Transcript
Automatically generated transcript. It may contain errors and includes testimony in languages other than English that is not individually marked up for assistive technology.
Jamie Dunphy
Good afternoon, friends and family.
I'm calling to order this work session on the Office of Independent Review report.
Uh, the Office of Independent Review group works with the city to review officer-involved shootings.
They review these events and offer the city feedback on policy.
This is OIR's 9th periodic Report.
Today's work session will be presided over our Community and Public Safety co-chairs, Councilors Kanal and Novick.
Councilors, who am I passing the gavel to?
Councilor, take it away.
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks everybody for being here.
Uh, Councilor Novick and I co-chair the committee.
We're going to co-chair this, uh, session.
I'll take the first part and then pass it to him to facilitate later.
Uh, first I want to start— I think that, um, we're passing it just to Deputy Director Am I going to do the introduction?
Okay, well then we'll pass it to DCA Warren.
Thank you so much to everyone for being here.
Tracy Warren
Good afternoon, Council.
Um, my name is Tracy Warren.
I'm the Deputy City Administrator for Operations.
Beside me I have Kelsey Lloyd, who is acting as the Independent Police Review Director.
Kelsey's going to give some opening remarks, and then we're going to move through the OIR report.
We'll talk about background and history, methodology, brief incident overview, the OIR recommendations, and then we'll have PPB give a summary response to recommendations, and then we'll do questions and answers and a full discussion with council.
So I'll turn it over to Kelsey.
Sameer Kanal
Just real quick before you come in, I didn't get your title right, uh, so Acting Director Thank you.
Kelsey Lloyd
Thank you and good afternoon, members of council.
I am Kelsey Lloyd, Deputy Director of the Independent Police Review.
IPR holds the contract with the OIR Group that produced this report.
As you may know, city code requires IPR to retain an outside expert to review completed investigations of officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths.
Since 2010, the OIR Group have been those outside experts.
There have been 8 of these reports, and each one has been presented to City Council.
This current report covers 10 incidents that occurred between 2019 and 2022.
Every incident involving the use of deadly force or a death in custody undergoes an administrative investigation, training division review, and consideration by the Police Review Board that recommends findings to the Chief of Police.
IPR reviews all administrative investigations and is a voting member of the Police Review Board.
OIR only reviews closed cases that have fully completed that administrative review process, so they are able to examine the incident itself as well as the ensuing investigation and accountability process.
The administrative process, process can take time to complete, so there is often a gap between the incidents themselves and OIR's ability to review them.
During their reviews, they have access to the complete case file and meet with IPR and Police Bureau staff as needed for additional information while working on the report.
Although the incidents covered in this report occurred a few years ago, IPR has worked to ensure that all critical incidents receive a review by the OIR group to increase transparency for the community.
These reports are extremely valuable because they provide a thorough, objective review of the most serious uses of force by Portland Police, conducted by experts with extensive experience in evaluating these incidents.
They touch on important issues that are crucial to the police bureau and the city going forward.
In the years the city has been working with OIR, they have met with elected officials and their staff, community advocacy groups, and leadership at Portland Police many times, developing good relationships that go back many years.
I understand that you're taking public testimony tomorrow, but I wanted to mention that there will also be a public meeting tonight at 6:00 PM hosted by the Citizen Review Committee, and OIR folks will be there to answer questions about this report.
I hope everyone's had a chance to review the report, and we thank you for your time and attention.
I'll hand it over now to Julie Ruhland with the OIR group.
Thank you, Councilor Ruhland.
Julie Ruhlin
Good afternoon.
Happy, so happy to be here in Portland and experiencing your new form of government.
We've been here many times in the past.
My name is Julie Ruhlin.
I'm with OIR Group, and my colleague Mike Gianacco also.
And I think Mike's going to get us started with the first slide.
Michael Gianacco
Okay.
Can we move to the next slide?
So I thought maybe— good afternoon, all.
Again, Michael Gianacco with OIR Group, and it's great to Thank you, Council President.
Thank you, Mayor.
It's great to be back in Portland.
Appreciate the opportunity to engage with you all, councilors, city leadership, as well as your community.
And we look forward to the community engagement this evening as well as the formal presentation at your formal meeting tomorrow.
We thought it might be helpful since there are some new folks we have not engaged in to this point to give you a little bit of history about us and our work and our— particularly our work in Portland and Oregon.
We began our work as oversight professionals, police professionals, in 2001 when we ended up getting an assignment to oversee the LA County Sheriff's Department in Los Angeles.
Prior to that time, Julie had been involved in civil rights work for a private firm as well as working for a special counsel in Los Angeles involving oversight prior to the existence of the OIR group in Los Angeles.
I, on the other hand, had been doing work as a federal prosecutor for the Civil Rights Division, and that included engaging in prosecuting hate crimes, human trafficking, human modern-day slavery, as well as police misconduct.
And as a result of that opportunity that I did for about 15 years, first in Washington but really all over the country, I was involved in prosecuting And I moved to Los Angeles in '94.
I did that in '86 throughout the country.
In '94, I moved to Los Angeles, and I ended up doing additional work as a prosecutor of police misconduct in the Central District of California in the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Topical, and thinking back on this, one of my most significant cases as a prosecutor in Los Angeles was the murder of Rodney King.
Yes.
And I believe this may be the last prosecution, successful prosecution, in the West Coast, but I was able to successfully prosecute an INS, which is what ICE used to be called, an INS detention officer for using excessive force against a detainee in Terminal Island.
So based on that experience, I ended up moving into the world of oversight.
After about 9 years in oversight, we were engaged by your city to conduct Thank you.
We were asked to conduct a review of a very controversial in-custody death, the death of James Chassie.
And that ended up beginning the beginning of our continued engagement with the city.
While the Chassie in-custody death was a one-off assignment, we ended up being asked by the then auditor who oversaw this project at the time to start to conduct Regular reviews of all in-custody deaths and officer-involved shootings involving members of the Portland Police Bureau, and have been doing that regularly since that time.
So we've had a significant and long engagement with your city with regard to this kind of work and appreciate the opportunity to present this new spate of cases and our review from them.
Our work also has caused us to be involved in other auditing functions throughout the country, primarily in California, but not exclusively so.
We have done projects for other jurisdictions in Oregon, for example, as a result of this engagement, I believe.
So we have done work in West Linn, we've done work for Tigard, City of Tigard, City of Springfield, and Clackamas County, just to name a few of the assignments we've had in your state.
So we come to that, to this project with Quite a bit of experience.
We have probably, unfortunately, during the course of the years that we've been doing this, over 20 years doing this, reviewed over 500 officer-involved shootings and a significant amount of in-custody deaths as well as part of that work.
But everyone is different and everyone presents different challenges.
And one thing about Our approach and our focus is that our work is not to investigate the incident.
That's already been done, right?
That is not going to— that is not our work.
There are times in which we are asked by jurisdictions to do an investigation, but that's not the scope of this assignment.
And we are also really not focused on the conduct of the particular officer who may be involved in an in-custody death or officer-involved shooting.
Again, that's the responsibility of the city.
Thank you.
At this point, the Bureau, to conduct the investigation and also to ensure that there is a robust review process.
So the conduct of the individual officer is not our focus.
What our focus is, is really on evaluating the strength of the investigation that is conducted into these serious incidents and evaluate the strength of that investigation.
And then we will make recommendations to the city council.
As well as taking a critical review of the subsequent review that is conducted by the Bureau with regard to accountability, with regard to policy development, with regard to other reforms that might emanate from these tragic incidents.
The way we see it is that, you know, obviously whenever an incident involving the ultimate force that officers are authorized to use under the appropriate circumstances is done, that it be done judiciously.
Thank you.
That it be done within policy and within the law.
But in addition to that, every incident in our view ought to be looked at holistically, completely, and thoroughly with a look towards whether the incident itself presents learning lessons, both with regard to training officers at large, both with regard to providing— seeing whether the guidance provided to officers at the time Was sufficient, and if not, to increase that level of guidance and supervision, and to determine whether there are other remedial measures either at the individual officer level or at the bureau level writ large that might be appropriate with regard to one goal, and that goal is really to better prepare the bureau should officers be faced with a similar set of circumstances and a similar set of challenges, and the.
The idea is that if in fact there is a robust review and a sufficient response and some remediation either at the bureau level or at the individual officer level, that will reduce the likelihood that there will be a future deadly force incident.
What we have found in the past, and I'm not speaking to Portland here, but for agencies that do not do that kind of review, they're only destined to repeat the problems of the past, right?
I'm not the first person to have said that, but I really endorse it.
Thank you.
Is concomitant with the way in which we do our work.
As I indicated earlier, our work started with regard to the 2010 report.
That was a review of an incident that had already been 4 years old.
And if you, if you ever take a chance and look at the chassis incident, we talk about some of the challenges that waiting that long to do a review has with regard to Intervention, remediation, improvement.
Because if you have to wait 4 years before you finally get to that improvement phase, then you are— there's 4 years in which future incidents could occur that are going to be plagued with the same kinds of issues.
With regard to the 9 reports that we have now compiled between 2012 and 2026, we are up to 75 critical incidents as part of those 9 reports.
They're featured Thank you.
They are featured on the city's website.
Anyone can access them.
And what we most appreciate about the scope of work that you have provided us and given us the opportunity to do is that level of transparency.
So we're able to write publicly about the good, the bad, and the indifferent with regard to all of the incidents that we have had a chance to review and speak candidly and publicly about them.
And that's a testament to, I think, the city's interest in ensuring a thorough process and accountability and transparency with regard to these tragic events.
You know, in order for officers to do their work, we imbue them with great authority, great authority, and no other profession is given that authority by us.
Individuals, residents of the United States.
And that awesome authority is authority to detain and arrest individuals.
But even a greater authority is also imbued to officers, and that's the authority to use force under appropriate circumstances in order to effectuate arrests, to stop resistance, to keep us safe.
But to the degree that force is the ultimate authority intrudes on our Fourth Amendment necessarily.
It must be done judicially and with best practices, and in all cases, if at all possible, to be avoided, that use of force.
And so that's our goal and that's our objective, and that sort of lays out our precepts.
Julie, I'll turn it to you.
Julie Ruhlin
Yeah, next slide, please.
Just real quick, as Mike said, our goal in these reports is to review the bureau's own internal work and the work that's done.
And so we review the complete investigative file, and that's often, you know, many thousands of pages or thousands of pages.
It includes the detective's criminal investigation, the bureau's internal affairs investigation, any video that's available, and, you know, that's In these cases, there's not a lot of video available.
We're really happy to see Bureau members now wearing the body-worn cameras.
Most of the agencies we have worked with have had those for a number of years.
So getting to review video of incidents has really become quite routine.
So we're grateful and happy to see that the Bureau has taken that step.
The city has taken that step to equip its officers.
Councilor Smith.
The training division review is another big piece of this file.
And it's really, we've talked about it repeatedly in all of our reports, but it bears repeating that that document is really a testament to the bureau's commitment to using these events as a learning opportunity.
There aren't other, we work with a lot of other agencies and we just don't see a training division that is so forthcoming with its Critique of officers' performance and willingness to sort of go dive deep into an incident, evaluate all of the decisions made, and then to lay that out in written form is pretty remarkable and something we are always complimentary of when we do these reports.
And so it really is a very useful piece of this file, and we talk repeatedly in this report about the things that that are identified by training as part of the sort of opportunities for learning and growth and needed improvements.
So that's a big piece of our review as well.
We look at the grand jury transcripts when these cases have gone to grand jury and review those.
And then all of the documents that talk about the internal review process and the Police Review Board decisions and how those decisions make their way up through the chief's office and ultimately where those land.
Next slide.
So in this report, it is our 9th report, there are 10 incidents.
2 Of those are fatal officer-involved shootings.
3 Of them are shootings in which the individual was hit, 4 of them are shootings where the officer fired at somebody but did not hit them.
And just, again, I want to compliment the Bureau on its willingness, the fact that the non-hit shootings get the exact same investigative treatment, exact same treatment by the training division as a hit shooting.
Thank you.
The fact that somebody did not get hit does not mean that we don't take this very seriously.
It's still an exercise of deadly force.
And again, that's not something that we see in every agency.
Often the non-hit shootings are kind of like no harm, no foul.
And that, that is not the way we see it.
It's not the way your bureau sees it.
And we think that's a good thing.
And then there was one incident where the individual— there's a standoff in a car, a long standoff with officers.
Yeah.
And ultimately, that person in the car had a gun and took his own life.
So that was the 10th of those incidents.
Throughout the report, we address a number of issues, including pre-shooting tactics and the decision-making that go into, that sort of led up to the uses of force.
And these things that kind of, we'll get to the recommendations in a minute, but we also talk about consistency in addressing the recommendations that come from a lot of different pieces of the review process.
Thank you.
We talked— one of the themes is, is looking at shooting at moving vehicles, and then the delays that are— that resulted from litigation in, in these cases.
We make 7 recommendations, and again, we will get to those.
They deal with the review process and follow-up, investigative protocols, training, and timing of reviews.
Next slide, please.
And again, we didn't wanna walk through each of these incidents.
And so just in terms of breaking them down and looking sort of thematically, there are 3 incidents where bureau members shot at a moving vehicle or at a vehicle.
