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.
Michael
Good morning, everybody.
Steve Novick
Welcome to the first meeting of the Community and Public Safety Committee in the reign of the NBA champion New York Knicks.
And I hereby call said meeting to order.
Uh, clerk, can you please call the roll?
Brandon Brown
Good morning.
Bob Day
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Present.
Angelita Morillo
Morillo?
Here.
Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Here.
Angelita Morillo
Smith.
Earl Riley
Novick.
Steve Novick
Here.
Christopher, could you please read the statement of conduct?
Eric Zimmerman
Welcome to the meeting of the Community and Public Safety Committee.
James Crooker
To testify before this committee in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda/community-and-public-safety-committee or by calling 311.
Sameer Kanal
Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link.
Registration for virtual testimony closes 1 hour prior to the meeting.
In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard.
Robert Taylor
If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the chair states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The chair preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed.
If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.
Further disruption results in ejection from the meeting.
Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.
Bob Day
Additionally, the committee may take a short break thank you, Christopher.
Steve Novick
There is an amendment to the statement of conduct for today, which is that spontaneous chants of Go Knicks or Knicks Rule will not be considered disruptive.
Today we might have bitten off more than we can chew.
After last session, we had a great discussion with ceasefire partners, and I thought it would be valuable if we had more discussion with cool people doing cool stuff.
So today we're gonna lead off with a discussion of restorative justice and hear from restorative justice partners and hear something about the relationship of restorative justice partners with law enforcement.
The FITCOG said they wanted to come on down, so I told them come on down.
Then we're gonna resume our discussion of concealed carry in public buildings.
And if we can get to it, we'll turn to psychedelics at the end, but it's quite possible we won't get to it.
And now I will— I'm sorry, We'll ask the clerk to read the first item.
Tristan Edwards
Item number 1, April 7th, 2026, Community and Public Safety Committee minutes.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
And Tristan, take it away.
Tristan Edwards
Good morning, Councilors.
Edith Thrower
Sorry, apologies.
Tristan Edwards
This is the approval of the minutes.
Steve Novick
Oh, sorry.
Mindy Johnston
Sorry.
Steve Novick
I forget.
Do we take a vote immediately or do I just ask for unanimous consent?
Tristan Edwards
If there's no objections, then we can do it by unanimous consent.
Steve Novick
Do I have unanimous consent to approve the minutes?
All right, approved.
Cameron Hayes
Thank you.
Tristan Edwards
Item number 2, document number 2026-200, Restorative Justice Programs Within the City and County.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
Now, Tristan.
Tristan Edwards
Thank you so much, and we really appreciate the opportunity to be here.
My name is Tristan Edwards.
I am a public defender at Metropolitan Public Defender.
I work in the major felony unit, and I also work on policy work today, we're going to be talking about different restorative justice programs that operate in the city.
I am going to try and go so fast so that we can get to our amazing presenters here from the different restorative justice programs.
And I'm going to have everyone introduce themselves as they take turns talking about their programs.
So first, and as briefly as I can possibly go, I just wanted to give a little bit of an orientation around what restorative justice is.
So restorative justice is a process sometimes I find it to be helpful to compare and contrast a little bit with the criminal system, which is what most of us are more familiar with.
And this kind of gets broken down into 3 questions to explain that framework.
So within the criminal system, we ask a set of 3 questions very simplistically.
What law was broken?
Who broke that law?
And how do we punish that person?
The criminal system sees harm as a violation of the law, and the outcomes from the criminal system are really oriented around what do we within restorative justice, we ask a different set of questions.
Who has been hurt?
What are their needs?
And whose obligation is it to meet those needs?
And so you can see just in kind of these 3 different questions that the framing around restorative justice is different.
The discussion is around the harmed party and what can be done to heal, repair harm.
Angelita Morillo
So, Councilor Smith, I'm going to turn it over to you.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Tristan Edwards
Kind of distilling from this some primary goals of restorative justice.
Healing for harmed parties is obviously a primary goal.
And so oftentimes we say that restorative justice is a survivor-centered process of accountability.
That accountability piece for the responsible party is important, but it is centered around the needs of the survivor and with the goal of repairing the harm to the extent that that is possible.
I should also mention that while the criminal system sees harm as a violation of the law, restorative justice sees harm as a violation of a relationship that requires repair.
Another primary goal within restorative justice is accountability.
As a public defender, I hear the word accountability used a lot in the criminal system, and typically what it means is sending someone to prison or jail or placing them on a long period of supervision.
That accountability, I think, really gets away from what we really and really what I think we mean when we say we want accountability is a true internal reckoning with a harm that someone has caused and steps to repair that harm.
And that accountability piece, that repair, also means that that is an invitation for someone to restore their place in the community.
That if they're willing to do that reckoning, that hard internal work, then they can have a pathway back into the community.
Thank you.
To restoring their place in the community and having a vested interest in the community.
And I think both of these things really tie into that— the third goal, which is a goal of public safety.
Again, as a public defender, people come to my desk, they become my clients generally because of reactions that come from a place of unhealed trauma.
The more that we are promoting healing from harm, the less we are going to have people who are playing out their trauma in unproductive ways in the future.
And when it comes to accountability, really the understanding the impacts of a harm and having the opportunity to wrestle with what that means to have caused harm and to reach repair is something that is going to make someone infinitely less likely to repeat that harm in the future.
Okay, I'm gonna play this 4-minute video, which is a participant from the Restorative Roots Project, one of the programs that'll be speaking today, I thought that this might be better than trying to explain what a restorative justice process looks like.
I'll also just mention that I printed out a flyer that was created by the Restorative Justice Coalition of Oregon that also seeks to dig into a little bit more of the complexities around restorative justice.
Michael
My name is Michael.
I'm 20 years old, and I'm a victim of sexual assault.
