempt," said Steenson in court last Wednesday, November 7, protesting against the city's failure to comply with the judge's order.

"We're not trying to slough it off," replied Deputy City Attorney Rice. "It's just a lot of information."

Rice said he now thinks the city might be able to produce the documents to Steenson by the end of November, beginning on November 16. Despite having only one other attorney, David Landrum, and one paralegal supervisor, Cheryl Noll, working on the case, Rice argued the city is doing its best to comply with Steenson's request for production of the documents.

"The increased complexity of litigation requires enormous efforts," Rice said. "We don't have another place for a paralegal physically in the building—we have taken closets and put lawyers in them."

Steenson responded by saying, with respect, that he had "no reason to believe what they are saying to the court."

A FAIR TRIAL

The longer the city waits to produce necessary documents in this case, the less time experts retained by Steenson have to review those documents before the pre-trial moves to its next stage, depositions, in January.

The city, too, has raised questions about whether it is possible to try this case fairly, arguing newspaper journalists and TV reporters are prejudicing the public's viewpoint. In the past, when the city has been involved in, or settled, cop lawsuits, it has always bought silence from the victims' families with a so-called "protective order," preventing public release of sensitive documents both during and after the trial.

Chief Rosie Sizer and Mayor Potter have spoken often about wanting the police bureau to be more transparent ["Chief Concerns," Feature, Jan 18] but such protective orders make it impossible for the public to have a thorough, evidence-based discussion about what might be wrong with the Portland Police Bureau.

That's why a conglomerate of local media including the Portland Tribune, the Oregonian, and all of the city's TV stations hired attorney firm Davis Wright Tremaine to intervene as a third party in the case on October 10—arguing that a protective order should not cover the city's production of documents in this case.

The city objected to the intervention on the grounds of officer safety—delivering an affidavit from Officer Humphreys saying he has been stalked in the past by an "armed individual." But in a counter-argument, Steenson said in writing on November 2 that "the potential consequences of shielding these documents from the public eye should not be underestimated, particularly where one of those consequences could be the more unnecessary and tragic deaths of innocent citizens."

"I think something that hasn't been spoken to is the issue of citizen safety," Steenson said, arguing in court this past Tuesday, November 13. "The public airing of Chasse's death and some of its follow-up has had a profound effect on some people in the city."

Regardless of its outcome, the public will most likely maintain a high level of interest in the outcome of the Chasse case—which will have far reaching consequences for Portland and the way it is policed.

The case continues.

Mayor Responds to Questions on Chasse Case

2007-11-07T20:41:00.000-08:00

from the Portland Mercury

Emergency Response - Mayor Responds to Questions on Chasse Case

Mayor Tom Potter responded in writing on Monday, November 5, to a list of 28 "unanswered questions" given to his communications director outside city hall on the one-year anniversary of the death of James Philip Chasse Jr. two months ago.

The questions, collated by the Mental Health Association of Portland (MHA) and delivered on September 17, were broad in their scope—ranging from asking what recommendations have been implemented by the mayor's mental health initiative since it started work in January, to how Portlanders can explain Chasse's death to their children.

Potter began his four-page response by declining to discuss the actions of individual officers or parties to the lawsuit filed by Chasse's family, which is still ongoing. Then he listed 11 "important actions" resulting from his mental health initiative.

Those include $290,000 of extra funding for Cascadia's Project Respond, to create a dedicated unit to work with cops on calls involving mental illness; mandatory crisis intervention training for all cops coordinated by a mental health professional—Potter said around 25 percent of officers have now completed the training; and the expansion of a Voluntary Substance Abuse Treatment program to help those with dual diagnosis into long-term housing and treatment.

"When you ask who is responsible and how do we hold them accountable, I look at society as being responsible for not funding proper mental health services," Potter wrote. "And instead, leaving it to police officers to respond."

"We're pretty happy with the letter," says Jason Renaud of MHA, who thinks Potter is taking his organization's concerns seriously. "I'm glad he took the time to write it and list the city's accomplishments, and that he didn't blow us off."

Nevertheless, Potter's letter included five measures beyond his jurisdiction—instead, they're up to the cash-strapped folks at Multnomah County. They include mental health screening for people being booked into jail, expansion of the so-called "Treatment Not Punishment" program, a court advocate program for those with mental illness, and most controversially, the establishment of a crisis triage center with 16 beds.

Last week, the Mercury reported that Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler appears to be letting the crisis triage center slip down his list of funding priorities ["Less Than a Crisis?" News, Nov 1]. While Wheeler denies this is the case, he told the Mercury he may not be able to secure funding for it until 2010, or November 2008 at the very earliest.

As a result, the MHA wrote to Wheeler last Thursday, November 1, asking him to speak at a public meeting about mental illness, in a question-and-answer format, to address some unanswered questions of his own. Wheeler has yet to respond and could not be reached by the Mercury for comment by press time.

City mired in a paper chase

2007-11-06T19:49:00.000-08:00

From the Portland Tribune

A federal judge is wondering why the Portland city attorney’s office has not complied with a court order he issued last month demanding that the city turn over reams of requested documents to lawyers for the family of James Chasse Jr.

Chasse’s death in 2006 after an altercation with police sparked the biggest cop-shop controversy of the year.

Oregon District Judge Dennis Hubel has called a hearing for 10 a.m. Wednesday to hear the city’s explanations, spurred by a letter from civil rights lawyer Tom Steenson.

Steenson on Friday morning told Sources Say he felt obligated to inform the judge that he had not received a single document by the Oct. 26 deadline set by Hubel.

On Friday afternoon, however, Deputy City Attorney Jim Rice said the city has partially complied with the order. He said the logistics of assembling and copying the thousands of documents overwhelmed his office’s already swamped support staff.

“They’re working hard on it,” he said.

Less Than a Crisis?

2007-11-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

from the Portland Mercury

County Goes Limp on Mental Health Triage Center

A mental health triage center prioritized by Mayor Tom Potter's Mental Health/Public Safety Initiative work group in January now looks like it's slipping lower on Multnomah County's list of funding priorities—leaving Portland's cops with no option but to transport people in mental health crisis to jail.

Portland has been missing a crisis center since 2001, when the Crisis Triage Center and BHC-Pacific Gateway hospital in Sellwood were de-funded following the police shooting of Jose Mejia Poot at BHC. State investigators said Poot's shooting could not "be said to be totally unexpected," given the poor conditions at both centers.

After James Philip Chasse Jr.'s death last year—which also occurred in police hands—and the Mental Health Initiative recommendations that followed, County Chair Ted Wheeler has been trying to secure funding for a new center. He went with Potter to Salem to ask for $1.6 million in the last legislative session, but was turned down ["Mental Wealth," News, Feb 8].

On October 4, Wheeler's fellow County Commissioner Lisa Naito proposed diverting $4 million of the county's business income tax funding from Gresham to fund a triage center, arguing Gresham no longer needed the county's subsidy.

"The county can no longer afford [to give the money to Gresham]," Naito argued. "We have hacked health and mental health care services for thousands of people... we shut down the Crisis Triage Center that so many in our community depended upon."

Nevertheless, Wheeler and Commissioners Jeff Cogen and Lonnie Roberts voted against Naito's plans. Now, Wheeler says he plans to seek more funding for the center in November 2008.

"November 2008 means it's not a top priority," says Jason Renaud at the Mental Health Association, a member of the initiative's work group.

"You have to be creative in getting funding for things like this," says John Holmes, executive director of the Multnomah County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and another member of the work group. "I don't know what Ted's reasons were for voting against Lisa's plan, but it makes me feel like there's not much of a commitment there. People like James Chasse needed this center."

"It's not slipping down my list of priorities," Wheeler told the Mercury on Tuesday, October 30. "But I am asking for patience in getting it done. I understand and have compassion for those affected, but the bottom line is, I can't just print money here at Multnomah County."

Death in the Public Interest

2007-10-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

from Portland Mercury

Media Wants You to See Chasse Files

A federal judge finally ordered the City of Portland last week to turn over crucial documents regarding James Philip Chasse Jr.—the schizophrenic man beaten and killed by Portland police last September—but added one condition: The attorney for Chasse's family cannot release any of the information in the documents to the public.

That's not good enough, says a conglomerate of local media including the Portland Tribune, the Oregonian, and all of the city's TV stations, which hired attorney firm Davis Wright Tremaine to intervene as a third party in the case last week. The interveners say the information is in the public interest and should be released not just to Tom Steenson, the Chasse family's attorney, but also to the public at large.

Protective orders, such as the one keeping the Chasse documents out of the public eye, are often imposed on information about police officers involved in controversial in-custody deaths like Chasse's. The city agrees to release information to the victim's attorneys about the officers, like their disciplinary and phone records, but copies of the documents are made on pink paper to signify their confidentiality between the parties involved in the lawsuit.

If the case is settled financially between those parties before it goes to trial, as often happens with in-custody deaths, then the most controversial documents never get a public airing. The officers can continue working for the police bureau without journalists or the public being able to ask tough, evidence-based questions about their fitness for the job.

The stakes over the Chasse case's protective order are high, and a fight between the city and Steenson over whether to impose one has delayed "discovery," or handing over, of many documents in the lawsuit so far.

Among the most controversial documents Steenson asked for last week was a copy of the cops' Internal Affairs Division (IAD) investigation into what happened. Over a year since Chasse's death, that investigation is still incomplete.

Steenson also asked for police training documents and standard operating procedures relating to use of force in encounters like Chasse's. The city attorney's office says it has tried to get those documents from the police bureau's training division, but for some reason the division has withheld them.

Furthermore, Steenson wants copies of all 2,400 police reports written by Officer Christopher Humphreys during his eight-year career at the police bureau. Humphreys has the bureau's second-highest use-of-force rate according to statistics released last November, and Steenson argued that his office has evidence that Humphreys has a "history or pattern of falsifying police reports," and wants further information to prove it.

Humphreys had been the subject of seven IAD complaints when the numbers were released. Since the Chasse incident, Humphreys has been accused (along with three other officers) of beating another man, Charles Manigo, during an arrest at the Rose Quarter TriMet stop in May 2006. Manigo is seeking $135,000 in damages in that lawsuit, filed on August 21 of this year.

"There won't be a written policy saying, 'We're not going to discipline officers based on what they do,'" Steenson said in his opening arguments on Thursday, October 11. "But I believe there will be evidence [in these documents] that the city does not take the steps necessary to discipline or terminate officers in cases like these.

"The word on the street [is] if you're a police officer," Steenson added, "you can essentially act with impunity."

Judge Dennis J. Hubel struck a compromise: He ordered the city to produce some of the documents Steenson is asking for—including the incomplete internal affairs investigation, training documents, and Officer Humphreys' arrest reports—but only the ones leading to legal claims against the city.

Hubel also scheduled a separate hearing for Tuesday, November 13, to hear the media's arguments over the protective order and to decide whether it should still stand, and if so, precisely which documents it should include. Nevertheless, Steenson and Deputy City Attorney James Rice took the opportunity last week to argue about the protective order.

"[The information] relates to the operation of the Portland Police Bureau," Steenson said. "And I believe that... historically, lawyers have not been as conscious about the public's right to look at things as perhaps we should have over the years.

"The public interest here is probably off the chart," Steenson continued. "I don't think that the generalized concerns the defendants have [about the protective order]... are enough to outweigh citizens' concerns in this case."

Rice countered by arguing that releasing the information to the public would threaten the officers involved.

"The threat of harm to officers in this case is not theoretical," he said.

Man Claims Cops Retaliated Over Free Speech

2007-10-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

from the Portland Mercury

Reader: Are you sensing a pattern, here? As I mentioned earlier, three people filed lawsuits today against the Portland Police Bureau, and one person has filed a tort claim. Here’s the second of the quartet:

Richard Prentice filed a tort claim today, laying the ground to file a full-blown lawsuit. Prentice is the man arrested and intimidated in a holding cell in June for putting up anti-cop posters downtown (“Thought Police,” News, June 28). Prentice wants an apology from the officers involved, and unspecified financial compensation for the violation of his constitutional rights.

VIOLATION OF HIS RIGHTS: Richard Prentice (left) with girlfriend, Susannah Thiel (center) outside the Gus Solomon courthouse this afternoon…

Prentice’s posters featured the three officers implicated in the death last September of James Chasse—a schizophrenic beaten to death for taking a leak in the Pearl District. Prentice was arrested and intimidated in a holding cell by two of those officers, one of whom, Kyle Nice, later emailed the Mercury essentially confessing to having intimidated Prentice for calling him a “murderer” in his posters.

Prentice’s posters were used last week by the City Attorney as a reason to keep certain information about the officers involved in Chasse’s death a secret from the press: “We have the info that there’s an element in the community that goes around putting up posters of heavy-caliber Smith & Wesson pistols pointing at police,” said Deputy City Attorney James Rice—even though in fact, Prentice did not put up such a poster, thinking better of it. Nice had to fish through his bag back at Central Precinct in order to pull it out, before scanning it and emailing us a copy.

The only poster Prentice actually put up looked like this.

Asked whether he expects the officers involved to apologize for the way he was treated, Prentice says: “It would be a first in the history of the Police Bureau.”

Four claim Portland police use 'dirty tactics'

2007-10-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

from The Oregonian

Rights cases - Plaintiffs' attorneys want independent investigations

Four men who say Portland police ran roughshod over their constitutional rights are taking their cases to court.

At a news conference Monday, their attorneys called for independent investigators to review complaints against police, and for the mayor and chief to curb what they called officers' "dirty tactics." Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz said he couldn't comment on pending litigation.

The names of the defendants and their cases filed in state court are:

Frank Waterhouse is suing for unlawful seizure with excessive force, alleging that police fired a Taser and bean bag rounds at him May 27, 2006, because he was videotaping their search of a friend's property in the 5800 block of Northeast Portland Highway.

Police officers followed a police dog onto the property during a search for a fleeing suspect. After the dog keyed on a car, officers broke out a window. Waterhouse was standing on a dirt embankment at the edge of the property videotaping the search. At one point, he yelled to his friend, "Yes, I got it all on film. They had no right to come on this property." He says in the suit that police immediately came after him, yelling at him to put the camera down. Waterhouse said seconds later he was shot with a bean bag gun and a Taser and fell to the ground.

Officers wrote in their reports that Waterhouse ran off, they chased and then bean-bagged and Tasered him. One officer wrote, "He had refused to drop the camera which could be used as a weapon."

Waterhouse was arrested, accused of criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. A jury acquitted him of all charges.

Ryan Dunn is suing for unlawful seizure, saying he was singled out at a public demonstration after criticizing the police for interfering with the Oct. 5, 2006, demonstration.

He says officers went through the crowd, seized Dunn on the sidewalk, shoved him up against the wall of a building, grabbed him by his hair and beard and dragged him through the police line into custody. He was charged with interfering with police and disorderly conduct. A jury acquitted him.

Gregory Benton is suing for unlawful search and seizure, saying police forced him out of his apartment at gunpoint in the middle of the night, and searched his home without probable cause on Sept. 18, 2006. Police, responding to an anonymous call of a shooting, tried to search his apartment. Benton refused to allow the police in without a warrant, but said he eventually capitulated to escalating threats from the police. When he came out of his apartment he was faced with nine police officers with guns drawn. He said officers then went through his apartment, looking in drawers and cupboards. Benton was not charged with a crime.

Richard Prentice is filing a tort claim notice with the city, saying he plans to sue for false arrest and violation of his right to freedom of speech. On June 14, Prentice was posting fliers critical of the officers involved in the death of James P. Chasse Jr., a 42-year-old man who suffered from schizophrenia.

When Prentice began to tape to the federal court house a flier that accused the police of murder, an officer told him to take it down. Prentice says he agreed to take it down, but told the officer that he'd just put it up somewhere else. He claims the officer forced him to the ground, arrested him and took him to a holding cell, where he was confronted with two of the officers involved in the Chasse death.

Three of the four men are represented by the Portland law firm Haile-Greenwald. Burton is represented by attorney Ashlee Albies.

Motions by Chasse Intervenors

2007-10-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

Motions were filed by intervenors in the case of Chasse v Humphreys on October 11.

Intervenors include The Oregonian, Willamette Week, AP, KATU, KPTV, KOIN, KGW and the Portland Tribune.

The claimant is Maxine Bernstein, reporter for the Oregonian. The motion asks the court to not protect discovery documents requested by the Chasse attorney Tom Steenson from the City and County, and presumably also from Tri-Met and American Medical Response.

Attorneys for the intervenors are with Davis Wright Tremaine of Portland and include Duane Bosworth, Derek Green and Vanessa Usui.

Memo in support of motion to intervention (PDF)
Declaration Of Maxine Bernstein In Support Of Motion To Intervene (PDF)
Motion to Intervene (PDF)

Police ordered to supply Chasse files

2007-10-12T07:45:00.001-07:00

Suit - Judge Dennis Hubel tells the city and the bureau to hurry up and produce documents

from The Oregonian

A federal judge, disturbed by what he called the "snail's pace" of discovery in a civil rights lawsuit filed by the family of James P. Chasse Jr., on Thursday gave the city and the Portland Police Bureau several ultimatums to cough up a slew of documents in the man's death.

Documents sought range from officers' cell phone records to internal investigative reports and training bulletins.

In cases in which city attorneys said they weren't sure whether the documents existed or who had them, U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis J. Hubel directed the city and the police chief to find them.

Chasse, who suffered from schizophrenia, died of broad-based trauma to his chest after police struggled to take him into custody Sept. 17, 2006, in the Pearl District. The lawsuit contends the officers violated Chasse's civil rights, and it says the city has a pattern of failing to discipline officers involved in use of deadly force.

Tom Steenson, the lawyer representing Chasse's family, told the judge he had requested but not received any police policy and training documents related to officers' use of force.

Jim Rice, a deputy city attorney, countered that the city doesn't know where all those documents might be. He said finding them would be a costly, time-consuming process.

Rice said his office went to the Police Bureau's training division and asked for materials without success. He concluded delivering documents might not be the training officers' highest priority.

At that, Hubel suggested the training division might respond when it learns he's ordering Rice to outline within 15 days the documents available and the time and cost to produce them.

"Please let them know they'll be on the carpet next, answering my questions," Hubel said.

Hubel also ordered the city to provide documents relating to the bureau's internal review of Chasse's death.

The city has maintained that the investigation was ongoing, and Chasse's lawyers could not obtain the documents until it was completed.

"We're not going to wait until you're done," Hubel said.

Steenson also is seeking all documents the Police Bureau provided to an outside consultant, the Police Assessment Resource Center, which has studied the city's review of officer-involved shootings and deaths in custody since 2003.

After the city argued it didn't know what documents the center received, the judge ordered Police Chief Rosie Sizer to send a memo to officers to find out exactly what material was shared and whether it's available. The chief must report back to him within 20 days.

To move the case along, the judge ordered the release of most documents in question under protective order, meaning they cannot be distributed publicly. Steenson agreed to that provision for now.

However, the judge is expected to rule on whether to issue a protective order for the discovery items pending trial.

The city argued that the documents' release would harm the officers involved, impede a fair trial and chill the free flow of information among officers. Steenson urged the judge not to grant a protective order.

Chasse Case: Local Media Group Hires Bigshot Attorney To Compel City to Publicly Release Officers’ Disciplinary Records

2007-10-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

from Portland Mercury

A conglomerate of Portland Media including the Oregonian and Willamette Week, the Tribune and all our local TV stations has hired an attorney, Duane Bosworth, of the international law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, to argue that Federal Court should force the City of Portland to release information publicly about the disciplinary records of the Portland Police Bureau Officers and Sheriff’s Deputy involved in the controversial death in custody of James Philip Chasse last September.

James Rice, Deputy City Attorney, and Carlo(s) driello and Susan Denaway, attorneys for the County, and attorneys for American Medical Response, filed a claim earlier this year asking the court for a “protective order,” which would keep the officers’ disciplinary records secret from the public. On that condition, they would then be given to attorney Tom Steenson, who is litigating the Chasse case on behalf of the dead man’s family, but he would not then be able to disseminate them outside his office.

Yesterday, Bosworth, whose services are extremely expensive, filed a motion to intervene in the case, on behalf of the local media conglomerate—arguing that the disciplinary records of the officers are not only crucial to the Chasse family’s case against the city and county (Steenson is arguing that the bureau could have intervened earlier to discipline Officer Christopher Humphreys, who has the second-highest record of use of force in the police bureau)—but that the public, too, has a right to know about these things.

That motion will not be heard today, as it was filed so late yesterday evening, said Judge Dennis Hubel, presiding. But it will proceed later, and will have far-reaching implications for all Portlanders.

Bosworth, talking to an Oregonian reporter in the elevator after this morning’s hearing, who it felt like was semi-frantically gesturing, trying to get him to shut up, described Hubel’s statement about the timing of his motion to intervene, as “preposterous.”

READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP

Update, 5pm: What follows is pretty much everything that happened with regard to releasing information to the public about the Chasse case, at today's court hearing. There'll be a story in next week's paper that boils it all down, but since one of the major issues in today's arguments was "the public interest," I thought why not simply lay it all out for those of you who want to know, and let you read as closely as possible about what happened. It's loooong, but I was interested all the way through. So who knows, maybe you will be, too.

Original Post: If the city and county eventually win the right to keep the information secret, then Police Chief Rosie Sizer and Sheriff Bernie Giusto will continue to have their hands tied with regard to improving transparency in cases like this—unlikely to improve the community’s trust in the Police Bureau and Sheriff’s office.

This morning’s oral argument, in Courtroom 9B of the Federal Courthouse on SW 3rd, was just between Steenson and the city, county, and AMR—the ambulance firm which did not transport Chasse to hospital after his beating, but instead sent him with the officers to jail.

Regardless of whether he can eventually make it public, Steenson wants more information from the city as soon as possible.

That kind of information includes personnel and medical records for Officer Humphreys and Sergeant Nice, their phone records, information about whom they spoke to within hours of the incident, and so on. It also includes information about standard operating procedures and training procedures in the police bureau, both written and anecdotal.

“There won’t be a written policy saying ‘we’re not going to discipline officers based on what they do.’ But I believe there will be evidence that the city does not take the steps necessary to discipline or terminate officers in cases like these,” said Steenson, in his opening arguments.

“The word on the street if you’re a police officer is that essentially you can act with impunity,” he continued. “And in order to prove that claim, we have to have the various materials.”

Deputy City Attorney James Rice responded: “The protective order really is integral to what we’re talking about today. We’ve produced 5500 pages worth of information, and my legal assistant has worked hard with Mr.Steenson’s legal assistant. We have submitted a significant number of documents in this case. In a way it’s a man who creates a barrier, and then complains to the defendants about the barrier that exists.”

Steenson agreed, until the issue of any protective order can be resolved, to treat any documents released by the city as if they were under protective order.

“If the court were to issue a protective order, then everything else would fall like dominoes,” said Rice.

Judge Hubel said he’s not going to tell the court what his thoughts are on the protective order at this stage, but that he thinks there’s going to be some information subject to protective order, and some, not.

Among other things, Steenson is seeking disciplinary information from the police bureau for the last 25 years about the city’s handling of deaths in custody.

“We absolutely need that kind of discovery in order to proceed with proving the claim we are making against the city,” he said.

Steenson also wants details of the cops’ Internal Affairs investigation into Chasse’s death. That includes the decision of the Bureau’s performance review board, its use of force review board, the officers’ disciplinary records, and whether or not they were identified by the Bureau’s “early warning system.”

“All of those types of processes are identified in the Police Bureau’s directives as part of its management system, and we have received none of that information,” said Steenson. “They should be produced, and should certainly not go under any protective order.”

The city tried to argue that it shouldn’t release the information until the internal affairs investigation is complete, although it could not give a date when that will be.

“Why should Mr.Steenson have to wait until it’s over to start his investigation, when everything is stale?” asked Judge Hubel. “We’re not going to wait until they’re done. You’ll supply them now. And as things come into your possession, at some reasonable frequency,” [the city will have to give them over.]

Hubel also ordered the City Attorney to get information from the Police Bureau’s training division on its standard operating procedures, within ten days. Rice implied that the training division has not been forthcoming with information, “because it is focused on its primary task” of training police officers.

Hubel told the City Attorney to tell the training division they need to get him the information, or tell him how much effort is going to be required to get it, within 10 days—or else they’ll see him in court.

Steenson also wants to see any complaints relating to the officers named in the case. “We do think we are entitled to performance and misconduct type complaints,” he said.

The City Attorney is happy to produce those documents under protective order, which Steenson agreed to, until that issue can be worked out.

Steenson also asked for Officer Humphreys’ career-long 2400 arrest reports, saying his office “has evidence,” it believes, that Humphreys has a “history or pattern of falsifying police reports.”

The City Attorney said that would be time-intensive, adding that “this sort of gill-netting operation” would be very expensive.

Judge Hubel ordered the production only of Humphreys’ reports as they relate to tort claims filed against the city, and for the City Attorney’s office to find out if there’s a way to link Humphreys’ alleged falsification of reports to use of force, prior to the introduction of use of force reports, which happened relatively recently in the bureau's history.

Then they broke for lunch. They pick back up at 1.15pm, when Judge Hubel hopes the details of a protective order will be thrashed out.