And that is sort of an interesting, certainly timely after what we've seen in Minneapolis.
And it's a thing that, it's an issue It's an issue that is addressed by very strict policy, and it's a concern in all of the work we do when you see the shooting at vehicles.
And there are a number of very particular concerns about that.
It's interesting that there were 3 of those incidents in this set of cases because it's not something that historically we had seen in prior reports.
So it was kind of—.
Yeah.
I'm not trying to make more of it than— other than a statistical blip, but it was just sort of an interesting observation that there were 3 in this after, you know, so many years where we just didn't see that come up.
4 Of these incidents involved people who were in some kind of mental health crisis or had a suicidal intent.
And again, that is a common repeat theme that we've seen, not just in Portland, but really everywhere as law enforcement Thank you.
So, this is a very important document.
It's a very important document for us to have.
It's a very important document for the city of Portland to have as it grapples with how to deal with people who are in profound behavioral health crises.
And then in these— this set of cases, we see officers responding to a number of different types of calls, different scenarios, including a domestic dispute, a couple of cases where they're tracking down stolen vehicles, performing a warrant service.
Public disturbance.
One subject who was being pursued for a home invasion, and then criminal trespassing.
Next slide, please.
So our recommendations, they're intentionally out of order just because of the way it made sense to us to discuss them.
So the numbers jump around.
Thank you.
Our recommendations are driven by what we see in the cases that we review.
So we've grouped them here, but just, we'll talk briefly about the sort of, about the recommendation and why it's included in this report.
Take this, take number 1.
Michael Gianacco
Yes, thank you.
So we will go through the recommendations and the rest of our presentation will focus on the recommendations themselves.
I think it really is important to have Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor.
Council President Jamie Dunphy.
Thank you, Mayor.
I appreciate the opportunity to give a factual recitation of each of the events, each of the incidents, for mere transparency purposes, as well as to give a better understanding for what became the organic reason for the recommendations that we have made, rather than just putting out the recommendations by themselves.
But each of these recommendations do stem from these incidents that are the focus of our work.
And the way these cases come to us and the reason that there are these cases is that the way the contract has been structured is that there will be a certain time period in which the cases are closed.
And during that time period, all the cases that are closed during that time period then come to us for review and then become the foundation of our report.
So that's how that works.
So looking at the invest— at the recommendations and trying to put a little more meat on the bones with regard to What those recommendations are intended to accomplish.
The first one has to do with the Bureau's review process.
And as Julie indicated, and I concur, of course, that this is all comparative, but the Bureau is quite significantly ahead of many other similar-sized agencies that we work with, with regard to a robust review process.
Thank you.
So what that means is that both internally and eventually by the chief, but even before that by the police review board, there is a review, a formal review of officers' conduct, supervisors' conduct.
So that review formally forces the review board and eventually the officer, the chief, to come to certain dispositions.
Or decisions, if you will, with regard to whether the performance, the conduct of the officers or supervisors met expectations, were within policy, and were within the law.
Obviously, the district attorney has a different responsibility, and that is to evaluate whether or not any of the conduct rises to the level of criminality.
And the DA does that, and that's, you know, where the grand jury comes into But the Bureau has an independent responsibility, again, to ensure that the performance of its officers are consistent with their expectations as set out by Bureau policy.
And the way they do that is a very formal way.
So with regard to the actual decision to use deadly force, that is something that is evaluated formally.
So the review board initially and eventually the chief Chief will be making a decision with this question in mind.
Did the use of deadly force by any officer— sometimes it's multiple officers— was that consistent with policy, or was the shooting out of policy?
And over the past years, there have been occasional times in which the shooting has been found to be out of policy.
Not often, but it has occurred.
In this set of cases, there are no cases in which That decision was made.
But the decision is being made on each of these incidents.
In addition, pursuant to a recommendation we made maybe 10 years ago, the Bureau also agreed to make a formal decision with regard to what we call post-incident conduct.
And the way this came about was we saw a couple cases in our review process in which there were some concerns raised by us and by the Bureau themselves about whether or not, for example, the medical aid that is provided to the downed individual after the shooting was sufficiently timely, was sufficiently robust.
There are also some concerns about the management of the scene, you know, the, the way in which the scene is held, the protocols with regard to getting forensic people there to start to the forensic investigation, etc.
And so as a result of those concerns and pursuant to a recommendation that we made, the Bureau agreed to also, in addition to looking at the shooting decision, to also evaluate the post-incident management of the scene.
Was medical aid provided in a timely way?
Were supervisors effectively managing the scene and ensuring a robust processing of evidence.
And those are the 2 areas in which, since that time, the Bureau in every case is making a yes/no determination with regard to that.
And also, if there are issues with regard to maybe not a violation but performance issues that should be addressed, the Bureau uses those mechanisms to do that.
What we haven't seen, though, is that there hasn't been a formal assessment or evaluation, yes, no, in or out of policy, with regard to what we call pre-shooting conduct.
Another term that you may hear about is whether or not there was appropriate attempts at de-escalation leading up to the shooting.
That's also part of pre-shooting conduct.
Another way of describing it And what we have learned over the course of our review of these, you know, 500-plus incidents is oftentimes the decisions that are made pre-shooting often contribute to the eventual decision to use deadly force, right?
So if there are decisions made that cause the officer to get too close to the individual, to cause the officer to move too quickly towards the individual, to cause the officer to use excessive force, where there wasn't sufficient thought to deploy de-escalation tactics, that can cause the shooting itself to be more inevitable than if there was more careful consideration of some of these other concepts.
So oftentimes it's those pre-shooting decisions that sort of drive the train, leading ultimately to the use of deadly force, if that makes sense.
And while, as Julian The training reviews that have been in existence since we began our project 15 years ago, while as I said, those protocols look at the shooting itself and make formal decision, and training review looks at that and looks at the post-shooting management of the scene.
The training review also does look at pre-shooting conduct and evaluates that pre-shooting conduct.
And makes determinations about that pre-shooting conduct in their training review, whether it met expectations, what's consistent with training that the Bureau provides, what's consistent with policy.
The hole that we have seen in the system, though, and that forms the basis for this recommendation, is that, as I talked about, the yes/no decisions on the shooting itself, the yes/no decision about about the post-incident management.
There is no yes/no decision with regard to pre-shooting conduct.
So the shooting review board— Police Review Board is not required to make an evaluation about whether or not the pre-shooting conduct met expectations.
The chief is not required to make a formal evaluation of whether the officer's pre-shooting conduct Yes.
Met expectations, was consistent with training, or was in violation of expectations.
And the recommendation is intended to reform that system so that there is a yes/no on that.
And that's really the essence of the recommendation.
What we'd like to see in our recommendation is intended to formalize what the training review is doing And requiring the board, as well as the chief eventually, upon receiving the recommendations from the board, to make that determination.
And what that means isn't necessarily that someone's going to be fired behind it or that someone's going to be found out of policy with regard to that.
That could happen on an egregious situation.
But really, more frequently is what we would see is that as a result of that, that yes/no evaluation, uh, that the involved officer might be sent to additional training, that the involved officer, if the performance seems to be somewhat suboptimal, could be, could be, uh, subject to briefing, uh, and, uh, targeted training so that that officer or set of officers that are involved in the incident are better prepared to handle the next challenge in their career.
And it's as simple as that.
And so that's recommendation 1.
Julie Ruhlin
Okay, I'm gonna jump to recommendation 6, which has to do with sort of a structured response to recommendations that come internally from the review process.
And so there is this very multilayered review, right?
There's a training division review.
Sometimes they have— very often they have— the training division makes Yes.
The Chief of Police makes recommendations.
Police Review Board sometimes makes recommendations.
There is a commander who reviews the whole file, the reporting unit manager, who sometimes makes recommendations.
Things that might have to do with training issues, of course, or, you know, different types of equipment that the bureau should be looking at, or there are just a wide range of recommendations that we see come up.
Thank you.
So recommendations come up in these files, and the bureau has historically been sort of inconsistent in the way those recommendations get either formally accepted or rejected.
A question about, you know, who's in charge of them, who's going to do, you know, what it will take to implement this recommendation.
Do we think it's a good recommendation?
All that sort of formal consideration.
Kind of a repeat recommendation we've made over the course of a few reports, and that is to just really create a more crystallized process where you can take all of those recommendations and say yes, no, and if so, who's in charge of doing it and what's the report back and what's the due date.
We see this, some agencies manage this very well where they have a You know, specific action items coming out of each incident, and then somebody assigned to track the implementation of that and kind of make sure that there's the follow-through.
I believe that many of the recommendations that we see in these reports do get done.
I think training follows through and adapts its training in accordance with what it's seen.
I'm not saying that the recommendations are They're not always done or they're not, you know, or they're ignored.
But I think without the formal process and the sort of mechanism for going back and checking and ensuring that they got implemented, things can fall through the cracks and you can kind of lose track of things.
So that has been, like I said, a recommendation we've made before and we reiterate it here in our recommendation number 6.
Tracy Warren
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thanks.
Michael Gianacco
Going to the next recommendation, which we number 7, and this is all because they stem from the chronology of cases, and that's why they're out of order here.
And this is really pretty straightforward.
Over the years that we've been doing this since the beginning, and we learned in CHASSI some of the downsides of waiting a long time to effectuate any reviews or improvements.
Yes.
Because in that case, it took 4 years before any improvements were even thought of.
And in fact, some of the investigation was stalled while the litigation went forward.
Over the years that we've been doing this, we have been reviewing cases that are in active litigation and reporting on them without any untoward circumstances or significant adverse effect on the litigation posture, etc.
Et cetera.
But this time, 2 cases were held back from us that were in litigation with the issue of concern that the review, our independent review, should not occur until that litigation was over.
That was a divergence from the practice that we had been living under for the 10-plus years we've been doing this work for your city, and it caused us some concern.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Michael Gianacco
If any kind of transparency, any kind of recommendations coming out of our review are forestalled until the litigation is over, that could mean that it could be years and many years depending on the length of litigation.
Those of you involved in litigation know sometimes how long.
Mitch Green
Yeah.
Michael Gianacco
It takes to get done.
That means that during those years, any reform or learning coming out of our report will be forestalled until we're finally able to access the information and then report to you and to your community and to the bureau itself on what we see.
And so our recommendation is to go back to the way— the practice that we have been living under for the 10-plus years and not hold back a case for our review simply because it's under current litigation.
We have had an opportunity to review the chief's response to our recommendations and note that he is in agreement with this recommendation.
He has asked, though, that as part of that, if we are to go back to a situation in which there in which we are reviewing a case in active litigation, that we simply prepare— share a draft of that report with your city attorney to make sure that we are factually on the same page with regard to our recitation of incidents.
We have no problem if in fact that ends up being the system, because in many jurisdictions we do exactly that anyway.
So we don't have a problem with that being part of Uh, uh, of the implementation of this recommendation if we end up going back to that system.
Julie Ruhlin
Next slide, please.
This one's you.
Michael Gianacco
Yeah, um, there was an incident in which, um, a parked vehicle was used as an attempt to box, uh, or to keep, uh, an individual from fleeing.
That didn't end up well, um, for a whole lot of reasons.
It wasn't very successful, um, and, um, Aye.
And using a parked vehicle in that way can be problematic.
And so our recommendation was intended to raise this issue with the bureau and to update its training curriculum and its guidance to officers appropriately.
And we have learned through the— again, through the chief's response that there has been some reform here that I believe satisfies this recommendation.
So we appreciate that the bureau has taken this recommendation up and has recognized even before our recommendation was made that they have addressed this issue.
By the way, on the shooting at vehicles cases of the blip that Julie referenced, it's heartening to see that since that time there haven't been these kinds of incidents.
And I do think that's because training really upped its game after these 3 incidents and did really through training really impressed upon its officers the concerns raised when deadly force is used against a moving vehicle.
Julie Ruhlin
You got the next one too.
Michael Gianacco
Okay, the next one.
Yeah, number 3, just again comes out of one of the cases we looked at.
And this was a shooting at moving vehicles case.
And in fact, as indicated in the report, the officer indicated that the reason that he shot at the moving vehicle is because the moving vehicle was coming in his path and he felt that he wasn't able to get out of the way of the vehicle in sufficient time and was concerned for his safety and therefore fired a number of rounds.
However, the photographic evidence that was conducted as a result of the investigation that the Bureau did showed that, in fact, the bullet holes into the vehicle were, with maybe one exception, all into the side of the vehicle.
Which means that knowing physics, you're likely not going to be able to shoot into the side of the vehicle if you are positioned in the front of the vehicle.
And our recommendation is simply that that was a discrepancy between the evidence, the photographic evidence, the evidence of the truck, and the officer's account.
And what we didn't see was— I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
The internal affairs investigator challenging that discrepancy or addressing that discrepancy during the officer's interview, nor did we see it being considered as part of the analysis in determining whether the officer's account was consistent with the evidence, and if not, if there's an explanation for why there was an inconsistency.
But primarily, the officer, since the officer wasn't ever questioned about that, that wasn't able to explain why there might be discrepancy between his account of the incident and the physical evidence demonstrated by the physical bullet hole evidence.
So we've asked as part of the recommendation that these kind of discrepancies, if they're identified, be addressed during the investigative process.