I'm a fairly recent new barber.
You know, I had never been in a robbery before.
Like, I've never been in this type of situation.
I've heard about them, but I never thought like it would happen to me.
I was working drive-through cashier, so when I saw him in, you know, I just greeted him like any other person.
I was like, hey, hey, how's it going?
I feel like it's crazy because everything turned dark so quickly.
You know, he was laughing, so like when his first sentence was like, oh, I'm going to need all the cash from the register.
You know, I laughed because I thought he was joking around.
And he was like, oh, like, I'm not joking.
And, you know, everything went tense, I guess you could say.
I guess he had no weapons on him, but he made it seem like he did.
So that made it like 10 times more terrifying.
My coworkers, you know, they don't know no English.
So the only language they spoke was Spanish.
So, I mean, they knew a threat was there, right?
But they were scared.
If I'm being honest, like, I— when the whole process came down, I had, like, no idea about this program at all.
It all came down when we went to the attorney, and they were telling us that we had 2 options: to either take the case to trial or to do this new program that we had never heard about before.
I would say the restorative routes this project is a different type of system than what we normally have.
They explained to us that we would get to know some of the answers that we wanted to know.
You know, like instead of trial, like we would have been able to ask him like why he did it or like what was his motives, you know, like what he had been going through.
But being able to like get to know the reason why and get to tell that person how you felt that moment so that they know the impact they had on you and they could take, like, the accountability, you know.
The Restorative Roots facilitator, they helped us in steps.
You know, at first everybody was traumatized, including me.
We didn't really want to talk about the situation, so they did a good job of implementing, like, little steps for when the when the big day came for the conversation, when I got to ask him, like, about his, like, childhood and stuff, like, you know, I got to learn that he didn't really grow up in a nice environment.
You know, it was really rough for him.
And so it definitely helped me because I got to understand a little more.
So by the time, like, we said our thoughts, you know, how we felt, like, towards the end, He spoke again, and that's when we, like, got to see, I guess, the real him, you know, that he was sorry.
And, you know, he was really empathetic.
Like, he had no idea of the impact that he had done to us.
And when he apologized, I feel like that's something that I really needed to hear.
Definitely helped me feel a lot.
You know, it felt like a huge relief, to be honest.
You know, he had never experienced something like that.
And he was really grateful that we had decided to go with the Restored Roots Project because to him it wasn't just like a free get-out-of-jail-free card, you know.
To him it was like, yeah, he was really like impacted and shocked of what all the help he was getting.
And yeah, I mean, towards the end everybody felt good, you know.
It felt like all the questions we had were answered.
He was willing He wanted to work to pay some of the medical bills.
He wanted to write us letters more.
He wanted to know, like, how we're doing, like, anything he could do to make us feel better, you know?
And the crazy thing is, is that when I went to barber school, his brother was actually going to school as well.
So when I got to see him come and visit his brother, you know, he had told me that he was really doing really good, that he was traveling a lot, working a lot.
And, you know, he even offered to bring like post mail from different states he had visited.
I would say we're pretty good friends now.
After the Restorative Roots was over, I was going out more.
You know, I didn't have to watch my back, I guess.
I wasn't, you know, scared at all.
And it helped me learn that I could also watch like some of the stuff I do too, because like of the impact that had happened, you know.
Thank you.
So I mean, not only did it help him, but it helped me to like reflect on some of the stuff I could be doing better as well.
But yeah, I feel like it was— yeah, justice was served.
Brandon Brown
Great.
Tristan Edwards
Now I'm going to pass it over to Lutheran Community Services.
Mindy Johnston
Hi, good morning everybody.
Mindy Johnston.
I am the program director with our Justice Forward department at Lutheran Community Services Northwest.
And this is a lot of information on a slide, but the point that I wanna go over is some of the different branches of services that we provide.
So we have community-based victim advocates, and then these are the sort of different branches of restorative justice that we're providing.
So we have, we work with juveniles through the Department of Community Justice Juvenile Services Division on both pre- and post-adjudicated cases.
We have a partnership with the Portland Police Bureau.
Thank you.
We have a partnership with the District Attorney's Office and then Portland Public Schools.
And out of all of those different partnerships, for the DA's office and PPS, this comes at no cost for them.
So our primary funding is through Multnomah County DCJ and then the Criminal Justice Commission's Restorative Justice Grant.
And in the exciting, The other thing that I wanna talk about is this pre-arrest partnership we've had with PPB that we've been working on since 2022.
So we understand that shifting the criminal justice system takes time, and we're at a point where we wanna start seeing more referrals coming through.
So over the last 4 years, we have worked with the police on roll calls.
We go to Advanced Academy.
Thank you.
We meet with the equity team.
We've had all kinds of planning and implementation, but we're still really not seeing cases.
And one of the things we've reflected on is how these cases come to us.
We're having an understanding that criminal justice system partners are uncomfortable talking about restorative justice because that's not their job.
So with our partnership with the DA, there's been a shift over the last 6 months.
We also spent a lot of time working on the relationship with them, and it was very slow to go.
But in the last 6 months, there's been a shift where instead of having attorneys talk to people about restorative justice, they just send the case to us.
And then we can explain restorative justice to participants, and they can agree or not.
And so that, In the first year of our partnership with the DA, we had one referral.
And in the last 6 months, we've had almost 20.
And so we're seeing a real shift in the success of that.
And we would like to see that also with the police.
So we've worked with each of the precincts.
We focused for a while on North Precinct.
And I think it's— there's just a real challenge in getting officers to buy into restorative justice.
Bob Day
Yeah.
Mindy Johnston
Even though a lot of times when they hear it, they're excited about it.
So I think something happens between Advanced Academy and being on the ground.