Update, 3pm: Between 1.15 and 2:45, Judge Hubel ordered more information to be released:

1.All the city’s information on Crisis Intervention Training, except where it includes information about psychological issues as they relate to individuals—which will be redacted.

2.The City Attorney’s office must also now work with the Police Bureau, Independent Police Review, and PARC—the California-based agency which has produced three reports on officer-involved shootings, and has another one due out next year—to produce as much source-information as possible upon which the 4 PARC reports are based. The Chief of Police will also communicate with all her officers, asking them to come forward with any documents they may have had returned to them by Parc over the last few years.

3.The city must also release documents it has already released in another case called Price, which is currently under appeal at the 9th circuit court of appeal, which describe what the police bureau has done, and is doing, to address use of force by police officers, back to the mid 1980s.

4.The city must produce all supporting documentation, which led to the production by the Police Bureau of its Spring 2007 use of force report.

Update, 4.30pm: The Judge in the Chasse case is going to think about whether or not to issue a protective order to keep information about the police officers involved in James Chasse’s death largely secret between the City Attorney’s office and that of Chasse’s attorney, Tom Steenson, before it goes to court.

“Whatever rights the public have to watching their court system in action, and I concede and agree that there are rights to that to take place, the primary purpose for the courts being here is to resolve the disputes between the litigants as far as possible,” said Judge Hubel, this afternoon. “The vast majority of the time, the public pay no attention to what we do here. In this case they have been, and I would expect them to continue to pay attention.”

Here’s Deputy City Attorney Jame’s Rice’s justification to keep the information under wraps: “The threat of harm to officers in this case is not theoretical. We’ve had officer Humphreys say in his affidavit that he’s been stopped by an armed person who had information about him.”

Judge Hubel asked if this was before or after the Chasse incident. It was actually beforehand, Rice said.

“He also works under cover—information about him jeopardizes him,” Rice continued. “We have the info that there’s an element in the community that goes around putting up posters of heavy-caliber Smith & Wesson pistols pointing at police. Why should an officer be jeopardized by discovery matters? We’re interested in it not getting out there, and in today’s world, placed on the Internet. It’s more than annoyance and embarrassment, it’s a level, truly, of oppression to the police officers.”

“Ultimately another of the issues in this city is having a fair trial,” Rice said. “It simply doesn’t lend itself to the defendant’s having a fair trial down the road later. Protective orders tend to morph. At the present time, I think we’ve laid out good cause reasons for the implementation of the protective order. For now, it seems to me, is that the proper thing to do is to accept that the court impose a protective order.”

Attorneys for the county and American Medical Response also said they wanted the information kept private.

Steenson, attorney for the Chasse family, responded: “Those IAD reports, all of that information, that type of information, that comprises the kind of information we’re talking about, relates to the operation of the Portland Police Bureau. And I believe that it’s a fair statement to make that historically, lawyers have not been as conscious about the public’s right to look at things as perhaps we should have over the years. I also think it’s fair to say there’s been sort of a shift, whether it’s because of more aggressive litigation over the issue, as to the recognition by the courts, to the judiciary being much more careful about what information ought to be kept away from the public.”

“The public interest here is probably off the chart. I don’t think that the generalized concerns the defendants have about the standard operating procedures are enough to outweigh the citizens’ concerns.”

Rice responded: “One of the things lawyers do have to be concerned about is not impeding a fair trial. And that’s going to be difficult once the media circus gets going. What we’re looking for is to have the jury be able to come into trial in an unbiased fashion. For purposes right now, if we’ve got good cause, let’s put the protective order in place, and move the litigation along. I don’t see why he has a say in this other than this ‘right of the public,’ which he is not representing when he makes this argument because it is going to be harder to have a fair trial.”

“I’m going to take the motion under advisement, for now,” said Judge Hubel—meaning he’s going to make a decision in a few days. “But I can’t ignore what is glaring in this case, and that is that discovery has been essentially going at a snail’s pace because of a dispute about the protective order. We would all be much further down the road if there had been some kind of protective order in place and some discovery could have happened.”

Attorneys in the Case of James Chasse

2007-10-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

Attorneys for the Defense

James Rice - City of Portland

Susan Marie Dunaway, Assistant Multnomah County Attorney, BA Immaculate Heart College, JD Loyola at Los Angeles. Susan advises the Sheriff's Office and Corrections Health and represents the County in tort litigation, appellate issues and other matters in state and federal courts.

Carlo Calandriello, Assistant Multnomah County Attorney, BS, MS, Florida International University, JD Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College. Carlo represents the County in tort and civil rights litigation and other matters in state and federal courts. Carlo is fluent in Spanish.

UNKNOWN - American Medical Response (general counsel for AMR is Todd Zimmerman.)

Attorneys for the Plaintiff

Tom Steenson - Steenson, Schumann, Tewksbury, Creighton & Rose

Attorneys for the Interventor(s)

Duane Bosworth - Davis Wright Tremaine

One Year Later - What Has the City Learned Since Chasse?

2007-09-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

from the Portland Mercury

A year ago this week, James Chasse died in police custody after being beaten, Tasered, and hogtied by officers, and then transported to the county detention center instead of being taken to a hospital.

It shocked the city, given that police had targeted Chasse for merely acting suspiciously. After coming back from vacation almost two weeks after the tragedy, Mayor Tom Potter pledged to form a committee that would seek ways to reform how police interact with people who are mentally ill, and to push for more funding for mental health services.

A year later, some of that has happened. Police officers are now required to undergo crisis intervention training, and according to police spokesman Brian Schmautz, some 25 officers per month have taken the classes since February—that's approximately 200 officers as of this writing. And the 2007 state legislature, as boasted about by Potter in an Oregonian op-ed on the anniversary of Chasse's death, put more money into mental health services in part as a result of lobbying by Potter and Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler.

But a full year of politicians talking about reforms to the mental health system hasn't been enough for those still seeking justice for Chasse's death.

"Jim Chasse didn't die because of his mental health issue," said Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association (MHA) during a Monday, September 17, protest outside of city hall. Instead, Renaud and dozens of other protestors argued, Chasse died because he was beaten by cops.

And that was the message of the day, as carried by numerous signs that read "Protect and Serve does not mean Beat and Kill" and "It's not about a few bad apples, it's about the whole barrel."

In a list of unanswered questions and unresolved concerns delivered to the mayor's office, the Mental Health Association asked repeatedly, "Why is the district attorney in charge of prosecuting police beatings and deaths?" and "Why haven't any police officers ever been charged with using excessive force?"

In other words, what activists are demanding isn't necessarily more funding for mental health, though they welcome it. Instead, they are asking for more accountability for officers who cross the line. The last question in MHA's letter speaks to the concerns of the activists gathered on the city hall sidewalk: "Since when is looking odd a crime?"

Remembering James Chasse's death

2007-09-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

opinion editorial from the Oregonian

A public inquest is still needed, along with a mental health triage center in Portland

Mental health advocates showed Monday that they are determined not to let the death of James P. Chasse Jr. slip into oblivion.

Although Chasse's death isn't truly in danger of being forgotten -- it has already had profound effects on the city and the state -- advocates are right to keep the pressure on at City Hall. They shouldn't let up until Portland has a 24-hour crisis triage center, where officers can take for evaluation people who appear to be mentally ill. Right now, they're taken to hospital emergency rooms, which doesn't do them, or the community, much good. They're just released.

Chasse, a frail musician who was mentally ill, died in police custody on Sept. 17, 2006, after doing, well, what exactly did he do? The main thing, it appears, is that he acted a little strange and ran when police asked him to stop. And when they caught up with him, and an officer tackled or fell on Chasse, he didn't just meekly allow himself to be taken into custody for doing -- what was it again? Nothing. He continued to scream in terror, and fight back as officers kicked, punched and Tasered him.

When Chasse died not quite two hours later, he had 16 broken ribs, a punctured lung and massive internal bleeding. Why paramedics allowed him to be taken to the jail is not clear, or why jail personnel didn't insist he be taken by ambulance to a hospital. Instead, he was taken the slow way around to the hospital, in a police car.

That's among the things that have changed in the year since, however. Officers are now required to obtain a paramedic's approval to take someone in Chasse's situation to the hospital. They're also required to tell medical personnel how much force they used.

The most pivotal change, though, thanks to Mayor Tom Potter, is that Portland is now giving patrol officers 40 hours of crisis intervention training. Although that will not prevent all deaths at police hands, or in police custody, it does teach officers what a frightening place the world is for someone who has a mental illness. And the Oregon Legislature even approved a new requirement that police recruits in the state academy undergo 24 hours of such training.

Thus Chasse's death has had city- and state-shaking consequences. Still, there are many unanswered questions about the incident, in part because the Portland Police Bureau's internal reviews haven't been completed. Another reason is that there has never been a proper public inquest into what happened. Such an inquest is still badly needed.

Every death at police hands or in police custody deserves such illumination. Without light on the subject, questions only multiply and theories orbit indefinitely in the best possible place for them to spin, the dark.

Of the list of people who have died either at police hands or in police custody, there is perhaps no one whose death has sparked more outrage or more changes than Chasse's has.

But that's not the same thing as saying it has sparked enough.

Police still shoulder an unfair burden

2007-09-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

from the Oregonian, by Robert King, president of the Portland Police Association

One year ago, James Chasse lost his life in police custody. His family was devastated and surely remains so. The lives of the Portland officers involved that night were also changed forever. But as we look back on that sad and tragic event, we have a perspective today no one could have had that night.

That night officers observed a man urinating in public and acting suspiciously, a routine occurrence downtown. As officers approached, the man ran, and they attempted to contain him using a variety of trained and approved methods, including verbal commands, control holds and a Taser. He resisted so fiercely that it took three officers to take him into custody. He bit one officer, causing severe pain.

James Chasse could have stopped and complied, but he didn't, and the officers had no way of knowing at the time that he suffered from mental illness. The officers used the degree of force they believed was reasonably necessary to bring a suspect into control. And once he was handcuffed, they called for medical assistance.

Every decision from that point forward was guided by advice from medical professionals. Police officers were told by paramedics at the scene and later by nurses at the jail that he was safe to transport. It was officers who noticed Chasse was seriously ill, and it was officers who performed CPR and again summoned paramedics.

A grand jury reviewed extensive evidence on this case and concluded that the officers did not engage in any criminal conduct. The internal review of their actions will surely exonerate the officers of any procedural misconduct as well.

Nevertheless, James Chasse lost his life that day. Why?

By default, Portland's police have become front-line mental health workers. In 1995 Dammasch Hospital closed, and in the late 1990s the Crisis Triage Center in Portland also closed. Now hospital emergency rooms are the last resource for the mentally ill, and they are ill-equipped to treat them. This larger context is a burden not only to police officers but to the community every day. There are countless people on the street in crisis, and little is done to help them.

Not long after the Chasse incident, Mayor Tom Potter announced that he had found funding for Crisis Intervention Team training for all Portland police officers. Why does funding become available only after tragic events? And, while training is valuable and appreciated, why do the mayor and others assume that more training is the answer and could have averted this outcome? That's a simplistic view when mentally ill people are clearly at risk alone on the streets, which is where they have been assigned by our mental health system.

Police officers routinely assist people in need, generally without incident. We use force in less than 1 percent of all calls for service, and we make contact with the public 420,000 times a year. When we use force, we use higher levels on people who exhibit higher levels of resistance to police requests. To do otherwise is to risk the safety of officers. A recent report on use of force by Portland police indicated there was nothing to suggest that officers use force inappropriately.

Increased police training is welcome, but it is not enough. The mental health system is broken, and police officers shoulder the additional burden of this failed system. A respectful remembrance of James Chasse's life and death would be a renewed commitment to repair that system.

Preventing another James Chasse tragedy

2007-09-17T05:36:00.001-07:00

by Portland Mayor Tom Potter

It has been a year since James Chasse died while in police custody, a tragedy that moved our community -- to tears, to anger -- like no other in my time as mayor. It is important for the city to acknowledge this tragedy and to take steps to ensure a similar event does not recur in Portland.

I said at the time in my apology to the Chasse family, and to all Portlanders, that I would use this tragedy to improve how our most fragile residents are treated by our police, our jails, our medical professionals and the mental health system. While I know that nothing can ease the anguish and pain the Chasse family feels for the loss of their son, we have made important progress in keeping that commitment.

In the wake of James' death, every Portland police officer is now receiving 40 hours of training in crisis intervention techniques, which will help officers to identify and successfully engage individuals with special needs on the street and to de-escalate situations until mental health professionals can take over. The Police Bureau also has hired a full-time mental health professional to oversee the training, development and implementation of new policies regarding working with people with mental illness.

We have funded additional staff for Project Respond, which has a team dedicated to partnering with officers to respond immediately to crisis situations. This new team also identifies high-risk individuals and provides outreach and monitoring services to them.

Multnomah County Chairman Ted Wheeler and I have lobbied in Salem for increased state funding for programs to help the mentally ill, working closely with Sen. Avel Gordly. Thanks to Gordly and other members of the Oregon Legislature, almost a dozen mental health bills were passed last session, along with an additional $41.3 million in new funding for such needs as training for every police officer in Oregon to respond more effectively to the consumers of mental health services.

Portland police also have changed how they transport injured or sick persons and how they share information with paramedics and jail nurses. Officers no longer transport people who have been engaged in a prolonged physical struggle or are seriously injured, unconscious, suffering a seizure or extremely drunk unless a paramedic on the scene approves it.

Chief Rosie Sizer is changing the bureau's use-of force policy to reduce the amount of force used when arresting or taking someone into custody. Portland officers currently use force in only 5 percent of all arrests, and we are committed to reducing the use of force in a way that provides effective policing and protects residents and officers.

One major gap in the mental health system that has not been filled is the critical need for a mental health crisis triage center where officers can immediately take a mentally ill person for assessment and appropriate treatment. Multnomah County Commissioner Lisa Naito has proposed funding such a center, and I hope her idea receives serious consideration.

These steps will go a long way toward removing the stigma surrounding mental illness and will provide more humane responses on the part of the police and others. Jail cells should never be our only option for people with mental illness.

Ultimately, the issue of how we respond will never be resolved until it is no longer acceptable for anyone in our community who is struggling with mental illness to be left to wander Portland streets instead of receiving the help they so desperately need.

Emotions in police death still raw

2007-09-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

from The Oregonian

A protest is planned today to keep alive the memory of James Chasse, a mentally ill man who died a year ago in the custody of Portland police

One year after James P. Chasse Jr. died while in police custody, emotions are still raw.

The grainy cell phone image of the slender 42-year-old man lying cuffed, face-down on the sidewalk as officers, firefighters and paramedics stand by haunts those who say the police beat the schizophrenic man to death.

Police officers, who recoil at that accusation, are frustrated at what they see as an unfair attack on their integrity by people who don't understand the realities of their job. Each year, police encounter thousands of mentally ill people -- some harmless, some violent -- and officers most often resolve those encounters peacefully. Accidents, however, do happen, they say.

But people pushing for police accountability, especially those who knew Chasse, say they suspect a cover-up: A state medical examiner listed Chasse's cause of death as blunt-force trauma to his chest from falling to the pavement or from someone falling on him, not from the kicks and punches dealt by police in an attempt to subdue him. A grand jury exonerated of any criminal wrongdoing the three officers involved. The Police Bureau hasn't completed an internal inquiry into the death.

Protesters plan to stand across the street from Central Precinct starting at 8 a.m. today, then join other activists outside City Hall at 4 p.m.

"If you believe we beat him to death, then you're in a completely different place than if you believe he died because someone fell on him," police spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz said. "And it's very difficult to have a discussion."

In response to a lawsuit claiming excessive use of force, filed by Chasse's family earlier this year, the city attorney's office last month filed a motion to fight the public release of an internal investigation that will determine whether officers violated bureau policy and a training review that could suggest changes to police tactics. Attorneys say they want to protect officers' privacy and that releasing information about tactics could jeopardize public safety.

The legal maneuver disconcerts critics such as Dan Handelman, a spokesman for the citizens group Portland Copwatch.

"They're trying to make an argument that we shouldn't know," Handelman said.

Chasse's death stirred such passion because he wasn't armed or posing a danger to others. What's more, the struggle leading up to Chasse's death happened in one of the swankiest parts of the city, the Pearl District, in front of a restaurant full of people.

Doris Cameron-Minard, past president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Oregon, said the case attracts attention because it encapsulates so many of the problems that police have with the mentally ill.

The following account of what happened is based on official reports and witness statements.

When Officer Christopher Humphreys thought he saw Chasse urinating in the Pearl District the afternoon of Sept. 17, 2006, he assumed he was looking at a drunk or a drug addict. He didn't realize the man was mentally ill.

When officers called out, Chasse flashed a look of terror and ran. The police chased him. Humphreys, who weighed about 100 pounds more than Chasse, later told detectives that he caught up to Chasse and shoved him down. Some witnesses described it as a tackle.

Although the medical examiner later said Chasse probably already had been dealt the fatal blow by then, witnesses and police alike were amazed at how Chasse squirmed with unusual strength.

Two other officers -- Sgt. Kyle Nice and Multnomah County Deputy Brett Burton joined in the fight to subdue Chasse -- kicking, punching and shocking him with a Taser as he screamed and tried to bite them. Then he suddenly went limp.

American Medical Response paramedics who examined Chasse minutes later said he was in good enough shape to go to jail. According to a bystander, Chasse begged paramedics not to leave him.

Officers tied his feet to his hands in a "hog-tie" and drove him to jail. A jail nurse, who looked at Chasse through the window of a holding cell for less than 90 seconds, thought he might be faking a seizure. She told officers he had to go to the hospital. Instead of calling an ambulance, officers took him in their patrol car.

Chasse slumped over in the back seat, and officers pulled over to start giving him chest compressions. He died, one hour and 45 minutes after he encountered officers. He had 16 broken ribs, a punctured lung and massive internal bleeding.

"He was this innocent victim," said Cameron-Minard, describing the significance of the case. "It wasn't just 'He had a gun, he pointed it, and they shot back.' "

Mayor Tom Potter, who also is police commissioner, reacted to Chasse's death by ordering every Portland patrol officer and sergeant to undergo crisis-intervention training, at a cost of $500,000. So far this year, 200 officers, including Multnomah County deputies, have completed the 40-hour course that trains officers to better identify and deal with the mentally ill.

The Legislature passed a law requiring all recruits at the state's police academy to undergo 24 hours of crisis-intervention training.

"There's a trust problem"

Although the new training requirements have garnered widespread praise, some advocates for the mentally ill say a police culture of insensitivity has not changed.

Jason Renaud, a volunteer at the Mental Health Association of Portland and a high school friend of Chasse's, said families of mentally ill people don't feel comfortable calling on Portland police when loved ones need help.

Concern is so widespread that his nonprofit advocacy organization has received about 500 calls and e-mails about Chasse's death in the past year.

"There's a trust problem," Renaud said. Renaud, on the other hand, has respect for the work of many officers.

"My experience is the police department (is made up of) professional people who care a lot and have a difficult job," Renaud said. "The mental health system is in shambles, and they get stuck with it. And while they get stuck with it, it is their job."

Renaud said the response of some members of the bureau to Chasse's death has fueled the lack of trust.

In June, police officers hauled citizen activist Richard Prentice off to a holding cell for posting a flier on the federal courthouse that harshly criticized the three officers involved in Chasse's death. According to a complaint Prentice has filed with the city, two of those officers confronted Prentice in his holding cell.

And in the months after Chasse's death, editorials printed in the police union's newsletter also have undermined trust, Renaud said. One states that to believe Chasse's death was caused by police negligence is "a display of insanity."

The sentiments of union President Robert King have upset Renaud, too.

Last fall, after the Portland Tribune ran a story critical of officers who reported the most use of force, King gave the officers -- including one who was involved in Chasse's death -- Starbucks gift cards as a show of support.

Union supports officers

King said he gave the Starbucks cards to the officers because he thought the article was unfair in that it did not adequately explain why officers sometimes have to use force as part of their jobs.

The union president said the officers involved in Chasse's death followed their training and used the force necessary to stop a man who was flailing violently. They also were deeply affected by his death.

"It was accidental, and it was tragic," King said. "And why people can't understand that is lost on me."

As state support for the mentally ill has receded, police officers increasingly encounter people in mental crisis. Officers used to have the option of delivering people to Dammasch State Hospital in Wilsonville, but it closed in 1995 as part of a national movement to de-institutionalize the mentally ill.

Another option disappeared in 2001 with the shuttering of a 24-hour crisis triage center in Portland where officers could drop off people for medical treatment. Today, officers take people who pose an imminent danger to themselves or others to hospital emergency rooms, which frequently release them within hours.

"What's bothersome is the officers are the ones left to deal with the mentally ill," King said. "The city of Portland, the county of Multnomah and the state of Oregon have abandoned them."

Earlier this summer, officers responded eight times in three weeks to the home of a Southeast Portland woman who was threatening to kill herself. Seven times, they drove her to a local hospital for evaluation. Each time, she was quickly released and they were called to her home again.

Officers collaborated with the head of the bureau's new crisis-intervention-training program and helped get the woman committed to the state mental system.

Liesbeth Gerritsen, the head of the training program, said it's making a difference. She quoted an officer who told her that he'd changed his attitude about a mentally ill man he frequently sees in the field.

"Before, I kind of thought he was a jerk. But now I feel kind of sorry for him," Gerritsen remembers the officer telling her after he completed the course. "For me, as a trainer, that made me really happy."

Police Chief Rosie Sizer, a big supporter of crisis-intervention training, opens each 40-hour course in person, reminding officers that their very presence may intimidate some.

"What we often fail to realize is how much people fear us," Sizer said.

The bureau has instituted other changes: Officers no longer take people who have been in a prolonged struggle to the hospital without a paramedic's approval. They are also required to tell medics about any force applied to a subject, something that wasn't fully communicated in Chasse's case.

Advocates for the mentally ill are still pushing for a 24-hour crisis triage center. Efforts to get money from the Legislature failed, but Multnomah County Commissioner Lisa Naito has proposed using some of the revenue from existing business income taxes to pay for the center.

Hold officers accountable

Copwatch's Handelman said he supports many of the proposals suggested after Chasse's death, such as reopening the triage center and providing more housing for the mentally ill. But he said that none of those measures addresses the reasons Chasse died.

Handelman wants the focus to stay on holding the officers and the justice system accountable.

He said the public doesn't know how aggressively prosecutors questioned witnesses during the grand jury proceedings. They don't know whether police followed their policies and training, and if so, whether those need to be changed.

To learn the answers, Handelman said, the public needs to see the grand jury transcripts and the internal investigative files that the city doesn't want released.

"It's about the transparency of the system and holding the officers accountable and making sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again," Handelman said.

James Chasse Died A Year Ago In Police Custody

2007-09-17T04:41:00.000-07:00

from OPB.com

Monday is the one-year anniversary of the death of James Chasse, a mentally disabled Portland man who died after being arrested. Kristian Foden-Vencil reports.

Chasse died after being chased and tackled to the ground by Multnomah County Sheriff deputy Bret Burton and Portland Police Officers Christopher Humphery and Kyle Nice.

Chasse was put in jail and was only taken to the hospital after he was unconscious. He died on the way.

Jason Renaud of The Mental Health Association of Portland, says the organization will hand a letter to Mayor Tom Potter this afternoon.

Jason Renaud: “A lot of our supporters and friends have questions about what happened to Jim that really haven’t been answered, by the police or by the mayor’s office. And these questions are persistent and deserve answers.”

Mayor Potter has stressed the need for additional mental health resources, and the police department has expanded its Crisis Intervention Team training and medical transportation policy.

Police Unions Contracts

2007-09-15T12:57:00.001-07:00

Several questions sent to the Mental Health Association of Portland are answered best by reviewing the contract between the Portland Police Association and the city, and the contract between the Portland Police Commanding Officers Association and the city.

Both contracts reside on the city web site.

Portland Police Association 2006-2010 (PDF Document, 457kb)

Portland Police Commanding Officers Association 2006-2010 (PDF Document, 154kb)

City alters procedures in year after mentally ill man's death

2007-09-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

from KGW.com

One year later, the death of Portland's James Chasse, Jr. is spurring changes in how police, jails, and paramedics do their jobs.

Chasse died from chest injuries September 17, 2006 after the mentally ill man scuffled with Portland Police officers.

That evening, they made contact with Chasse after he was seen urinating in public.

Chasse, a frail-looking 42-year-old schizophrenic, was defiant as he led police on a short foot chase.

The city’s review of the incident describes how the group took a hard tumble onto a sidewalk in Portland’s Pearl District.

Two hours later, Chasse died from chest-crushing injuries suffered during his tangle with police.

“In all the years I've been around policing, there've only been a few incidents that have touched the community like the James Chasse case,” said Portland Mayor Tom Potter.

Potter says during the year since Chasse's died, promises of change are slowly becoming fulfilled.

“Every officer and supervisor who works the street will go through a 40-hour training on how to deescalate tension (with) people suffering from mental illness.”

At Multnomah County’s downtown jail -where police brought Chasse briefly before his injuries were fully recognized- Sheriff Bernie Giusto says there are now strict policies in place dictating how paramedics and police communicate with jail medical staff about the condition of suspects when they arrive there.

“There are certainly some adjustments that need to happen,” Giusto said.