Julie Ruhlin
Recommendation 4 goes to a piece regarding The dispatch and how calls get dispatched out to officers.
And it's, you know, it's often the police response begins with the dispatcher, and a dispatcher can play a critical role in how prepared an officer is when he or she arrives at that call based on, you know, the information that they've gotten from dispatch.
It's— we have talked in past reports about the Bureau of Emergency Communications and, and made various recommendations about how it should be involved.
Yes.
In some of these, uh, post-critical incident reviews and, and examining its own role in that.
It's a little outside our scope because BOIC is, you know, not part of the police bureau.
And, um, I think it's just as a— it's, it's interesting that I, I think you're— I don't entirely know everything about your new form of city government, but, um, you know, I think in the past Yes.
In the past, the bureaus were very siloed, right?
And so if something was happening in the police bureau and BOET, like those, there wasn't always great ability to work across those bureaus.
And I think that's a goal of your new city government.
So I think that this is a promising sort of area for perhaps some growth and new communication between the bureaus.
This recommendation really stemmed from an incident in which an individual went into a store, a convenience store, and was acting erratically and refused to leave and had eaten some food.
The store owner, the store manager, the employee called 911 and reported this behavior.
The critical piece of it is that the individual had asked the store manager to call the police.
And that— the store manager reported that to dispatch, but that piece of information did not go to the officers when dispatcher sent them out.
It was just a sort of unwanted person's call.
He's eaten food and won't leave.
Okay.
So, you know, it seems like a minor point, but, and we don't know, you can't say how things might have gone differently.
But as it turns out, this individual said after the incident, it was a non-fatal shooting, he said that he was trying to get police to shoot and kill him, right?
So it's that little extra bit of information, if the officers had known going in that this person person was asking for a police response.
He was not just being disruptive and not leaving.
He actually wanted the police to come.
Again, I can't get inside the, inside the minds of those officers, but perhaps they might have recognized it going in as a mental health call, and perhaps that might have shifted some, in some subtle ways, the way they approached the call.
And so it was really just this recommendation is, is again meant to encourage that communication between the police bureau, what they learn from these shootings, and to get that information back to dispatchers so that these kind of responses can be improved.
Michael Gianacco
Last one.
Yeah, the last recommendation has to do with putting some guardrails on what is called a PIT maneuver, which Which is a pursuit intervention technique.
And what that means is that when an officer is engaging and wants to detain a suspect, that instead of pursuing them, instead of trying to pull them over, and if they're nonresponsive and are not complying with directives, that the officer actually uses his vehicle or her vehicle to actually strike the subject vehicle and try to disable it.
We have seen in other jurisdictions where this has gone very wrong and resulted in injury either to the officer or to the subject.
And in fact, there was a case a number of years ago in Portland involving a van that ended up flipping over, and there was injury as a result of the deployment of a PIT maneuver against a van.
So The interesting thing here is that the officer recognized that the type of violation that the individual was suspected of committing did not meet the criteria to pursue the subject, but there are no similar guardrails with regard to engaging in a PIT maneuver.
So instead, the officer uses PIT maneuver to disable the subject.
It was successful in this case, but as a result, it resulted in the officer sort of being alone with this individual, and it took a while before help got there.
In our view, our recommendation— and this is a current policy— recommends that before a PIT maneuver is engaged in, that there be strong consideration of consulting a supervisor over the radio before doing that.
But there's no requirement that that be done.
That they get their supervisory approval.
Many jurisdictions that we work with have that requirement before a pit maneuver can be deployed for the various reasons that I've suggested.
And so that's what our recommendation here is in this case.
And I think that ends our recommendations.
Julie Ruhlin
I think that, that's, that's all we have in terms of a presentation.
We are really happy to answer your questions Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Um, I'll just clarify with the council president, I've seen 2 versions of this, uh, but I— we do need to also have PPB, uh, come up, and I, I wanted to verify with you that you'd like that before we open up the Q&A.
Michael Gianacco
Honestly, I'll let you guys—.
Sameer Kanal
I think we might do that.
Um, and so I might have a little bit of musical chairs if you don't mind.
Um, but thank you so much for the presentation.
We have a presentation.
I will note we're a little over time, so just flagging for our next presenters and for councilors as well.
And our next presenters to discuss the PPB response to the recommendation, I think we have Chief of Police Bob Day, Commander of the Professional Standards Division Jeffrey Bell, Captain of the Training Division David Jackson, and Andrew Jensen, who's a sergeant in the Specialized Resources Division.
Um, please let me know if you swap someone, um, but otherwise I'll hand it over to you, Chief.
Thank you for being here.
Bob Day
Thank you.
Uh, good afternoon, Council President, Vice President, councilors.
I'm Bob Day.
I'm Chief of Police for City of Portland.
To my left, your right, is, uh, Commander Jeff Bell, Professional Standards Division, Captain Dave Jackson from our Training Division, and Sergeant Jensen oversees our drone program.
Uh, grateful to be here, appreciate OIR and their good work.
Um, we've been together a long time.
I can remember when they started and And, you know, a little context.
It's been about 16 years.
They've reviewed 75 critical incidents.
Bureau averages about roughly 200,000 calls a year.
So, you know, some quick math there puts us in the several million range of calls for service, and 75 critical incidents are super important.
But I also think it's important to remember in context that the good work that the men and women of Portland Police Bureau do every day in managing high-stress critical incidents that don't rise to the level level of force that is necessary for this outside review.
But we welcome that.
That same time period, some of the things we're gonna talk about today are just, you know, the ever-evolving changes in the Police Bureau.
And just as context, there's been 9 chiefs.
I'm the 10th chief since OIR started their first report.
So that does factor into some of the recommendations and things that we've been trying to address under my leadership.
None of those are to be taken as excuses, just simply some observations that I think are important.
As we look at the entire context of what we're trying to address and improve upon.
So both Mike and Julie, we've had a lot of conversations over the years, including this morning.
I just appreciate and respect the work they do.
And on a final note, should we still be here an hour and a half from now due to a scheduling conflict, I will need to step out at about 4:27 to take a phone call that wasn't anticipated as the setup.
So not abandoning you, but you'll be in good hands from me.
Thank you.
The remainder of the time.
So let's go ahead and just jump into our response to the recommendations.
They've already covered them, and so we'll just kind of give you a little overview.
The one regarding the pre-shooting tactical decision-making, we agree with this recommendation.
I will say that, and I think it was highlighted in their report, that we do look at that in a training, from a training standpoint.
Yes.
But in terms of the yes/no decision-making policy piece, we're going to add that under our satisfactory performance.
Section 2, the directive says this subject sets performance— this subsection sets performance standards for decision-making during confrontations and requires that members use sound tactics and good decision-making during a confrontation.
So that will encompass the entire event.
So we will be adopting this specific review, as you can see Okay.
For the Internal Affairs Department, for the Internal Affairs reviews.
So, and I'm just gonna go through these quickly for the sake of time and we can come back if you want.
If something different, let me know.
So number 2, evaluate the efficacy of parked vehicles box-in.
We agree with this and we are putting that into practice.
And Captain Jensen, excuse me, Captain Jackson can explain more as it relates to the training we've done over the last couple years But suffice it to say that we are in agreement with this evaluation, this recommendation, and have been implementing that.
And we have training that we will be providing in the 2026 in-service to our members, so we can go into more detail to that if necessary.
Next slide, please.
Discrepancies between officer statements, physical evidence.
We agree.
We have a discrepancy section highlighted now in our process, so we are in—.
Thank you.
Agreement with that, and that is currently in practice.
Number 4, PPB should work with BOEC.
BOEC's response, speaking on behalf of Acting Director Modzley, but of course we have the subject matter experts sitting right behind me if DCA Causie wants to jump in, but we are in agreement and there has been additional training offered and received up at 911.
Excuse me, specific to callers with suicidal ideology or suicidal intent, and then how that's communicated and relayed between the bureaus.
Number 5.
This is the recommendation requiring permission prior to a PIT.
This is the singular recommendation that we have some disagreement on, and I'll go into a little bit more detail why.
Once again, for perspective, rough numbers, we've seen about 230 recommendations come in from OIR in the time period we've been working with them.
And I think we've adopted all but 7 of those.
So it is unusual for us to not necessarily accept all of 'em, but we appreciate the recommendations.
But they are recommendations as we look at other Bureau needs, community expectations, as well as my own vision direction for the organization.
So a couple thoughts on this.
One, rarely does a pursuit intervention technique happen in a vacuum.
In other words, officers are generally on the air.
They're describing the circumstances, the situation of which they're gonna make— take this action.
So my confidence is that we have sergeants that are monitoring the air.
If the sergeant hears something that is not appropriate or doesn't sound like it's in line or necessary, my expectation that they would be responsible for stepping up and, you know, so making sure that they exercise their authority, which they could, to say, no, that's not allowed.
The part that's really more important to me from a cultural standpoint is that we have a tendency, particularly in bureaucratic organizations, to want to push things up versus push things down.
And I like to see— a phrase that I use oftentimes in the organization is own your position.
I like to see personal accountability for decision-making that we have.
We train our officers in PIT, we train them what to look for, we expect them to be able to articulate that and manage that and then own that decision.
Michael Gianacco
Thank you.
Bob Day
The sergeant is not going to be in position to evaluate whether anything that the officer's seeing is actually happening or not.
They're simply relying upon what's being said over the radio.
There may be occasions where the PIT needs to occur before that person can actually respond to be able to, you know, provide that if a sergeant isn't readily available.
And the reasoning behind the PIT is to try and To try and prevent the weaponization of the vehicle, to try and take it out of the context so that it's safer for all.
You know, this is a small distinction.
I'm aware of agencies that do this.
I'm aware of agencies that don't do this.
This is not considered universal.
And for me, it's really less about whether or not, you know, we accept or do not accept the recommendation, is more about what I'm trying to develop from a cultural standpoint.
I want our officers to be responsible for their decision-making, and they will still be responsible even if they ask for supervisory approval.
But I do not see the need for it.
I believe that the process— and Captain Jackson can talk about our training around PIT— already encompasses the goal, which is to make sure that they're within policy, they're consistent with our training.
I would finally add that all of our PIT techniques are considered use of force, so they're all reviewed through our after-action force reporting process.
And as I said earlier, we're taking into consideration decision-making beforehand, et cetera, et cetera.
So that would all be encumbered in that ultimate report as to whether or not it was in or out of policy.
So this is the singular recommendation that we do have some disagreement with.
Number 6.
This is already partially in practice.
We're in the process of making sure that we can, you know, better account for these action items.
I thought Julie was very gracious.
I think she said historically not included.
We have failed in this area, and there really is no excuse for that.
I mean, we have plenty of systems available, and there's certainly many today.
We should be better at this.
It's been a priority of mine since I've returned.
Commander Bell has been leading this effort.
Thank you.
Both in the area of making sure that we have, you know, appropriate software and then we have the appropriate follow-through.
One of the things that I recognize in sitting in this chair more so than my previous experience is just the transitory nature of the Bureau.
People come and go so regularly.
I was advised today that 75% of our Bureau has 10 years on or less, right?
So I mean, 75% of the Police Bureau wasn't even working here When these events— not these events today, but when OIR started their relationship with us.
So, you know, recognizing that it is so transitory and people come and go, hold numerous positions.
I already mentioned the chief piece.
None of that is acceptable.
We have a responsibility when these recommendations come in to follow through with them, for them to be assigned, and for us to be able to point to completion.
I do appreciate Julie's comments.
I'm confident that many of these have But if you can't show your work, doesn't really matter.
So just know that we are moving in this direction and hopefully sometime in the near future we can come back.
Jeff can give a more full report.
He's got some numbers and ideas around that.
And then the final one, number 7, was already highlighted regarding the City Attorney and regarding litigation and the review of the report.
So going forward, we will be be making sure that even if there's ongoing litigation, that OIR, whoever has that outside, whoever that outside entity is, has that information.
The last thing I'll add, thank you, Councilor Avalos, for sending over a series of questions ahead of time.
Appreciate that very much.
We do have responses to that, not in a slideshow, but happy to address that either during Q&A or we can send you back an email or however you want to do that.
Michael Gianacco
Thank you.
Bob Day
So, uh, appreciate that.
Tried to make up a little time for you, Councilor.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Chief.
Um, so we're going to move into, uh, Q&A from, from councilors.
We may have a little bit of musical chairs, so I don't know if you want to have a couple folks stay and rotate.
Um, but I'm going to pass it over to Councilor Novick to moderate that.
I don't actually have the gavel yet, so if you want it, you can talk to the council president about it, but I'll pass it over.
While just— I did want to also just note for the public and all this, uh, folks who are here that they're, you know, a lot of the the, the specifics in this are, are pretty heavy.
And as we're working through, um, reading the report, um, I think it's, it's going to be normal for people to have, uh, personal reactions to that, perhaps more so as we get into the public this evening at the CRC and tomorrow in the council meeting.
But I just wanted to acknowledge that, put it into this space.
I'll pass it over to my co-chair.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Co-Chair Kanal.
Um, so we're going to move into questions followed by council discussion.
Councilors, Or is that a legacy hand?
Eric Zimmerman
No, no, that's great.
Don't really know who's running this meeting.
Okay, um, so I— thanks, Chief, for that rundown.