I would also just like to add that I think out of all of these partners, and including my colleagues down the row, any of these different partners along the line, whether it's pre-arrest or post, you know, pre-arrest, pre-adjudication, post-adjudication, there could be hundreds and hundreds of referrals that came through for all of us.
For our juvenile department cases in 2025, for recidivism, the general population was 28% for recidivism on youth cases.
For the youth that went through restorative justice, it was 19%.
We have data that shows that this is effective in reducing recidivism, and that we know is a cost savings to our community to Public safety, all the things that we all want.
So we're here to give a push for this work and for getting your support to help our systems partners meaningfully engage in restorative justice.
We can't do it alone.
We need to find ways that restorative justice is maintained in the community, but is also institutionalized in some way with our systems partners.
Thank you.
System partners.
Um, and I think that's all.
Pass it to Brandon.
Brandon Brown
Thank you for that.
Hello everybody, my name is Brandon Brown.
I am the Director of Community Outreach for Restorative Roots Project.
We are a holistic nonprofit organization that aims at the restoration and transformation of individuals and communities.
Um, Why I am here today, I'm here to speak about our partnership mainly with the District Attorney's Office.
In 2021, Restorative Roots Project became a program underneath another nonprofit.
The program did not fit within that org, so we moved on and became our own 501 in 2023.
As of May 1st, 2025, Restorative Roots Project has been referred and represented an estimated total of 612 months of prison time saved, which would have cost the state $3.2 million.
This is based on 10 cases in our SAP program and 2 community referrals.
These charges ranged from Measure 11 person-to-person violent offenses to minor theft and family disputes.
Our SAP program has had 100% success rate with zero reoffenders and zero cases returned.
This has resulted in housing assistance, bill assistance, job placement, schooling, 4 years of sobriety, and most importantly, community restoration and healing.
Our program has not been unsuccessful due to staffing and/or programs, but lack of partnership engagement.
Our SAP program has not had a case referred to it since October of 2024, our program has seen 2 DA regimes since its implementation, one of those which asked us not to go public with our program, resulting in a lack of communication.
Our quantitative data is low due to that lack of communication, which led to funding being cut and the loss of 3 staff members and the remaining members to work for free from the months of October 2025 to March of 2026.
From the months— from the years 2022 to 2025, our partnership did work together to come up with the best ways for referral pathways.
Due to budgeting cuts, our partners have had less time to focus on our program, but efforts have been made.
And cases should start flowing back into our program starting in July.
Most recently, Restorative Roots Project, along with Lutheran Community Services and Brown Hope, have been putting in efforts to get the county to help recognize community-based restorative justice.
And the results of that is the community putting together a focus group to start finding more ways to help build pathways for community-based restorative justice.
Thank you.
Um, these are just minor steps that we have taken.
We now need a hand and a help, a push to keep us going forward, and more support within our community to help build out community-based restorative justice.
Thank you.
Cameron Hayes
Uh, hello, councilors.
My name is Cameron Hayes.
I'm the director of Regroup.
We are a reentry mutual aid support network.
Thank you.
And, um, our focus is really building community among returning citizens because most re-entry organizations are really good at that day one support and getting folks on their feet.
But as folks with lived experience, we know that that is not always enough.
And so in 2025, Regroup secured a pilot grant from the CJC to do a community needs assessment and see what the thoughts were on utilizing, uh, returning citizens and those with lived experience to do conflict mediation and restorative justice processes in the community.
And there was almost universal support.
We have been operational now for 3 months and have 6 cases, and it's been really cool to see a desire for accountability and healing come from community, because as we know, when folks are released from prison, they have a higher statistic for reoffending but also being victimized.
And so this is also a population that is unlikely to trust traditional public safety methods.
And so it's been really cool to step in and fill that gap.
This is Jerome, our restorative justice director, and I'll let him take over.
Sameer Kanal
All right, I'm, uh, hello, councilors.
I'm Jerome Sloan, uh, Restorative Justice Director for Regroup.
And, um, he basically said a lot about our program, but the thing that I think, um, separates us is that we have lived experience, and the people that we talk to don't necessarily feel comfortable talking with authority figures like police, anything like that.
So we fit a little niche where My clients, they're willing to talk to me in a certain group, but this problem probably wouldn't be resolved if they had to deal with a higher authority figure.
Manny Guerra
And that's what I've seen for it.
Yeah, Regroup has did it.
Sameer Kanal
We got 6 now and we're moving along strong and I'm happy about it.
Manny Guerra
I know that's not about this, but I'm happy about where we've come, but we need help.
Michael
So.
Tristan Edwards
One thing that I would just add about Regroup, in case it's not clear from the conversation, is that the referral partner is not a system referral.
Because of Jerome and Cameron's unique position within the community as trusted figures, as credible messengers, people with lived experience, they are really uniquely positioned to get direct referrals from people who are impacted.
We call that a community referral.
And I think it really goes to address kind of exactly what Cam and Jerome were talking about, which is kind of this gap in our public safety system, which is cases that go unreported.
And so they're catching cases that have never— that were never going to touch the police department in the first place.
I would also just say that both Cam and Jerome, not only do they have lived experience in the prison system, but they also have lived experience in restorative justice through their own past experiences, which are incredibly inspiring.
We don't have time for here today, but I would encourage you to reach out to learn more about kind of their foundation.
Before we open it up for questions, I just wanted to kind of consolidate what really the needs are that Mindy, Brandon, Cameron, and Jerome have really already spoken to.
So from the sense of our system partners, it is so challenging to really shift the culture and the mindset towards restorative justice from our punishment system.
And that makes a lot of sense.
I think that thank you.
I think that, you know, as a general understanding in our society, we have learned to equate justice with punishment.
And there are a lot of ways to achieve justice.
And I know from being in courtrooms and hearing dissatisfaction from victims, from responsible parties, that there really is a need for more restorative justice and for different approaches to harm that are not just our carceral system.