Chasse is believed to have died that night while authorities transported him via a police cruiser to Providence Hospital.

Giusto says that is no longer allowed.

“They will -under most circumstance- leave in a medical transport vehicle. They're no longer allowed to be loaded back into patrol cars.”

Potter praises those changes, but he says one change in particular is sorely missing.

“The police need a crisis triage center, a place where they can take people with mental illness to have them diagnosed.”

County Commissioner Lisa Naito agrees.

She is trying to find scarce county budget money for such a triage center.

“I want to make it reality, these recommendations.”

Naito has a family member who suffers from mental illness.

She believes Chasse's story would've turned out differently if fully trained police had a place to bring Chasse other than jail or a hospital.

“From my perspective it could've been my family member that this would've happened to,” she said.

Naito is now looking for up to $4 million dollars in county funding for a new, secure 16-bed mental triage facility.

Police and deputies should be up-to-date on crisis intervention training within a year and a half.

In the meantime, the city faces a civil lawsuit from Chasse's family.

Untitled

2007-09-13T22:32:00.000-07:00

from Willamette Week

One of the cops accused in last year’s killing of James Chasse Jr. while he was in police custody is named in a new lawsuit alleging police battery. Portland police officer Christopher Humphreys and three other officers are accused of beating a suspect named Charles Manigo during a May 4, 2006, arrest at the Rose Quarter TriMet transit stop. Humphreys was one of the three officers named in a federal civil-rights lawsuit over the death of Chasse, a 42-year-old schizophrenic who died Sept. 17, 2006, from injuries he sustained during his arrest.

An earlier WW investigation found Humphreys has one of the highest use-of-force rates in the Portland Police Bureau.

In the new lawsuit, filed Aug. 21 in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Manigo seeks $135,000 from the City of Portland for alleged injuries, pain and suffering, and malicious prosecution. The police and city attorney’s office declined to comment.

Chasse death stays hazy

2007-09-11T06:56:00.000-07:00

from Portland Tribune
City presses to protect cops’ internal probe in mentally ill man’s case

As the one-year anniversary of the death of James Chasse Jr. approaches, mental health activists and Portland city officials will spend it in contradictory ways.

In a 4 p.m. ceremony Monday at City Hall, the Mental Health Association of Portland will ask for more information about Chasse’s controversial death. The group’s request, however, will come at a time when the city is going to court to prevent the release of more information about the incident.

On Sept. 17, 2006, near Northwest 18th Avenue and Everett Street, Portland Police officer Christopher Humphreys thought he saw the 42-year-old Chasse, who was mentally ill, urinating publicly.

When Chasse ran, officers gave chase and tackled and subdued him. An autopsy report attributed his death to massive internal trauma, including the fracturing of almost all of Chasse’s ribs.

A grand jury found insufficient evidence to file criminal charges against the officers involved. But that is not the end of the matter. An internal investigation scrutinizing whether officers handled the incident properly will not be completed until early next year, according to the city attorney’s office.

Also, Chasse’s family has filed a lawsuit against the city. It’s in that context that the city attorney’s office has requested a protective order to prevent the release of the bureau’s internal investigation — once it is completed — as well as other documents.

Absent such an order, the internal report almost assuredly would be releasable under Oregon Public Records law. But if a federal judge grants the city’s request, the internal probe would be kept secret indefinitely.

Jason Renaud, who heads the Mental Health Association of Portland, said the internal probe would resolve some of the unanswered questions swirling around how “Jim-Jim” died.

“I would encourage the city to be open with this document, to not pursue this, and to disclose this information,” Renaud said. He added that what will make people feel safer is “not more training, not more officers, not a better mental health system, but truth and trust.”

Other reports released

The standard incident reports of the Chasse incident were released following the grand jury’s decision to not issue indictments. However, investigations by the bureau’s Internal Affairs Division often turn up more information.

In the city attorney’s motion to the court, the city claims that Internal Affairs reports are kept confidential as a matter of policy. The filing cites the privacy of officers and witnesses interviewed, and maintains that release of Internal Affairs reports would discourage people from being honest in future Internal Affairs investigations.

In reality, the city often releases such reports voluntarily in matters of great public interest, as called for by Oregon Public Records law.

Last month, the city attorney’s office voluntarily released the entire Internal Affairs investigation of the shooting of Dennis Lamar Young by police Lt. Jeff Kaer. It did so despite the threat of civil litigation by Young’s family.

And following the savage beating of a man by two off-duty cops outside a downtown nightclub in 2002, the city voluntarily released Internal Affairs reports that showed which Portland officers had tried to protect the perpetrators from a criminal investigation, and which officers did their jobs conscientiously.

Bureau managers sometimes release Internal Affairs reports because they feel “the public interest outweighs privacy interests, so we’re not going to fight (their release),” police spokesman Brian Schmautz said. He added that he has no opinion on the request for a protective order in the Chasse case.
Commissioners wonder

Asked about the request for a protective order, John Doussard, spokesman for Mayor Tom Potter, released the following statement:

“I can’t comment on the specifics of the Chasse case because it’s pending. But a ‘protective order’ is a routine legal step in these kinds of cases that both sides use, and it’s ultimately up to the judge to decide how or even if it will be used (by) the parties. The Mayor was not told by the City Attorney because there wasn’t a reason to tell him — he doesn’t micromanage pretrial legal maneuvers.”

Commissioners Sam Adams and Dan Saltzman did not return calls from the Portland Tribune regarding the case.

Commissioner Randy Leonard said that as long as the outcome of disciplinary proceedings is kept secret, he favors the release of internal probes when the public interest calls for it. As far as the Chasse protective order, Leonard said: “Yeah, that concerns me. I intend to ask questions about it.”

Commissioner Erik Sten said that he needs more information, and understands why the city might want to delay the release of the report. But generally speaking, “I think the public has the right to know what happened, particularly in a case this tragic,” he said.

Dan Handelman, a volunteer with Portland Copwatch, called the request for a protective order “stupid… . It makes them look like they’re trying to hide something.”

City Wants To Keep Chasse Probe Secret

2007-09-07T07:11:00.000-07:00

from the Portland Mercury

It’s rumored that attorneys for the City of Portland are fighting in court to keep the Police Bureau’s internal affairs investigation into the death of James Chasse secret, saying they want to protect the privacy of the officers involved.

Tom Steenson, attorney for the Chasse family, said in a press release yesterday that a federal court hearing is scheduled for October 11, “to resolve disputes over the defendants’ production of documents in discovery.”

Sources close to the situation say the Police Bureau is refusing to release its internal affairs documents to Steenson, and that the hearing is scheduled to resolve questions of public disclosure. Nobody was in at the City, or at Steenson’s office, to return a call from Blogtown, but we’ll have more early next week.

Timing of the news is unfortunate—the anniversary of Chasse’s death is the Monday after next, and protests are already planned outside City Hall and the downtown Justice Center. Any efforts by the city to prevent complete transparency around Chasse’s death are bound to leave people asking what the city has to hide.

Remembering Chasse

2007-09-06T07:27:00.000-07:00

from Portland Mercury

Protests Mark One-Year Anniversary

Activists are planning protests outside Portland's downtown Justice Center and at city hall on September 17 to mark the one-year anniversary of the controversial death in custody of James Chasse.

Chasse, a schizophrenic chased through the Pearl District by Portland police after urinating in the street, was tackled to the ground opposite the Bluehour restaurant on NW Everett. There, Chasse—who weighed 145 pounds and stood 5' 9"—was beaten and Tasered repeatedly in front of more than a dozen witnesses, then carted off to jail in a squad car, instead of to the hospital. He died just over an hour later, en route to the hospital after jail nurses told the cops he could not stay in a cell.

Members of the Mental Health Association (MHA) of Portland, which has focused its advocacy on Chasse's death for the past year, met last Saturday to plan a "peaceful statement" at 4 pm outside city hall, and draft a letter to the mayor listing their unanswered questions.

"Is it safe for families of people with mental illness to call the police in an emergency, whether it be a psychiatric emergency or any other sort?" asked Jason Renaud of the MHA. "The other question which I think has gone unanswered is: What the hell happened? Don't we have policies, procedures, and a justice system that can resolve this? Don't we have a way to remove police officers from the force who do things like this?"

Sergeant Kyle Nice and Officer Christopher Humphreys, who were cleared of criminal wrongdoing related to Chasse's death by a grand jury, are still working for the Portland Police Bureau, while Sheriff's Deputy Brett Burton, also cleared, is still employed by Multnomah County. Meanwhile Chasse's family continues to pursue a civil lawsuit against the city.

A more radical all-day protest is also planned for September 17 by a group posting anonymously on activist website Indymedia. The group plans to set up shop at 8 am on SW 2nd and Main, directly opposite the cops' Central Precinct building, and to stay there all day.

"We want the cops to see us as they enter work that day, as they head out for street patrols, as they head out to lunch," wrote the organizers, on the website. "We will not be ignored. We demand justice. We will not live in fear." Efforts by the Mercury to contact the organizers of this protest were unsuccessful by press time.

Questions Want Answers

2007-09-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Friends and supporters of James Chasse want to know what happened to James Chasse - and why.

Together we will meet on September 17 at 4 PM on the sidewalk outside of City Hall to deliver a letter to Mayor Tom Potter listing our questions and concerns.

It was September 17, 2006 when James was attacked and beaten by law officers Kyle Nice, Christopher Humphrey and Brett Burton. James died after first responders ignored his injuries.

Read this web site. Send your questions about what happened to James Chasse to info@mentalhealthportland.org. We will incorporate your question into our letter. Then help us deliver the letter to Mayor Potter on September 17.

Letter from IPR to Benjamin Haile

2007-08-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

Download and read the letter from the Independent Police Review Division, an office of the City's Auditor's Office, to Benjamin Haile, attorney for Richard Prentice.

Prentice was arrested June 14 with the charge of Advertising In Streets. According to police, Prenctice used tape to attach a poster protesting the killing of James Chasse to a downtown building.

Prentice has filed a civil suit against the city for a variety of civil rights violations during his booking.

Charges against Prentice have been dropped.

Comment About Links to The Oregonian by the Blog Authors

2007-08-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

Readers of this site and others may notice the absence of URL links to the original stories published in the Oregonian newspaper.

Despite being one of the most profitable newspapers in the nation, the Oregonian, along with other Advance Publication operations, runs an irresponsible web site.

Recently the web site - which probably has no connection to the Portland paper - decided to change all the URL addresses for it's news stories. This decision broke all the linkages - the direct connections - between this blog and Oregonian news stories about James Chasse.

The decision did not just effect our blog. All news story links to the Oregonian are broken.

We could recreate the links - a toilsome process - or recognize the irresponsible status of the Oregonian web site.

We've decided to retrieve and post the entire the news stories we need for this blog from the Oregonian archive, accessible with a Multnomah County library card through PORTALS or through the Multnomah County Library.

Panel to look at police complaint

2007-08-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

from The Oregonian

Richard Prentice was arrested after posting a flier that criticized three officers

The Portland Police Bureau's internal affairs division will investigate whether police wrongly arrested and intimidated a North Portland man after he taped a flier to the federal courthouse calling three officers "murderers."

The bureau's oversight agency -- the Independent Police Review Division -- told the bureau in a letter dated Aug. 1 that 33-year-old Richard Prentice's complaint is worthy of further investigation.

Officer Matt Wells arrested Prentice on June 14 after Prentice taped a flier to the federal courthouse in downtown Portland. Wells seized Prentice's flier, which included the names and photographs of Portland police Officers Brett Burton, Kyle Nice and Christopher Humphreys. It read "WANTED . . . These SCUM BAGS killed an innocent man named Jim Chasse by beating him to death. They are still employed by the Portland police department."

Prentice said the two officers who drove him to Central Precinct berated him for criticizing police for the death of James P. Chasse Jr. Chasse, who had schizophrenia, died Sept. 17 from multiple rib fractures after police chased him and tackled him.

Once at Central Precinct, Prentice said two of the officers whom he named on the flier -- Nice and Humphreys -- entered his holding cell and confronted him about the flier.

Police charged Prentice with violating a city code "Advertising in Streets." Although the law is still on the books and police say they haven't been told not to use it, city leaders have expressed little confidence in its constitutionality. The Multnomah County district attorney's office declined to prosecute Prentice last month.

Benjamin Haile, Prentice's attorney, said he learned of the Independent Police Review's decision to ask the bureau to investigate in a letter he received Tuesday. He said the decision was vindication for his client.

Lauri Stewart, outreach coordinator for the oversight panel, said her agency asks Portland police to investigate about one-third of the roughly 800 complaints it receives on Portland police each year.

The bureau could determine Prentice's complaint is unfounded or it could determine the officers acted improperly and should be disciplined.

Flier calling police names not a crime, county says

2007-07-12T13:30:00.000-07:00

from The Oregonian

Arrest - Richard Prentice, 33, was held for taping up a flier criticizing three officers in the death of James Chasse

The Multnomah County district attorney won't prosecute a 33-year-old man who was arrested June 14 by a Portland police officer for posting a flier on the federal courthouse calling three Portland police officers "murderers" and "scumbags."

Richard Prentice says he was taken into custody and cited for unlawfully "advertising on streets" because his flier offended the police -- a violation of his constitutional rights.

"It was an abuse of power," said Prentice, a senior at Portland State University, who said he was handcuffed, locked in a cell and then berated by several police officers. He was cited and released later that evening.

The 8-by-11-inch flier has the names and photographs of Portland police officers Brett Burton, Kyle Nice and Christopher Humphreys. It reads "WANTED . . . These SCUM BAGS killed an innocent man named Jim Chasse by beating him to death. They are still employed by the Portland police department."

The district attorney's office declined to prosecute this week, and on Wednesday the Police Bureau released the arrest report.

According to the report, Officer Matt Wells was driving by the federal courthouse in downtown when he spotted Prentice taping up a flier. Wells told Prentice to take it down. Prentice responded, "I'll post them someplace else then" and ripped it down.

Prentice says Wells handcuffed him and seized his stack of fliers, which included others critical of police. One was a photo of a burning police car and the other depicted a large gun pointed at a police officer's head under the words "Revolutions don't happen by themselves. We need your help."

Portland police spokeswoman Officer Cathe Kent said Wells was within his rights to handcuff and detain Prentice. "It depends on (Prentice's) demeanor," Kent said.

Prentice says Wells was wrong to charge him with a crime when he was exercising his free speech rights. Prentice says he is also upset that the police depicted in the poster came to confront him as he sat in a holding cell at Central Precinct.

The Multnomah County district attorney's office rejected the case this week because of the dubious constitutionality of the ordinance cited by the officer. In a memo, the district attorney cites the city attorney's own reservations about the law, which bans the posting of notices on public buildings but is seen as vague and overbroad.

City’s Police Review Refers Poster Intimidation Complaint to Internal Affairs

2007-06-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

from the Portland Mercury

The city’s Independent Police Review has referred a complaint by Richard Prentice, the man who alleges he was arrested and intimidated in a holding cell for displaying anti-cop posters downtown, to internal affairs investigators for review.

Prentice was arrested, cited with “advertising on the street,” and thrown in a cell on June 14 for putting up an anti-cop poster on the federal courthouse—the posters, he says, were motivated by the in-custody death of James Chasse last fall, as well as his own alleged beating at the hands of North Portland officers last March.

Unusually, the Mercury was contacted by email following publication of its initial story on Prentice, by Sergeant Kyle Nice—one of the cops implicated in Prentice’s allegations, and pictured in his poster (above, top right).

In a letter to Prentice’s attorney, Benjamin Haile, dated August 1st, IPR director Leslie Stevens lists six conduct complaints against Prentice’s arresting officer, Matt Wells—intimidation, false or inappropriate arrest, threatening to use force, arrest in retaliation for the flier he was posting, and violation of Prentice’s right to free speech, as well as improperly handcuffing Prentice.

There are also three complaints each against Officer Christopher Humphries and Sergeant Kyle Nice—of intimidating Prentice with threats and insults, of violating his civil right to free speech, and illegally searching Prentice’s backpack.

Haile says he is pleased the IPR is taking his client’s complaint seriously. Download a copy of the IPR’s letter HERE.

Read This Story Please—Man Alleges Arrest, Intimidation over Anti-Cop Poster

2007-06-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

from the Portland Mercury

Blogtown readers, I’d like you to meet Richard Prentice:

I know it’s so “last year” to read our paper version these days, but Prentice’s story forms the basis for this week’s news lede—which is likely to be ignored by every other media outlet in town, unless his lawsuit against the Portland Police Bureau succeeds.

Prentice, a 200lb former linebacker, complained to the Independent Police Review (IPR) last September—alleging he had been badly beaten by cops in North Portland in March. Part of the complaint was an on-street beating, then he alleged he was taken to a holding cell, held against a wall while his kidneys were systematically punched, one at a time, so badly that he couldn’t tie his shoe laces for weeks afterwards. Prentice’s attorney at the time described the alleged incident as “torture.” The IPR rejected his complaint, and the city denied his tort claim, saying he was “intoxicated” on the night in question, and had a bad memory of what happened.

Ever been drunk? I know I have. Scary, though, isn’t it, to imagine that Prentice might have been telling the truth…

Anyway, that incident, coupled with the controversial death in custody of James Chasse, last September, is what led Prentice, he says, to create anti-cop posters, and try to post one on the wall of the Federal Courthouse on June 14th.

This is a city where plenty of people have a problem with the Police Bureau. “The cops are THUGS, maaaaan.” Yeah, whatever. But do Prentice’s allegations about what happened to him as he was putting up his poster make a difference to your rational, balanced perception of the Bureau? I’m assuming, since you’re reading Blogtown, that you don’t give too much credence to Indymedia’s rantings. But what about this story? Does it bother you? Do you care?

Read it, please. And make up your mind.

For Potter, success is doing by not doing

2007-05-20T21:53:00.000-07:00

from The Oregonian, by Anna Griffin

The election night scene at businessman Harold Williams' North Portland storefront typified Mayor Tom Potter's first term.

The crowd last week was as diverse as Portland --neighborhood activists mingled with big-money developers, twentysomethings and AARP members bobbed their heads to Marvin Gaye. Potter stood quietly in the center of it all, the man who brought them all together and then sat back to watch them work. None of his City Council colleagues showed.

When Potter finally rose to speak, he announced that though three reforms he'd pushed had passed, the one in which he'd invested the most --changing the form of government --had failed by 3-to-1. Yet he claimed mission accomplished. So what if the result wasn't a resounding win? He fulfilled his promise to put the change to voters. The process itself was a victory.

Since the day he took office, when he cut short his inaugural so everyone could make it to City Commissioner Sam Adams' swearing-in on time, Potter has been a different kind of mayor with a different set of priorities.

More than any single policy, he promised to increase opportunities for Portlanders to get involved. After 12 years under Vera Katz, a sharp-tongued whirlwind whose to-do list was taller than she was, Potter offered himself as a straight-talking stoic more interested in building relationships than esplanades.

As a result, according to interviews with elected officials, neighborhood activists, business leaders and city staff, his tenure has been a mix of half-finished reform and frequent political infighting, lots of talk and less action. Yet in recent polls, the mayor's approval rating has topped 70 percent --suggesting his popularity with the public has grown since 2004.

Supporters note that Potter has done exactly what he said he would: create a culture of civic engagement, include people who'd never been part of a civic debate, make city government nicer.

Critics say his resume is light on tangible accomplishments, the kind of concrete "Here's what I did" stuff that makes a mayor's legacy.

The Potter approach to problem-solving goes like this: Rather than govern by mayoral dictate, bring together people from different, often opposite, sides of an issue and let them craft a solution.

He's had some success with that model: The City Council avoided a nasty labor dispute last year by promising short-term concessions in exchange for long-term help cutting health care costs. Other cities are already calling for information about a new plan for cleaning up downtown, written by business owners, homelessness advocates and police.

But beyond downtown safety, the mayor struggled last week to come up with other examples of significant, substantive results from the 27 committees he's named in his first 29 months.

"There are many examples," he said. "I just don't happen to have them here right here."

To be fair, the timing of the question stank. Potter was less than 48 hours removed from election night, when voters refused to strengthen the mayor's office and make commissioners legislators only. In fact, city commissioners now enjoy new freedom to fire upper managers and more control over the Portland Development Commission budget.

In addition to that defeat, Potter has been dogged by a sinus infection that left him sleepless and stuffy-headed, his voice scratchy and his hands with a noticeable tremor.

He professed to be proud of the city's progress. Yet most of the marquee successes under his watch have come off other people's agendas: Commissioner Erik Sten pushed to end homelessness long before Potter took office. Commissioner Dan Saltzman championed fire and police pension and disability reforms well before Potter helped pass changes. The mayor opposed Adams' plan to lower the business income tax, though he later voted for it.

Potter's personal victories have been tempered.

He helped persuade voters to pass a temporary property-tax for Portland Public Schools, but only after failing to find support for a regional tax and then unveiling and quickly abandoning a plan for a citywide income tax. He's tried to build relations with leaders in other parts of the state, but hasn't used those alliances to win the tax restructuring he wants. He replaced the leadership at the Portland Police Bureau with community policing fans, but got the chance only because of Chief Derrick Foxworth's sex scandal.

At times, Potter and his team's lack of political experience has hurt: When he began his visioning project, Potter hoped to survey 100,000 Portlanders to craft a plan for the city's future. Instead, his staff talked to 15,000, and the project is behind schedule and over budget.

School funding is a priority, yet he was admittedly stunned by opposition to his school tax idea. He's made restoring community trust in police a mantra, yet aides waited five days last summer before interrupting his vacation to report the death of a mentally ill man, James Chasse, in police custody.

Although an aide took the blame, critics and even some friends wondered how a mayor could go a week without checking on things back home. Katz, they note, rarely even left the city limits.

Potter, however, has never claimed to be like Katz.

"It's not bricks and mortar with him. It's not the esplanade or Pioneer Courthouse Square or the streetcar," said Austin Raglione, his chief of staff. "I hear people say, 'He hasn't done anything,' and I wonder, 'What do they want him to do?' "

"They," an increasing and increasingly diverse chorus of developers and citizen activists, want firm action and clear policy on issues such as the future of the industrial district on the Willamette River's east bank, urban renewal in neighborhoods such as Cully and far East Portland, a strategy for making city government more cost-effective. Instead, Potter has given those kinds of debates to other commissioners or study committees.

Metro Council President David Bragdon, who says he is not running for mayor despite gossip to the contrary, dodged the question when asked whether Potter has done a good job: "I think he's a good man and a good person."

Complaints about Potter take on a familiar refrain: The times call for action, not conversation.

"He's let the rest of the City Council take advantage of him and control the agenda," developer Homer Williams said.

Potter counters that he allows the public to control the agenda. He pledged to change the tone of city government. Foes and friends agree he's done that.

"Sure, he could be a little tougher," said Bernie Foster, founder of The Skanner newspaper and a supporter of Potter's opponent Jim Francesconi in 2004. "But he's sincere, and he's out in the community."

But to what end?

"It's really hard to point to any one thing and say, 'This is what the mayor has done,' " said Potter supporter JoAnn Bowman, a former state representative. "The pieces haven't come together yet."

The mayor is waiting until September, when he turns 67, to decide whether to run again. He said last week's election had no impact.

Still, history suggests he might be content to hang up the suits and go back to travel and volunteering: He spent just 32 months as police chief, 11 months as executive director of New Avenues for Youth, a nonprofit that works with homeless youths, and five months as interim director of the state's public safety training academy.

Potter says he will decide on a second term by deciding whether he's done what he wanted. He can and often does wax long and loud about his philosophy toward governing, about his commitment to "building our human infrastructure."

Last week, however, his personal list of tasks undone took less than one minute to recite: visioning, more community policing, "creating a more inclusive society."

Maybe he was tired or desperately in need of the European vacation he began Friday. Either way, he offered no goals for a second term and no new ideas for the last 18 months of this one.

"We're headed in the right direction," he said. "The question is whether it still needs my hand."

Senate OKs mental illness training for police

2007-05-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

from The Oregonian

The Senate voted unanimously Friday to require 24 hours of police training in identifying those with mental illness before officers can be certified.

"We did something very important here today," said Sen. Avel Gordly, an independent from Portland, who co-sponsored House Bill 2765.

The measure comes on the heels of a number of incidents involving the mentally ill in recent years. Last September, for instance, a schizophrenic man who police mistakenly thought was under the influence of drugs or alcohol died after clashing with police.

After police wrestled James P. Chasse Jr. to the ground -- in what one officer described as "chaos" -- he was transported to jail. There he passed in and out of consciousness, according to police reports.

Officers decided to take Chasse to the hospital, but he passed out again en route. Officers pulled the car over, and an ambulance took him the rest of the way. Chasse died later that night at Providence Hospital.

The bill, which has passed in the House, is on its way to Gov. Ted Kulongoski's desk.

The governor plans to sign the bill into law because training to recognize the mentally ill is vital, said Anna Richter Taylor, Kulongoski's spokeswoman.

But she added the Legislature needs to be certain it builds enough cash into the state budget to pay for the training. It was unclear Friday how much money it would cost to provide that training.

"Absolutely these programs are critical, but we also need to make sure we're backing up these programs with the funding necessary to execute them," Richter Taylor said.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - 5/18/07

2007-05-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

As a mental health professional, I am outraged at how the police chose to deal with the man who attacked a woman and her pregnant daughter.