My questions are actually 2, and I, I walked in after you all had introduced yourselves from the other group.
Um, on—.
I'm going to go to the recommendation regarding pre-tactical decision-making, and the first question I had there was when does Was this for OIR?
Yes.
Bob Day
Yeah, right.
So, uh, Jeff, why don't you and I just— we'll just kind of come back and forth.
Let's do that.
Eric Zimmerman
I said pre-tactical.
I guess it's pre-shooting tactical decision-making.
And my question is, when does that begin?
I know it ends the moment a weapon is fired, right?
Michael Gianacco
Thank you for the question, Councilor.
The question is the pre-shooting decisions begin— can begin as early as the call for service.
And the way in which— and some of that responsibility is going to be at the dispatcher's, you know, behest.
But once that officer is dispatched or once that officer begins to make observations, with regard to suspected criminal activity or a need to engage with a subject, that's when the decision-making tree begins.
And all through that process, the approach, if there's a pursuit, the pursuit, the way in which the officer engages, if it's a vehicle stop, all of that, all of those decisions will lead up, can lead up and impact There is a concept that is becoming more and more considered.
In fact, the Supreme Court actually considered this in its last session, and that's this concept of what is called officer-created jeopardy.
And what that means is that an officer puts themselves in a situation that jeopardizes their own safety and then results in a results situation where they are not in control of the situation.
So if you're in a situation where you're in the officer feeling the need to use deadly force.
So in the case that the Supreme Court heard out of Texas, the officer had stopped an individual on the freeway and was engaging with that officer— with that individual on the freeway at the side of the road by the driver's door.
The driver decided he was going to move away, and so puts his car into gear.
And instead of the officer taking precautions and moving away from the incident, which was— I think he was stopped because he had outstanding tickets.
And instead of that, the officer jumps onto the floorboard of the car.
The car speeds away.
The officer is now in peril and then feels constrained So the incident that— at the moment that the officer used deadly force, clearly there was fear and justifiable fear that justifies the use of deadly force.
But it was the officer's decision that put him in peril that caused that decision to occur.
Eric Zimmerman
I'm well aware of the concept.
Michael Gianacco
That's the example, Councilor Zimmerman, that I'm talking about.
Eric Zimmerman
I understand that.
Okay, so you said as early as maybe the call for service.
You also, in your explanation of this recommendation, you talked a lot about training though.
So to some extent it's even before that is how are we training decision-making to a little bit degree.
But I don't want to complicate.
But your point about the concept of officer-created jeopardy is I understand that.
What I wasn't able to tell from your presentation is you used the term decision-making or decision to use force versus reaction, and that caught me because of sometimes we react based on training, and you could argue it's a decision.
It can be hard to articulate the differences between different incidents.
Yes.
There are instances when we are in that moment versus a more deliberate decision to use deadly force.
And I hope that we can separate out those incidents because the reactionary decision-making, just from my own level of experience, is highly related Okay.
And deliberate decision-making is highly related to policy.
But that didn't really come off the pages.
And so I don't know when we're talking about these incidences what it is necessarily in terms of that piece of it.
So from a where to take the chief's recommendations or his response to those recommendations on different pieces is a little hard to know what part of the organization we Can you talk a little bit, and I just caught the tail end when you were introducing yourselves, can you talk a little bit about on your team who your tactical experts, your subject matter experts are?
I think you described yourself as a former federal prosecutor, but from, I'm wondering where in your evaluation is a tactical lens and a tactical experience used Do you have any tacticians?
Michael Gianacco
Yes, Councilor.
I am a— I've been certified by numerous courts, administrative courts, federal courts, state courts, in criminal context, administrative context, as well as civil context, and have been certified as a use of force expert in all of those jurisdictions.
Eric Zimmerman
And those are great credentials.
Have you ever been in a tactical situation yourself?
Michael Gianacco
I've gone through training and have certainly engaged in simulations and helped develop training with regard to tactical situations.
Tracy Warren
Okay.
Dave Jackson
It's helpful.
Eric Zimmerman
I think it's a missing part of your organization because I think it's an important lens to have here for those who can describe I can describe what your heartbeat feels like in the moment, and it is just different than in training.
So I wish that we had that perspective involved in your recommendations.
It would help when the blood flows from your brain and you can't feel yourself and you see about this much of the aperture.
None of that comes out in this, and I wish that it did because I think combining that with some of these recommendations would would be a strong additional lens.
I really do appreciate that you brought up some of the decision— pre-decision-making in that, you know, I'll use the term you introduced, which was officer-created jeopardy.
I'm challenged, you know, that's the difference, right?
I think it's the difference between stopping your patrol vehicle 20 feet away Right.
That introduces that situation where force can be avoided if we avoid putting ourselves into a position.
I think that's just an important part to get out here.
I think this was the recommendation that we saw.
You were hoping to have eventually a— to move the pre-decision, pre-shooting tactical decision-making into a yes/no.
Did they follow?
Yes/no.
I, I am cautious with that.
Your quote was, it's as simple as that, and I'll just tell you it's not.
And I'm, I'm concerned that we use that kind of words here, not because it's not wrong that we should go through it, and I appreciate the nuance that the chief introduced here, but as simple as that.
The thing is, is in this community, if there comes a report out that says an officer Thank you.
Even though we say it's as simple as that, as whether or not you parked your vehicle 20 feet away or 10 feet away, there is, there is a loud voice in this community who'll say he violated a policy, she violated a policy, now can them and get them out of here.
And I don't think that that's what you were recommending.
You actually said it, we can retrain, we can talk about situations, but to put a yes/no category One, I don't think that we are mentally capable, organizationally capable of encompassing policy that will— or developing policy that will encompass every each that a person will encounter.
But the way that the chief described it, which is more of a, was this in— were these behaviors prior to critical incidents?
Were they— are they meeting my— as chief, I'm putting— I'm speaking as chief here.
Were they meeting my standard that I expect of my officers?
I think that's a great way to put it.
Yes.
Which is less of a yes/no on individual moments and more of a yes/no on the holistic actions from call to incident.
So I just, I offer that up because it came off a little bit like there should be the ability to do a yes/no along the checklist that would give me concern given how robust our public will get if we have one officer who did one thing that was Out of policy, but if the chief determined holistically that maybe they could have parked 50 feet away, but they only parked 20 feet away, that that caused a problem, that probably can be retrained.
But I just kind of offer that up.
It seemed to be lacking in what I saw there.
And I want to thank you, Chief, for your explanation on the ownership at your level.
I believe strongly in ownership at your level.
I think that the elevating of decisions is the scapegoating of good decision-making as well.
And so there are some things that do, and I agree with you in your assessment of that.
And I think that's the kind of officer that I hope we are enabling.
But that comes with a host of training standards, cultural standards, et cetera.
And so I hear you loud and clear on that, and I didn't want that to be lost because I actually think that's how we have the safest city.
Thank you.
Most de-escalating force possible is if we elevate the empowerment of the person who interacts on the ground in the moment.
So I thank you for responding in that way.
And the presentation was generally very easy to track.
So thank you both.
And then also for the PPB, your responses were very clear of yes, kind of yes, no.
So thank you for that.
Olivia Clark
Councilor Herbold.
Steve Novick
President Dunphy.
Michael Gianacco
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
I think my question might be for the chief with regard to the PIT maneuver recommendation and the change.
I'm recalling specifically a lawsuit that this body had to approve a while back in which a PIT maneuver was done against the wrong vehicle.
It was a similar color and style, but it wasn't the right vehicle.
Was that the incident?
I mean, I don't know if we can use this, but I won't even ask.
It may not be the incident in question here, but if we are rejecting the recommendation around supervisors for PIT, and I understand what a supervisor is going to be able to see, et cetera, et cetera, but if we are rejecting that, are we making policy changes in light of that specific lawsuit that we settled?
Bob Day
Yeah, so that one you're speaking of is not part of the OIR review.
It's separate from But Captain Jackson can provide maybe just a couple minutes of what we've been doing around PIT.
I don't know if you can answer specific to that lawsuit, but do you want to be able to touch on just a couple of examples about recent PIT training and future PIT training that is on the schedule?
Jeff Bell
Actually, Chief, if you don't mind, I can talk specifically about that particular case.
That was an issue with decision-making and officers not identifying the correct vehicle.
I don't believe that consulting with a sergeant would've made any difference, 'cause I think they would've said, no, we've got the right vehicle.
And upon further review, it was clear that they did not, which is why.
And so there were investigations, there was corrective action to go along with that.
So obviously it involved a PIT, but not quite in the same context here.
Michael Gianacco
Thank you.
Bob Day
Okay.
Dave Jackson
And so to cover the, the PIT training, or pursuit vehicle operators training, our Advanced Academy, they currently go through around 34 hours, approximately 34 hours of training, and that's all patrol vehicle operations and all specific to PIT.
But we have 2 full-time instructors out there that conduct this.
They conduct in the Advanced Academy approximately 80 PITs, which is quite a few repetitions they're going through out on our pad.
In addition, we do approximately a little over 2 hours in PVO training coming up in '26.
And then in '27, we're also going to be— our plan is to go to PIR, Portland International Raceway, and do additional training out there in terms of high-speed driving, pit maneuvers.
And that'll be coming in '27, and that'll be a full-day training for operations.
So we're always training, we're always learning.
Bob Day
And just to emphasize one final comment, I mean, they are Category 3 use of force, so everyone's going to be reviewed.
And I just want to— one other comment, Councilor Kanal.
I appreciate you recognizing the sensitivity of this conversation and regret that I didn't highlight that myself at the beginning when I was throwing out some of those statistics, because although it's 75 within the cast of millions of calls for service, those 75 are very important.
Thank you, Mayor.
And so I just appreciate you recognizing that.
And I want you to hear from me and hear from the organization that was not in any way, shape, or form meant to dismiss the seriousness of the reviews that are being done.
So thank you for highlighting that.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
My last question is for OIR.
In the past, there has been a recommendation from your reports about the 48-hour rule.
I believe that the 48-hour rule at that point when you recommended it, however many years ago, the recommendation was rejected by the chief at the time.
Do you all ever reintroduce previous recommendations, or do you just sort of assume that, that if the leadership at the time says no, then it's no and we move forward?
Or how are you thinking about that, and is that still something that you all would be recommending broadly?
Michael Gianacco
Yeah, thank you for the question.
The answer is yes, we do come back at times times to engage again on a particular recommendation.
We still do have concerns.
I think ideally, in a perfect world, we would like to see interviews conducted more close in time to the event and still are of that view.
But we also recognize that every time we come back, we don't want to continue to hammer that same recommendation, although we will be revisiting it, I'm sure, if we are engaged in future And as an example of that, President— Council President, we initially made a recommendation that supervisors should ordinarily not get involved in tactical operations, especially if there are line officers on scene, that they should refrain and should be supervising the incident rather than engaging themselves.
That was initially made as a recommendation.
There wasn't real acceptance of that, so we came back, and eventually— and now there is acceptance.
And so now there is policy and guidelines that effectuate that recommendation that was made maybe in year 2.
Maybe it took year 7 before we got there.
Bob Day
Jeff, can you speak to the interview 48-hour rule interview, just what the—.
Steve Novick
What we're doing?
Jeff Bell
Yeah, I, I— it's— I mean, it's a subject of bargaining, and so that, that's where the— and I've not been involved in any of the bargaining, but I, I know that's where, that's where the issue has, has been.
Bob Day
Um, but we're interviewing, we're interviewing, we're interviewing within 48 hours.
Yeah, we are interviewing within 48 hours.
Jeff Bell
And, and prior to the recommendations, it was typically 72 to 96, so 3 to 4 Councilor Avalos.
Tracy Warren
Okay, so, um, well, thank you, Chief, for, uh, letting me know that you've got some prepared answers.
I think I will just bring some of them to the table here.
Um, I was listening to the discussion around the pre-shooting tactical decision-making stuff and And I think my only other remaining question— well, 2, I guess.
Can you tell me more about what you mean when you say partially in practice?
Could you just explain what that looks like?
And then I would love to hear if there are any specific barriers, policy, legal, or operational, that prevent the Bureau from adopting that recommendation in full.
Bob Day
Well, just one example I give— I apologize, I was looking for where I put your questions here.
I know they have them out in front of them.
Regarding partially in practice, I don't ever want to come before you and, you know, overpromise and underdeliver.
I try to be as transparent as possible.
And so, for example, partially in practice on the tracking of recommendations, you know, we don't have that completely built.
We're working on it.
We have a software program, but I can't sit here and tell you that every recommendation that's come in in the last year through the various reviews is being It's somewhere.
It's sitting somewhere.
But so that's a reference to partially in practice.
I want to be able to come back and say, here's what we're doing.
Here's what— this happens, this happens, and then this happens.
And we're just— we haven't been able to do that.
Some of that is, you know, cleanup.
This one recommendation I just referenced is one that OIR has brought forward in the past.
Some of these are new recommendations, so we're responding to it.
And I've mentioned before, you know, nimbleness and speed is not always not the answer.
A strong suit of PPP at times, especially when it comes to new systems.
But know that we're working on them and happy to come back, provide a 30, 60, 90-day, whatever feedback loop, just so you know that we're closing those gaps.
Tracy Warren
That actually leads into one of my other questions.