That being said, some of these system partner relationships have really taken a lot of time.
And we're finding that we need support and help in holding our system partners accountable to utilizing these programs from our elected officials.
And so that's part of what we're asking here today is how City Council can help us with really trying to make these partnerships more fluid and to get referrals.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Tristan Edwards
I mean, Mindy, Brandon both spoke to the difficulties that we've had with getting referrals from and one thing I'll just say that is hopeful is that, you know, from talking to people who've gone through restorative justice processes, from looking at the results from these programs, this works.
The individual who was the responsible party in the case that I showed the video for, throughout the process of the restorative justice program, he went from being homeless for several years and having a criminal record and a mental illness diagnosis some pretty significant anger issues, to getting really important and intensive therapy, to getting his commercial driver's license, which led to him getting a full-time job.
And today he has his own stable apartment.
He's been employed for many years.
He's actually still in touch with the restorative justice program because those relationships were so important to him and is at a point of stability that is really something you don't typically see when people are going through the prison system.
And for the record, his case, he was looking at close to 6 years in prison, mandatory minimum on that case.
Instead, you know, didn't even engage in the criminal system, didn't get a conviction, and is in a place of being just much better positioned in the society and certainly offense-free.
The second and always most important thing that we need is funding.
There is a state grant that provides funding to restorative justice programs.
Specifically programs that avoid a conviction, which is what all of these programs do.
That state grant is always in different states of flux.
It was granted $4 million for the biennium in 2025.
We're now in the process of, you know, getting ready to make another ask in 2027.
We have great partnership with the Criminal Justice Commission and the executive branch, but of course the legislature is a whole other animal.
Jamie Dunphy
Yeah.
Tristan Edwards
But I guess the thing that I really want to underscore is that these— the system partner engagement and the funding really go hand in hand.
The lack of referrals that were going into the pre-arrest program, the juvenile program, and the adult restorative justice program in 2025 resulted in massive funding cuts for Lutheran Community Services Northwest and the Restorative Roots Project, where in the past they had received upwards of $700,000 from this committee.
Thank you.
Grant.
Last year they experienced massive cuts because there wasn't the ability to demonstrate that there were meaningful system referral pathways.
And so the city is missing out on really, really significant investment from the state because of this difficulty that we have with system partners getting referrals, you know, despite the fact that both of these programs have shown an immense amount of success when we can actually get cases in.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Tristan.
I actually, I was hoping to have the DA's office here today, but I heard this morning that they're not able to make it.
We do have Chief Day here.
And Councilor Rio, I know you've got— Vice Chair Rio, I know you've got your hand up, but I was wondering if you'd indulge me if I would ask Chief Day to come up and just have an exchange with— I'm sorry, is it Mindy from Lutheran Family Services?
Earl Riley
Yes.
Steve Novick
About, you know, what might be— how it could work better and what might be done to have more buy-in from the police.
That's what I'd like to do.
Councilor Murillo, go ahead with what you were going to ask or say.
Angelita Morillo
Okay.
Do you— are you trying to do that now or after?
Steve Novick
I just— you were the only person with your hand up, so I was going to like ask you to ask your question, but then I did want to bring Chief Day up to have an okay, well, first of all, I just want to say I'm so delighted that you guys are here.
Angelita Morillo
We had Restorative Roots come to our— one of our community events where we were providing different community services, and it was so special to have you guys there.
And I think that in a country where we have one of the highest incarceration rates in the entire world, and yet we continue to see crime happen because people are impacted by issues that are not being touched on by the traditional criminal justice system, I think that that means we have to look at things like this.
So your work is incredibly valuable, and I'm just very grateful that you're here and we're having this hard conversation today.
I was curious, hearing for a few different things, the referral process, because I know it sounds like for Regroup, it's a community referral, correct?
But then for Lutheran Community Services, does the referral come from PPB or from somebody else?
It comes from PPB.
Mindy Johnston
Yeah, so it depends on— based on those partnerships, it can come from a range.
So it could be a community-based referral through our victim advocates who work in culturally specific communities.
It can come from PPB, it comes from the Juvenile Department, it comes from the DA, and now we also have the PPS, the Portland Public Schools.
So we're pretty much anywhere referrals can come through, system or community.
And I'm curious, And I think you guys are the same, right?
You can— yeah.
Tristan Edwards
Yeah.
One thing to mention is that with Lutheran Community Services Northwest, the DA relationship is specifically for juveniles.
Mindy Johnston
Yes.
Angelita Morillo
Gotcha.
Okay, that's helpful.
And for anyone who wants to answer this, what are some of the things that you look for, or what are the— I'm assuming it's less like metrics-based and more general, but what are some of the things that you look for in a person to say, okay, this person should probably go through a restorative justice process and not through the traditional model of accountability?
Tristan Edwards
So I can take that one.
As the defense representative with the Restorative Roots Project, a lot of my role when we were getting cases was to assess folks to see if they were suitable for the restorative justice program.
One thing I'll mention is data has shown that restorative justice is most effective in instances where there is a threat of harm or there has been some sort of serious harm.
And that's because we view it through the lens of the impact on the harmed party.
If somebody steals your wallet, you just kind of want your wallet back.
But if someone has burglarized your home or has threatened you in some way, it means a lot more to go through a process of accountability and hear that that person has really taken it seriously in understanding the impacts and trying to reform.
So that's why the restorative roots thank you.
So the Restorative Roots Project started with focusing on violent felony offenses.
And when I would meet with clients, what I would look for is one, an acknowledgment that they participated in whatever harm occurred.
It wasn't necessarily that they needed to be in a full, perfect state of remorse.
A lot of the restorative roots or the restorative justice process is about helping people come to that place of accountability.