Obviously this man has a mental illness. Obviously he is a danger to others. Obviously he needs help and he needs to be some place where he and everyone else are safe.

The comments by Portland police spokesman Brian Schmautz are very uninformed and irresponsible. The police are very capable of bringing people to the hospital to be assessed for a hold. The police are very capable of calling Project Respond to help them assess a situation just like this.

The police should be very capable of judging when someone is a danger to others --such as when he assaults a woman and her pregnant daughter. If Schmautz and the other officers involved do not know these things by now (especially after James P. Chasse Jr.'s death), we have a serious problem. Not providing this man with the appropriate treatment did a huge disservice to him, his victims and our community.

GINA PATRIARCA
Southwest Portland

Lawmakers Move To Require Mental Health Training For Cops

2007-05-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

from OPB.com

New Oregon police officers will have to undergo at least 24 hours of mental illness training, under a bill passed by the Oregon House today with overwhelming support. The bill now heads to the Senate, as Rob Manning reports.

In the last year or so, police have faced increasing criticism for how they deal with people behaving erratically. Perhaps the most widely publicized incident involved a mentally ill man named James Chasse who died nine months ago in police custody. Chasse's aunt happens to be the campaign treasurer for Representative Jerry Krummel.

The Wilsonville Republican read a letter she wrote on the House floor in support of the bill.

Jerry Krummel: "My nephew James P. Chasse, junior, was beaten to death by Portland Police officers last September. He was mentally ill."

The letter goes on to charge Portland Police officers with jumping to conclusions about Chasse. In the letter Krummel read, Chasse's aunt describes a scruffy, quiet man who was misunderstood by police officers.

Jerry Krummel: "Later, the officers said they thought he might have urinated on a street, but did not see him do that, nor did anyone else. They said he might have been on drugs, but an autopsy found no drugs in his system. They reported that he was a homeless person. But he was not."

No one spoke in opposition to the bill to require more mental illness training. But Democrat Jeff Barker took a few minutes to defend the police from the charges in Krummel's letter. Barker is a retired police lieutenant. He disagreed with the characterization that officers "beat Chasse to death" -- and he questioned theories of why the mentally ill man ran from police.

Jeff Barker: "And they also said he was possibly abused by the police before', well he possibly might not have been abused by the police before. That was a tragic death, but you - if you haven't worn the shoes of a cop, and a 140-pound guy, a little, slight guy -- they can fight like a tiger."

Nevertheless, Barker concluded by supporting the bill. It passed 58 to 0, but it won't go as far as some would have liked. For one thing, it applies only to new officers, unlike a policy recently adopted by the City of Portland, to train current officers, too. The House bill also requires just 24 hours of training, while the Portland policy requires 40.

Beckie Child is the president of the Oregon Mental Health Association.

Beckie Child: "It's a pretty complex issue and I think it's a baby-step in the right direction, but when you have to cross the Grand Canyon, and all you're taking is baby-steps, it will take you a very long time to cross that canyon."

Child is not optimistic that the current bill alone will do much to avoid another tragedy, like James Chasse's death. But she says it's better than what's in place now.

Police will overhaul use-of-force guidelines

2007-04-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

from The Oregonian

Report - A task force prompted by James Chasse Jr.'s death recommends that Portland tighten its policy

Portland police used force slightly more frequently than officers in a handful of comparable cities, yet the Police Bureau did not uphold a single citizen complaint between 2004 and 2006, a task force reported.

By contrast, other police agencies around the country uphold between 8 and 14 percent of citizen complaints about excessive force, according to federal statistics.

The Portland task force, which included members of the city's Independent Police Review Division and the Police Bureau, did not conclude that Portland police use force too frequently or that the Police Bureau failed to take citizen complaints seriously.

Rather, it concluded that Portland's use-of-force policy meets only the minimal constitutional requirements and should be tightened.

In response, Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer said Tuesday that she already has started overhauling the policy and expects to have a new one in place by the beginning of next year. Sizer also pledged to provide more training and to more closely track the frequency that officers use force.

Sizer cautioned that policy changes should not make an officer hesitate to use force when necessary.

"We need to be able to effectively use force to protect the community and ourselves," she said.

Sizer also noted that force was rare overall, with officers using it in less than 1 percent of their calls and 5 percent of all arrests. In addition, 83 percent of the time, officers used least forceful tactics, such as control holds and pressure points.

Robert King, president of the Portland Police Association, said the report vindicated Portland police officers' use of force.

"We use it reasonably and appropriately," King said.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - 4/8/07

2007-04-08T21:42:00.001-07:00

from The Oregonian

POLICE EDUCATION STANDARDS Related issues as relevant as cops' training
I am a concerned citizen who also happens to be a mixed martial arts cage fighter. I have trained with the current UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) world champion, Randy Couture, and the welterweight world champion in the Full Contact Fighting Federation.

This past year, I have been hit, punched, kicked, grappled and body-slammed in every way conceivable. Not once have I ever sustained any damage to my ribs --not even any bruising. This without a doubt opens my eyes to the kind of physical abuse that it took to fracture James P. Chasse Jr.'s rib cage in 26 places. Excessive is a gross understatement!

If the educational bar is set even lower for the Portland police, then what kind of treatment can we expect for our mentally disabled citizens?

Portland's finest who worked their magic on Chasse must be world-class combat strikers. Maybe they should pursue careers in the UFC. The pay is much better, and you don't need a college education.

COBEY KEMPE

Gresham

Policing requires compassion, not college, chief says

2007-03-31T21:37:00.000-07:00

from The Oregonian, by Maxine Bernstein

To widen the pool of applicants and attract more minority candidates, Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer says she's considering lowering the educational bar for new officers from two years of college to a high school diploma or General Educational Development certificate.
Sizer touched on the idea during a speech Friday to the City Club in which she spoke of her first year's challenges and accomplishments leading the Portland Police Bureau.

Citing the rising cost of earning a college degree, Sizer said the bureau's current requirements restrict some qualified people, and in some cases minorities, from reaching the front door of the department.

Sizer, a 22-year bureau veteran, said she's frequently reminded of something one of her police coaches said early in her career. He told her good officers need three key traits: integrity, common sense and a sense of humor.

"And I'd add compassion," Sizer said. "You don't necessarily get that at college."

Sizer said she's committed this year to re-evaluating the bureau's educational standards for hiring, as well as the hiring process, which can last a year, "so we can open the net wider."

The bureau has made a tentative offer to a city Bureau of Human Resources employee to serve as the Police Bureau's personnel manager, replacing a police captain who now holds the job. The bureau has about 45 vacancies through the officer and supervisor ranks. As it struggles to hire recruits, it also faces waves of upcoming retirements. In 2006, the bureau hired 46 new officers and 64 retired. This year, 89 officers will be eligible to retire; 160 in the next 24 months, bureau figures show.

Eight percent to 9 percent of the people who go through the testing process to become a Portland office are hired. Minorities now make up about 13 percent of the Police Bureau.

"I think we can do better, and we're trying," Sizer said.

In 2001, former Chief Mark Kroeker lowered Portland's four-year college degree requirement to an entry-level requirement of an associate's degree, 60 semester hours or 90 quarter hours of college courses.

Former Chief Charles Moose had set the four-year college degree standard in 1996, arguing that the complexities of the job demanded more education. Today, the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office is the only law enforcement agency in Oregon to require a four-year college degree.

"We're a small enough agency that our applicant pool is such that we're able to maintain that," Lt. Jason Gates said.

In a wide-ranging speech, Sizer said she recognized the "ephemeral nature" of the chief's job, that she occupies a position "that is simply a pager call away from a catastrophe."

Sizer was appointed interim chief April 11 to replace Derrick Foxworth.

"My philosophy is to do what good I can in the time I'm given," she said. "Fairness, honesty, transparency and compassion, they are part of every decision I make as chief of police."

Within the bureau, she said she's working to fill administrative functions with civilians to place more cops on the street and detectives in investigative roles. For example, she wants to limit the 3,000 annual caseload burden on the bureau's single missing persons detective.

In reference to last year's death in police custody of James Chasse Jr., a 42-year-old man who suffered from schizophrenia, Sizer urged City Club members to lobby lawmakers and county commissioners to provide funding for a crisis triage center and "more humane and effective alternatives" so police will have places other than jail or an emergency room to take people suffering from mental illness.

The Police Bureau has started to train every patrol officer and street sergeant in crisis intervention, something Sizer said she wished the bureau had done 10 years earlier.

"I think that the training would have better prepared us to deal with a crumbling mental health care system," she said.

Responding to questions, she said her gender has been an asset, allowing her to display a range of emotion that a male counterpart might not be able to.

"Cops are stereotyped," she said. "I don't fit the stereotype. I feel embraced by the community, and I think part of the reason is because of my gender."

She called November's voter-approved reforms to the Portland Fire and Police Disability and Retirement Fund, "overdue and welcome." As chief, she said she had never wanted to sit on the fund's board.

"I did not want that job," Sizer said. "I didn't want to know detailed medical information about my employees. I think I was placed in a position I shouldn't have been in."

While she said one of her greatest challenges is to restore public trust in the Police Bureau, Sizer cautioned her audience not to have unrealistic expectations for police officers.

"Many police officers feel this unrealistic expectation as though they must be perfect in everything they do. It can be frankly unnerving," Sizer said. "It is a heavy burden for every police officer. It is a heavy burden for a chief of police."

County's Response to Chasse Civil Complaint

2007-03-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

Response to Chasse family civil complaint by Multnomah County.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - 3/14/07

2007-03-14T21:35:00.000-07:00

from The Oregonian

Chasse killed, not 'served'

Neither James P. Chasse Jr. nor anybody else was served or protected by the two Portland police officers and one Multnomah County sheriff's deputy who beat Chasse, because Chasse posed no threat to anybody. And Chasse did not "choose" a fight; the police accosted him.

Stuart Palmiter ("Protect and serve isn't just a motto," March 6) provides many statistics, none with any bearing on the Chasse case. Consider: One man committing zero crimes was beaten by two officers and one deputy, breaking 16 ribs in 26 places. Appropriate medical care was denied for almost two hours. That's why Chasse died.

Palmiter argues that police can require a person committing no crime to stop, then beat that law-abiding citizen into submission if he doesn't immediately comply or resists this unexpected and unwarranted assault. Palmiter calls this "winning." Any person who moves briskly through downtown wearing headphones should find this a bit disconcerting.

Until police who commit homicide on duty are held accountable, we are all at risk.

ANDREW SZATKOWSKI

Protect and serve isn't just a motto - The Death of James Chasse

2007-03-07T13:39:00.000-08:00

from the Oregonian

Author is Stuart Palmiter an officer in the Northeast Precinct of the Portland Police Bureau.

I have read one too many articles and letters written about the unfortunate death of James Chasse, while he was in the custody of Portland police, by people who don't have a clue what they're talking about.

I'm a Portland police officer and have been for more than 14 years. And I've been a Crisis Intervention Team officer since the program began 12 years ago.

I've been called to hundreds of incidents involving mentally ill and suicidal people. I've helped save the lives of many people, including six who were attempting to jump off the top decks of the Marquam, Fremont or Interstate bridges. And I've helped many people obtain mental health treatment and helped them to cope with their illness.

Here's what CIT training has done for me: It's allowed me to talk to and help individuals who are approachable, who are calm and not combative. If I can get close to a person and talk to him -- even if I don't get a response -- I can gather the information I need to make a decision about how best to care for him.

But CIT training cannot help with a person who runs away from me or chooses to fight once I catch up with him. When someone is combative, it's my job to control him with the least risk, to him and to myself. It's not a contest. It's not a game. It's a fight, and the community must understand that there can be only one winner -- the police officer. I never choose a fight; the other person does. Whether that person fights because of mental illness, because of drugs or alcohol in his system, or for some other reason, there's usually just no reasonable way to know at the time of the fight -- as in the Chasse incident.

Consider a few statistics: From 2000 through the first six months of 2006, Portland police made 242,921 arrests. We also placed an additional 11,903 people on mental health holds. During that time, we had two in-custody deaths.

I know of no officer who doesn't regret those deaths. Each is a tragedy. Each impacts everyone involved in ways incomprehensible to those who haven't experienced death first hand. But those statistics put the lie to the claims of some people that Portland police disregard the safety and well-being of those we have in our custody, including the mentally ill.

I'm human, as are my brother and sister officers. We do our jobs to the best of our abilities. And officers of the Portland Police Bureau care about Portland's citizens in a way those citizens may be proud of and confident that we will always try to improve.

We truly are here to protect and serve.

City's Response to Chasse Civil Complaint

2007-03-05T15:37:00.000-08:00

Response to the Chasse family civil complaint from City of Portland.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - 2/26/07

2007-02-26T21:25:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian

Police still miss main point

The recent articles and editorial about the death of James P. Chasse Jr. at the hands of the police (Feb. 9, 20, 21) seem to miss the point. While it's all very well to have clearer responsibilities outlined for transportation of injured prisoners, it seems clear that Chasse should not have received fatal injuries to begin with.
Robert King of the Portland Police Association scoffs at recent attempts to train officers in the recognition and handling of the mentally ill, calling it a "dance" in reaction to the Chasse incident, and saying that more policies are not helpful (Feb. 21).

I would agree with him about policies. Until there is an essential change in attitude in the Portland police ranks and leadership about use of excessive force, the inappropriate shootings and injuries such as Chasse sustained will continue.

The public is entitled to insist that police officers use force only when appropriate, and that they are held accountable for their actions.

DAVID JAMES
Sublimity

Mental illness training for police closer to reality

2007-02-21T21:22:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian, by Maxine Bernstein

Portland police are hearing from people who suffer from mental illnesses and are also listening to fellow officers discuss their own family members' struggles in a new crisis intervention training curriculum that began this month.

Lt. Sara Westbrook said the revamped curriculum is more focused around real people.

"Because we're hearing it from our own," she said, "the message is 'There is no "us" and "them." ' "

Westbrook, recently appointed as coordinator of the bureau's mental health training, invited members of Central City Concern and Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare's Project Respond, the county's mental health crisis outreach program, to suggest ways the curriculum could be improved.

Westbrook said she's striving to make the training useful for officers who are encountering more and more people suffering from mental illness on the street. In 1995, when she went through the 40-hour instruction, Westbrook said it was interesting but the outside instructors, including therapists and other mental health experts, didn't have the perspective of police.

"Frankly, they talked above us," Westbrook said. "It was too academic for us."

Two-year process

The new training is expected to last two years to get all patrol officers and sergeants, as well as Multnomah County sheriff's deputies, certified as crisis intervention officers. It came in response to the Sept. 17 death of James P. Chasse Jr. in police custody. Chasse, 42, suffered from schizophrenia when police encountered him and chased him, thinking he was acting oddly and possibly on drugs. Officers knocked Chasse to the ground and a struggle ensued to handcuff him. Chasse died from broad-based blunt trauma to his chest. He had no drugs on him or any in his system.

In October, Mayor Tom Potter announced he'd set aside $500,000 over the next two years to help Portland police run all patrol officers through 40 hours of specialized training on dealing with people suffering from a mental illness.

Portland's 40 hours of crisis intervention training for officers had been voluntary since the program began in 1994 under former Chief Charles Moose. Portland police and mental health advocates, including psychologists and psychiatrists, have provided the instruction, which includes classroom and realistic scenario training. The officers were taught how to approach and talk to someone in a crisis in order to defuse the situation before it escalated into violence.

The bureau videotaped three to four people with mental illnesses telling their stories. One of the four had significant contact with police several years ago. The bureau also asked officers to relay their own stories about relatives who suffer from mental illness. The videotaped accounts are played as part of the training. In addition, the bureau plays old TV episodes of "COPS," some dating to 1985, to critique.

Through critiques, officers are taught the proper way to interact with people suffering from mental illness, such as the proper tone of voice and body language to use, Westbrook said.

Program draws praise

Westbrook briefed community representatives about the new training at Tuesday's Chief's Forum.

Jason Renaud, of the Mental Health Association of Portland, lauded the bureau's efforts. Renaud said he was pleased Westbrook brought in Central City Concern and is including addiction as an element for the mental health training. He also applauded the sharing of officers' own stories.

"That's taking advantage of that trusting relationship to open up people's minds and hearts to behave with compassion," Renaud said. "This is a big step, and these are the right people making it."

A couple of forum members expressed an interest in sitting in on the training. Forum members T. J. Browning and Richard Brown suggested that any "us" versus "them" mentality between police and the community usually evaporates when all are sitting in the same room together.

A closed session

But Westbrook was hesitant to open the training to outsiders. She said strangers would stifle some officers from sharing their personal stories. Already, she said, some officers are resistant to the mandated training since it's coming in the aftermath of the Chasse case. Westbrook also declined to allow a media representative to sit in on part of the training, saying it would inhibit discussion.

Richard King, president of the Portland Police Association, said it'll be great if police learn something new in the training, but he's not that enthusiastic about it, either. "Every time something happens, we create more policies and training," King said. "I think police officers are pretty used to this dance."

Police Chief Rosie Sizer said she recognizes that the crisis training is only one piece of a larger puzzle.

"It's not going to change every encounter" the chief said, "but I think it's going to improve the services we provide to these people."

Chasse death sparks a change

2007-02-21T21:20:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian

Chasse death sparks a change

I n the wake of a mentally ill man's death in police custody last fall, the Portland Police Bureau has moved with impressive speed to improve departmental policies. One change announced this week clarifies what police should, and shouldn't, do when they use force and have reason to believe the confrontation may have resulted in injuries.

On the "should" list: Police should explain how much force they used. Paramedics, jail nurses and other emergency medical personnel need to know that, but it apparently wasn't fully communicated Sept. 17, when James Philip Chasse Jr. died in police custody.

On the "shouldn't" list: Police, in general, probably have no business transporting badly injured people to the hospital, unless there is no other way to get them there. An ambulance should do the transporting.

The obvious exception, of course, is when it's the best or only way to save someone's life. One concern about the new policy is that it involves a certain amount of additional paperwork that may bog things down rather than speed things up. Not every situation can be scripted according to policy. Under some circumstances, it's conceivable that the new policy could actually hinder or slow emergency response to an injured person instead of hastening it, as the policy is supposed to do.

Chasse, 42, died in police custody while officers were, belatedly, transporting him to a hospital. Had Chasse been taken to the hospital via ambulance --or if the true extent of his injuries had been understood --Chasse might be alive today.

Chasse suffered from schizophrenia. When police confronted him Sept. 17, after observing him possibly urinating in public, their orders to him to stop did not compute. He was so terrified he ran away. Police chased him. It's not clear what happened next (police contend an officer may have fallen on the emaciated man), but what is known is that Chasse suffered multiple rib fractures that punctured a lung. Later that day, these injuries apparently led to his death from what a medical examiner ruled was "broad-based blunt force trauma to the chest."

Paramedics called to the scene of the police confrontation with Chasse didn't detect his injuries, however. They observed his vital signs as normal. It wasn't until Chasse suffered what apparently was a seizure in a jail holding cell that police decided to transport him by patrol car to the hospital.

As The Oregonian's Maxine Bernstein reported Tuesday, there was apparently no discussion about the possible need for speed. In hindsight, it's obvious that jail medical staff should have done a far better job of assessing Chasse's injuries. Had that happened, it would have been clear that it wasn't safe to transport him by patrol car.

Chasse's death provoked a certain amount of finger-pointing among the respective agencies involved. The new policy may help to clear up misunderstandings by delineating their responsibilities more sharply. That's good. But this change has to be monitored.

Everyone involved must ensure that the net result is to speed up care for injured people, and never, under any circumstances, to slow it down.

Chasse death spurs police to change policy

2007-02-20T21:03:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian, by Maxine Bernstein

In response to the death of James P. Chasse Jr. in police custody, the Portland Police Bureau has adopted a new policy that restricts when officers can put a sick or injured person in their patrol car and outlines what information police must share with paramedics and jail nurses, such as how much force was used during an arrest.

The Chasse case last fall spurred the bureau to meet with county health officials, jail medical staff and ambulance paramedics to find better ways to share information and coordinate how they handle people who may require medical care, Assistant Chief Lynnae Berg said.

"It was a great collaborative effort among all involved --something both officers and emergency medical staff were hungry for," Berg said.

Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto agreed. "I think there was some fairly obvious changes that we needed to make," he said.

Chasse's death revealed gaps in police and county procedures because no one recognized the significant injuries he had suffered until it was too late.

Chasse, 42, who suffered from schizophrenia, sustained multiple rib fractures, some of which punctured his left lung, early in an encounter with police on Sept. 17. Ambulance paramedics who responded to the scene said his vital signs were normal and had a Portland police officer sign for him, declining emergency transport to a hospital.

Police drove Chasse to the Multnomah County Detention Center. He appeared to suffer a seizure in a holding cell and went unconscious. A jail nurse looked through the cell door window and told police the jail would not book Chasse. There was no discussion as to whether Chasse should be taken to a hospital by ambulance or by the police. Portland officers placed him in a patrol car. He died on the way to a hospital. The cause of death was broad-based blunt force trauma to his chest, the medical examiner ruled.

Under the new policy that took effect Jan. 30, officers will no longer give rides to people who have been engaged in a prolonged physical struggle, or are seriously injured, unconscious, suffering a seizure or extremely drunk, unless a paramedic on the scene approves it.

The policy says this will include people who appear to be suffering from what police call "excited delirium," a state of severe agitation, overstimulation, paranoia, involuntary twitching of muscles and hallucinations; anyone who is having respiratory or breathing problems, such as shortness of breath or wheezing; any head trauma before or during police contact; or anyone who appears to be extremely intoxicated or under the influence of drugs.

Officers will be required to tell emergency medical staff about any force that was used against the person, something that was not fully communicated in the Chasse case.

Further, if paramedics decide a person doesn't need additional medical care and give officers the OK to take the person to jail in a patrol car, then they will provide the officer with a document detailing the medical treatment received that will be dropped off with medical staff at the jail.

If jail nurses refuse to admit someone for medical reasons, the staff will document why on a "Pre-booking Emergency Response Record," and the medical staff in the jail will determine whether the person should be taken to a hospital by ambulance or police.

"The fact of the matter is, unless it's very clearly not a risk to life or detriment to somebody's health, officers do not belong transporting people," Giusto said.

If the jail staff makes the call to summon an ambulance to transport a person in custody, then the bill for the ambulance ride, in the $500 to $600 range, will be shouldered by the county. "This will not be a free proposition," Giusto said. "But I'm not sure we can argue about money after the Chasse situation."

If the jail medical staff determines police can take someone to a hospital, the officer must inform a sergeant before transport and record the name of the medical staff member who cleared the person for police transport.

The sheriff's office is clarifying what medical assessments must be done once someone comes through the jail's door for booking. Giusto said medical staff should be doing medical screens on all people booked to make sure their vital signs are normal.

Chasse's family early this month filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the city, county and American Medical Response Inc., demanding wide-ranging policy changes designed to reduce excessive force by officers and provide people in custody with appropriate medical care.

The new policy will be discussed at today's Chief's Forum, which meets at 9 a.m. on the 14th floor of the Portland Police Bureau.

Chasse Family's Civil Complaint

2007-02-16T15:41:00.000-08:00

Here is the civil complaint against City, County and AMR, filed by Chasse family in federal court on February 6, 2007.

READ THE COMPLAINT

Chasse Family Sues - Attorney Takes Aim at Those Responsible for James Chasse Jr.'s "Tortured Death"

2007-02-14T17:15:00.000-08:00

from The Portland Mercury, by Matt Davis

The family of James Chasse Jr. is suing the police offiers and others it claims are responsible for his "inhumane and tortured death," the family's attorney announced this afternoon.

Chasse's father, James Sr, sat silently in a blue bowtie alongside civil rights attorney Tom Steenson at a press conference at the World Trade Center on SW 2nd Ave —refusing public comment to assembled TV, radio and newspaper reporters.

"The family would prefer not to be here," said Steenson. "But they are."

The cops' "extreme, excessive, brutal and deadly physical force" caused Chasse's death, according to a federal suit filed today. Officers then deliberately ignored his injuries and encouraged others to do the same, discriminating against him because of his mental illness, the suit alleges.

Chasse was beaten and Tazered until he was unconscious by two Portland Police Officers and a Sheriff's deputy opposite the Blue Hour restaurant at NE 13th and Everett on September 17 last year, after the officers spotted him urinating in the street. The incident was initially glossed over by local media until the Mercury obtained damning cell-phone pictures of the officers and paramedics casually standing by as Chasse lay hog-tied and dying on the ground.

Instead of being taken to the hospital in an ambulance, Chasse was driven to jail in a police car, where he languished in a cell for over an hour until a jail nurse looked through his cell window and suggested he be driven to hospital. Chasse died en-route.

"The officers engaged in a deliberate coverup of the brutal assault," said Steenson, alleging the officers lied to witnesses about finding cocaine on Chasse, and said he was a "transient" with "14 cocaine convictions," despite finding only breadcrumbs and an ID card with his permanent address on it at the scene.

The suit also questions the validity of the state medical examiner's report, saying a second autopsy paid for by the family suggests injuries not registered in the initial report. Among these are a broken left clavicle, an injury probably "caused by a strike, a severe blow, most likely a kick," said Steenson.