So let's expand on that a bit because, and as you noted, there's been 10 chiefs.
And of course we know that with transition, things fall through the cracks for sure.
I'm curious what, in general, who is like, who is the holder, right?
Who is responsible for overseeing the recommendation tracking as a whole?
And, you know, you're starting to say like you want to make sure that you can bring things back to us.
I guess how do you think council will be informed about recommendations that are repeatedly identified but have remained unresolved?
Bob Day
Yeah, so I don't say this flippantly.
I mean, ultimately I'm the holder of all that.
I always take that responsibility.
That's certainly under my purview.
But we also know that I'm not going to be able to hold everything.
So right now we're relying upon the Professional Standards Division.
And that's part of why it's partially in practice.
I think a lot of stuff comes out of the Training Division as well.
Those are the 2 primary receivers of it.
But right now the direction is to the Professional Standards Commander to— We'll funnel everything to that position.
So it does allow for a greater deal of oversight and accountability.
And as those directions come out for so-and-so to follow up on this, you know, they're speaking on behalf of the chief.
It's not like, oh, I just wish somebody would get to this.
So we're trying to build in some structure to make sure that there's actual follow-through.
Jeff Bell
And Chief, I can add to that a little bit.
So it's real easy to say, yes, we accept it and we're going to work on it.
I can tell you the actual plan, what we have.
So we have been tracking recommendations from OIR reports from police review boards for at least 15 years that I can find records for.
They've had different homes in different parts of the bureau.
We're a large bureau.
And as it's moved back and forth and people have moved, you know, it's, I, I'm just going to be honest, we haven't done a good job of maintaining that.
So my plan going forward, I'm working with our policy group to develop a policy so that we actually have a directive in writing that future folks can refer to, that the public can refer to, that the council can refer to, that says this is what our process is when we get recommendations.
Anybody in the bureau gets a recommendation, it will come to me.
I have someone on my staff that will actively track those.
We have a software solution actually in in SharePoint that we've got almost all built out with a workflow to make it really easy so that we can, when the chief or the deputy chief makes a decision, yes, we are going to do something with this, there's tracking, there'll be reporting so that we can report on, hey, OIR's 9th report, here's all the recommendations, here's what we've done, here's, you know, the policy that we developed because of that.
But—.
But again, I'm working with our directive, our policy folks to create a directive that actually says all this, that will designate people who are in charge so that— and again, these are real concrete steps to be able to be accountable for these recommendations.
So that's where we're headed with this.
We're actually just testing it out this week.
We were actually working on it before the recommendations came out.
We recognized the issue.
That, um, and I appreciate, um, Julie's, uh, kind words about how— I mean, we believe most of this stuff has been, has been acted upon, um, but if we can't prove it, then I, I, you know, that, that, that doesn't help anybody.
So, so these are the concrete plans going forward that we're trying to do so that we can be accountable for when we get recommendations.
This is what— this is who we assigned it to, this is what we've done, and, and we can show our work.
Dave Jackson
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
Well, that sounds great.
Sounds like you're on the right track, and good timing with the CBPA coming online, because I'm sure that's going to be a big part of your relationship, right, of just making sure that the public can understand the way you're implementing changes and also, you know, how, um, the effectiveness of those changes.
I think it maybe is another layer.
If I didn't— I don't know if you said that, but if not, another layer I'd love to explore in that reporting.
Um, okay, I wanted to ask I wanted to ask something about within policy, right?
This is kind of a constant quandary.
I don't know what you want to call it.
But I think that, you know, there are several incidents that were reviewed that are deemed within policy, even when OIR is saying that there was poor planning or unsafe positioning or officer-created jeopardy, rushed engagement that escalates risk, right?
Yes.
Responds to those findings by noting that it complied with existing policy and training.
So I'm curious, tell me more about how does PPB distinguish between conduct that's within policy and conduct that reflects avoidable and poor tactical choices that nonetheless do lead to deadly force?
And the follow-up to that is when OIR training identifies tactical shortcomings but a use of force is still deemed justified, how is that tension documented and addressed?
Bob Day
So a couple things.
You know, when you, you have policy, you have training, and then you have application.
And the theory is that those are going to line up, like they should work in unison with one another.
But we also recognize, and, and this is— I don't want to put words in Councilor Zimmerman's mouth, but this recognizes the significance of policy and the role of policy and how, um, you know, as it relates to training in the sense that policy needs to have the ability to encompass a greater set of circumstances, need to be able to encompass the entire context.
And training is oftentimes we look at this event, we look at this event, we look at this event.
And so it's not as if they're not in alignment.
Policy is what the decision is going to be made around regarding discipline.
But we know that there is room to move within that.
And the courts have been clear about that when they, you know, Courts.
I have Heidi Brown here, so she can correct me if I'm wrong, or maybe she stepped out.
But sorry, maybe somebody.
But the courts have been clear around the Graham standard, reasonableness, you know, things like that that allow us— sorry, Heidi— that allow us to have that flexibility within the policy.
I will say, though, that it's really paramount to me that these things do line up.
I mean, we don't want to have something— we can't have something in training that's not consistent with policy.
Thank you.
So yes, it is a broader area to work about, but the training is what we want to continue to refine and work on in many of the recommendations that they have made.
And that is why we have such a review, a robust training review.
We're not required to do the training review.
As was highlighted, it's something very unique that we would go through it with such a fine-tooth comb and point out all the areas that we can improve upon from a training standpoint.
Thank you.
Most agencies look at it and go, is it in policy?
Is it out of policy?
Okay, that's what we're going to deal with.
And so we've added this additional piece to highlight.
So we know there's a discrepancy there, but we're also not going to use that in the— from the policy point, from the discipline standpoint.
We need to stay within the boundaries of the policy.
Tracy Warren
Thank you.
That's helpful to understand.
And, you know, especially the part of like how that tension is documented and reflected upon to reduce repetition.
I think that repetition is really key.
So I'd love to continue, you know, talking with you and hearing how you're addressing that.
Right.
All right, my last question is regarding mental health crises.
And this is, you know, at the core, right, of a lot of the issues that we've struggled with in community.
So at least 4 of the incidents reviewed involved individuals experiencing acute mental health crises or suicidal ideation.
And you all note that there have been improvements in crisis negotiation and training and coordination with BOEC, which is great.
And you all noted as well that it's in practice, you all are adhering to those recommendations.
But can you tell me a little more about how PPB is evaluating when a situation has reached the limits of what police-led intervention can safely accomplish?
And especially what it looks like for officers or supervisors to slow down or shift strategy when it becomes apparent that police engagement might Yeah, and I appreciated that question.
Bob Day
I saw that earlier.
It was probably the single question that challenged me the most to be— because I've never been succinct in much of anything I say— but try and be succinct.
I mean, this is a conversation I would love to expand with you and your office because, well, it's so relevant and prevalent to what we're doing right now, but it also has a massive amount of complexity to it.
And as I read that a couple of times and thought I don't have a yes or no or a finite point on it right now, but the things that you highlighted do factor into that.
The expectations we have around de-escalation, the expectations that we have around our enhanced training with, you know, that you've already highlighted, our expectations around just that ongoing community sensitivity to, you know, is this person, you know, experiencing a crisis.
I mean, there are so many factors that are going into this because it is a very complex issue.
I is think it's important to note that a daily challenge for us.
If you ever listen to the police radio, I rarely hear a call come out that doesn't have a mental health component to it.
So your question, very specific about sort of where is that moment in time, I don't have that.
But I do have an expectation, and I believe our training and policy continues to drive us to try and find that finer point.
Um, and these reviews that are being done right here provide information into that.
So it's why it's critical we keep Thank you.
Tracy Warren
Yeah, I know it's a hard question.
I just wanted to raise it and, and also so that my colleagues can kind of grapple with it too.
And it's definitely a policy discussion that we need to have about how we're filling some of those gaps.
And I'll just leave you with, um, you know, I would love to see some analysis on how you are assessing repeated, uh, encounters with individuals, um, who are in crisis and how those are indicators of broader system gaps beyond policing that we need to be addressing.
And so I just want to flag that I really, I would love to engage with the Bureau on how to fill that gap with some of the other solutions that I know many councilors have been putting forward.
We're going to get into budget discussions soon, so I just wanted to lift that up.
And thank you, I appreciate the work that you all have been doing to try to fill some of those gaps with your training and your crisis negotiation and all that.
But definitely still an area that we need to continue to improve on.
Uh, that's all my questions for today.
Oh, did you have a—.
Bob Day
Just clarify one thing on that last comment, uh, analysis, repeated encounters.
So I know one of these cases was a repeated encounter, um, where, you know, officer had been with the person before, had been able to escalate, and the second time around didn't.
But, you know, deferred to that officer the second time around in an attempt because they believe that he might have a rapport.
Um, and, um, so those are the kind of things you're looking for in terms of kind of like, you know, people that we're, that we're having repeated encounters with and kind of can we show, you know, various outcomes, something to that effect.
I'm just clarifying.
Tracy Warren
Yeah, I think it just speaks to the broader issue.
Like, it, it kind of intersects with, um, for example, how officers are now engaging with the unhoused population and, you know, where does that overlap appear, right?
If you're engaging with somebody in crisis, whether it's in crisis because they're housing unstable and that creates crisis, whether there's mental health issues, just trying to understand like what it looks like for you all to document repeated encounters with people and where there might be off-ramps for, you know, you all as a bureau to say, okay, we've had this person for these reasons multiple times.
What are the other avenues or other tools that we have to address it so that it doesn't continue to escalate each time you have to have an encounter with that person, right?
Yeah.
So just recognizing the intersectionality of all the issues that we're dealing with, especially with folks on the streets and want to brainstorm some policy solutions.
Bob Day
Yeah, great.
Okay, thank you.
Tracy Warren
Sounds good.
Thank you so much.
Steve Novick
Councilor Koyama Lane, who I inadvertently overlooked.
My apologies.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Totally fine.
Thank you, all of you, for being here.
This feels very helpful, and I appreciate your commitment to your work.
And I also want to say, Chief Day, and to your chief, Mr. King, I really appreciate how responsive you are and how open you are to conversations.
I am surprised at how quickly you all will respond to me and how you're open to have conversations, even ones that are not easy.
So thank you very much.
One of my first questions is around mental health responses for OIR.
I believe 3 or 4 different ones were highlighted, and I agree with the assessment that Mr. Tran's case outcome means he fits into that.
Can we hear a bit more about the definitions and how you evaluate whether or not events relate to mental health?
Julie Ruhlin
Yeah, I mean, it's sort of, you just have to look at all of the circumstances, right?
With Mr. Tran's case, the officers, you know, there was no indication that there was a mental health component there.
But I think the outcome speaks to the fact that there was.
So, you know, it's— there's no clean way to categorize that.
I mean, the best I can say is we often will look at, like, what did the officers know going in and what would— or should have known?
You know, how could— what information was available to them?
Councilor Smith.
To help people, you know, to aid in that assessment that could have said, okay, this isn't— this is not just somebody who's, you know, robbing a store.
This is somebody who's in crisis.
And that, you know, there's still the criminal component in these cases often, but I think the officer's approach can and should often be different when they recognize that there's that mental health component.
Councilor Smith.
I don't know if that is helpful.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you.
I appreciated how the report raised the idea of handling situations where police are not necessarily interacting with someone with a gun, but maybe someone who's operating a vehicle or someone with a sharp object.
Can we hear how the decision to use use of force might be different in these different cases?
Julie Ruhlin
I think, you know, those are 2 very different— the, the shooting at cars is kind of a subcategory in itself, and, and there's so many different considerations.
The, the presence of a knife or some kind of edged weapon, again, that's a— there's very sort of specific kind of tactical considerations that you look at, uh, when, when that's present.
Um, so Do you— I mean, should we break it down each one, or are you just sort of saying, you know, something that's— how do you approach something that's not a gun?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Yeah, I mean, and this can also be for either if PPB wants to respond to.
Julie Ruhlin
It's all about the threat assessment, essentially, right?
You know, what is the threat posed and what needs to be our response to that threat?
Dan Ryan
Correct.
Bob Day
Dave, do you want to touch on any of that from a training perspective?
Dave Jackson
And that's just training.
That's, you know, everything kind of interweaves together.
I mean, it's control tactics, that's going to be patrol procedures, it's going to be, you know, our firearms program.
It's all going to be how they kind of intersect and kind of how you're assessing that, and then kind of how it all applies to GRAM and policy or directives.
Bob Day
And what Dave's referring to is we went to a model a few years back where we now integrate all of that.
So if you are on the range, it's not just about being on the range, it's about incorporating all of these other aspects.
So it's not— they're not happening independent of one another.
You take what happens in control tactics or patrol procedures or whatever, and they all intersect.
And so that we are trying to demonstrate, I think, to get to your point, Councilor, is, you know, so that they're equipped and prepared to make the appropriate evaluation based upon the facts presented in front of them.
Thank you.
Versus saying, well, if this or this or this— no, but more of a holistic looking.
We really are asking our officers to do the impossible, but we want them to look at the whole entirety to the best of their ability.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Yeah, and kind of where this came from was page 15, the quote where it says, and with so many other PBB officer-involved shootings we've reviewed, this case raises questions about the options officers have when responding to subjects with knives or other edged, uh, weapons.