But they at least needed to acknowledge that they had involvement, that there was something to be accountable for, that they could have and then from there, it's really just a willingness, an ability to be able to engage with a program that is rather intensive, and an understanding that they will need to be available, and that they will need to be reachable, and that they need to be showing up for appointments and meetings, and that this is going to take as long as it needs to.
A lot of folks come with substance use, mental health issues, housing issues, and so it's a process.
And I've actually really been impressed by the way that the Restorative Roots Project has been able to hold those things and really encourage that engagement, which I think is helpful because it comes from this place of mutual respect and relationship, as opposed to kind of a threat of punishment if you don't engage, which is something that we see, you know, when, like, in your classic pretrial release or probation relationships.
And then lastly, a willingness to try and pay restitution if there is restitution to be owed in that case.
Thank you.
On the other end, harmed parties for the Restorative Roots Project need to at least agree that the case can go into restorative justice.
They are never required to participate if that is not what feels good to them or what they think is going to be necessary for their healing.
Some people say, I want to engage completely, I want to sit in circle with this person and have a true full accountability process.
Some people say, I think that this is a great thing for this person who harmed me to go through, but it's not something that I want to participate in.
Maybe I want to receive a letter at the end saying how it went.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Tristan.
Um, I would like to— to me, an important part of this is I do want to see Chief Day engage, and it would be—.
Angelita Morillo
Can I get through my question with the panel first though?
Steve Novick
Um, well, we're kind of, we're kind of running out of time.
Angelita Morillo
But I get to talk to Chief Day all the time.
Steve Novick
I don't get to talk to these well, but the issue here is having Chief Day engage with Mindy and give her an opportunity to say how she thinks the relationships could work and see him respond.
So I apologize, but I would really like to see that kind of engagement.
Jamie Dunphy
Sure.
Eric Zimmerman
Was Chief Day informed that he was going to be a speaker for this topic today?
Steve Novick
Yes.
Okay.
He was.
That's why I asked him here.
Eric Zimmerman
On the materials that came with this, not a presentation, not a list of presenters.
So just be clear what we're doing here.
Steve Novick
And actually, could I ask one of the panel members other than Mindy to step back so Chief Day could come up?
Cameron Hayes
I'll step back.
Robert Taylor
Good morning.
Bob Day
Good, thank you.
Michael
Good to see you.
Steve Novick
So just, I mean, we need to keep this short, but Mindy, I just want to give you a chance to tell Chief Day how you would hope the relationship would work and give him a chance to respond.
Mindy Johnston
Yeah, I just want to acknowledge that Chief Day has been supportive from the get-go.
And I think it is a systems implementation issue.
So I think for us, our realization over time, which I already mentioned, is how can we get this systematized so that it's not necessarily in individual officers' hands?
We do— there's a new app that the PPB has created specifically for restorative justice referrals.
Thank you.
What we need is how do we push that out?
How do we train folks to use it?
And also what we've seen, as I mentioned in the DA referral cases, is getting the system partners out of it and letting us talk to people about it.
There's a gray zone between even some of those pre-adjudicated youth cases that could have been referred from police.
Officers are looking at what they can arrest or charge for and doing their job.
And so we need to be creative in how we make it easy for them to send referrals.
And I think we need that, you know, the leadership explicitly encouraging, and we've avoided the mandating 'cause we know that's not gonna work.
But we need other creative ways to get the engagement.
Bob Day
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, good morning, Councilor.
Bob Day, Chief of Police.
And first of all, just hats off.
Thanks for sharing, everybody here at the table, for the good work.
A core value of mine is redemption.
I believe in the ability to redeem, and relying upon the criminal justice system or incarceration to do that, I don't believe is the only answer.
I think that you know, the steps you're taking.
So just thank you very much for that.
And also thank you for the work Mindy and others have done.
And so a couple things I want to highlight, and none of these are meant to be excuses, and I'll have a couple of practical solutions.
But the Police Bureau was a leader in this conversation back in '19 and in '18, '19, '20 when we had our school resource officers.
We did have a robust effort to try and bring in restorative justice into the police bureau.
One of the failures since that— after that program was abolished is we haven't had anybody internally that's really owned it and shepherded it.
So that's an awareness piece that I've learned and become more attuned to.
I agree 100% that it's a systems issue.
I don't believe it's a matter of officers don't care or aren't engaged.
It just is lack of the bureau putting in clarity for them to be able to find those lanes to move forward in the demands of the day and the multitude of things that officers are faced with.
You know, getting this to rise to the top of the pile for reflection, for time, for commitment, and so forth is a challenge.
As mentioned, we did create the app.
So a couple things that I just want to highlight going forward, some things that we're looking at is, you know, once again being able to reinforce.
And I agree, I don't know that— I don't believe that at this point mandate is the appropriate approach, um, for forcing the issue.
But looking at a variety of things, uh, both in our relationship with the DA's office, looking for more pathways between the two of us and seeing, um, them come on board and be more involved, hopefully we can sort of hold each other accountable to making sure that we're identifying the right cases.
And I'll be asking when cases are identified by the DA's office why they weren't identified by us and where some of the gaps So that's been a significant improvement in the partnership.
We're also looking at, you know, the potential of can we expand this into other areas besides just in the traditional patrol response.
We obviously touch community in a variety of different ways, both whether it be in public order events and other types of situations besides just a 911 call.
So there might be space there.
I will say that, you know, for a longstanding history in the police bureau, juvenile cases are tough to navigate in general, just the understanding of the process they go through and so forth.
So I think organizationally we can do a better job of helping them understand and see the role that specific— that Lutheran Family Services plays around juveniles.
If I'm not mistaken, that's really the the bread and butter of what we're talking about.
So I do think that there are areas where we have— I do recognize there are areas where we have not been as efficient.
We've dropped the ball.
And finally, this is something that I believe in.
It's just a matter of we've had people come and go and retire.
We just haven't had ownership.
