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PPB Engages in More Protest Violence,
Reconstitutes Dubious Crowd Team, Pays Further Damages
City Council Member Takes on Portland Copwatch

The most public evidence of questionable police activity can be seen in a PSU Vanguard Instagram post from May 5. In it, police spokesperson Sgt. Kevin Allen is telling the media at a news conference how police were attacked by protestors using hard shields as weapons. That talk is intercut with footage of what actually happened-- a few protestors who had cut rubber garbage cans in half the long way (so they were taller than they were wide) ran down a sidewalk, and the police ran at them, knocking them down. So not only did the on-scene officers use unnecessary force, but the leadership lied about it. There were other reports of officers roughing people up. For the perspective of the police "union" on these protests, see "Rapping Back".

In a separate incident later in May, former PPB officer and current head of PSU security Willie Halliburton jumped in to assist officers trying to clear protestors out so patrol cars could take previously-arrested demonstrators to jail. Halliburton suffered some kind of cardiac incident. Halliburton is well known for having a second career in stand-up comedy. Even so, it's not funny that he over-exerted himself, but maybe a little ironic since PPB rules would preclude him as a supervisor (much less the equivalent of a chief) from engaging tactically while line officers were performing their duties.

At the July 10 City Council meeting, the commissioners contemplated whether to pay $11,500 to Kelcie Ulmer, who was violently knocked to the ground during a protest outside the Portland Police Association headquarters in 2020. Court documents say Ulmer was trying to disperse when they were "shot twice in the buttock and once in the back of the upper thigh by Officer Brent Taylor, yanked to the ground from behind by another Portland officer, injuring their tail bone, then dragged behind the police line." Taylor's name may sound familiar because he was one reason a judge put a restraining order on Portland Police using weapons against protestors based on their behavior at 2020 racial justice demonstrations. He was also the subject of at least one other lawsuit that was paid out (PPR #87).

PCW's Marc Poris testified with a routine set of comments tailored to the particulars of this case-- PCW does not object to the settlement but hopes the Council will look at underlying issues to prevent future occurrences, and giving the total amount paid to date for 2020 protests as $2,565,434.22. Gonzalez erupted in a rant, complaining to the Mayor about Council "continuing to platform abolitionists" for the 18 months he has been a member and saying that we don't have the right to testify, implying we somehow had strayed from the substance of the agenda item (we did not). The Portland Mercury covered the story on July 10, unable to get a response from Gonzalez. The article referenced a May incident where PCW's Dan Handelman was similarly broadsided by Gonzalez calling the group "extreme" for suggesting officers engaging in the retire/rehire program should be screened for their misconduct history. PCW wrote to the Commissioner noting Chief Day had testified moments before saying he already does such screening-- but we had no way to know because that policy is not in writing (see article). We also got no response.

For his part, Mayor Ted Wheeler heard a community member testify about how officers corralled protestors at PSU when a right-wing driver tried to run into people with a car. Folks managed to get out of the way, including warning the police, he said. Instead of saying "I'm glad nobody was hurt" or anything humane, the Mayor said that the protestors had been told repeatedly to leave the area, and if they were going to disobey police orders they should not "whine, complain and cry" about it afterward. At a community advisory board meeting, Handelman asked Chief Day whether that was official Bureau policy, since the Mayor is also the Police Commissioner. Day said he was not familiar with Wheeler's remarks.

There is a lot to unpack about the re-introduction of the Rapid Response Team, including the question of why the city would choose to use the same name after all the bad public interactions in 2020. At a Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing (PCCEP) meeting on June 5, Deputy City Attorney Heidi Brown told the attendees that the Bureau had always intended to use the same name-- even though several policies and other documents clearly referred to it as the Public Order Team/Unit. Chief Day told the Committee he was going to follow the recommendation of the Independent Monitor LLC group to introduce the new team to the community, but he wasn't sure exactly how or when. A week later, the PCCEP continued their discussion of crowd control and City representatives were present. The next day, on June 13, Day pulled together a news conference-- not a public meeting for the community-- and had one or two RRT members explain what their training and weaponry would be like. The PCCEP did not receive advance notice of the conference.

In related news, the Bureau had to go to City Council for approval of $1.1 million for crowd control. As is typical these days, they did not explain until they were presenting the item what the money was for. About $55,000 of it was for new "less lethal" weapons, as they are predicting political unrest at the November elections (also see munitions piece). The rest is for training. There was no guarantee that the training would lead to different outcomes from 2020, the PSU library, or dozens of other examples of politically motivated violence perpetrated by agents of the state.

See the PSU Vanguard video at <https://www.instagram.com/reel/ C6my2YzPMnW/>.

In a non-protest incident, Michael Kaady was awarded $25,001 in a court judgment for wrongful arrest by the PPB, which led to him spending seven months in jail inappropriately. His arrest was based on a doctor's appointment note that fell out of his pocket in the vicinity of the crime scene (Oregonlive, May 1).

* - also know as the Public Order Unit, which Portland Copwatch pointed out, when pronounced as an acronym (POU) sounds like "poo."
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September, 2024
Also in PPR #93

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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