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1/4 Million Dollars More to 2020 Portland Police Brutality Survivors
Brings Total to Over $2.5 Million
Compliance Officer Shares Data but No Recommendations;
Bureau Creates New Crowd Control Team

Early in 2024, four more people received sizeable payments from the City of Portland due to violence perpetrated on them by Portland Police during racial justice protests in 2020. The total bill just for those four cases (not including the time spent by City Attorneys and other employees): $294,001, bringing the total for all payouts for brutality at anti-brutality marches in 2020 to $2,583,940.22. If you add in payments from the years since 2018, the total is now over $2.85 million. Meanwhile, the Compliance Officer/Community Liaison (COCL), who reports on the US Department of Justice Settlement Agreement, finally included data on such payouts in their Q4 2023 report... but didn't discuss the behaviors that led to the payouts, which is the point of this requirement. For their part, the Bureau got ready to establish a new riot squad, now dubbed the "Public Order Team" (POT).

Here are the three incidents that went to Council (the fourth was a court judgment):

-- Erika (Angelica) Clark was shoved against a wall and pepper sprayed directly in the eyes in July 2020. Her testimony on January 10 was incredibly powerful, and was joined by words from her parents. Erika said the stress from the police attack left her unable to function. Her father talked about how he feels like a failure, knowing how Portland Police officers treat Black people and being unable to do anything to protect his daughter. Her mother talked about how Erika has left Portland and won't come back to be part of the family because of the trauma from the incident (not the first time we've heard this said). Council members kept stone faces and simply voted 5-0 to approve the payment of $158,000. PCW has recommended that watching the video of this Council session should be required for all police, as well as advisory boards.

--On January 24, Council approved a payment of $81,000 to Marisa Moon for police breaking her wrist when they smashed her into a cement wall in August 2020. Moon was also struck and sprayed with chemicals while she was trying to disperse. She ended up with metal screws, plates and wires in her arm thanks to the PPB's violence.

--On February 28, Council shelled out another $25,000, this time to Grace Dietzschold, a medic who was at a Black Lives Matter protest in September 2020 and was thrown to the ground, then had her face pushed into the pavement. Dietzschold was attacked while trying to come to the assistance of her mother, Dica, who was also a medic and had been attacked and thrown to the ground by Sgt. Brent Maxey (#40930). The mother's part of the lawsuit was dismissed in 2023 when she died by unrelated causes. Commissioner Rene Gonzalez took the unusual step of expressing his discomfort as the facts were presented, hearing that Grace threw a foam shield at officers (at first thinking the City Attorney had said "phone shield," whatever that is). He referred to it as an "assault." PCW testified that Grace was exonerated for her actions in criminal court. Mayor Wheeler responded not by thanking us for our testimony, but instead making a comment about how not everything that gets said in public comments is factual. (And yes, we were the only ones testifying.)

A court judgment of $30,001 was issued on March 28 to Elijah Warren, a man who was beaten with a baton in front of his own home on September 5, 2020 (KPTV-12, April 17).

The COCL's report laid out that the City had paid just over $2,000,000 in claims over the course of two years. They listed the average amount per payout (just over $34,000 for bodily injury and just over $15,000 for property damage). Paragraph 170-e-v in the Settlement asks them to look at the data to make recommendations about training, policy and use of force which should keep such incidents from occurring again. Considering this was the first time any data appeared in eight years of reports, it's a step forward, but a tiny one.

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Driving Instructor Cop Crashes Minivan Leading to $350,000 Settlement

On December 20, Council awarded Sarah Imel $350,000 for the head, neck, shoulder, and back injuries she suffered when Sgt. Bret Barnum crashed his Police Bureau-owned SUV into the minivan in which Ms. Imel was a passenger. Sgt. Barnum is a driving instructor at PPB. The Council records are so vague that there was no way to understand why Barnum was driving a police vehicle in Sherwood (some 15 miles from Portland), or why, according to the lawsuit, he drove the vehicle into the rear of the minivan, which was stopped in traffic, with tremendous speed and force. People may recognize Barnum's name as he was the motorcycle cop who got a hug from a young boy who later tragically died when his family's car drove off a cliff. PCW pointed out that maybe someone like Barnum should no longer be allowed to teach other officers how to drive, even if it is just on motorcycles, after this crash.

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City Agrees to 6% Pay Bump to Persuade "Union" on New Crowd Control-- Er, Public Order Team

On March 20, City Council approved a $380,000 rider to the Portland Police Association (PPA) contract, which was to entice its members to join the newly forming "Public Order Team" (POT). The POT is being set up to replace the Rapid Response Team (RRT) whose members all quit the RRT in 2021 after Officer Cory Budworth was indicted for smacking a reporter in the head during the 2020 racial justice uprising (PPR #84). It should be no surprise that the new Team will include about 40 officers and eight Sergeants, since they are all represented by the PPA. The money is to ensure a 6% pay increase for all of those who are working on the POT for as long as they are assigned to the Team-- regardless of how many hours they are engaged in crowd control. In their report on PPB's response to the 2020 protests, the consultants at Independent Monitor, LLC stated that the new crowd control team must be rigorously scrutinized by PPB executives, overseen by Portland's new Oversight Agency, and transparently introduced to the public. As PCW told Council, "We imagine that they were thinking the new oversight system would not be derailed by the drivers of today's ordinance, the PPA, filing a ballot measure to weaken the board's purview" (see oversight article). The driving force behind setting up the POT: they want it to be in place before the November elections and anticipated protests.

To the Bureau's credit, Deputy Chief Mike Frome stated on the record that they do have plans to let the community know who will be on the POT, and, more surprisingly, that they plan to use information from lawsuits to help guide the new training that is being designed. All well and good, but PCW also noted that the premium rate should be prorated downward based on liability claims caused by the individual officer-- seeing as the money for these payments doesn't come out of the Bureau's budget or the officers' pockets.

May, 2024
Also in PPR #92

Portland Copwatch
PO Box 42456
Portland, OR 97242
(503) 236-3065/ Incident Report Line (503) 321-5120
e-mail: copwatch@portlandcopwatch.org

Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.

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