Was just— thought that that kind of opened up some interesting conversation around the other options, and if, if anyone wanted to expand, but that's fine if kind of that's it.
Julie Ruhlin
Yeah, yeah, I, I think we have seen a number of, uh, these officer-involved shootings that involve subjects with edged weapons, and it's a, it's a, you know, it, it's an issue that law enforcement everywhere is Yes.
Sort of grappling with.
And, you know, um, there aren't always great, um, responses, right?
I mean, sometimes there are tasers and there are, there are less lethal tools that sometimes work and sometimes don't.
But if you're— if you've got someone charging at you with a knife, can you rely on a taser to maybe work or not?
It's, um, it's a challenge, right?
Because the knife can do a lot of damage and can kill someone.
Um, and, and so the, the training in is that you respond to a deadly threat, you know, in, in the way that your training teaches.
And, and there aren't— I know that there have been various tools that people are out there marketing and trying to use to address how do you subdue somebody with a knife.
And they all— there's no easy answer to that.
There really hasn't been a great solution.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
My last question is more for PPB.
The report mentioned kind of a theme that there could have been better communication and planning among officers before coordinating actions.
As well as situations where it wasn't clear who the incident commander was for a specific response.
I'm just wondering if anyone wants to speak to this and share actions that have been or could be taken to improve this, to mitigate this.
Bob Day
Yeah, and I think we have some of that training we've done, training we've done since then.
Dave Jackson
Yeah, so currently a lot of our training, we end up going through a scenario-based training as well, usually at our end service as well as our Advanced Academy as well as the Basic Academy.
So it kind of gives people those building blocks in terms of identifying a leader, whether that's a supervisor on scene or if a supervisor's not on scene.
But then we also— our Sergeant's Academy, it's an 80-hour Sergeant's Academy.
Part of that is, you know, critical incident management, going through that process.
We now send everybody who's actually on our sergeant's list— so that would be people who are either in an acting capacity or want to be sergeants— so we've been Then we also have people going through ICS training, which is the incident command structure that's put on by FEMA.
So that way it kind of sets up that as well as far as organizational compartmentalizing different incidents.
And you can build those incidents out either from 2-officer response all the way out to a big tactical event.
Bob Day
So when I'm driving around and I'm listening to the police radio, one of the things that I'm listening to on these critical incidents is exactly that, Councilor.
You know, how are they coordinating with the fire department?
How are they coordinating, identifying resources?
Yesterday, I listened as going to an evening meeting, but State Police got on the air.
They were behind somebody with stolen license plates on their car.
So Portland officers are responding.
So I'm like, okay, what's our role?
Who's in charge?
Who's got— I mean, so those are things that we're really growing into, but there are always going to be areas that we're going to need to emphasize.
Michael Gianacco
Thank you.
Steve Novick
I've got a question for Michael and Julie.
Michael, first of all, I want to tell you that we share the experience of having once worked for the Justice Department.
I was with the Civil Enforcement Section of the Environment Division, so we've both been having the experience of watching our once proud divisions gutted over the past year.
The question I have for the two of you is, several months ago I stumbled across an article that indicated that there are huge disparities between jurisdictions as to how often the police shoot people.
As I recall, the data I saw indicated that if you live in St. Louis, you're 150 times as likely to be shot by the police as if you live in New York City.
And I was wondering if you were familiar with any research on what those disparities are and if there's any indication that there's policy or training differences which account for those huge disparities.
I mean, does New York have some secret don't-shoot-people training or policy sauce that we should be emulating?
Michael Gianacco
Appreciate the question, and I also appreciate our shared experience to see how the federal government has gone about its business these days.
But there needs to be more work done.
One of the things that is very difficult in this arena of trying to evaluate data across agencies is that, one, many agencies are reluctant and sometimes intentionally reluctant to provide that information.
So there, for example, is no national database on officer-involved shootings that anyone can truly compare across agencies.
I think that's a good point.
The best databases that have been collected in that arena are ones that have been done by media sources, which is unfortunate.
And so that's a problem.
The other problem is that the way in which this information is reported locally by various jurisdictions varies.
So for example, we were asked to do an evaluation of taser use across the state of California.
And that information in many of the counties is there.
Some of it isn't there.
But then the way in which it's reported, the way in which it's counted varies, and then it makes it very difficult.
To get to your question though, with that preface, is that I do think that there is a correlation between the number of people who are incarcerated Training, hiring, supervision, and those robust and careful consideration in all 3 areas, I think, do contribute to the less likelihood that there will be a deadly force incident in any particular jurisdiction.
And Bureau recognizes this and I think is continuing to work in all 3 capacities.
Thank you.
In contrast to a jurisdiction I will not name, uh, in those areas where there's very little supervision, insufficient training that's being collapsed, and no real hiring standards anymore, what do you think is going to happen with regard to uses of force and uses of deadly force?
It's not going to be good.
It's not going to be a good ending.
Steve Novick
Councilor Thank you, and I hope it'll be okay, although you're not being paid for this, I might give you a call and follow up on this discussion subsequently.
Yes, you may, sir.
Thank you.
Councilor Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Just, I want to check my takeaways from today, and first of all, thank you all.
I think the materials that you provided us were excellent, easy to understand, Thank you.
It was very intense, particularly for a civilian that doesn't have experience with police, but they were excellent.
So my takeaways, very high level, there are lots of specific ones, but from your presentation, I think I heard that our Bureau is very responsive, that they've invested in training, and most recently in de-escalation.
And in fact, what I think I heard you say is that we're ahead of the curve compared to other cities and other bureaus around the country.
So our bureau's leadership is proactive.
And I guess I wanted to ask you a question.
Maybe it's unfair, you can't answer this.
It kind of keys off of Councilor Novick, but would you consider our police bureau a progressive bureau?
Michael Gianacco
At the risk of insulting other clients and other engagements that we have, I would say that.
Maybe I would say it in a different way.
When we began our engagement with the Bureau, and this is true in other organizations as well, there was a lot of low-hanging fruit, if you will.
There were a lot of things that definitely deserved consideration and change and reform.
And even at the beginning of that engagement, Yes.
The bureau leadership, you know, 9 chiefs ago was also responsive to our suggestions.
I would say that one way of looking at it is now we are involved in oversight at sort of a graduate level instead of Oversight 101, which is good.
That doesn't mean you cannot continue to get better and improve.
And one of the things we appreciate in working with the bureau is their interest in continuing to get better and better and better.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Michael Gianacco
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
I really appreciate that answer.
Steve Novick
Before we continue, I've got notes reminding me to take a 10-minute break at some point.
I'm curious whether people think that we need a bio break or that we think that we can conclude the questions and discussion in short enough time that that's not worthwhile.
How many think we need a break?
Um, couple do.
Okay, a couple is enough.
So let's take 6 minutes and come back at 3:56.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It appears that we are mostly back We're back.
So let's get going again.
Councilor Kanal, you were next in the queue.
Sameer Kanal
All right, we're coming back.
Okay, I have my questions and I have a bunch of comments for later, but we'll do the questions now.
They're all OIR-related, I think, although IPR might get one of them sort of on the side.
Can you speak to why this one, the gap between this report and the previous one, was longer than before?
I'm trying to understand how we can build a system that gets more timely responses because— and I don't put the blame on you, I'm just trying to address it because I think these incidents are 3.5 to 6 years ago is the range of what we're talking about here.
And I don't know if this is an IPR contracting question, so that's why I wanted to flag it.
Julie Ruhlin
It was a little bit of a contracting question.
So, you know, I think the way these cycles work is you can sort of Just renew the contract for a certain number, and then at some point there has to be an entirely new contract.
And between our last report and the next contract, I think that was like, I don't exactly know, there was a long time that passed between when the next contract got finalized.
Was a piece of legislation.
Bob Day
Okay.
Sameer Kanal
Do you know when— what the next cycle is right now, or is that still in progress?
Julie Ruhlin
Uh, it's, you know, our contract is done, uh, in, I think, January 31st.
So, um, it— I'm not sure where that gets taken up.
Sameer Kanal
I'll follow up offline about that.
Um, in your other cities, do you review other types of incidents?
Um, you do deadly force here, officer-involved shootings.
Are there other types of police incident that you review?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
We do.
Julie Ruhlin
We're engaged in, in various ways in different jurisdictions.
There are some places where we serve as the independent police auditor, and we get complaints from the public and help shepherd those through an internal investigation process.
We look at, we look at uses of force routinely that are, you know, non-deadly uses of in other jurisdictions and do audits or reports on those.
So there are some places where we are very engaged in all internal affairs investigations, not just things relating to critical incidents.
Michael Gianacco
Yes.
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
There are 2 cases in this where officers used chemical weapons to get a person to leave their vehicle.
And I wanted to ask this.
One of those is the one in which a person committed suicide as part of it.
Can you comment?
There's not much on the specific question around the use of chemical weapons, broadly, or about the use of it as a tactic to get people to exit their vehicles.
Can you speak to that?
Julie Ruhlin
Yeah, I mean, it is a common practice if there is the need to get somebody out of a vehicle.
And I think the The question for us is, you know, what steps are taken before that decision?
What kind of preparations are being made for when the person does come out, right?
Like, how are you ready for when they come out?
And, you know, have you exhausted all other possibilities, other ways to get the person out?
So, and, you know, what is the exigency, right?
Like, is it—.
Councilor Smith.
How do you need to get— why do you need them out?
What other things have you done to try to get them out?
And how have you prepared for their coming out if that's what's gonna happen when you introduce the chemicals?
Sameer Kanal
Okay, thanks.
I might wanna follow up with you offline on that.
I think I'll add my name to the list with Councilor Novick about following up.
On page 63, you talk about the training division recommendation.
You talk about the lack of a formal mechanism.
I appreciate the chief's candor on that.
I wanted to ask if you had specific recommendations for what that new system would be for PPB, and also if you had thoughts on recommendations for non-PPB processes to review the training division recommendations, given that our new police oversight system has policy recommendation functions.
Right.
That'll be coming online in a couple weeks here.
Julie Ruhlin
Right.
Yeah, I mean, I just think it's important that the training division makes a lot of really thoughtful recommendations.
They're very much into the details of these cases.
And, you know, some of them are just things that they can do on their own, you know, and they're almost like recommendations to themselves.
In our next training, we need to do this.
Sure.
But some of them are things that maybe require broader bureau involvement or that might require additional or that might, you know, involve some new piece of equipment.
And those are things that just, we think the bureau as a whole, and not just the training division, needs to be evaluating and saying yes or no.
We think this is a good idea, and this is what we're going to do to move forward with it.
I think, you know, Commander Bell's talked about the new approach they have for tracking those, and I think that will be important.
Um, I, I— yeah, it's really about creating that sort of formal list of what's coming out of this and, and what actions are we expecting to be taken, what is the deadline for taking that action, and, and just formalizing that out of each of these.
Olivia Clark
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Did that get I think so.
Yeah, I'm— I think it's a longer conversation or it's this.
Jamie Dunphy
I feel like—.
Michael Gianacco
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
Um, and then the, the last question I had was about the 3rd recommendation, and I want to stress that, um, I actually think that practice on the whole is stronger than the recommendation.
Uh, that's my, my question about it, and I, I want to be clear on that because we reviewed an incident where, um, regardless of the finding on whether or not there was misconduct, the police bureau, uh, issued discipline because the officer had, uh, because of the discrepancies in the investigation.
So that's what I mean when I say PPB practice seemed to me to be higher than the recommended level here.
So your quote is, where photographic or forensic evidence conflicts with an officer's account of the incident, the bureau's investigation should examine and ask the officer to explain the potential discrepancy.
And as I noted in that example I just gave, the, the bureau has, uh, rules where dishonesty is itself misconduct, independent of whatever the under And in that particular example, as well as many others, that has come up.
So my question is, ask the officer to explain, is that a strong enough recommendation, or are we— it almost seemed like it was lowering the suggested standard for PBB.
Michael Gianacco
Yeah, Councilor, I would answer your question this way, and that is what we would have liked to have seen at the outset is a more specific recommendation.
In this case, I don't think there was because it was a non-hit, but the detectives do an initial investigation.
At some point during the internal investigation, the officer is routinely interviewed.
And in that interview, that's where I think there was a shortcoming, in that the officer wasn't afforded the opportunity to, hey, look at this truck here, look at this person here, look at this vehicle here.
And explain to me that if you were in front of the truck thinking you were being aggressed upon when you shot, well, why are the bullet holes all in the side of the truck?
That's the kind of question you want, and maybe the officer has an explanation.
I wouldn't jump necessarily to the fact that the officer was being dishonest.
In the heat of the moment, split-second decision, a lot of moving parts, there may be a reasonable explanation for that.
But in our view, that wasn't sufficiently plumbed during that initial investigation.
Councilor Dan Ryan.
Sameer Kanal
That makes sense.
Thank you for clarifying the immediacy of that.
My last question was, you talked through the process of who you speak to, and it's a lot about different parts of PPBA.
Obviously, I know that you speak to IPR as well.
As part of this process, when you're sort of reviewing reviews, do you speak to other parts of the review process, like members of the PRB, members of the CRC?
Should we expect that if you continue if we end up renewing the contract, that you'd be speaking eventually to CBPA members who are part of this evaluation?
Or is that outside the scope of what you do?