In addition to the lawsuit, Steenson issued a two page list of recommendations to the Police Bureau, demanding changes to prevent similar incidents happening again. The recommendations include prohibiting officers from using their hands and feet "to make impact strikes to a person's head and other vital areas," and changing foot pursuit policy so that officers only chase those posing a threat. "Some people might even get away, but they won't get hurt unnecessarily," Steenson said.

"There is no question that the number one question on the minds of this family is to get the Portland Police Bureau to make much needed changes," he added.

In addition to the officers involved, Portland Police Officers Christopher Humphreys and Kyle Nice, and Sheriff's deputy Bret Burton, the suit is filed against the unnamed paramedics who signed off on Chasse's injuries instead of sending him to hospital at the scene. The fire department has refused to make their names public but will face a subpoena demanding their names.

"We have made more than fifty public records requests," said Steenson. "But a great deal of the information, we can't get."

The suit also cites the Police Bureau, Portland Fire & Rescue, Trimet, American Medical Northwest—the county's medical services contractor—the City of Portland and Multnomah County as defendants. None of those named in the suit—which does not specify damages sought—were available for comment this afternoon.

Chasse lawsuit calls for deadly force policy changes

2007-02-09T21:00:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian

A civil rights lawsuit filed Thursday by the family of a schizophrenic man who died in Portland police custody last fall seeks more than money: It demands wide-ranging policy changes designed to reduce excessive force by officers.

James P. Chasse, Jr., who suffered from schizophrenia, died from broad-based blunt force trauma to his chest after police struggled to take him into custody in the Pearl District on Sept. 17. His family wants the city to adopt a series of recommendations made since 2003 by a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that studied Portland's use of deadly force.

Their lawsuit seeks an amount of damages to be determined by a jury. But it also proposes to:

* Change the police bureau's foot-pursuit policy, saying officers have too much discretion in using violent punches and kicks despite the power of such blows to cause grave injury and death. The policy should be brought in line with the use of deadly force, prohibiting officers from taking people to the ground unless the person poses an immediate risk of death to the public.

* Change the police bureau's use of deadly force policy, which the Chasse family's attorney claims violates the U.S. Constitution.

* Create an independent citizen review commission to investigate deaths caused by police and in-custody deaths.

* Change police anti-discrimination policies to better protect people with mental illnesses and disabilities by requiring officers to treat them fairly.

* Create an early-warning system to identify police officers with high use-of-force rates and take appropriate action against them.

Sgt. Brian Schmautz, a spokesman for the Portland Police Bureau, said he would not comment on pending litigation.

Police officers told investigators that they thought Chasse, 42, was possibly on drugs after they saw him shuffling on a street corner and then possibly urinating behind a tree. Once they approached him, the officers said, Chasse ran. Two Portland officers and a Multnomah County deputy sheriff chased after him and knocked him to the ground. During a struggle to handcuff him, Chasse suffered multiple rib fractures, some of which punctured his left lung.

Chasse's family did not speak during a Thursday afternoon press conference.

The family's attorney, Tom Steenson, said the family will ask the federal judge overseeing their case to order the proposed changes if the bureau does not make them.

The lawsuit alleges that the officers used excessive force against Chasse and lied to the public about him, saying he was homeless and on drugs, in an effort to cover up their misdeeds, and officers failed to address the injuries that killed him.

Steenson also blasted the state Medical Examiner's office for missing several injuries to Chasse that a second autopsy found. And he criticized Multnomah County's grand jury review system, which has never resulted in the indictment of a police officer for using excessive force.

Family Of James Chasse Jr. Files Federal Suit

2007-02-08T21:26:00.000-08:00

from OPB.com

The family of the mentally ill man, James Chasse Jr, who died after being chased down and subdued by three police officers, filed suit in federal court Thursday.

Kristian Foden-Vencil spoke to their lawyer at a press conference this afternoon and joins us live in the studio.

Welcome Kristian.

Kristian Foden-Vencil: Thank you.

Eve Epstein: To bring us up to speed on this story Kristian. Just remind us what happened and what the family has alleged in its complaint.

Kristian: Back in the fall, Portland Police Officers noticed Chasse on a street in the inner Northwest.

They felt he was acting suspiciously and approached him. They said he then started to run and officers Christopher Humphreys, Kyle Nice and deputy sheriff Bret Burton gave chase.

Exactly what happened next is the subject of disagreement, but Chasse was wrestled to the ground with considerable force and he kept fighting -- at one point allegedly biting an officer. Two autopsies found several broken bones and multiple contusions.

Chasse was taken to jail and put in cell. Later someone noticed he was not doing well and he was driven to hospital. But it was too late.

In this complaint, the family throws the book at the police, alleging everything from deliberate indifference, to torture, discrimination, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Their lawyer, Tom Steenson, says a deliberate cover-up started immediately after Chasse had been subdued.

Tom Steenson: "Officer Humphreys publicly announced for paramedics and civilian witnesses to hear, that he had found cocaine' belonging to James. When in fact he knew what he had found and bagged as evidence was bread crumbs. Another police officer lied and falsely told civilian witnesses that James had 14 cocaine convictions. Humphreys, Nice, and Burton failed to disclose to the paramedics and other medical personnel that they had brutally assaulted James. And finally, Humphreys and other officers lied and told the public that James was a transient,' when they had his ID card and knew where he lived, and that he was using and on drugs. None of which was true."

Eve: In October last year, a Multnomah County grand jury unanimously found the officers were not criminally responsible for Chasse's death. The family has waited a while before filing the suit. Why the delay?

Kristian: The family says it was waiting to see what steps the city and the police were taking to address the incident. Indeed, with a copy of the lawsuit, the family released a list of six recommendations it wants the police to adopt. The recommendations were taken out of the so-called PARC' report, which the Portland Police Bureau commissioned in 2003.

Recommendations included the creation of an early warning system -- to identify officers who may have a problem with a high use of force. And to restrict the police to using deadly force only when they have probable cause' rather than reasonable suspicion,' which is a lower standard.

The lawsuit asks for both monetary damages and injunctive relief to force the city to adopt the recommendations.

Eve: I understand that as part of the family's own investigation, a second autopsy was conducted. What did it find, if anything?

Kristian: The family's autopsy found some additional injuries, which they say the coroner missed, and a number of uninjured bones that the coroner had said were damaged.

But I want to make it clear, that the family isn't saying they dispute the basic facts about what city officials say took place. Their attorney did want to point out, however, that Chasse could have been saved at several points after the initial arrest.

Tom Steenson: "Had he received medical treatment, had they intubated him, had they taken him to the hospital, the medical specialists, the trauma experts, all agree that he would have survived. No doubt about it. They believe probably at the jail, some 30 minutes, 45 minutes later, he still could have survived."

Eve: And what about the police, what are they saying about this?

Kristian: Well I spoke to Sergeant Brian Schmautz, of the Portland Police Bureau, and he told me they are unable to comment on ongoing lawsuits. But before the suit was filed, Portland's Mayor, Tom Potter, has expressed regret at the death of James Chasse, and has taken several steps to improve interaction between the police and people with mental illnesses.

Eve: Thank you Kristian.

Kristian: Thank You.

Family files lawsuit in police-involved death

2007-02-08T16:03:00.000-08:00

from Associated Press

Calling it a "tortured death," the family of a mentally ill Portland man who died in police custody filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday seeking to change the city's policy on the use of force.

The complaint seeks changes to limit the use deadly force and foot pursuits. It also seeks to establish an independent oversight panel for reviewing deaths in custody, along with an intervention system to monitor officers who use excessive force.

A request for damages for alleged civil rights violations and wrongful death would be determined at trial.

James P. Chasse Jr. died last September after he was arrested following a foot chase by officers who said they thought he was on drugs or drunk after urinating in public.

Chasse, 42, suffered from schizophrenia. During the arrest, he suffered broken ribs that caused massive internal bleeding and led to his death.

"He was a gentle and a kind man who was in good physical health ... but his life was brought to a tragic end," Tom Steenson, the attorney for the family, said at a news conference.

Spokesmen for the Portland Police Bureau and Mayor Tom Potter declined comment, citing city policy on pending lawsuits.

But John Doussard, spokesman for Potter, confirmed that $500,000 in funding the mayor had sought to improve police training for managing the mentally ill has been approved and training has begun. Potter publicly apologized to the Chasse family last October.

A grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing by the two Portland police officers and a Multnomah County sheriff's deputy.

But Steenson accused the three officers - Officer Christopher Humphreys, Sgt. Kyle Nice and Deputy Bret Burton - of "a deliberate cover up."

After realizing there were many witnesses, the officers told them that Chasse was on drugs, had been convicted on cocaine charges, was a transient and had no identification - "none of which was true," Steenson said.

Humphreys even said he had found cocaine on Chasse when he knew it was a bag of bread crumbs, Steenson said.

The attorney said Chasse was walking in the neighborhood where he lived on a Sunday afternoon, carrying a sandwich and some comic books in his backpack, when he was confronted by the three officers.

"He did not use drugs or alcohol and had committed no crime. No one had complained about his behavior. Nevertheless, without any provocation whatsoever, (the three officers) tackled James and smashed him face first into a concrete sidewalk and brutally assaulted him," Steenson said.

"Over the ensuing few minutes, and again without cause or provocation, James was repeatedly and viciously punched, struck, kicked and kneed in the head, the back, the ribs and the chest. He was also repeatedly Tasered," he said.

Eleven of 12 ribs in the left side of his chest along the back were fractured, leaving sharp edges that caused the bleeding, Steenson said.

But Chasse could have survived the injuries if he had received prompt medical attention from the officers or from the paramedics who were called to the scene, the family's attorney said.

But none of the officers, the ambulance crew or deputies at the jail where Chasse was taken after his arrest provided any medical assistance - "not any medical help whatsoever," Steenson said.

Chasse died while Humphreys and Burton were taking him to a hospital in a patrol car after jail deputies refused to accept him because he had gone into convulsions and stopped breathing, according to the complaint.

The family said an independent autopsy they requested found significant differences compared with the autopsy results provided by a state medical examiner - including that Chasse also suffered a broken shoulder and sternum, a major bone connected to the ribs.

Steenson noted those other injuries were not among the evidence presented to the grand jury that investigated the officers.

The lawsuit also names American Medical Response Northwest and "John Doe" firefighters and paramedics.

Massive lawsuit filed against city over death in police custody

2007-02-08T15:59:00.000-08:00

from KGW.com

The family of a mentally ill man who died in police custody announced a sweeping lawsuit Thursday against the city, county, police, medical and Tri-Met officials.

Officers confronted James Chasse in Northwest Portland in September after they thought he was acting erratically. They eventually used force to take him into custody, and he later died in a police car after being taken from a jail cell to the hospital.

A grand jury later found the officers involved not guilty of any crimes in Chasse’s death and the city promised new inquiries into training procedures to deal with the mentally ill on Portland streets.

His death sparked outcry from advocates for the mentally ill and demands for reform in police and city procedures.

Chasse’s father James Chasse, his mother Linda Gerber and brother Mark Chasse are all named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the City of Portland, police, firefighters, paramedics, Multnomah County sheriff’s, American Medical Response and Tri-Met -- which had transit officers on scene of the initial confrontation.

There was no damage amount specified in the suit, which said that would be determined at a trial.

The plaintiffs accuse defendants and specifically officers involved of crimes “so unreasonable and so arbitrary that it shocks the conscience.”

The suit claims defendants inflicted punishment, denied Chasse equal constitutional protection and discriminated against him because of his mental illness. They also said officials and the city were “indifferent” to Chasse’s death and negligent because of his medical care while in custody.

Plaintiffs claimed officers Kyle Nice, Bret Burton and Christopher Humphreys also conspired to cover up the alleged “assault” citing witness reports they said Chasse had cocaine on him -- when what was actually taken into evidence was a bag of bread crumbs.

The suit seeks a jury trial, economic and non-economic damages awarded, along with better training and police reviews.

Family of James Chasse files suit

2007-02-08T15:43:00.000-08:00

from Willamette Week

The family of James P. Chasse Jr., a 42-year-old schizophrenic man killed in police custody last year, filed suit in federal court today as their attorney called for overhauling a "system that allows brutality."

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages against the three Portland police officers who scuffled with Chasse, as well as the City of Portland, Multnomah County, TriMet, the American Medical Response ambulance service, and unnamed city and county officials, deputies and paramedics.

Chasse died Sept. 17 in the back seat of a police cruiser after his chest was crushed during a struggle with Portland Police officers Christopher Humphreys and Kyle Nice and Multnomah County Sheriff's Deputy Brett Burton. Police say Chasse’s chest injuries probably occurred when Humphreys, who was chasing Chasse, fell on top of him or tackled him.

But the lawsuit alleges police assaulted Chasse without cause as he walked through the Northwest Portland neighborhood where he lived, "viciously" beating and tasering him. It also claims police and emergency workers ignored Chasse's medical needs and that the officers engaged in a cover-up.

The family's Portland attorney, Tom Steenson, said at an afternoon news conference that medical experts agree Chasse could have survived if he had received medical treatment instead of being taken to jail.

He said the case calls into question several issues that aren't named in the lawsuit. For instance, an autopsy peformed at the family's request revealed broken bones and injuries that weren't named in the medical examiner's report, he said.

Steeson blamed outdated police policies in part for Chasse's death. The lawsuit calls for an overhaul of police rules of engagement and the bureau's policy toward the mentally ill, as well as an independent panel to investigate police deaths and intervention against officers with high use-of-force rates.

"The No. 1 thing on the minds of this family is to get the city and Police Bureau to make these changes," Steenson said at the news conference, flanked by Chasse's father and pictures of the victim seated at home and playing with two dogs.

Steenson declined to say how much money the family hopes to gain in a settlement, or whether they would drop the suit if police policy changes.

Investigative records released in Chasse death

2007-02-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

from the Associated Press

Two days before James Chasse died, a mental health worker asked a Portland police officer to put him in the department's data base as a patient and to call her agency if he was found.

Two days later, when officers encountered him on the street in Portland's trendy Pearl district, they had no idea who he was because the police department has no system to prompt a call to a mental health worker, the department's spokesman, Brian Schmautz, said.

The Portland Police Bureau released a thousand pages of investigative records into the death of the 42-old-man with schizophrenia. Chasse died Sept. 17 in a struggle with officers who thought he was urinating in public. A grand jury has found no criminal wrongdoing, and his family has criticized the handling of the case.

The records recount the visit Officer Jason Worthington and mental health worker Ela Howard of Project Respond visited Chasse's apartment, answering to reports that he wasn't eating and was urinating and defecating on his carpet. A detective's report says that medical records suggest that during the autumn, Chasse was not taking his medication and had quit bathing.

Seeing Worthington, in uniform, Chasse fled and chanted, "Don't hurt me," according to the report. The officer asked the mental health worker if he should pursue, the reports say. She said no but asked that Chasse be flagged in the police data base.

A restaurant worker who saw the encounter from a patio said Chasse screamed "No!" as officers ordered him to get on his stomach, the records said.

Jamie Marquez first described it as a football tackle, "like you know a nose guard tackling into the quarterback." He said the officers didn't have Chasse in a bear hug, but threw him to the ground, and "they went down with him, too."

"The cops kinda kicked his body with their foot to try to get him to move," Marquez said. "He wasn't moving."

Chasse was taken to the jail, where he appeared to suffer a seizure, the reports said, and then to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Portland Police Revise Suspect Transport Policy

2007-02-02T21:25:00.000-08:00

from OPB.com

Portland Police officers are no longer allowed to transport ill or injured suspects in their patrol cars -- unless cleared to do so by an emergency medical responder. The new policy, crafted in response to the death of James Chasse last fall, was discussed Tuesday at a Police Bureau forum. Police Chief Rosie Sizer says the change clarifies a confusing situation. But as Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, some cops are rolling their eyes as another high-profile case prompts yet another change in policy.

Chasse died last fall after a particularly forceful arrest. He suffered multiple rib fractures and a punctured lung. But EMTs found his vital signs were normal, so he was taken to jail. There, a nurse saw him experience a seizure and told police he couldn't be committed to jail. Chasse died on route to the hospital.

Assistant Chief Lynae Berg says the new policy makes it clear that medical staff, not officers, now decide whether an injured suspect will be jailed or hospitalized.

Lynae Berg: "Medical decisions are going to be made by the people most appropriate to make those decisions. So it'll be the on scene paramedics, and or, if we transport to jail, the nursing staff who will do an additional assessment and make a decision as to whether or not they have the capacity at booking to provide the care that they believe the individual needs."

Berg says the Chasse case highlighted gaps in police policy -- specifically a clear, concise conversation between police and EMTs about the medical health of a suspect. She says such conversations have always happened, but the new policy clarifies the situation.

As the idea was explained in the Chief's Forum, many people nodded their heads in agreement and made suggestions. But not neighborhood activist Richard Brown.

Richard Brown: "Every time something happens, we come up with a new training."

Brown has been part of the forum for 15 years and says each time there's a high profile case, the bureau unveils new training or a new policy. He thinks beat cops are being overwhelmed and he says what they really need is an attitude adjustment.

Richard Brown: "The basis for all training should be: How do we deal with people? If we put our mother's and father's face on people we have contact with as police, that we may begin to change the perception that police have."

Police officers themselves are also not overjoyed by the idea of yet another new policy. But union rep, Robert King, says they'll give it a try.

Robert King: "If it brings a value, and we'll see over time, then I think it'll be positive. And if not, then it's not unlike what we routinely see in cases like this."

Kristian Foden-Vencil: "Is there a feeling of, 'Oh another policy,' and then a big roll of the eyes?"

Robert King: "You know, there are a lot of policies that are created after high-profile controversial incidents. So for the officer working on the street, who's going out there, making contact with people, people who are mentally ill, people that are high or drunk, or people that are engaged in a variety of criminal behaviors, you know their job hasn't meaningfully changed."

Portland Police Brass understand that continual policy changes are difficult for rank and file officers to adjust to. But Commander Rosie Sizer, says when they have an incident that reveals a problem, such as the James Chasse case, it has to be addressed.

Rosie Sizer: "Police officers exercise good judgment every day on the street. But there are some instances where I think you need policy to buttress good decision making. And I think this is one of them."

The new policy has been in place for about three weeks now. It's not clear yet if EMTs are going to be called out more often as a result. But police say if that happens, it's okay, because it can only help ensure that people in custody get the medical attention they need.

Ex-chief dares to tell the truth

2007-02-02T20:57:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian

Mayor Tom Potter is a strong advocate for freedom of speech, and lately, he's needed a little of that advocacy for himself. Some officers want him to shut up and salute.

When he opens his mouth about the Portland Police Bureau, apparently, he's just supposed to smile and say something nice. Instead, Potter has a tendency to speak his mind. Recently, in fact, it was a bit unusual during his State of the City address when the mayor highlighted the death of James Philip Chasse Jr. in police custody. In the midst of the usual litany of mayoral boasting, Potter admitted the death of this mentally ill man has shaken our community "in profound ways that cannot and will not be ignored."

Beginning this month, every Portland police officer will start receiving crisis intervention training, Potter announced. And, he said, "I want the Chasse family to know --and our community to know --that real change is happening."

Because Chasse was mentally ill, Potter also used the moment to push for changes in the mental health care system. A committee Potter co-sponsored with state Sens. Avel Gordly and Ben Westlund, and Multnomah County Chairman Ted Wheeler, has recommended hiring more crisis specialists and opening an around-the-clock crisis center.

The improvements involve a $6 million price tag, though. There's not much chance they'll ever be funded, unless the mayor pipes up and acknowledges we have a problem. But the mere mention of Chasse's death during the State of the City outraged some police officers --so much so that Robert King, president of the police union, sent the mayor a stern rebuke.

Maybe someone needs to point out that the improvements Potter is pushing, in addition to helping the community, would help police officers do their jobs. The crisis workers would work with, as Potter said, "officers on the street."

It's true that Potter is quicker and more apt to criticize police than some previous mayors have been. But even more important, when Potter makes a criticism, it stings. It comes from a former police chief --someone presumed to know what he's talking about.

Potter should ignore the rebukes and keep speaking out. Some officers may be confused by what they regard as a former chief's disloyalty, but in urging changes, Potter is upholding the ideal of community policing and pursuing the Portland Police Bureau's best interests.

And, anyway, last we heard, Potter was Portland's mayor, not its Protector and Praiser-in-Chief of police.

Potter voices pride in police, will push if necessary

2007-02-01T20:52:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian, by Ryan Frank

One day after he got a nasty note from Portland's police union president, Mayor Tom Potter responded Wednesday to rebut claims that he doesn't support rank-and-file officers.

Union President Robert King, typically known for a tempered approach, called out Potter in a terse letter Tuesday as highlighting controversy while ignoring officers' work to successfully reduce crime.

"Contrary to Robert's statements," wrote Potter, a former police chief, "I AM proud of the members of the Portland Police Bureau. I know how hard you work and the sacrifices you make to protect our city."

Yet, Potter said, he'll stick by his approach to publicly call on officers for changes when he sees a problem.

The two most public examples that caught King's attention: a Potter-appointed committee to study racial profiling and the mayor's heartburn over the death of James P. Chasse Jr., a 42-year-old schizophrenic, in police custody.

"I don't think we can avoid these kinds of discussions," Potter said in an interview Wednesday. "We need to confront them directly."

Potter and King have known each other since the union leader was a child. But Potter has had a troubled run since street officers were skeptical of him as chief, and the union endorsed his opponent in the 2004 mayoral campaign. King and Potter have had a few run-ins since Potter took office, including last year when Potter said police stops of a Somali American "smacked of racism."

Potter says he's gotten along with King just fine. They have started sharing breakfast at the Bijou Cafe downtown.

King's letter Tuesday marked the first such strong message in writing from the union leader. King, who couldn't be reached for comment late Wednesday, has said he's facing pressure from his union to take a stand against the mayor.

His letter followed a column in the January issue of the Rap Sheet, the police union's monthly paper, headlined "Stand up, Tom Potter," by Drugs and Vice Division Officer Daryl Turner.

"It seems like Mayor Potter wants to put our backs against the wall until we say uncle, but that's not going to happen," Turner wrote. "Tom Potter spent over two decades as a cop, yet he seems like a stranger to us."

In his letter, King complained that Potter highlighted Chasse's death in his State of the City speech. "Instead of providing leadership to broaden people's understanding of what we do, you followed the lead of the media and their single-minded focus on controversy," King wrote.

Potter wrote in his letter, which was posted on his Web site, that he talked about the Chasse case because "I want Portlanders to know the Police Bureau and city have learned from James Chasse's death, and are doing everything possible to prevent such tragedies."

King complained that Potter also "tried and convicted the police of racial profiling."

When asked if he thinks racial profiling exists, Potter said:

"Yes. . . . It's a problem because the community believes it's a problem. It's a problem because of the accumulated information we have developed indicating that something is going on. And whatever that something is needs to be fixed."

Police push to polygraph hires

2007-01-28T20:50:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian, by Maxine Bernstein

Anyone interested in wearing a police badge in Oregon could soon be asked to sit through a lie-detector test and face questions like these:

Have you used drugs? Have you stolen from an employer? Have you committed a felony? Did you answer honestly about why you left your last job?

Oregon police chiefs are pushing to change state law this year to allow law enforcement agencies to administer polygraph tests to help screen out bad apples during hiring.

Portland Chief Rosie Sizer and Mayor Tom Potter, a former city police chief, are strong proponents of the change, and the city of Portland helped draft legislation. But the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon pledges to fight it.

Oregon has long forbidden the practice, while the states that border it --Washington, California and Idaho --allow it in police hiring. Washington, in fact, now mandates that all law enforcement agencies use the test for hiring.

The proposed legislation would carve out an exception to Oregon's law that now makes it an "unlawful employment practice" for any employer to subject, directly or indirectly, any employee or prospective employee to a polygraph.

The exception would apply to public safety officers, allowing a polygraph test to be used only for pre-employment screening. Failing the polygraph test could not be the sole basis for refusing or denying employment.

The bill being drafted by the Oregon Association Chiefs of Police wouldn't go as far as Washington state, which in 2005 mandated that all police or reserve officers pass a polygraph test before being certified as an officer.

"It's not so much that people take the polygraph and are found to be lying. That's a very rare occurrence," said Don Pierce, a former chief from Bellingham, Wash., and Boise who now is executive director of Washington's Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. "When people are sitting facing the polygraph they tell the truth, so we save a lot of time in terms of discovering behaviors that are disqualifying."

The ACLU contends the polygraph is a faulty test.

"Oregon has long prohibited their use in employment because lie detectors are inherently unreliable," said David Fidanque, executive director of the Oregon ACLU.

"There are people who fail lie detector tests who are innocent, and there are people who are guilty that pass them," Fidanque said. "It's a bad idea. There's no substitute for an employer doing their homework and checking the references. If that can be taken care of in the private sector, I don't see why it can't occur in the public sector."

Under Oregon's proposal, law enforcement agencies would have the option of using the polygraph.

Portland Officer Kurt Nelson, a former background investigator, said he's concerned that agencies will use the polygraph exam to short-circuit an in-depth background review. "I don't think it's a panacea for whatever they're trying to suggest it's going to cure," Nelson said.