And so I'm going to try and bring some of that ownership.
Councilor Novick, you surfacing this, bringing this to the table today, I'm encouraged in what I've heard.
So I'm going to have to go back and do some work to find some ownership to increase those referrals.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Chief.
And Councilor Maria, we'll circle back to you, but I just wanted to give Councilor Zimmerman and Councilor Smith a chance to ask their questions.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, thank you.
Um, this makes a lot of sense for me when I'm, when I'm talking about youth offenses, right?
As somebody who coached high school, like, this is just part of working with youth.
Brandon Brown
Right.
Eric Zimmerman
And I think that that makes a ton of sense to me.
Um, it gets harder for me when we're not clear about what types of crimes for adults.
And, and I'm trying to understand how to marry these 2 things up because I don't think it can be an all or nothing.
And so when we're talking about, uh, there are a few quotes that just got me, got me thinking.
It's like the relationship needs repair, but it left something to be desired.
It's like, but also there was a crime committed against someone, and sometimes there is no relationship there other than a random act of violence or what have you.
So in a victim's perspective, I don't need a relationship repaired with somebody I don't know necessarily.
There are times when I think that that video showed a really interesting experience, but I'm just trying to get a sense for, particularly with adults, what are the types of crimes or offenses or situations where this wouldn't be appropriate?
It might be— maybe that's a shorter list, maybe that's a longer list.
I'm actually not sure.
I'm curious what your gut—.
Brandon Brown
I'm going to be honest.
Um, yeah, so restorative justice work gets done all over the nation, not just here in Oregon.
And this has worked in murder cases.
There's not one type of case that you can't see restorative justice come across where it does not work.
It works everywhere, and it could work in all of the systems that we have implemented already.
Eric Zimmerman
So that, that tells me then it's important not to take statements like avoiding charges is not— that, that is not a prelude to restorative justice.
It means that that can happen later after charges have occurred, after sentences have occurred.
There are other aspects here.
I know you were raising your hand.
Please go ahead.
Cameron Hayes
Uh, yes, please.
So one of the number one things almost universally you'll hear victims say as one of their top priorities is to make sure this doesn't happen to anybody else.
And the thing is, is that incarceration, um, doesn't provide that, right?
It provides, um, a maybe a one definition accountability, but true accountability means internalizing the harm and living amends by, number one, not reoffending, right?
And so with everybody, I would say it's not necessarily the crime but the person, right?
If we look at people as a bell curve, you're gonna have this one portion over here that's just never gonna change, this portion that's gonna change no matter what, but this great majority of people need some help, right?
They need a process to internalize the harm and, and help along those ways.
And so I think as practitioners, we believe that the incarceration just causes more harm, and restorative justice at least has this major potential to bring healing to more or less degree.
And so that's why we as practitioners believe restorative justice is the best way to go.
Eric Zimmerman
That's really helpful.
Mindy Johnston
And I would like to add one more thing.
So we've also had cases where the survivor doesn't want it to go through the criminal justice system.
They still wanna see something happen.
They don't actually wanna engage, but they wanna see the responsible party be accountable.
So we've also used what we call surrogate victims.
So other survivors who have had a similar type of crime can basically volunteer with us and they come and engage in that restorative process with the responsible party.
And we've seen that with car theft, hate crimes.
Like, we've had a lot of cases where a surrogate will actually step in and it has the same success and impact as if you engaged the direct survivor of that crime.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, that kind of goes to my next question.
You had mentioned it's to, to make this more systemic, that it's not in the individual officer's hands to make a call.
And the question that popped up when you say that was, what about the individual or the group of victims and their position?
Because what if I as a victim just don't want to engage here?
Mindy Johnston
Then you don't have to.
Angelita Morillo
And I think that's the beauty.
Mindy Johnston
I I think what we would all say is we know that not every case is going to be appropriate for restorative justice.
We also see a sort of paternalistic system that thinks it knows best for survivors, and people don't always want that system.
And so we're giving people a choice, and they absolutely have the choice to engage.
And if they say no, or if even a case starts with restorative justice and it's unsuccessful, it's gonna go back to the system.
It doesn't just disappear.
Bob Day
Thank you.
Eric Zimmerman
I think that's a great point.
Mindy Johnston
Yeah, it's still— there's still accountability.
There's still something that happened that is going to be dealt with.
But also, like, we see a lot— some of the cases, it's like, is this case actually just going to get dismissed anyway?
But we— there was still a harm that happened.
And that's why all of us have this continuum of service, whether it's in community or connected to the criminal justice system.
At any point, there is a a branch to go to restorative justice.
Not everyone's going to want it, but a lot of people will want it, but they don't know it's an option.
Eric Zimmerman
And lastly, I think just, um, well, just 2 quick points.
I think one concern that I have on, on this, given that the title of your organization has Lutheran in it, do I have to engage with a religious service to access this?
Mindy Johnston
No, we're a nonprofit just like the YMCA, YWCA.
Eric Zimmerman
Well, there's a lot of nonprofits who have yeah.
Are related to religious services.
So I just, for my engagement in a criminal justice system to be reliant on my engagement with a religious system, that does raise a couple of just like, does that make sense concerns?
I offer it not, there's probably no fix in the room here.
I just say that that's one of those like, let me think about that a little bit.
Mindy Johnston
Yeah, we're a nonprofit.
It has faith-based roots, but we're a nonprofit that is, You know, serves everybody regardless of all the, you know, special class privileges.
And it is, you know, we know people sometimes will say, I'm not Lutheran.
It's like, we don't— it's okay.
You don't have to be Lutheran.
Eric Zimmerman
The balance between, the balance between, I think, is the hard part here, right?
I think that often we think about this, we think, what are the types of crimes that make sense?
What are the types of situations that make sense?
And I think that's the great balance that I've certainly not, when I was at the county or over here at the city, quite figured out.