Julie Ruhlin
Yeah, we, you know, we look at the written documents.
I don't think that it— we never have reached out and spoken to a PRB member.
It's not really—.
Michael Gianacco
Yes, we have.
Julie Ruhlin
Okay, never mind.
I mean—.
Michael Gianacco
Councilor Kanal, yeah, yeah, there were times and there still are times that we had some concerns about the PRB process.
And in fact, we did talk to the civilian members of the process as part of our review process when we were looking at that particular piece.
So that is true.
We regularly talk to CRC members about the output of our report.
We're going to be doing that later this evening.
So we do engage regularly with that.
And then we also engage, particularly at the time of the release of our report, with any general member of the public who wants to talk to us in any way.
Thank you.
In fact, there have been times in which during those meetings we have talked to individuals related to individuals who have been killed as a result of deadly force incidents, and they have appreciated that transparency that we've been able to give as part of our assignment.
So I do not see that as outside our scope.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, and I'm assuming as well that you're speaking to the non-sworn folks.
I think— forgive me if I forget his name, but I think it's Christopher Was over at the PRB.
Bob Day
He went to work for fire.
Sameer Kanal
Oh, that's unfortunate.
Uh, but when he was there, I think he was the, uh, the coordinator of the PRB for a while.
So I assume you talked to folks like that as well.
Michael Gianacco
That is correct.
Yes, sir.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Great.
Sameer Kanal
Uh, thank you, and I'll pass it back to you, Coach.
Steve Novick
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
I just have a couple of questions.
Thank you for being here today, all of you.
And before I ask my questions, Councilor Kanal, you were asking about what comes next for this review, and you didn't quite say we should keep this going, but I think you implied it.
So I'm going to say—.
Sameer Kanal
We should keep this going.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I hope that this is a practice that we continue even under our new forms of accountability, even under our new form of government, even if we are not required to in the future.
I think it's helpful just to have the transparency of an outside Thank you.
Thank you.
You were asked a somewhat subjective question earlier, and I'm, I'm going to continue us in the direction of subjective questions.
You've looked at, between the two of you, a lot of different police departments across the country, some bigger, some smaller, some similarly sized.
How has our response and our follow-up been compared to other entities?
And what I'm trying to understand because we're a new body here, is, is our response timely?
Is it thorough?
When you come back and do a next iteration of a report, are you seeing the same mistakes happening even if we say on paper that we've changed policy, or are you seeing improvement?
Is this working, and is it working enough as we hold ourselves up to how things are going I would say that generally, generally speaking, the level of responsiveness is high.
Michael Gianacco
The commitment, I think, to evaluating our recommendations and then deciding whether or not to implement or accept them is also high.
I am not unhappy, for example, in this group of recommendations, that one of the recommendations wasn't completely implemented.
I think that's a good thing.
That's fine for us.
What we don't like is when a mayor or somebody in another jurisdiction receives our report and says, you know, we looked at this report and within 24 hours all the recommendations will be implemented.
That's a bad sign.
That means to me that the report's going into a bookshelf and never coming out again.
And that's exactly what happened in the one case I'm talking about.
I think that's a good point.
So I don't have a problem with that.
I would say, and Chief Day has already mentioned this, and I do think that the revolving chairs at the leadership level of the organization over the past 10 years has, I think, caused there to be a lack of continuity.
So, you know, we'll engage with one chief, and then by the time we come back, there's 2 more chiefs that have, you know, come and gone.
And so the representations made by that chief Chief, you know, don't necessarily get put into a memo for the successor.
And I do think that has been a continuity issue.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Chief.
Some of the recommendations in the report, it says, are partially implemented.
Presumably that means there's more work to do.
What does that timeline look like, and are there things that you What do you need us to do as council in terms of directives on policy that would help you to make sure you can fully implement the recommendations that you believe should be implemented?
Bob Day
I really wish I would've anticipated that question.
Sorry.
Because it's an excellent question and I just don't have an answer.
But it's very reasonable and I'm gonna have to— we're gonna have to dig into that.
As we were going over these recommendations and our responses, It didn't occur to me, but it's a very valid question.
So let's— let me get back and we can send something out in writing.
We'll work through Bree to get something out to everybody.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I'd love to see follow-up on that.
Thank you.
And I appreciate you owning the buck stopping with you on implementation.
I also think that under the new form of government, to some extent, ensuring that these recommendations outlast you takes some responsibility for So I hope that through our Community and Public Safety Committee, we're able to do the follow-up and maybe sit down with you.
You tell us the right amount of time based on what you need for that implementation, but a year from now, whatever that is, at some interim period to say, have these been fully implemented?
How are we doing?
Bob Day
Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
That's a great, great thing to highlight.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Bob Day
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, Councilor Novick, and thank you, OIR, Portland Police Bureau leadership, and my fellow colleagues on council for this really helpful dialogue we're having today.
I've been through a few of these, and I would say this one seems the most thorough, and I appreciate that.
I want to also do something real quick here, and that's, um, I found attending the Police Community Academy— it was a year ago— uh, was so helpful.
And I do have a question.
And when is your next— when is the next one?
And of course, encouraging my colleagues to consider attending.
Dave Jackson
So I can answer.
Our next one is scheduled for April of 2026.
I can look up the exact date.
And then same with November.
So we can make sure to get an email out with those exact dates for you.
But we have 2 planned for 2026.
Dan Ryan
Right.
There was something about doing That training, and that allowed me to experience these reports now in a bit with a deeper lens, and I just want to acknowledge that.
And I know that Councilor Novick was there as well, and I'm sure others might have participated in this in the past.
My question is in the complex category of mental health, which I often place under behavioral health, which so it includes both mental health and addictions.
Um, Chief Day, you made it clear in some earlier conversations that— I don't know if your word was many, but most incidences, um, often have a mental health component.
Was that a fair statement?
Yes, yes.
And that, that should not surprise any of us because we reside in the state of Oregon, in the county of Multnomah, where we are known across the country, unfortunately, as having a very poor ranking in terms of mental health and behavioral In fact, there's many studies that objectively compare us that we have the highest number of untreated people suffering from behavioral health and mental health incidents in our community.
So that, that kind of made sense when that was offered earlier.
BOEC was mentioned, and I thought rightly so, as a partner in public safety response.
As such, in terms of mental health, behavioral health, I asked this question: outside of the own— your own bureau, Bureau's Behavioral Health Unit.
This is for you, Chief.
I know you have to get to a call soon.
Try to get this in.
How are we evaluating the other public safety units we are investing big dollars in, such as Portland Street Response?
We also have CHAT through fire.
We invest in these first response systems to work with police in this complex area of mental health.
So are we reviewing these expenditures, these big investments?
Yeah, Councilor, and I think that this is a great question.
Bob Day
I think it's a question maybe more poised for DCA Cossi and, and PSSA because so many of these programs now are falling within the service area.
But to my knowledge, we haven't done that level of robust review for these other programs.
But going forward, I think that's really good insight to just make sure that we're all— I think there's a scrutiny for all of the programs because they are becoming more interconnected.
I know it's a passion of mine that we continue to interact more, PSR, CHAT, and Project Respond.
I know Project Respond is the county, but I just, you know, wanted to highlight But I'm not aware off the top of my head about that review for those programs.
But I would encourage DCA Causie and you to have that conversation.
Dan Ryan
And OIR, there's other public safety systems around the country that you work with that perhaps have done similar investments to improve their response, street response, for mental health and behavioral health issues in coordination with law enforcement?
With the public health system that includes police.
Have you integrated those big public investments into your findings?
I think we're innovative here, so I'm trying to get the evaluation aligned with our innovations.
Again, these are big investments.
Michael Gianacco
Right.
Julie Ruhlin
We, you know, we engage primarily with law enforcement, but we have in some of our with other jurisdictions conducted audits or reviews of the sort of joint response mechanisms that have been created by those agencies.
And so we will do— we'll take a look at, you know, how is this co-response model working?
Let's, you know, pick out a sampling of calls and watch the video and look at Thank you.
Dan Ryan
I do think it's important as we continue to make more and more investments into behavioral health and mental health investments in public safety outside of police, with the hope that they were supposed to be integrated, that we continue to look at those types of things.
It's very important for us in our analysis and evaluation to start including that broader lens.
Yeah.
Um, would you agree?
Bob Day
We do.
Julie Ruhlin
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
Okay, thank you.
Olivia Clark
Sure.
Steve Novick
I see no one else in the queue.
Can we thank our guests and let them go?
Jamie Dunphy
Or—.
Michael Gianacco
Oh, Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Just wanted to clarify, are, are we moving into discuss— we had Q&A followed by discussion.
Steve Novick
Right.
I was going to say, if we can let our guests go, then the question is whether we— people want to have some discussion.
So we can let our guests go.
Thank you very, very much.
Really appreciate the presentations and the thoughtful discussion and answers to questions.
So if you want to stick around and hear a discussion, that's fine.
But if you want to Thank you.
Julie Ruhlin
Thank you very much.
Steve Novick
Colleagues, any discussion?
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Coach Novick.
Uh, while they're still here, some of them are, I just wanted to start by just thanking everybody again.
I also noted, in addition to, um, the City Operations ECA, Independent Police Review Leadership at PPB, We also have PSSA leadership and the city attorneys back there.
And, uh, but with relation to OIR Group, um, I'm generally pretty skeptical about contracting out work, uh, but I, I have found in my experience, uh, with OIR Group that, that you do very professional work and for the city, and I appreciate it quite a bit.
Um, I also wanted to thank you for a recommendation that you put into the previous report, um, and that PPB implemented and that you recognize the implementation of around avoiding the inevitability framing around so-called suicide-by-cop incidents, as well as the post-incident conduct piece that you already talked about.
These are both really important improvements that I think came in part due to your recommendation and PPB implementing it.
I wanted to give maybe a little additional good news.
You discussed— OIR Group discussed silos and how they hope the new form of government helps break those down between PPB and BOEC.
I want to point out that actually this coordination predates the new form of government, beginning Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor Wilson.
I appreciate the work that's been done with the creation of the Community Safety Division in 2021, then led by Mike Myers, who had previously led both FIRE and PBEM, and now as the Public Safety Service Area, led by Bob Cazzi, who is formerly the director of BOEC.
And I think— I'm hoping that the next report, even if it doesn't go all the way to 2025, shows improvement on the siloing even prior to the advent of the new government.
Also appreciated the candor from Chief Day about recommendations.
Recommendation 6 and its history.
One thing that I really wanted to talk about was the— and Councilor Avalos spoke about this in her questions— about how we document when activity is in policy and nonetheless not ideal.
This policy review that OIR Group does is pretty much the closest thing we have in the City of Portland to a concept called sentinel event reviews, which are when you review something not to assign blame or determine a response that's backward-looking, but to learn from it and On page 7 of the report, it says we advocate for a systemic approach— sorry, systematic approach that would make this practice consistent with a formal process for centralized consideration and documentation of all recommendations stemming from a critical incident.
And that critical incident could involve multiple people, multiple agencies as well.
It's about prevention of recurrence, not blame.
And I appreciate that the OIR group does it for us in this specifically narrow subset.
This was recommended for the new oversight board to do.
Thank I think that's a good you.
Idea.
And I think that's something that we need to do, by the way, for all sentinel events that may occur, not just those involving use of deadly force or officer-involved shootings.
The old council did not put that into code.
And so I really think that this is important to do.
And frankly, having us do it, even if OIR Group is doing it in this narrow set, is to avoid that lag.
Because if it's happening live, that might happen a little bit faster.
And we've seen this in Seattle, Minneapolis, D.C., a lot of other places as well.
But that's sort of the specific thing.
I wanted to take a step back and just say I appreciate this conversation.
I think it's really important that we talk about it now.
It's not because we think police are bad or want to punish them for any mistakes, but because this activity is good governance.
When we give city employees the tools and right to use force up to and including taking Portlanders' lives, we have to do the due diligence to review, consider, and remember the lives lost or lives that could have been lost.
It's oversight, it's accountability, it's our responsibility, and I'm I'm particularly heartened by this process happening now in light of seeing what happens in Minneapolis when you don't do this work.
Because what's happening in Minneapolis is what happens when law enforcement is devoid of accountability and allowed to operate without any oversight or restraint.
And it's important that we make sure it doesn't happen here in Portland.
And that's what this process does, and it has done for many years.
I want to recognize that that's been good too.
And the last thing I wanted to mention that's specific here is Um, we currently do not include officer-involved shootings in our shooting data on the PPV open data portal, and I wanted to highlight the Alliance for Safe Oregon, um, that recommendation that they've been making for a few years that we include that in the data dashboard.
Um, I'll, I'll stop here.
Thanks.
Dan Ryan
Uh, thanks.
Olivia Clark
I just wanted to ask Councilor Kanal, when you say sentinel events, I'm familiar with those.
I was on a hospital board.
We reviewed them all the You know, scissors left inside of people, that kind of thing.
It really happens.
Sponges, whatever.
So are you— I wasn't sure I understood what you were suggesting, that you want sentinel events to be reviewed by the council?
Is that what you're saying?
Sameer Kanal
No, I think the city doing it internally.
If it's— so I'll give you an example.
Seattle did a sentinel event review not on any individual individual officer's conduct, although that was mentioned in passing, but on the police's response to the 2020 protests.