Portland does extensive background checks on police applicants, but Chief Sizer expects some applicants to shy away from filling out applications if the polygraph test becomes part of the hiring process. "What we think it will do is speed up our background process because you get more information upfront," she said.

Portland Assistant Chief Brian Martinek knows what it's like to sit on both sides of a polygraph test, having sat for a polygraph when he was hired as a deputy chief in Vancouver.

"I had to do it, and it's no fun. They're very stressful, whether you're trying to hide something or not," Martinek said. "But to not have it is a mistake. The fact is we have people who pass the backgrounds now who shouldn't."

Portland's Mental Health/Public Safety Panel, set up by the mayor in November after the death in police custody of James P. Chasse Jr., a 42-year-old schizophrenic, recently recommended the use of the lie detector tests for screening police recruits.

Potter said he embraces anything to improve how police respond to people with mental illness, which is becoming an increasingly frequent encounter for officers. Potter said polygraph tests may help pinpoint concerns that remain hidden in the regular application process, and "will be helpful to screen people out who may not be able to handle the stress on the street or anywhere else."

Some police executives worry that the polygraphs might make it even more difficult to find qualified candidates at a time when agencies struggle to fill vacancies.

Robert King, president of the Portland Police Association, said the union is still reviewing the issue.

Oregon Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford, already submitted a similar bill on behalf of Medford's former police chief, Ray Shipley. Shipley came from California and recounted to Esquivel how one officer in his old department was not hired because a polygraph test turned up that he'd shoplifted while on duty at his previous policing job.

"Law enforcement people have to be the icon of your community, and you want people who are very ethically sound and do the right thing and don't commit crimes," Esquivel said.

Chief Robert M. Lehner took over the helm of the Eugene Police Department three years ago as two Eugene officers were indicted and sent to prison for their parts in a sex scandal. Both officers sexually assaulted multiple women over a period of years, preying on women with drug and alcohol problems and silencing them with the threat of arrest. Investigations showed they had criminal histories, including burglary, drug and theft offenses, before they were hired, Lehner said.

Outside consultants reviewed Eugene's hiring, training and recruitment processes when Lehner took over. They noted that Oregon was one of the few states that prohibited polygraphs for police applicants, and they recommended changing the law.

David Corey, a police psychologist who does psychological screening and fitness-for-duty exams for many police agencies in the Portland area and Washington state, says polygraph tests help detect deception, spur "truth-telling" by applicants, and can be a useful tool when a background investigator finds discrepancies in an applicant's personal history.

Corey cited a study by Johnson-Roberts Associates, of Oakland, Calif., which publishes a life history questionnaire for prospective public safety employees. In states where police applicants are administered a pre-job polygraph, applicants will disclose past drug use more often than applicants in states where polygraphs are prohibited, the study found.

Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto favors the polygraph, saying he was concerned that psychological exams haven't been successful in catching sexual deviancies.

"Every tool available to us at the front end of the career to find the best applicants, we owe the public," he said. "I don't know how you could argue against it."

Potter tells city: We're making steady progress

2007-01-20T20:44:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian, by Joseph Rose, Ryan Frank and Maxine Bernstein

Midway through his first term, Portland Mayor Tom Potter was eager to dispel a nagging rumor during his second State of the City address.

"I've heard it mentioned by some that these past two years have been a time of quiet contemplation for me," he said Friday before the City Club at the Governor Hotel downtown.

Of course, Potter may have been a little too eager. Reading from a prepared speech, the mayor started by calling his Bureau Innovation Project a "Cadillac" --rather than a "catalyst" --for change.

He caught the blunder. Realizing that he had just confused the crowd of 450 business leaders, civic activists, city employees and fellow politicians, Potter added with a chuckle, "Well, it's kind of a Cadillac."

A few delivery flubs aside, Potter's 40-minute speech didn't stray into unpredictable territory.

In many ways, it simply tied a bow on the package of slow-and-steady initiatives that he has pushed heavily for months.

The mayor stuck to his theme of building Portland's future through community relationships, focusing largely on his visionPDX project to survey 15,000 Portlanders and build one vision for the city.

He pointed to his attempts to make the city more customer friendly and lower barriers for minorities and women. He mentioned committees he created to try to erase racism, sexism and homophobia in the city.

Noting this week's observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, he said, "Dr. King once said, 'Life's most urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' " Potter said. "It is in the spirit of that question that I want to talk with you today."

The reviews from inside the hotel's fourth-floor ballroom were generally glowing.

Commissioner Randy Leonard said Potter's delivery --including the unscripted jokes --showed he has grown since his last annual visit to the City Club.

"He has become more comfortable and regained his sense of humor," Leonard said. "He was likeable. You wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt."

Potter mentioned good work by his four City Council peers in 2006, poking a bit of fun at Leonard and Sam Adams, two commissioners he sometimes clashes with. "Sam is the only council member," Potter said, "with the misfortune to have a name that rhymes with 'tram.' "

Although Leonard disagrees with one of Potter's biggest ideas --asking voters on the May ballot whether the city should change from a commission form of government to that of a strong-mayor --he said the mayor did a solid job of explaining his view.

Still, Potter failed to answer the only audience question about the proposal: How would his first two years have been different under the strong-mayor model?

Potter instead reiterated why he thought the public should be part of what has been an "inside baseball" discussion until now. "How we are structured will determine how services are delivered," he said.

Saying community-based involvement would work only if businesses are growing, Potter promised that the council would continue to find ways to help the economy.

"While there remains a fervent few who delight in forecasting the demise of Portland's downtown, I have news for them," he said. "The city, including the downtown core, is alive and well and bursting with energy."

Citing last year's death of James Chasse while in police custody, Potter said he's working with Chief Rosie Sizer to change how the Police Bureau operates. Of course, he may have prematurely announced one plan: keeping all precincts open until midnight starting Feb. 15.

The Police Bureau is looking to hire and train eight more desk clerks, but Sizer said the mayor's deadline might be a bit optimistic. She thinks the extended hours at precincts might not occur until the end of February, said spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz.

Ryan Frank and Maxine Bernstein of The Oregonian contributed.

Citizens get respect for the thin blue line

2007-01-18T20:41:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian, by Elizabeth Suh

By Elizabeth Suh
They came because they were curious, wanted to be better at their jobs or because it was required. They walked away with a little more sympathy for the men and women responsible for enforcing the law in Portland.

The 20-plus participants in the Portland Police Bureau's 2006 citizen police academy had to pass extensive background checks and devote at least three hours a week, from October through December, to learning the intricacies of police work.

Among lessons police instructors passed along in the nine-week course:

When you're trying to get a guy with a gun to come out of a house peacefully, how about throwing him off his game by asking about the Blazers? Never point a gun at something if you're not willing to see destruction, including your own. And what you see in the media about the police isn't really how things go down.

The goal of the annual academy is to give participants a better understanding and appreciation of police officers and what they do.

"Think how you would live differently if you knew sometime in the next six months, someone was going to try to run you over," Officer Mike Stradley of Portland's Special Emergency Reaction Team said in one class.

Classes mix lecture and practice on such topics as negotiating, appropriate levels of force, shooting a gun and driving a police car. Chief Rosie Sizer made an impression as the first speaker, sharing how she attended graduate school at the University of Iowa intending to get a doctorate in history. Instead, she joined Portland's police force 22 years ago, a period when the bureau would be deluged with 1,500 job applications at a time.

As a new officer, she learned quickly that most crimes revolve around drugs and alcohol. Today she is proud when a woman tells her how excited her daughter is to have a female police chief.

Shooting guns, a first for many participants, was a course highlight. Officer Tracy Chamberlin drilled students on more than two hours' worth of safe-shooting tenets, such as: Always treat a gun as if it's loaded. Be aware of everything your shots could potentially hit. Remember to breathe.

Students nervously put on vests, goggles and earmuffs before receiving Glock 9 mm handguns in the Justice Center's basement shooting range.

"These are real bullets we're shooting?" one participant and first-time shooter asked.

"Shooters ready? Fire!" Bullets tore through paper targets.

"It made me sweat just practicing," another first-timer said. "I was shaking like crazy."

This year's academy began amid raging controversy over James Chasse Jr., who died Sept. 17 after being tackled by police.

Chasse was an "elephant in the room" during the academy, said participant Eliot Smith of Vancouver, a Legacy Health System security guard. Smith, 51, said instructors brushed aside the few questions participants raised about Chasse and other Police Bureau problems by saying the matter was under investigation.

"We didn't get to see any of the warts," he said. "I would have liked it if they had dealt with those issues."

Sherrelle Owens, 30, a Multnomah County social worker, entered the class as a requirement of joining the Citizen Review Committee, a panel that hears community complaints about the police. Now she wishes everyone could participate.

In a video simulation, Owens said she could see how quickly a situation could go from seemingly innocuous to a shootout. Once curious about why officers weren't more friendly, she said she better understands their need for caution in approaching situations.

"Their behavior is different," Owens said, "because you're taught that you're supposed to be in control and in command of the situation at all times."

She said it was illuminating, if unsettling, to learn that officers are trained not just to match a person's level of force but to use the level of force needed to match a person's perceived intentions.

Capt. Eric Hendricks, who leads the training division, said he hopes the academy improves community perceptions and builds relationships.

Smith, the Legacy security guard, said he was inspired by the instructors' passion and idealism. He asked Sgt. Wayne Svilar, a team leader on Portland's hostage-negotiation team, to teach rapport-building to Legacy guards.

"I was heartened by the sincerity of the officers," Smith said. "Heartened and touched."

Portland shares ideas to protect mentally ill

2007-01-08T20:38:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian, by Maxine Bernstein

Two months ago, Mayor Tom Potter assembled a group of mental health and public safety leaders to identify ways to improve services to the mentally ill in the wake of James P. Chasse Jr.'s death in police custody.

Now the group has come up with 14 projects it deems critical to help reduce police run-ins with people who suffer mental illness.

For a total of at least $6 million, the group suggests expanding health care and housing for people with mental illness; hiring more Project Respond mental health specialists to team up with police on the streets; opening a 16-bed crisis center that offers round-the-clock psychiatric and medical services; mandating crisis intervention training for all law enforcement; and supporting a change in state law that would allow polygraph testing to help screen out unfit police applicants.

The multimillion-dollar question: Who will pay?

"It is the obvious critical question that brought us to the table," said state Sen. Avel Gordly, I-Portland, a co-chairwoman of the mayor's Mental Health/Public Safety Panel. "This is what we must do, period. So, how will it be done?"

On Friday,Ted Wheeler, Multnomah County's newly elected chairman, praised the group's ideas and said he would work closely with his department heads, such as Joanne Fuller, who now runs the county's Department of Human Services, and Lillian Shirley, who directs the county's Health Department, to pinpoint which programs they should include in the coming year's budget.

"You've given me something solid to work with," Wheeler told the group.

Potter asked the panel to identify the most urgent recommendations that should be acted on immediately.

"This is a big step," the mayor said. "These recommendations have come up in one form or another in the last several years. But now we have to move on them. This really has to be a clarion call to the community. We have to recognize the consequences of not taking action."

Chasse, 42, who suffered from schizophrenia, died from broad-based blunt force trauma to his chest after police struggled to take him into custody in the Pearl District on Sept. 17. Police thought Chasse was possibly on drugs after they saw him shuffling on a street corner and then possibly urinating behind a tree. Once they approached him, police said, Chasse ran. Two Portland officers and a Multnomah County sheriff's deputy chased after him and knocked him to the ground. During a struggle to handcuff him, Chasse suffered multiple rib fractures, some of which punctured his left lung.

Among the panel's ideas:

* Expand health care coverage for people with mental illness through legislative action.

* Have Central City Concern's Housing Rapid Response program work as a team with Project Respond mental health specialists and police officers to help people with mental illness make a smooth transition from the streets to long-term housing. Expand housing for 50 more people, and provide services to between 80 and 100 people. Annual cost, $610,473.

* Expand treatment programs for African Americans with mental illness, such as Multnomah County's Treatment Not Punishment Program, which provides intensive case management and mental health and addiction assessments. Estimated cost, $651,375.

* Create a 16-bed facility that provides 24-hour psychiatric and medical care. Projected startup cost is $1 million; annual operating expense, $2.9 million.

Fuller and Multnomah County Commissioner Lisa Naito said this has been a county goal but funding has been elusive.

"We really really need the state to step up for this to happen," Fuller said.

Naito added, "We've been wanting this for years."

* Review police hiring and training programs.

* Mandate crisis intervention training for all law enforcement, and county corrections enforcement officers. For Portland Police Bureau alone, $500,000.

* Hire more Project Respond mental health specialists to partner with police. $290,000 annual cost.

* Endorse a change in state law to allow police to use polygraph tests on applicants for hiring. Oregon law prohibits polygraph testing for employment. In Washington and California, it's allowed for police. The Oregon Chiefs of Police Association will back a bill this legislative session, and Potter and Chief Rosie Sizer are in support.

* Endorse the attorney general's proposed "Use of Deadly Force" legislation, which would open grand jury proceedings on cases involving police use of force by recording them, and publicly releasing the transcripts.

Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk favors the proposal, but it remains controversial among other top prosecutors around the state. It died in the state House last session.

Schrunk favors releasing transcripts of grand jury proceedings, almost immediately, and creating statewide standards for grand jury hearings. "This can only make for a better operation, a better system and better treatment of citizens," Schrunk said.

* Enhance mental health screening for people in jail. Provide round-the-clock mental health nurses at Multnomah County Detention Center. $596,300 to cover salaries in fiscal 2008.

Doris Cameron-Minard,a past president of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Oregon, whose son suffers from mental illness, told the panel that the true test of their efforts will be what action comes next.

"We've done sort of the easy part," Cameron-Minard said, "and now we're left with the hard part where so many other groups have gone and failed."

An open letter to the men and women of the Portland Police Bureau

2007-01-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

from Portland Online, press release

On Tuesday (1/30), I (Tom Potter) received a letter from Robert King, president of the Portland Police Association. He expressed a number of very serious concerns. I believe it is important that the members of the Portland Police Bureau hear answers from me directly about the issues Robert raises, and that I share our conversation with our community.

January 31, 2007

Dear Portland Police Bureau Members:

On January 30, 2007, I received a letter from Robert King, president of the Portland Police Association. He told me that in my State of the City speech a few weeks ago, I neglected to thank the men and women of the Portland Police Bureau for your tireless work on behalf of Portlanders. He also said I was eroding the community’s trust in the police by focusing on a single tragedy - James Chasse’s death - and, by acknowledging the need to address community concerns over racial profiling.

I have a different perspective, and I would like to share that perspective with you.

First, I want you to know that I value each of you for both the everyday things you do to protect our community, and for the exceptional acts of valor you are called on to perform. I often remind the community of the Portland Police Bureau’s accomplishments, and did so again at the State of the City. I spoke of our crime rate dropping, and increased community satisfaction with Police services. And I introduced Robert to the crowd.

But I also spoke of the need for additional mental health resources and training for all police officers, to reduce and hopefully eliminate such tragedies as James Chasse’s death. It’s not news to you that the mental health system has deteriorated over time, and as a result basic mental health services, and even society’s “safety nets,” have been greatly eroded. The problems we face ultimately require system-wide solutions, and we are working to make those happen.

As an example, the Triage Center used by Portland Police to help people with mental illnesses closed in 2001, leaving police with fewer choices to provide help. As a result, too often people with mental illness are left to wander Portland ’s streets. The vast majority of these folks at some point will receive help without incident from a member of the Portland Police. But on occasion, these contacts require the use of force. In September, one ended tragically.

My point in discussing this incident during my speech was that I want Portlanders to know the Police Bureau and City have learned from James Chasse’s death, and are doing everything possible to prevent such tragedies from recurring. I believe effective police agencies have strong, positive relationships with community members, relationships built on mutual trust and respect. When issues arise that interfere with building those relationships, the problem must be resolved in order to move community/police collaboration forward. Talking about the problem openly is an important first step in doing that.

When it comes to racial profiling, both the community and police feel they are being treated unfairly. How do we solve this issue if both groups don’t come together to understand the issue, and then work to fix it?

I think it would be a serious error on anybody’s part to suggest that all Portland Police Officers engage in racial profiling, or conversely, to suggest that no racial profiling occurs in Portland. There is a growing body of information – including the Racial Profiling Report compiled by the Portland Police Bureau – that points to a problem, regardless of what you call it. That problem needs to be dealt with openly and honestly. Neither side can fix it by themselves. It can only be fixed by the community and the police learning from each other and working together.

Contrary to Robert’s statements, I AM proud of the members of the Portland Police Bureau. I know how hard you work, and the sacrifices you make to protect our city. However, I do agree with Robert King when he said, “Out of the 400,000 interactions the police have in the community each year, there are bound to be a few that either the police or the community or both wish were handled differently. Learning from these situations is an important part of moving forward.”

As the Commissioner of Police, I will continue to speak out on issues that affect the wellbeing of our community and police members alike. I believe the two groups are inextricably linked together, and we can only be successful when both are successful. I believe in you and your commitment to making Portland the safest city in America.

Thank you and stay safe,

Tom's signature

Tom Potter
Mayor

Portland's 2006 homicides

2007-01-04T20:33:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian

The following describes Portland's 27 homicides in 2006 and the status of the investigations. "Solved" means police have made an arrest or identified a suspect but doesn't necessarily reflect a conviction.

1. Dennis Lamar Young, 28. He was fatally shot by police about 2:20 a.m. Jan. 4. A homeowner noticed Young parked suspiciously in front of her house on Northeast 64th Avenue, just south of Alameda Street, and called her brother, police Lt. Jeffrey M. Kaer. Kaer, a 15-year bureau veteran, shook the driver awake, and he crashed the stolen car into a tree across the street before he tried to back toward the officers, police said. Kaer fired two shots from a 9 mm handgun. Young died from a single gunshot wound to his upper torso. An internal inquiry into the shooting has yet to go before a police use of force review board. POLICE SHOOTING

2. James Charles Voorhees, 25. He was found fatally shot in an apartment at 118 N.E. 160th Ave. on Jan. 20. The tenant, Michael Eugene Mehrer, 45, admitted to police he fired the single gunshot. Mehrer said Voorhees, of Gresham, forced his way inside Mehrer's apartment, seeking to recover some work tools and other property that he thought Mehrer had taken from his business. Voorhees was holding a BB gun and advanced on Mehrer, police said. The Multnomah County district attorney's office closed the case this spring as "justified use of force." SOLVED

3. Christopher Darryl John Carter, 42. He was found in pool of blood in the entry to a building at Southwest 12th Avenue between Alder and Washington streets about 10 p.m. Jan. 23. Carter died from two deep knife wounds to his neck. Within an hour, police took Richard Paul Koehrsen, 46, into custody a few blocks away. He was about to be taken to Hooper Detox when officials noticed blood on Koehrsen's beard, shoes and face. Police found a bloody folding knife in his pocket. Witnesses also said they had seen Koehrsen talking to Carter earlier in the night. DNA from the blood on Koehrsen's knife matched the victim, police said. An inmate this summer told police he heard Koehrsen say he slit Carter's throat because he had tried to sell Koehrsen some "fake crack cocaine," court records say. SOLVED

4. Robert Wardale Seeger, 24. He was found shot at 5:24 p.m. Feb. 4 at Northeast Failing Street and Garfield Avenue. A witness saw a group of men running to a silver van and driving away. Seeger lived in Southeast Portland, and family members said he might have been visiting friends in Northeast. Detectives said they are close to solving the case, and suspect that Seeger's death may have been drug-related. UNSOLVED

5. Frank Campbell, 53. He was found fatally shot, lying on his back on the floor of his apartment in the 2500 block of Northeast Killingsworth Street about 3:45 p.m. on Feb. 8. He died of a close-contact gunshot to the abdomen. The next day, police arrested his cousin, Paul Edward Campbell, 43, accusing him of first-degree manslaughter. The cousin told police he found a rifle in the basement and was "clowning around" with it and must have pulled the trigger. The victim fell into his arms and dropped to the floor, and Paul Campbell left. The cousin was convicted of criminal negligent homicide with a firearm after pleading no contest to the charge in October; the manslaughter charge was dismissed. SOLVED

6. Jennifer Crawford, 34. She was shot by her husband Feb. 16 while taking a shower at their home in the 7600 block of Southeast Holgate Boulevard. Neighbors hadn't seen the family for several days, and police went to the home to check on things. Gary D. Crawford, 48, was found dead in the bedroom. He left a note asking people to take care of their dog in the backyard. Jennifer Crawford died of multiple gunshot wounds, and her husband died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. SOLVED

7, 8 and 9. Soupaphane Homsombath, 24, Lionel Homsombath, 8, and Leana Homsombath, 5, were found dead after police were called at 5:33 a.m. March 16 to Apt. 19 of the Zachary Park Apartments at 3601 N.E. 162nd Ave. after a neighbor reported hearing gunshots. Soupaphane was shot dead on the couch; her 8-year-old son was shot twice in the head as he lay on a mattress or blanket in the living room; his 5-year-old sister was stabbed to death in a bedroom. The mother's boyfriend of nearly a year, Somkhilth Soulinho, 31, shot himself in the living room. Soulinho was the younger brother of Soupaphane's ex-husband. SOLVED

10. Gary George, 51. He was found in a pool of blood April 24 inside a house in the 7100 block of Northeast 42nd Avenue. He had been beaten. Bobby Donald Barnes, 52, was arrested earlier on a warrant for a parole violation, and while he was in custody, detectives were called to George's home about 5:30 p.m. Guns, a laptop computer and knives had been stolen from his home. Investigators tracked down two people who had driven Barnes to George's home. Their accounts, together with DNA evidence, linked Barnes to the crime, prosecutors said. Barnes faces two counts of aggravated murder, accused of killing George in the course of burglarizing and robbing him and of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Seven weeks before George was killed, he was in a gunfight in his house with an estranged lover and her ex-husband. Police say the incident was unrelated to his death. SOLVED

11. Claudia Rhone, 54. She was found stabbed May 2 outside her Iris Court apartment in the 200 block of North Sumner Street. By noon the next day, Portland detectives had Rhone's ex-boyfriend, Gilberto Pedroso, 63, in custody, accused of murder. Their relationship was marked by alcohol and physical violence, a series of harassment and assault arrests, a restraining order and stalking complaints. Before Rhone was killed, she and neighbors had called police twice that night to complain that Rhone's ex-boyfriend was threatening her with a knife. By 10:53 p.m., Rhone lay dead from more than a dozen stab wounds on the lawn in front of her apartment. The fatal wound was to her heart. A tip of the butcher knife used was embedded in her skull. Pedroso faces a murder charge. SOLVED

12. Chai Taphom, 28. He was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds in an alley near Northeast Davis Street and 111th Avenue about 2:15 a.m. on May 13. His two-door silver 2005 Honda Civic was missing. Police later arrested two in connection with Taphom's death (see names below) after Beaverton police found Taphom's car June 12 involved in an armed robbery of a convenience store. Police later linked the accused to the next homicide. Taphom was shot nine times, including multiple shots to the head. (See details in next listing.) SOLVED

13. Michael Burchett, 38. He was found fatally shot, including four gunshot wounds to the head, at 2:20 a.m. May 28 outside the Blue Spot, a 24-hour adult video store off 3200 Northeast 82nd Ave. His 2000 black Honda Civic was stolen. Police linked Cevelino Capuia, 20, and Shawn Ryan Womack, 21, to the crime. Capuia was driving Taphom's Honda when arrested June 12; Womack was driving Burchett's car when arrested the next day. Police later linked Womack and his girlfriend to the shooting of Capuia's girlfriend, Marissa Manwarren, whose body was found June 14 near Beverly Beach. Manwarren was shot twice in the head. SOLVED.

14. Rodolfo Romero-Lopez, 24. He was shot in parking lot of Crofton Apartments at Southeast Stark Street and 157th Avenue at 11:08 p.m. May 31. On July 17, three men were charged with aggravated murder in the killing. Joel Sanchez-Jacobo, 29; Gerardo Vasquez Villa-Gomez, 25; Jose Zamora-Camacho, 21, are in custody. Police said the shooter walked up to Romero-Lopez and shot him at close range in what they suspect was a drug-related dispute. SOLVED.