I think that, um, you know, the last DA talked a lot about it and then kind of got walloped by the public in his reelection because it felt like things weren't— the, the most— the lower-level crimes weren't being dealt with in a way.
And it was, is this the— is this the reason?
Is this not?
How do you do both?
I appreciate that you said that if a person chooses not to engage with the restorative justice, that the charge still exists, the, the, the regular system still exists.
Loretta Smith
I—.
Eric Zimmerman
This balance is going to be the great balance for all chiefs and all sheriffs and all DAs and judges, frankly, going forward.
Um, thanks for that.
I appreciate kind of hearing this.
I think it will be a struggle because it, it doesn't seem like one way or the other is the answer at all.
I think we probably did decades of one way, but then maybe 4 years of trying it the other way, and that also kind of rebounded in a, in a funny way.
Brandon Brown
So thanks.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Thank you all for the presentation.
Um, just so that I'm, I'm caught up on everything, normally don't we generally have an RFP for this kind of work that we put into bureaus?
I, I was thinking, um, as I was listening to this, is this a part of Stephanie Howard's no, it's not.
Mindy Johnston
So we're all funded through the state grant through the Criminal Justice Commission, the Restorative Justice Grant.
Okay.
And then we have a tiny— Justice Forward has a little bit of money from Multnomah County Juvenile Services Division.
So I think that's part of the point Tristan was making is as a city, there's no money being put into this right now.
There's some, a tiny bit under $100,000 of county money.
And otherwise, this is all state money, and we've tried to get some engagement with the Office of Violence Prevention, and we have not been successful at that.
But it makes sense.
Loretta Smith
I think that would be— Chief, that would be an opportunity where we probably want to start this, because I think the impression that, that is given through this presentation is that we're doing— we're not doing something that we're supposed to be doing, but we generally don't do it until we actually have RFPs and have set up stuff.
And that's why I was wondering where this was coming from.
Mindy Johnston
Yeah, we all have MOUs.
So I think, you know, there's, there's 2 pieces.
There's a funding piece.
You need the funding to get the work going.
But what you actually need is MOUs and agreements with systems partners, which we have.
All the people working with systems partners have those official MOUs and benefit from—.
Loretta Smith
And you have one with the chief?
Mindy Johnston
Yes.
Loretta Smith
Okay, perfect.
In a— if you had a magic wand to wave around, what would be your first thing that you would want us to engage with you with?
Tristan Edwards
I think if I had a magic wand, I would want every survivor and I think another piece of it, more kind of more practically in terms of what can the City Council do, is to continue to follow up on these relationships.
I think in particular, the relationship between Lutheran and Portland Police Bureau because of the relationship with the city, to check in and to see how is the development going?
Have there been advances made?
Edith Thrower
And I think that's something that we can continue to do.
Tristan Edwards
The relationship has existed for 4 years, close to 4 years, and there have been continuing struggles to get a consistent stream of referrals into the program.
And so I think— and the same goes for partnerships with the District Attorney's Office.
And I think what we are seeing is that it needs more support and accountability and oversight from our local government.
And when we stand up and say that there are restorative justices available in Portland, that means something real.
Loretta Smith
And so I think a better— I think that's great, we can do that as well, but we no longer are responsible for bureaus anymore, and the police bureau is under the mayor's office and the city administrator.
And so that relationship that you're talking about, I think, is important.
Talking about, I think it's going to have to come first with those 2 parties first to see what that looks like.
And I'm not sure what the MOU says or what, what the requirement— I'm behind the 8-ball on this.
I'm not sure what the, what the MOU says in terms of what our relationship will be, if there's a guaranteed number of how many referrals are done a month, or if there's a guaranteed number of how much money that we're going to put into it, because we're the money side of it.
They have to be the one that implement it.
We don't get to tell them what to do anymore.
So, so that's why I'm trying to figure out the connection.
But I do understand what you're saying, because I think that restorative justice is necessary and it's needed, and it is really helpful in terms of making sure that folks, when they re-enter the community, that they have opportunities to not just survive, but they can thrive in a community that is welcoming and that has opportunities for them too.
So that is, that is where I sit.
That's why I do the summer jobs program.
That's why I try to do the apprenticeship program so that folks can get placed in these kinds of things where they can get living wage jobs and, and have those relationships.
So I think we We do play a part in trying to make sure relationships are going, but at the end of the day, I just want you to know that I think the MOU is where you start and getting some of that language in there that makes sense so you can have a definite number.
And it's not as— it seems like it's a voluntary thing right now.
Tristan Edwards
Well, I mean, part of part of the issue that we've had is that we've had memorandums of understanding with DA's office, with Portland Police Bureau for many years.
And we've learned that having signatures on a piece of paper simply isn't sufficient to making these referrals come through in a way that is meaningful.
Loretta Smith
Right.
Tristan Edwards
One thing that I'll offer, similar conversations have been happening on the county side during their budgeting process.
And the county did end up passing a budget note with $250,000 of contingency funding, which is associated with a workgroup that they're developing to examine these relationships and try to, you know, have the county play a role in figuring out how do we get referrals into these programs.
Bob Day
Right.
Tristan Edwards
And I think any support that we can have from the county, from the city, in terms of, you know, asking questions and also being involved in making sure that these system relationships are real relationships where they're functioning is going to be helpful.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, I think so.
And going forward, because we just approved all of our amendments and budgets, budget notes last week, which are gonna be ratified this week.
And I don't know that there's any space for that for this '26-'27 year.
So I think you have to work backwards and make sure that you have those conversations early on, because we were, you know, in the, in the police budget, their, their training dollars were cut, um, by $5 million.
Their PS3s were cut by 23, 26 folks.
So, um, the, the budget is small, and so for us to direct at this point— I'm I can't promise the direction for this point because we're finished and we're past that.