And it started that process in 2021, and it continued for a few years, but it was not 3.5 to 6 years later in the way that sometimes when there's a possibility of it affecting an individual officer's employment or criminal charges or even civil litigation, there's often pressure to delay or some reason to delay.
Delay.
Whereas when it's explicitly separated from any possibility of blame or, you know, punishment or discipline or whatever the terminology is, sometimes it's just helpful to see like, what if something that happened in 2020 happened again in 2022?
How do we learn from how we responded to it the first time and do better the second time?
And in the case of police, it's often not just police.
It involves BOEC.
Olivia Clark
It involves like And I'm assuming that sentinel event in this situation would be beyond the critical incident.
It would be broader than that, or just a critical incident?
Sameer Kanal
In the context of policing, it is usually broader than that.
It is often, you know, multiple related events that are kind of one thing, but not an individual, you know, use of force.
Olivia Clark
Okay, I just want to make sure that we were not going to review all those sentinel events.
Sameer Kanal
Oh no, that would be a lot.
Steve Novick
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Uh, thank you.
And I, I also want to, um, I just want to say thanks for the discussion today.
I thought that was just really helpful for me, um, for all of us, I think, for the city.
Uh, I missed what you said there, Councilor.
What page in the report, um, that you, you were referencing back to the report, uh, in the context of these events?
Michael Gianacco
And I just think I missed—.
Sameer Kanal
Uh, it's page 7 of the report.
Mitch Green
It's in the introductory I'll read up on that because I thought what you said there was interesting.
You know, I think the other thing that I'd like to say in this point, and it's not directly related to the report we just received, but it is also about police oversight, and I don't know where else to talk about it in timely fashion, so I'll just do it here.
I attended the— there was a very interesting conversation last night out in East Portland Thank you.
I came away from that feeling— this was a very evidence-based approach, and the conversation that unfolded in that room I thought was very interesting and very promising.
What I saw was officers who were engaged specifically with activity with folks who have been Yes.
Protesting down specifically at the McAdam facility, just like engaging with those protesters at the McAdam facility, and they were not getting overly defensive about it.
And it was sort of a kind of acknowledgment that this is an important conversation to have and that we should keep having it.
And I thought that that was an interesting other— another dimension to our oversight apparatus that I think is really important to continue to invest resources in.
I know we're not talking about policy here at the work session, But, um, it— I think it allows us as councilors who receive those sorts of complaints, or, hey, this happened down here at the ICE facility, to have another layer of context and know that we're, we're doing this sort of dialogue officer-based approach, and there's this evidence-based approach.
So if you guys didn't— were not able to attend that, or if you see other opportunities to attend it if they do it in the future, I highly recommend it because I thought there was a really interesting dialogue going, specifically some of our constituents Councilor who've been down there engaged in like shouting matches with the police, and, and they kind of like, they, they continue talking.
So I, I was like, I think this is something we need to continue to encourage and invest.
So I know it's a little off topic, but it's not wholly off topic.
Michael Gianacco
Thanks.
Steve Novick
Councilor Avalos.
Tracy Warren
I was playing, uh, tag with Sameer in the queue.
I was trying to go after him, um, because I was curious what you were gonna say.
That's a good point, and I'm so sad that I missed it.
I really wanted to head out there but couldn't.
But yeah, I think what you're raising is just a broader discussion that we hopefully will start having in the coming weeks as we continue to see the escalation of the federal government.
And we need to have a plan.
We need to have a way to protect our community.
I think it was in Minneapolis I'm curious about Minneapolis.
The police there are like really taking a different and interesting stand, trying to be a bit of a buffer between ICE and federal enforcement and the community.
I saw a news article about it earlier today, so I don't know all the details of how they actualize that, but I'm very curious about what that looks like and just in general, you know, how we as a municipal government are supposed to respond to the federal government, right?
Especially because, you know, uniquely, especially when it comes to the OIR and the settlement agreement, that was the federal government intervening in our local government to say, you know, local government needed to do things better.
And their oversight was really critical.
And now it's like we don't have their oversight because they're the ones who are the baddies now, right?
So it's like— It's just a meme, guys.
And so I just— I'm really concerned about how we are supposed to act given the difference in power and our limitations of our local police and government.
But yeah, I just flag it as an interesting conversation I hope we have and for our police force to engage with us.
And I would also love to— maybe we could just do some looking around the country and seeing how some of the other police forces are responding, because I think everyone Everyone's kind of taking a unique approach.
But yeah, I would love for us as a council to have that discussion.
And overall, you know, we really need to strengthen how we protect our communities against these forces, and I see the police as being a critical role in that.
Steve Novick
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Riffing a little bit where Councilor Avalos took us, I Thank you.
I also appreciate, you know, this type of endeavor that we have taken on in Portland, the fact that our significant amount of leadership from our bureau is here, the fact that this group has, I think I heard, 16 years of a relationship, is the way in which departments get to be better at what they do.
We are always going to face a problem.
Somebody is going to let us down.
And that letdown, I want to remind us and I remind myself that it doesn't speak for the values or the intent of the department.
And that matters a lot to me because the intent and the leadership and the philosophy behind the department, the city, and our partners who help us be better is how we get through the day when somebody lets us down.
Thank you.
And whether it was a well-meaning mistake that resulted in terrible actions or malicious, any large organization involved in big work like this is gonna have a bad day.
But I've always been proud of the Portland Police Bureau's work within my community, right?
And policing is not inherently, or has not inherently been a thing for the LGBT community to be a part of.
Right.
To feel as good about as it does in Portland.
But because of training and because of policies and because of conversations like this, my community sits, I think, in a better position than maybe in some other cities because of that deliberate engagement, deliberate discussions about these types of topics.
And so I'm really thankful for that.
And to, to compare that to the rapid and rampant increase of what we're seeing at the federal level.
And I was trying to think of another time when a law enforcement agency hired as many people or got as much of a cash infusion.
I can't think of a single time in our history, in our government's history, right?
The FBI started out as a few people.
It's grown, obviously.
Most police forces started out as a few people.
I think World War II may have been the last, maybe Vietnam, I think that's a very fair point.
When a military paramilitary organization got such an infusion and such a large influx of people given an enormous amount of authority, and to even think that those are comparable in their duties is, is a hell of a stretch there.
But I don't think there's any conversation about accountability.
I don't think there's any conversation about this level of nuance that we saw today that is happening within the Department of Homeland Security.
I think that I'm going to be very careful as we go forward to make sure that the actions of the federal government's law enforcement activities, they represent the federal government's law enforcement activities and, in my opinion, the failure of them, and not speak for other people who are in the line of— or in the profession of law enforcement.
I value the profession a lot.
I value the fact that we put resources at a professional standards division, and it's going to get harder.
It's going to get harder to figure out the best way cities across America are dealing with this in terms of how to use our professional forces who are members of our community dealing with a federal force who has very little training, in my opinion, and very value or cultural base in police standards.
And I think that's gonna be very tough for everybody.
But this is the way that policing should be occurring in all communities, is that policing should involve community feedback, professional outside feedback, and internal opinions about the direction in which the department goes.
It's all things.
It's not just one or the other.
I too, Councilor Avalos, am interested in where we go here with some of those other things.
And I know it is similarly unrelated somewhat to the discussion at point, but it is such a pressing topic for us as a community and all communities in the United States right now.
And I am saddened because there was a time in this country when we would be very glad if a local police officer or a senior leader got to go to something like the FBI's Academy or got to train at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Facility, FLETC, which used to have great clout.
And I don't want to lose that, but it's hard to keep those things in good memory of like right now how to engage in those areas that should be helping us professionally are almost seen as unworkable right now.
And that worries me a lot.
And so I don't have answers for that, but I do keep it front of mind for where do we look for professionalism in the industry when our norms have been broken by the current administration.
I don't know where we're going to look, but I think our learning I appreciate that.
Sameer Kanal
And I, uh, I think we should definitely be consulting with our training division to understand what the sources that they already are using are.
And I know there's a training advisory council that I was remiss earlier in not shouting out the work of as well.
Councilor Kanal.
Thank you.
Just to speak to something that came up a couple times, I have no doubts that this particular process of reporting has made PPB better, and that council being a part of that process and reviewing it is key to that.
Speaking only for myself, I do want to encourage the continuation of this particular contract.
Switching gears to Councilor Ryan's comments, 2 points.
I agree with your point about the Community Police Academy.
I think having as many sources of information about policing as possible from within the Bureau and also outside of it is really helpful.
I've participated in that and done a few ride-alongs now, as well as talking to a lot of folks who are external to police but experts or researchers.
I think that's a good way to broaden everyone's knowledge.
So I'll just co-sign that recommendation and expand it.
Then I also want to fully 100% agree about the need for review.
PSR, with a budget over $10 million, has had the most extensive review, the top-to-bottom review, in a way that no other part of our public safety has had in a single place, twice, like from a single researcher.
And so I appreciate Councilor Ryan's support of perhaps scaling up that review for everyone across public safety.
And I don't know if anyone from PSSA is still here behind the pillar, but— oh yeah, but maybe we can talk about that.
And finally, I wanted to just go back to something that Councilor Avalos talked about I referenced it earlier, but the terminology sometimes matters a lot.
When we talk about public trust building, I think the old council made a choice of labeling when we do investigations that the allegation is sustained or not sustained, and that's the only set of choices available to the review in the new system that's about to come online.
I think that breeds less trust than the original recommendation, which was to have a more robust system.
Thank you.
Which was that the officer's conduct was in policy, out of policy, insufficient evidence, or unfounded, which allows for a complete exoneration rather than simply— or a finding of exoneration rather than simply we didn't know.
And it conflates 3 different types of why someone's not found to be— or an allegation is not found to be sustained or conduct not out of policy.
So having those additional options along with other extra findings findings can help the public understand what exactly happened or what the finding was and might help folks understand why they're not seeing what they might have expected going in in a way that breeds public trust.
And so I really appreciate you bringing that up.
And since we were a little bit off topic, but in the broader context of it, I agree.
And I'm very excited to continue the conversation that Councilor Green talked about because as you said, it's going to be a bigger thing as Yes, thank you, Councilor Novick.
Dan Ryan
Just a clarification, Councilor Kanal, so you're— thank you for the shoutouts.
Um, you're saying that you would like the investment that we did with Portland Street Response with the studies that Portland State University did, you would like to expand that, or you'd like to expand the mental health, behavioral health supports we have, whether it's CHAT or PSR, That's what I was mentioning.
I just couldn't tell what you said there.
Sameer Kanal
May I respond to that?
Yes.
Yeah, so thanks for clarifying that.
I interpreted your comment as more the former.
I agree with that.
Doesn't necessarily have to be PSU forever, but I think they did a good job.
So I'm not opposed to them either.
With relation to the other piece of it, I don't know every piece of expertise.
I asked a few specific questions about OIR.
Groups' expertise and what they can work on beyond simply the 2 things that we talked about.
I don't know if it extends to evaluating mobile crisis, street medicine, things like that.
So I can't speak to that.
But I do think it's worth having these evaluations across it.
I know that Councilor Novick has also talked about these sorts of things in terms of evaluating things like clearance rates as well.
And there is also, I think, benefit to having these extend beyond just police as well.
And some situations so that we're not having to get too deep into the specific nature of each type of first response, but we're also able to share across an entire service area metrics that we can use for eventual decisions on policy or investment or whatever else.
I hope that helps.
Dan Ryan
It does help.
I think it's a longer conversation.
I think as we continue to invest more and more in alternative responses, we have to make sure that they're accountable within the system of public safety and not treat them as silos.
The last thing I want to do is keep building more silos.
Michael Gianacco
Thanks.
Steve Novick
Seeing no one else in the queue, I think I'll bring us to a close a little bit early after making a few off-topic remarks of my own.
First of all, Councilor Avalos, I think it's a really interesting idea to hear what other police forces are doing in our sister cities in this situation.
We had a great conversation with people, staff from city councils in other cities in public safety on the federal response a couple of months ago because Lisa Freeman knows people all over the country.
And I think that Chief Day has been talking to his colleagues all over the country, and maybe we could see if some of them are willing to have a conversation Thank you, Mayor Wilson, for having this conversation with us.
I also wanted to second or third Councilor Ryan's suggestion of going to the Civilian Academy.
I've gone through it twice, in 2013 and last year.
My impression going through it last year was that it seemed more interesting and perhaps more realistic.
I did get myself shot both times, hypothetically speaking, but, you know, the embarrassment wore off.
And finally, I just wanted to say about Minneapolis that one of the New York Times columnists yesterday had a column saying maybe Minneapolis is Trump's Waterloo, that there's some indication that maybe there's enough backlash that they will start to back off and change their conduct.
I fervently hope that was— that is true.
And it puts me in mind of a conversation I had in November 1990 when Paul Wellstone was elected to the Senate in Minneapolis.
And the next morning I found his campaign office number by calling 555-1212, like you did in those days, and, uh, and said, I was— hi, my name's Steve, and I was calling to say congratulations.
And the young woman who answered the phone said, thank you, thank you.
Well, you know, this is Minnesota.
Miracles can happen here.
So maybe that will prove true now too.
And now, using my hook as a gavel, I bring this meeting, this work session to a close.
Bob Day
Thank you.