15. Raymond Anthony Ezelle, 48. His body was found June 21 dumped in Columbia County on private property near a gated access road off Alston-Mayger Road. An autopsy showed Ezelle died of a gunshot wound to the head. Detectives say he was shot in the 1500 block of Southeast 32nd Place by a former roommate, Christopher R. Aquino, 37, and that Nicole Regalia, 22, helped dump the body and destroy evidence. Aquino is accused of murder with a firearm, abuse of a corpse and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Regalia was charged with abuse of a corpse and destruction of evidence. SOLVED

16. Timothy Gripp, 50. Police found Gripp dead in his home after his roommate, Jeffery Scott Rogers, 37, walked into Central Precinct about 3 a.m. July 13 and told police there was a body in his home. He led officers to a home in the 1600 block of Southeast 48th Avenue. Police discovered Gripp strangled to death in the bathtub, surrounded by frozen vegetables, frozen meats and ice. He'd been dead for several days, the result, police say, of a domestic dispute. Rogers faces a murder charge. SOLVED

17. Edward Dalton Haffey, 59. He was strangled by an emergency room nurse, Susan Kuhnhausen, who came home after work Sept. 6 to find Haffey inside. Haffey attacked her with a hammer. Kuhnhausen was able to get on top of him and place him in a choke hold until he died. Police say Kuhnhausen acted in self-defense; she was not charged. Police accused Kuhnhausen's estranged husband, Michael J. Kuhnhausen, 58, of hiring Haffey to kill his wife. Haffey had worked for Michael Kuhnhausen as a custodian at Fantasy Adult Video. Police say Michael Kuhnhausen helped disarm the security alarm at the home in the 7900 block of Southeast Alder Street earlier in the day and let Haffey in. They say Haffey waited with yellow rubber gloves and a claw hammer for at least four hours until Susan arrived home from work. SOLVED

18. James P. Chasse Jr., 42. Died in police custody from broad-based blunt-force trauma to his chest. The state medical examiner said the injuries occurred as Portland police were trying to take Chasse into custody at Northwest 13th Avenue and Everett Street about 5:15 p.m. Sept. 17. Police approached Chasse after seeing him shuffling at a street corner and possibly urinating behind a tree. Chasse, who suffered from schizophrenia, ran. Police chased him and knocked him to the ground. Chasse's ribs were fractured, and his lung was punctured. A Multnomah County grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing by the two Portland officers and county deputy sheriff involved. An internal review is under way. DEATH IN POLICE CUSTODY

19. Douglas Reed Adamson, 52. His body was dismembered, and parts turned up in the Columbia River starting Sept. 17. On Sept. 12, Adamson's roommate reported him missing. Adamson's torso showed up five days later when a couple fishing in the Columbia River near the east end of Government Island discovered a large black athletic bag wrapped in duct tape and containing human remains. On Sept. 20, a woman walking her dog found an arm on a beach near a Vancouver park. The next day, a maintenance worker discovered a human leg on the Washington shore of the Columbia just east of the Interstate 205 bridge. On Sept. 23, a Columbia River boater alerted police to a floating arm that was also Adamson's, found in the river's main channel, about two miles west of the Interstate 5 bridge. Adamson, a mechanic who was off work on disability, lived in a Southeast Portland apartment. His pickup was found abandoned along I-205, but no evidence of a crime was found in the vehicle. UNSOLVED

20. Robert W. Carr, 89. He died of a head injury Sept. 21 in connection with, police say, a Sept. 13 dispute with his girlfriend, Beatrice Holmes Ward, 81. Witnesses saw the couple arguing at 9:25 a.m. in the parking lot of a store at in the Jantzen Beach mall, 1400 N. Hayden Island Drive. They said Ward pushed Carr, who fell and struck his head on the pavement. Ward faces second-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault charges. They were in a relationship for 15 years, court records say. SOLVED

21. Ronald Lee McClanahan, 57. He was found dead Sept. 24 in his home in the 3500 block of Southeast 141st Avenue. He was lying naked on his carpeted bedroom floor, his ankles and wrists bound with rope and a terry cloth belt stuffed in his mouth. He died of blunt-force trauma and possible asphyxiation. McClanahan encountered his attackers at a local store, where they were caught trying to steal beer. McClanahan invited both to drink at his home. There, they put back a few beers with him and then robbed him. DNA helped link the crime to Charles L. Sampson Jr., 39. DNA from cigarette butts and a beer can left behind in McClanahan's home, and from the rope that bound his ankles matched Sampson's DNA profile.

Sampson and Brenda L. Hudson, 47, were each charged with multiple aggravated murder and robbery charges. SOLVED

22. Galen P. Sloan, 39. He died of a shotgun blast Oct. 7 after he tried to force his way into an acquaintance's home in the 9100 block of Southeast Crystal Springs Boulevard. Police say Deangelo Oliver, 26, shot Sloan in self-defense. Sloan had been threatening Oliver and intimated that he was coming after him with a gun. Sloan apparently came to collect some drugs he suspected Oliver had stolen from someone else, police say. SOLVED

23. and 24. Francis E. Weber, 72, and David Copeland, 64. They were found dead Nov. 5 in a driveway off U.S. 26 past the Vernonia turnoff. Part of Weber's body was found at the scene; other parts in his van about 10 blocks from the Southeast Portland home he shared with Copeland and another tenant, Frank G. Hudson, 62. Hudson is accused of fatally shooting both over a rent/landlord dispute in the house in the 6700 block of Southeast 62nd Avenue. He's also accused of dismembering his landlord and then using Weber's van to dump both bodies in rural Washington County. SOLVED

25. David E. Hughes, 52. A fugitive who faced sentencing for burglary convictions was fatally shot by police Nov. 12 after he jumped from the second-floor window of a room at the Hospitality Inn Motel off Southwest Capitol Highway. Hughes had five years hanging over his head for burglary, weapons and attempted arson charges, which he pleaded no contest to in September. In March, he broke into his ex-wife's former lover's home to retrieve her dog, which she claimed was being held hostage. He failed to show up for his Nov. 7 sentencing and was on the run. Officer Nathan Voeller, a six-year bureau member, fired seven rounds from an AR-15 rifle. Central Precinct Sgt. Tim Musgrave, a 14-year bureau member, and Officer Kevin Tully, a one-year bureau member, fired eight rounds between the two of them from their 9 mm handguns, police said. Hughes had no weapon on him. He died from multiple wounds. A county grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing. SOLVED

26. Leonardo Perez, 29. Died of multiple stab wounds Nov. 22 in a Northeast Portland apartment complex. Police have a warrant to arrest Francisco Garcia Sanchez, 29, with murder in the stabbing death that's believed to be drug-related. SOLVED

27. Robert Carl Pfeifer, 28. He was fatally shot while trying to break up a bar brawl about 1:30 a.m. Dec. 26 inside the Wetlands Public House at Southeast Stark Street and 160th Avenue. Police charged Lai Ngoc Thach, 21, with one count of murder. The fight began between a couple of women, and Pfeifer stepped in to try to break them up. He had gone to the bar after completing his 4 to 10 p.m. shift at a nearby Shari's Restaurant, where he worked as a waiter. SOLVED

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - 12/21/06

2006-12-21T20:30:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian

Cops' violence disturbing

It is disturbing to think that Sir J. Millage is lucky ("Guardian upset by force police used 'to stop or protect'," Dec. 19). What is lucky about being Tased and beaten with batons by the police, hurt so badly that you need hospital care? Well, at least they did not beat Millage to death.

The violent police treatment of an autistic 15-year-old roaming the streets is a disturbing reminder of the brutal behavior of the Portland police force that led to the death of James P. Chasse Jr. We are still waiting to see the fundamental reform of our police essential to creating true security in our city.

Weed out the dirty dozen, the most violent members of the Portland police. Then we will see the changes needed to align the culture of our police bureau with the culture of our city.

NANCY YUILL

Northeast Portland

Officer hailed for communication skills

2006-12-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian, by Maxine Bernstein

Portland Officer Dan Thompson this summer spent at least 30 minutes on a cell phone trying to coax a man armed with a gun out of a Southeast Portland house. The man was waving the firearm around, threatening his friends and holding it to his head.

Thompson, speaking from the street using a police car for cover, introduced himself, asked the man what was bothering him and assured him he was "here to help." Thompson reminded the man that police were not going away, "so we're going to have to find a solution to his problem."

The man stepped out, only to see a flank of police cars surrounding his home and retreated inside.

"I go, 'Darn it,' " Thompson recalled.

But the veteran cop didn't give up, connecting once again by phone with the armed man, trying to regain his trust. "I do remember walking back and forth between the police cars, totally focused on this guy," Thompson recalled.

The man eventually surrendered that June 6 evening and was unharmed. For his effective communication skills, Thompson on Monday was awarded the Chief's Forum's highest honor: the Nathan Thomas Memorial Award.

"It was Officer Thompson's maturity, patience and keen de-escalation skills that made sure this call had a positive outcome," said Louise Grant, the forum's co-chairwoman.

Thompson, 56, a 31-year bureau member, doesn't have special hostage negotiation training, but finds from his experience on the streets that "it seems like everybody hands me the phone." He was shocked by the recognition, calling it probably the highlight of his career, which he says he'll continue until he stops "having fun."

"This award is extremely special to every member of the bureau because we all carry with us the day Nathan Thomas was killed," Thompson said. "I'm humbled by it."

The award is named for a 12-year-old boy who was accidentally shot and killed by police in January 1992 while being held hostage in his home by a burglar. Nathan's mom, Martha McMurry, presented the award, noting that January will mark the 15th anniversary of Nathan's death; he would have turned 27 on Dec. 19.

"I no longer know what he might have been doing or what he might have looked like," McMurry said.

McMurry and Nathan's father, Gregory Thomas, chose not to sue the Police Bureau. Instead, they pressed the bureau to enhance officers' communication skills to de-escalate tense encounters and have the bureau recognize officers who exhibit this skill. Often, she said, she's asked whether she and her husband took the right path, if their efforts have helped.

"Well" she said, "it's very hard to answer that question."

She said she's pleased there has been the introduction of less-lethal weapons, such as bean-bag shotguns, and in the wake of James P. Chasse Jr.'s death in police custody, money set aside to ensure all officers complete 40 hours of crisis intervention training. But she said she recognizes that the training is not going to resolve every situation.

"Unfortunately, when things like that happen and people die and families love that person, we're all sorry this happens and it hurts everybody," McMurry said.

Nathan's mom urged the Bureau to continue recognizing officers who use communication as a police tool to connect with people and avoid violent encounters.

"If we're going to value community policing, we have to recognize communication, treating people with respect," McMurry said. "It might help keep other families from living the tragedy we live with every day."

Portland Police Will Be Trained To Handle Mentally Ill Suspects

2006-11-30T21:28:00.000-08:00

from OPB.com

Portland city commissioners approved funding Wednesday to train police officers to deal more sensitively with mentally ill people. The $250,000 is a fraction of the city money available thanks to higher-than-expected tax collections.

The training became a city council priority after a mentally ill man died in police custody this fall.

Steve Weiss is an advocate for the disabled. He says the training may be meant to avoid another death like James Chasse's, but he says police should use the techniques for anyone they think is behaving erratically.

Steve Weiss: "Crisis intervention training techniques must also be utilized for all those suspected to be on drugs or drunk. To put it another way: If drugs or alcohol had been found in James Chasse junior's system, would that have justified what happened to him after he was arrested? We don't think so."

The council vote on the nearly $11 million supplemental budget included a bureaucratic shuffle of more than 120 employees. Supportive commissioners say it will improve how the city serves Portland's water customers.

Lost in Translation - Police Say Cop "Accidentally Fell" on Chasse; Witness Statements Say Otherwise

2006-11-26T06:54:00.000-08:00

from the Portland Mercury, by Matt Davis & Erin Lacour

The official police investigative reports into the in-custody death of James Philip Chasse Jr. on September 17 appear to have ignored—or at least heavily re-interpreted—the direct testimony of several independent witnesses.

The police investigation found that Chasse was killed because Officer Christopher Humphreys "accidentally fell" on him, as Sergeant Kyle Nice and Sheriff Deputy Brett Burton ran to catch up. But several witnesses—in separate transcripts of their statements released on November 9, alongside the cops' official investigation—said the cops "leapt" on or "tackled" Chasse. (The Multnomah County Grand Jury, on October 17, did not find the officers criminally liable for his death.)

The collected documents, which weighed several pounds, were not made available in electronic form, and were only being given out in bundles last week to media that had requested them weeks in advance. The cops defended the eight-week delay between Chasse's death and the release of the documents, saying they wanted to be fair in releasing the investigation to all media simultaneously. They also said it took a while to ensure all medical information was expunged, as required under federal law.

The witness statements paint a vivid picture of what happened on September 17.

"As soon as the guy was down, he basically leapt, leaped on him," said witness Justin Soltani of one of the officers, in a phone interview with detectives on September 24. But Detective Jon Rhodes' separate investigative report said, "Soltani believed the officer fell on the subject he was chasing, stating, 'The officer was half twisted on him,'" making no reference to Soltani's description of the officer who "leapt."

Another witness told the investigator a similar story. Rhodes' question was, "Can you tell what the catalyst for him going to the ground is? Was it a push, was it a trip or, or could you tell, did they just all of a sudden kinda all go down?" Diane Loghry said, in a telephone interview with Rhodes on September 21: "He went down because three guys were on top of him." But Rhodes' report of Loghry's testimony waters down the account to "she saw officers take the subject to the ground."

"I saw them throw him down to the ground," witness Jamie Marquez told the police on September 24. "It was like a... a football tackle, like you know, a... a nose guard tackling into the quarterback, kinda just throwin' him to the ground."

Detective Lynn Courtney's write-up of Marquez's testimony, however, only says he "observed three police officers chasing Chasse and watched them tackle him to the ground at that intersection."

Witness Randall Stuart told the police on September 21 that "the three men in uniform were able to gain on him enough to leap upon... I think it's fair to say everybody leapt upon him." Courtney's report, once again, tempers the testimony, writing that Stuart saw "the three pursuing officers jump on the individual, causing them all to fall to the ground."

Another red flag raised in the investigative report is the testimony of another witness, Constance Doolan, which indicates that one of the officers lied to her about Chasse's historic use of drugs. Doolan says an officer on the scene told her Chasse had "14 former convictions for crack cocaine," and how he and his colleagues "found a vial of crack cocaine" on Chasse that afternoon.

Chasse had no drugs on him or in his bloodstream, according to the autopsy and police reports. But the investigating officers do not appear to have asked Doolan which officer told her this, or for a description of him to try to ascertain who he was. From the investigation's transcripts, their only response to her story about an officer's apparent fabrication was, "Um-hm."

Chasse's lawyer, Tom Steenson, says the cops have not "had the common courtesy" yet to send him a copy of the investigation and witness transcripts they have released to the media. He does say, however, that what the transcripts appear to reveal is not surprising.

"If the detectives are summarizing witnesses' statements in this way, it is consistent with the approach of the city and police bureau so far," he says. "Consistently, from the moment this matter became public, the police bureau and the city have put out information that is false and not accurate in terms of what witnesses saw."

"The detective's summaries are not designed to reinterpret or summarize the witnesses' statements," says the Portland Police Bureau's Public Information Officer Brian Schmautz. "There is no attempt to change, delude, or decrease what is said, nor any intent of subterfuge. If you're suggesting the detectives are attempting to be sneaky, that is why we have released the transcripts—for the sake of transparency."

As far as the allegations of lying about Chasse's drug use are concerned, while it is rare for officers to be fired for use of force, they have been sacked for lying. In May and June of 1999, the bureau fired Officers Kenneth Ellison and Donald Warren, after one denied reversing into a light pole in a parking lot, and the other called in sick when he was not.

"Usually officers don't get fired for use of force, but for lying, cheating, or stealing," says Portland Copwatch activist Dan Handelman. Of Doolan's testimony, he says: "This is just one witness statement, but if it happened, then it's pretty outrageous."

"The police have repeatedly attempted to suggest that drugs were involved," says Steenson, who is still considering the possibility of a civil lawsuit with the Chasse family, "and that somehow, suspicion of drug use would justify what they did."

"I cannot explain that comment," says Schmautz. "There is no information that any of these officers had had contact with Chasse, so why would someone say that? Either it is somehow a misinterpretation of what was said, or it is wrong."

Officer involved in Chasse death named in previous brutality lawsuit

2006-11-21T15:42:00.000-08:00

from The Portland Tribune, Oct 27, 2006, Updated Nov 21, 2006

CORRECTION

On Oct. 26, 2006, the Portland Tribune published a story about two of the Portland police officers involved with the in-custody death of James Chasse Jr.

The headline in the electronic version of the story contained a statement about the previous use of force by Sgt. Kyle Nice, which is not factually supported by any source.

The Portland Tribune regrets the publication of the original headline.

Portland police officer Christopher Humphreys, involved last month in the death of James Chasse Jr., was named in a federal lawsuit alleging police brutality that the city settled for $90,000 earlier this year.

And in instances of use of force, Humphreys is tied for No. 2 within the police bureau since it began collecting those statistics in 2004, according to records obtained by the Portland Tribune.

The city admitted no fault in the settlement. Humphreys and other officers were dismissed from the lawsuit as a condition of the payout.

But one witness to the altercation said in court testimony that the man being arrested was so badly beaten he could only describe him as a “breathing corpse.”

Humphreys has used force more times — 78 — than all but one other Portland cop since late 2004. Another cop involved in the Chasse incident, Sgt. Kyle Nice, has 17 recorded uses of force in that time, which does not make him stand out statistically.

Humphreys also has been the subject of seven Internal Affairs Division complaints — one for each of his years on the force — with two of those cases still open. One of those relates to Chasse. Such complaints and details of the ensuing investigations generally are not considered public records. Nice, a 14-year veteran, has had two such complaints, including the Chasse case.

Like Humphreys, Nice also has had a use-of-force issue that led to a lawsuit.

In the lawsuits against both Humphreys and Nice, people accused them of excessive force, Humphreys for using his baton on a man’s legs, Nice for shooting a man in the left arm.

Police filed criminal charges against both men they were trying to arrest, and juries cleared each of them. They each later filed federal civil lawsuits. A jury found in favor of the city and Nice in the lawsuit filed against them.

Humphreys did not return a phone call or an e-mail seeking comment. Nice is out of town until next week and did not respond to requests for comment.

“Referencing the recent traumatic incident, you surely must recognize the psychological impact it has had on each of these officers,” Nice’s direct supervisor, Lt. Mike Lee, wrote in an e-mail. “With that in mind, I would be surprised if either of them was willing to speak with any reporter at this time.”

These are the stories of lawsuits involving Humphreys and Nice, reconstructed through court and police documents, which include interviews with and sworn testimony from the officers involved.

• • •

The man in the driveway was getting worked over. The neighbors watching had no doubts about that.

Across Southeast 85th Avenue, John Repp watched through his living room window.

What he heard sounded like “Sylvester Stallone in ‘Rocky,’ when … he was punching that cow in the meat market. If you took a stick and hit that, it makes kind of a ‘thwack.’ ”

He heard the man on the ground screaming as police officers punched, kicked and hit him with a metal baton.

“It was terrible to hear,” Repp said, “ … the guy was screaming for his life.”

Like other witnesses, Repp said he could not make out what the officers were telling the man, Chaz Miller. The officers said their commands were consistent — “Stop resisting!” or “Stop moving!” — but to most of the witnesses it just sounded like noise.

Deputy District Attorney Sean Riddell asked one witness, Mark Parkinson, whether Miller was struggling, resisting arrest.

“Now, would you think that Rodney King was struggling when he was just trying to get to his feet?” Parkinson asked in return. “Because what I saw was him laying on the ground being beat. I did not see him struggling. I saw him laying on the ground being beat.”

In the early morning of April 21, 2003, Humphreys drove his patrol car to 3205 S.E. 87th Ave. and met two other officers, Erik Strohmeyer and Lon Sweeney, who were following up on a domestic violence call a few hours earlier.

According to sworn testimony, a drunken boyfriend went into his girlfriend’s house, angry, and stopped her from calling 911. She tried to Mace him, and he pushed her down and took the canister, then sprayed her instead. She called the police after he left.

The boyfriend, whom she described as an olive-complexioned man with dark hair, left with a mutual friend, who was blond and fair-skinned. The mutual friend drove a Ford Ranger pickup.

The officers found the Ranger they were looking for, which they thought would contain the boyfriend, Paul Swayze, according to court testimony.

Strohmeyer and Humphreys knocked on the driver’s-side window. The blond man inside stirred, then laid back down. Strohmeyer knocked harder, announcing himself as a police officer and the man slowly sat up. Only later would they find out that he was Miller, the suspect’s friend.

Riddell asked Humphreys during the criminal trial whether the man in the truck made any gestures or movements.

“I knew he shook his head … kind of a side-to-side, like a no motion, … as we were to get him out of the vehicle,” Humphreys said, according to a transcript.

Strohmeyer threatened to break the window with his metal baton, and the man reached slowly toward the ignition.

Strohmeyer broke the window.

Humphreys moved toward the man in the truck and blasted him in the face with pepper spray.

Miller started the car and drove off. Sweeney maneuvered him to a stop a few blocks away.

Civilian witnesses said they saw Strohmeyer punch Miller in the head several times through the broken driver’s-side window, in between yelling at him to get out of the truck.

Humphreys was on the passenger side, trying to pull Miller out by the legs. He couldn’t get a good grip, so he pulled out his baton and began hitting Miller with it on soft tissue below the waist, as he said he was taught to do. He hit Miller with the baton between 10 and 12 times.

Parkinson, one of the neighbors, said he saw Miller, whom he knew, scramble out of the truck and go down in his driveway on Southeast 85th Avenue near Powell Boulevard at about 4:50 a.m.

Parkinson watched through a window as the officers surrounded Miller. Humphreys pulled out his baton again and swung it against Miller’s legs another 10 to 12 times while other officers wrestled with Miller.

Parkinson said he could see Miller clinging with one arm to the rear axle of a truck in Parkinson’s driveway.

Another officer showed up after Humphreys called for a Taser. Two 50,000-volt shocks with the Taser pressed up against Miller failed to subdue him.

“I mean, it basically had no effect … other than making him fight harder,” Humphreys testified.

The officer with the Taser backed up and fired the weapon’s barbed probes into Miller, and police handcuffed Miller.

“Describe what you saw of Miller’s body,” the public defender asked Repp’s son, David, who had watched from his bedroom window.

“A breathing corpse,” he said.

Police charged Miller with attempting to elude police in a vehicle, attempting to elude police on foot, reckless driving, reckless endangerment and resisting arrest. A jury acquitted him. Miller sued the city last year, and in February the city settled the case before trial, agreeing to pay $32,683.96 in damages and $59,485.24 in attorney’s fees.

• • •

Ron Barton woke up and got shot. That’s pretty much all he knew until people told him later what happened.

Two Portland cops, Nice and another officer, a rookie, thought he pointed a gun at them. Nice shot Barton in the left arm, sure that Barton aimed a shotgun at him in a right-handed pose.

Barton later passed a polygraph examination in which he said he never touched the gun. He also is left-handed. And lab tests showed no atomized blood on the shotgun, which would have been present if he had been holding it when he was shot.

After he was shot, as he collapsed facedown on the floor in his own blood, he cried out repeatedly, “What did I do?”

It was early in the evening, Aug. 24, 1997. Nice, then an officer, was the second cop to respond to a call of “threats” at 13953 S.E. Division St.

Barton lived in apartment No. 4 and had a running dispute with a neighbor over unauthorized cars taking up space in the parking lot.

Barton had been out with a friend, drinking beer. The neighbor’s mother stopped him in the parking lot when he started writing down license plate numbers.

The mother told Barton to watch out, that her son might shoot him. He told her the kid had better finish the job or he’d come looking for her son. When the son heard that, he called the police.

Barton was asleep — door open but screen door shut — on the couch in his living room. There was a phone next to his head. And when Nice and the rookie peered in, in bad light, they saw the stock of a shotgun on the couch nearby, which Barton later said he bought after being burglarized twice. He stuffed it into the couch cushions, safety on, and hadn’t touched it since, he said.

Nice and the rookie knocked “vigorously” on the door, according to police records, announcing themselves as police. Barton started moving.

Both officers believed that Barton wheeled the shotgun toward them. Nice raised his police bureau-issued Glock handgun, and fired it once through the screen door.

There were no civilian witnesses.

Police charged Barton with two counts of recklessly endangering another person. A jury acquitted him. After the civil trial for the lawsuit he filed afterward, the jury ruled for the city.

Commitment often not an option for the mentally ill

2006-11-20T20:21:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian, by Don Colburn

SERIES: MENTAL HEALTH: A SYSTEM UNDER STREETS (Second of two parts)

The fraying of Oregon's mental health safety net in the past few years has forced more chronically ill people into crisis situations that play out in hospital emergency rooms, courts and jails.

It also intensifies an already heated debate over civil commitment, the use of a court order to keep a mentally ill person in the hospital against his or her will for up to 180 days.

Civil commitment laws, designed as a buffer between the mental health system and the criminal justice system, date to the 19th century. But their tone has changed sharply over the years.

Oregon law allows involuntary hospitalization only for mentally ill people who pose an immediate danger to themselves or others. But defining "dangerous" is tricky, said Dr. Neil Falk, a psychiatrist and medical director for crisis services at Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, the largest provider of mental health care in Multnomah County. "That's a very subjective term."

Civil commitment of a person who refuses treatment poses a clash between two lofty principles: the right of an individual to be left alone and the societal need to protect people from harm, even from themselves. Lately, the outcome has tilted toward the individual.

"There are a lot of tough issues in mental health, but that one is the most contentious," said Lee Carty, spokeswoman for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, D.C. The controversy reflects a mental health system that is increasingly crisis-driven, she said.

"In the 1960s, we decided to empty the state hospitals," said Phil Chadsey, an attorney who works with Oregon's chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "Basically, we put many of the mentally ill on the streets because we didn't fund outpatient services for them. It's a long, sad story."

A recent high-profile case in Portland raises questions about how police deal with people who are mentally ill. James P. Chasse Jr., 42, a man with schizophrenia, died Sept. 17 in police custody. The officers who confronted Chasse said they did not realize he was mentally ill.

In the aftermath, Portland Mayor Tom Potter and Police Chief Rosie Sizer vowed to give all officers training in dealing with the mentally ill. With recent cutbacks in mental health coverage and services, including critical cuts in the past three years, police increasingly find themselves on those front lines.

People see others on the street who are mentally ill and not doing well, and they wonder why the courts don't step in, said Mike Morris, a policy manager for the state Mental Health and Addiction Services division. But civil commitment means taking away someone's liberty even though that person hasn't committed a crime. "That's why it's a tough standard."

"It's always a balancing act," said Dr. Joseph Bloom, emeritus professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University. Bloom recently studied trends in civil commitment over the past 20 years in Oregon and concluded that it's becoming something of a legal endangered species.

A civil commitment typically begins when doctors or police bring a patient in crisis to a hospital for an emergency "hold" of up to five days. A county investigator looks into whether the person should be released or given a civil commitment hearing before a judge --who can order a psychiatric hospital stay of up to 180 days.

The number of holds in Oregon doubled between 1983 and 2003. But the commitment rate is half what it was 20 years ago, Bloom said.

In other words, fewer people placed on hold are moving to the next stage: a commitment hearing. Theoretically, that might be because they stabilize their lives with no need to stay in a hospital.

Unfortunately, that's not what usually happens, Bloom said.

"When you decrease civil commitments, as we have, you get more people in jail," he said. "We've directed a lot of mentally ill people either into the criminal justice system or onto the streets."

Between 10 percent and 15 percent of people jailed nationwide have a severe mental illness, according to a U.S. Justice Department guide for police published in May. A recent state report in Oregon found estimated that 20 percent of all jail and prison inmates have a mental illness.

"The jails are considered the biggest psychiatric holding areas," said Circuit Judge Lewis Lawrence, who hears most civil commitment cases in Multnomah County.

Fate decided in Room 220

No one commands, "All rise," when Lawrence enters Courtroom 220 in the Multnomah County Courthouse. He wears a white shirt and tie --no black judicial robe --and presides from an ordinary chair across an oval conference table from the patient.

It's here in Room 220 that some of the county's most vexing medical-legal-social interactions play out, in hearings that decide whether someone with a mental disorder should be civilly committed. The informality of the setting is aimed at making the proceedings less intimidating, Lawrence said.

An Oregon Court of Appeals ruling last month shows how hard it is to hospitalize a person against his will, even one who is delusional.

The appeals court overturned the involuntary commitment of a 29-year-old man with schizophrenia, Thomas R. Olsen. Olsen, who reported seeing leprechauns, had been hospitalized repeatedly. He had heard voices since he was 11 years old.

A county investigator concluded that Olsen was "totally unable to assist in any discharge planning or realistic discussion of his future," could not identify his medicines and had not arranged for outpatient care or a place to live.

But at his commitment hearing, Olsen asked to be released, saying he could take care of himself.

Two psychological examiners found Olsen delusional and potentially dangerous to himself. Judge Lawrence agreed and ordered him committed for 180 days.

Olsen appealed, and the Court of Appeals backed him.

"Delusional or eccentric behavior --even behavior that may be inherently risky --is not necessarily sufficient to warrant commitment," concluded Judge Jack Landau, writing for the court. Civil commitment is "not intended to be used as a 'paternalistic vehicle' to 'save people from themselves,' " he said.

Civil commitment "should not be a dumping ground for a failed mental health system," said Lance Perdue, Olsen's lawyer. "The courts are making a statement: You can't just have people locked up because they can't get services."

"There's a real struggle going on right now," Lawrence said, adding that the Olsen case typifies an intensifying dispute. When he started hearing civil commitment cases eight years ago, the Court of Appeals hardly ever overruled him.

That has changed dramatically.

"It has gone from a flood of affirmations to a flood of reversals," said Lawrence, 55, a judge for 22 years. "A lot of mentally ill people are going out on the street. The Court of Appeals believes they are protecting the freedom of the individual. But there's more than liberty at stake here."

A divisive trend

Civil libertarians hail the decades-long trend away from institutionalized care and civil commitment for those who refuse care. They say eccentric, reckless, even threatening behavior --without clear and immediate danger such as knife wielding --is not grounds for taking away someone's freedom and forcing treatment.

Others say the pendulum has swung too far, depriving patients of needed treatment and allowing some, as one psychiatrist put it, "to die with their rights on."

During the fiscal year ending June 30, Multnomah County had about 4,000 emergency holds. Most of those cases were soon dismissed, because the patient got past the immediate crisis or was not deemed sick enough and dangerous enough for a commitment hearing. But 380 reached the hearing stage, and about 300 patients were civilly committed --up slightly from the year before.

"We're seeing sicker people, a lot more (with) drug and alcohol problems and a lot more meth use," said Jean Dentinger, county supervisor for involuntary treatment. Still, nine of 10 hold cases are dropped. "That doesn't mean they don't need treatment," she said. "It means they no longer meet the legal criteria for being forced into treatment."

It's the hospital emergency staff's responsibility to try to link such patients --those who are willing --with help, if it can be found. Help could mean anything from medication or private counseling to a homeless shelter.

A major shift in Oregon commitment law came in 1973, when the standard changed from "unsafe to be at large" or "suffering from neglect, exposure or otherwise" to "dangerous to self or others." During the 1980s, as urban homelessness grew more visible, a backlash prompted some states --including Washington, but not Oregon --to broaden their laws to cover the "gravely disabled."

Civil commitment remains a crucial tool for people "who are seriously ill but don't have good insight into that fact," OHSU's Bloom said. But it's not enough by itself. "You can have the greatest civil commitment law in the world," he said, "but if you don't have any beds available, it's a train to nowhere."

"All the hospitals are full," said Bob Joondeph, executive director of the Oregon Advocacy Center, an independent group aimed at protecting the rights of the mentally and physically disabled. "It's a clogged system. It's hard to get in and hard to move through in a timely manner."

Multnomah County has lost nearly 200 psychiatric hospital beds in the past five years with the closure of Eastmoreland, Pacific Gateway and Woodland Park hospitals and the Crisis Triage Center at Providence Portland.

Conflicting definitions

One reason civil commitment poses such a dilemma, psychiatrist Falk said, is that the medical and legal definitions of "dangerous" are not the same --and may even conflict.

Consider, he said, a man who is homeless and psychotic, refuses to seek treatment and sleeps outdoors on a Portland sidewalk during a chilly, rainy winter. The man is vulnerable to hypothermia and to others on the street and sometimes acts aggressively toward passers-by. "Medically, you know the man needs treatment," Falk said. "But legally, it's a very high threshold."

The man probably wouldn't meet the legal commitment standard of being dangerous to himself or others, because he says he knows where the homeless shelter is and will go there if things get rough.

The issue has shifted radically, said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, head of psychiatry, law and ethics at Columbia University and a pst president of the American Psychiatric Association. The question used to be mainly medical: How sick is this person? Today, it's more complex; Is this person dangerous?

"It's extremely difficult for family members," Appelbaum said. "I've been called on innumerable occasions by families who say their loved one has left home and is wandering the streets and eating out of dumpsters.

"It's heartbreaking to tell them that under the law, unless the person can be shown to be dangerous, there may not be anything they can do."

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - 11/19/06

2006-11-19T20:16:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian

Hey, you work for us!

There is a fundamental misunderstanding at the core of many of our government's problems: They think we work for them.

But as any self-employed person will tell you, your boss is everyone who walks through your door. From the office of the president to the officers who killed James P. Chasse Jr., our public-sector employees are completely unaware they are in the service industry.

So to those of you who work in the public sector, be advised: You work for us. Get over it and your job title, and treat us like your next paycheck depends on it. Now get back to work!

JAMES OLSON
Lake Oswego

Oregon's mental care a tarnished model

2006-11-19T20:11:00.000-08:00

from The Oregonian, by Michelle Roberts

Over the past three years, thousands of Oregonians have lost access to drop-in centers, counselors and other services created to treat people with mental illnesses before they become a serious danger to themselves or others.

The changes result from the lingering effects of budget cuts by the Legislature and the growing expense of closing the dilapidated Oregon State Hospital. But the consequences can be seen daily on the streets of Portland and other communities, where police increasingly encounter the mentally ill and more of them end up in jails.

Mental health officials say Oregon has taken an about-face, turning a system once praised as a national model for preventive care into one of triage, with police, crisis workers and emergency rooms feeling the brunt.

"We're spending a lot of resources to build new projects for people as they leave the state hospital," said Bob Nikkel, administrator of the state's Office of Mental Health and Addiction Services. "That's well and good, but they're expensive projects. . . . We haven't invested enough in the front end to keep people well."

In response, Nikkel's agency is proposing a 32 percent increase in state mental health spending over the next two years, with the bulk of the new money focused on community programs that have been squeezed.

The death last month of a 42-year-old man with schizophrenia who was fatally injured by Portland police during a street arrest has again placed the condition of Oregon's mentally ill population in the public eye.

James P. Chasse Jr. lived in subsidized downtown housing and had access to medication and professional help. As such, he was better off than many low-income Oregonians who are not so ill as to require hospitalization but instead depend on the web of state-funded mental health services provided in local communities.

The shrinkage in the system dates to 2003, when Oregon lawmakers moved to plug a recession-racked budget. They made it harder to qualify for medical insurance under the Oregon Health Plan, cutting 80,000 low-income residents from the rolls, including an estimated 13,000 who regularly used mental health services.

Separate cuts left some 2,000 mental health workers and drug and alcohol counselors without jobs. And lawmakers eliminated monthly stipends for the poor that many mentally ill people used to buy medicine or pay rent.

In the years since, lawmakers have poured millions back into mental health. But it has not offset all the reductions. Much has been eaten up by the cost of moving patients out of the state hospital, where conditions had become bad enough to prompt a civil rights lawsuit and an ongoing U.S. Justice Department investigation.

By the end of 2009, officials hope to cut the hospital's population of nearly 800 in half by placing patients in community facilities such as group homes or medium-security centers. Now, there are not enough such places to go around.

Troubled in Portland

In Portland, it's unusual to walk through some downtown areas without seeing people with untreated mental illnesses --often complicated by alcohol or drug addiction --slumped in doorways or mumbling at bus stops.

Police encounters with the mentally ill are on the rise, averaging about 40 a week last year in Portland. Calls to Project Respond, which provides mental health specialists to assist officers, are up 40 percent this year, according to Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, the largest provider of mental health services in Multnomah County.

Recent budget restraints forced Cascadia to close four community drop-in centers for people with severe and chronic mental illnesses. Before the closures, the centers on a typical day served up to 300 people debilitated by brain disorders such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

"A lot of the guys now are just walking around downtown," says John Shatokin, 58, a mental health client who attended the drop-in center in Southeast Portland until it closed. "They're not getting pills or going to classes. They're just wandering around and getting sicker."

Jerry Wiseman, 48, is a frequent visitor to the city's last remaining drop-in center at the Royal Palm Hotel in Northwest Portland. He said it's one of the few places he can avoid being hassled by police.

"It's very difficult because it seems like society doesn't want us anywhere else," Wiseman said. "They'd rather not see us and our problems."

Cascadia's medical director, Dr. Maggie Bennington-Davis, said the situation shows the system's fragility.

"When you stop paying for things, you put pressure on every other part of the system --hospital emergency rooms, jails, police, alcohol and drug, homeless shelters," Bennington-Davis said.

The situation can be desperate for those who need help and those trying to provide it.

Recently, a man in his 50s with schizophrenia showed up at a downtown Cascadia clinic asking for medication and a place to sleep, according to agency officials. Two emergency rooms had turned him away, the man said. When told there was nothing to offer him, he stabbed a caseworker in the chest with a pen.

Police arrested him for felony assault, and he ended up in jail --a common outcome.

A recent state report determined that up to 20 percent of all jail and prison inmates in Oregon are mentally ill. That is higher than a national estimate cited in a May publication by the Justice Department, which said 10 percent to 15 percent of people who are jailed have a severe mental illness.

Once a "shining example"

No one believes jails are the place to treat the mentally ill, especially in a state that 10 years ago had established itself as a leader in treating people with brain disorders in community settings.

"Most of us saw Oregon as a shining example in the country for community mental health," said Dr. John Talbott, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland at Baltimore and a nationally recognized expert. "Then we saw you get the stuffing kicked out of you."

Talbott recently delivered a largely critical speech in Portland about Oregon's mental health system, saying the state relies too heavily on long-term hospitalization to treat difficult cases of mental illness.

Community mental health took a cut of $30 million, or 18 percent, three years ago. The effects were widespread. Some mental health clients lost access to medication. Others were evicted from group homes.

Although lawmakers put money back into the system in the current budget, not everything was restored.

The General Assistance Program, which provides stipends for disabled and low-income people who are unable to work, was eliminated. The benefit was only $314 a month, yet it allowed caseworkers to access treatment and housing programs that require mentally ill Oregonians to pay a percentage of their income to remain eligible.

General assistance also helped plug another gap in the system. The chronically mentally ill may apply for and receive federal disability benefits under Social Security. The benefits, usually at least $800 a month, are a lifeline. But qualifying can take as long as three years in Oregon because of a large case backlog.

Mentally ill people depended on the general assistance money to make co-payments and pay rent until federal benefits began. "Now they have nothing," said Leslie Ford, Cascadia's executive director.

Alcohol and drug services for those who work but earn too much to qualify for Medicaid were reduced $3 million at the end of 2003. That put more than 1,000 drug and alcohol counselors out of work and eliminated nearly 10 percent of the state's treatment beds, state officials said.

Experts say that up to half those with mental health problems also are substance abusers. The alcohol and drug services haven't been restored.

The community mental health cuts forced agencies across the state to lay off another 1,000 people who worked directly with mentally ill people. Caseworkers who once managed 30 or 40 clients now handle more than 100.

Also eliminated was the state's Medically Needy Program, which covered more than 9,000 Oregonians who had unusually high medication expenses but didn't qualify for Medicaid. "Several thousand people who lost that program had mental illnesses," said Madeline Olson, a deputy state mental health administrator.

The Oregon Health Plan was designed as a way to expand eligibility for health coverage under Medicaid to the working poor. But the 2003 cuts limited enrollment to 20,000, down from 100,000, and stricter rules make it harder for patients who do qualify to stay on the plan, Ford said.

"If they make one mistake, like missing a premium payment, they're off it," she said.

The collective result of all the cuts, Ford and others say, is that thousands of people with mental illnesses can't get help until they are so sick that a judge commits them to a hospital for their own safety. But with the Oregon State Hospital slated for closure, and alternatives still works in progress, that creates new pressures.

State hospital overcrowded

The Oregon State Hospital houses nearly 700 patients and has long struggled with inadequate staffing, poor physical conditions, overcrowding and violence.

Most residents are forensic patients --those who have been found guilty of crimes except for insanity. Empty beds for civil commitment patients are virtually nonexistent, which leads to crowding in acute care hospitals and emergency rooms.

Eleven months ago, the Oregon Advocacy Center, a federally financed watchdog group for people with disabilities, sued the state to force a staffing increase and improve safety and quality of care at the hospital.

The Legislature acted quickly. Meeting in emergency session last spring, lawmakers approved $9.2 million from reserves for staff and community placements for patients who could be helped in less-restrictive facilities.

The lawsuit was settled, but scrutiny remains intense. The Justice Department alerted Gov. Ted Kulongoski in June that it would investigate whether patients' constitutional rights were violated at the hospital. Department investigators visited the hospital last week.

Improving conditions at the hospital will help patients. But state officials say they must also create new inpatient and community-based alternatives for current hospital residents and future patients.

The state hired a San Francisco architectural firm last year to assess what to do with the hospital. That led to a bipartisan plan to replace the hospital with four new facilities at a cost of up to $334 million. Decisions about the location, design and financing for the facilities are on the 2007 Legislature's agenda.

Oregon spends large sums on mental health and addiction --$352 million in the current two-year budget, not counting federal dollars. The biggest share, $174 million, goes to community mental health.

The latter sum includes a $40 million increase from the prior budget, but officials say about 40 percent of that is being absorbed by the state hospital transition.

Nikkel's office is asking for a huge increase --$113 million --in the 2007-09 budget submitted to Kulongoski. The bulk of that increase is targeted at community services.

"We can't turn away from the hospital's problems," Nikkel said. "But it's become clear that until we invest state general fund dollars in front-end services, we'll never get ahead of this process."

In 2004, the Governor's Mental Health Task Force issued a "Blueprint for Action" calling for improvements in care for mentally ill Oregonians of all ages. But only two of its 10 proposals have been enacted. One is a parity law, effective next year, which requires private health insurers to provide equal coverage of both mental and physical illness. The other provision suspends rather than terminates Medicaid benefits when someone is jailed.

Parity helps Oregonians with private insurance but does not increase access to care for the poor.

"We need to be directing our resources into the development of community systems that keep people out of hospitals," said Bennington-Davis. "We ought to be paying attention to what works nationwide --everything we know that does has been cut in the last year or so. We're going in the wrong direction."

Kulongoski declined an interview request. But Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, who sponsored parity legislation in 2005, said he will push for mental health reforms in the upcoming Legislature.

"The whole system is in need of repair and has been for years," he said. "Parity gave us a foundation and now we've got to build on it. I'm going to predict we're going to make more progress in the next 10 years than we have in the past 75."

What Homer Saw

2006-11-16T22:51:00.000-08:00

From Willamette Week

According to Portland Police Bureau documents released Thursday, local developer Homer Willams —the man responsible for the construction of much of the Pearl District—witnessed part of the police confrontation with James Chasse Jr. on Sept. 17 as he dined at Bluehour, one of the ritzy neighborhood's premier restaurants.

Witnesses Contradict Cops On Chasse "Push"

2006-11-14T22:50:00.000-08:00

from Willamette Week

None of six civilian witnesses to the police takedown of James Chasse Jr. agreed with the Portland Police Bureau's official story that the mentally ill man was pushed—rather than tackled—to the ground during his fatal encounter with cops on Sept. 17.

Police issued a "fact sheet" a month after Chasse's death, which a coroner ruled was caused by blunt-force trauma suffered in Chasse's tangle with several officers. The “fact sheet” reads: “Did officers tackle Mr. Chasse?" It then provides an answer: "One officer used his forearm to push Mr. Chasse to the ground to end the foot pursuit, which is consistent with Bureau training.”

But not a single civilian witness describes such a push in the newly released documents.

Additional accounts of the events leading up to Chasse’s death have emerged in hundreds of new pages released to the public for the first time Thursday, and may step up pressure on Police Chief Rosie Sizer and Mayor Tom Potter for explanations of that discrepancy.

The medical examiner ruled Chasse's fatal injuries most likely occurred when Officer Christopher Humphreys fell on top of him. Police came under fire when other statements made by the three officers involved, which came out before the more recently released witnesses’ statements, didn’t match the bureau's “fact sheet."

At that time, police spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz said the “fact sheet” was assembled from the totality of the evidence, including the then-confidential witness accounts.

Of the nine people who saw the initial takedown or its immediate aftermath, including the three officers involved, only one person (Humphreys) described something similar to the “fact sheet”—a version that just happens to conform to police procedures.

James Chasse Jr., artist and model

2006-11-12T22:54:00.000-08:00

from PORT

At this point, most Portland residents are familiar with the story of James Chasse's tragic, unconscionable death in police custody. Out-of-towners and those who are a little hazy on the details can read about the incident here.

As a teenager in the late 70's and early 80's, Chasse was a friend of several longtime members of the local art scene, including Eva Lake and Randy Moe. In his late teens, Chasse changed dramatically after developing schizophrenia, which he struggled with until his death on September 17th, 2006. When Moe and Lake learned that Chasse had been killed, they were already preparing for an exhibition of Moe's portraits at Chambers Gallery, which Lake manages. Presciently entitled, It's a Sad, Sad, Sad, Sad World, the show has been expanded to include a portrait of Chasse and a binder filled with photocopies of The Oregon Organism, a zine Chasse created while in his early teens. Moe used an old polaroid photograph of a 14-year old Chasse, affectionately known as 'Jim Jim,' as the source for his memorial portrait.

The art of portraiture has always been intertwined with the fundamental human concerns of empathy and mortality. These issues are brought to the forefront in Moe's portrait of Jim Jim, which he created while working through feelings of grief, frustration and regret. Upon first encountering the momento polaroid--which Eva posted on her blog shortly after Chasse's death--I was struck by just how important a sympathetic portrait's illumination of its subject can be. News images of Chasse had been small, mug shot-style records of a man's appearance.

This image showed much more: a sensitive soul, playful but with an underlying melancholy. Eva and Randy have both commented that Jim Jim was shockingly bright and philosophical for someone his age. Both kept artwork created by Chasse, and their recollections inform an article that subsequently appeared in The Oregonian, Losing 'Jim Jim': a story of schizophrenia, authored by Maxine Bernstein.

Some of the most striking passages from Losing 'Jim Jim' involve former classmates' recollections of Chasse's odd behavior, elucidating the tenuous boundaries between artistic creativity, the imaginative world of childhood, and the pain of delusional paranoia:

"(Jason) Renaud called his classmate a 'bit of a mystery.' He remembers his obsession with putting his hand in a fist. 'He'd say if he opened his hand, the world would cease to exist,' Renaud said. 'It was clear the weight of the world was on his shoulders.'

Another classmate, Ani Raven, remembers Chasse as a student who kept to himself. But she and her best friend often sought him out because they liked him, and they'd find him in Couch Park near the school.

'Sometimes he told me that he talked to Saint Francis . . . he wanted to be like him, gentle to all beings,' Raven wrote in an e-mail about Chasse. Chasse, Raven said, gave her a white crayon, with a thread tied to one end, saying it represented purity in a corrupt world. More than 20 years later, she still has the crayon."

Eva Lake stresses the importance of Jim Jim's creativity, an aspect of his personality that she believes is deserving of more attention. Lake comments, "Jim Jim was an artist: someone who did drawings very similar to what is hot now ~ very juvenile yet sophisticated. This was Jim Jim to the core. Yet the drawings were very spot-on... he drew the Ramones and the Wipers to perfection. Jim Jim was in a band later on, the Possum Society. The name came from the fact that police were caught throwing possums at black-owned businesses and homes back in the early 80's here. Odd that even then he had this strange relationship with the police." A perusal of The Oregon Organism reveals ominous foreshadowing on par with that in Elliot Smith's last album. The police and death are both mentioned frequently, occasionally in the same sentence. While he seems to have had his share of demons at a tender age, the Chasse of The Oregon Organism was willing and able to take a playful swipe back at them.

Chasse was the embodiment of the early punk rock ethos, a bold, wry social observer who wasn't afraid to make light of himself or others, a passionate fan of The Wipers and The Ramones, a frequent attender of concerts who raged against the unfairness of '21 and over only' shows, a DIY writer, artist and organizer. Far from the work of a self-absorbed loner, his "letters from the editor" show how eager he was to collaborate with other artists and writers and to spread good news about his favorite bands. By turns provocative, enthusiastic, and absurdist, Chasse always wrote in his own distinctive voice.

As a critic, I particularly enjoy his reviews. As with his illustrations, Chasse takes a standard format and makes it his own by subtly undermining its logic or carrying a traditional tone to laughable extremes. From a review of Public Image, Ltd:

"Public Image first issue--a lot better than the Pistols album for the simple reason it's just better, in every aspect.....'Fodderstompf,' my favorite cut on this LP, is a disco takeoff, with castrato vocals, et al!...'Annalisa' seems to be a love song (?), what are we coming to Mr. Lydon? BUY THIS RECORD it is under urging recommendation."

He lampoons both the adult world of traditional newspaper writing and the conventions of busywork literature for kids. Instructions on how to draw Debbie Harry show three stick figures, each with slightly more detail with the last, then a finished picture of Debbie that looks nothing like the stick figures. "Find the mistakes:" commands a banner over a pencil drawing of an idyllic scene. The mistakes, it turns out, are:

1. molecules in left hand corner are blue!
2. man has no legs.
3. the cumulous clouds are too thin!

I could cite many more examples of young Jim Jim's adorable sense of humor, but I encourage everyone to check out The Oregon Organism at Chambers Gallery and behold it for yourselves. I also encourage everyone to check out Randy Moe's striking portraits at the same location.

At a candlelight vigil held for James Chasse on October 27, Eva Lake read a few of his poems. His poetry, she says, "was probably where he shined the most." The following poem, previously featured in The Oregon Organism, seems to capture something of both the enthusiastic teenager he was and the troubled man he would become.

silent snow, secret snow by jim

crush my radio, wreck my t.v. oh no! what'll i do! i see snow
the mailman doesn't come anymore
oh no! i see snow
snow in my room, snow in my room
reality stays away from my front door
i just can't relate anymore
the mailman doesn't come anymore
took my telephone off the hook
on my bed, i see snow
what will i do? oh no! snow in my room, snow in my room
silent snow, secret snow
reality is my only foe

It's a Sad, Sad, Sad, Sad World will remain on view at Chambers, located at 207 SW Pine St. No. 102, through Nov. 30. Hours are Wed.-Sat. 12-6pm and by appointment. For more information, call the gallery at 503.227.9398.