But in terms of going forward, I think you keep talking to us and putting the pressure on us to see what can we do.
Because I don't like— this is what I don't like.
I don't like us having conversations with community groups and giving them the impression that we can do something that we can't.
And if we can't do it, then we should say that we can't do it.
But to lead you on and to have this conversation, I, I don't think it's right.
So for me, um, either we say we can't do it or we're not going to do it, it's not going to be meaningful, or it is, and, and then we move on to something else.
So, um, being a member of this, of this committee, that's what I would like to see us and how we move around in the community and how we're being helpful in making sure that we're we're being a very transparent partner.
So thank you for coming.
Earl Riley
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
I just wanted to say that one of the things I had in mind when I asked for this panel is that last year we had a discussion in this committee and also at LPSIC about the fact that there was a tool that the police weren't really thinking of very much, which is extreme risk protection orders to take guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves or others.
And Portland was underutilizing that tool, and it might have happened without this committee looking at it, but we helped shine a light on that tool.
And since then, the Police Bureau has dramatically increased its use of it.
And I think that we've just heard Chief Day say that he is interested in improving this relationship, and I'm hoping, although Very sensitive to Councilor Smith's point about the police not having much money for training.
I'm hopeful that this will lead to further engagement by the police bureau with Mindy's folks, and we might see simply from raising the issue some actual results.
I want to— I think at this point we know we're not gonna get to psychedelics, but I do wanna wrap this up in the next couple minutes.
Councilor Murillo, last word.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
And yeah, I presume we're not going to be getting to that final item today.
I think that there— our budget is part of what we prioritize, and a $5 million cut to training within PPB's budget does not mean that we don't have the expansive budget to do this type of work.
So I think that's going to be a decision for the Bureau to make if Council is not going to be adjusting all of that individually.
I will say I hope that the community referrals are the biggest aspect of this because I was a little bit disturbed to hear that school resource officers were being used as like a key point of referrals for juveniles because it's my understanding from all the statistics that I've read that school resource officers tend to target Black and brown youth, particularly Black youth, more than any other demographic.
And so the idea that the same institutions that that are biased against the people who need these restorative justice practices the most, it doesn't really make sense to me about how that would work out as far as those referrals go.
And that's not, you know, shame to any individual school resource officers or anything like that.
It is a system that is harming individuals.
But these things, we're talking about the school-to-prison pipeline.
So I would love, and clearly there's an appetite to have more of this conversation, so I hope that you guys get an opportunity I have way more questions to ask than we have time for today.
But, you know, I want to hear about how those referrals work when the people that we're depending on referrals from are not necessarily engaged in this system in the ways that they should be.
But thank you so much for your time today.
Really appreciate your presentations.
Tristan Edwards
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Councilor Kanal, very quickly.
Sameer Kanal
I just had a question about if there is a numerical goal for the number of referrals or for the I was hoping that we could get an answer on that, um, in terms of the next year or so, or even if it's a 2-year goal.
Mindy Johnston
We would be so happy to get 15 to 20 cases in a year.
Last year we had 1 referral, so anything is going to be an improvement.
Sameer Kanal
I, I appreciate that, and I apologize for not being clear on that.
I was actually— I really am I'm glad that you gave it from your perspective.
I was hoping to hear from Chief Day what their numerical goal is as well.
Steve Novick
Yeah, Chief Day, my guess is you don't have a numeric goal, but you want to take a shot at that?
Bob Day
No, I'm going to say I don't have a goal.
Yeah, thank you, but we'll keep in the conversation.
Thank you very much.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you all very, very much.
I really appreciated this.
Really appreciate it.
You're making the time to be here.
Appreciate it, Chief Day, taking the time to be here.
Could the clerk read the next item?
Tristan Edwards
Item number 3, document number 2026-201, Focused Intervention Team Community Oversight Group.
Steve Novick
Thank you very much.
And actually, I don't have a list of who wants to speak first, so Uh, whatever you've pre— whatever you— whatever you've predetermined about who wants to go first, uh, take it away.
Edith Thrower
Okay, thank you.
And get our PowerPoint loaded.
Greetings and good morning.
Thank you for, uh, allowing the Focus Intervention Team Community Oversight Group to present during Gun Violence Awareness Month, and thank you especially, Councilor Novak, for squeezing us into your agenda so quickly.
We greatly appreciate that.
My name is Edith Thrower.
I am the program manager for the Focus Intervention Team Community Oversight Group, um, FITCOG for short.
And to my immediate left is Earl Riley.
He is the vice chair of the FITCOG.
And he will also, uh, be presenting, um, as well as Commander Crooker from, uh, PPB, also command, among many other things, the focus intervention team.
Uh, Ladaquan Watley— I just want to mention this— is the chair of the FITCOG, and he had a family emergency, um, and pretty tragic, actually.
So we're keeping him in our thoughts, or else he would be doing what I'm doing this morning.
I want to acknowledge another member of our team who will not be speaking today, but who is present to support us, and that's Liz Taylor back there.
And you've— many of you have seen her in City Council.
Angelita Morillo
Next slide.
Edith Thrower
So I'm going to pass the baton to Earl Riley, the vice chair, and he will lead us in our discussion and, uh, and defer to me when he needs to.
Um, again, thank you.
Um, I would like to say, uh, this, uh, the impetus for us being here is that we don't think okay, I'm sorry, the commander is going to go first.
Oh, thank you.
Steve Novick
Is that—.
Edith Thrower
We, we were, we were not certain that you knew, um, about us.
We wanted you to see our beautiful smiling faces, and we wanted to get to know you and for you to get to know us, and in my opinion, the important work that this team does.
Commander?
James Crooker
All right, thank you, Edith.
Uh, good morning, everybody.
This is, uh, A good opportunity to highlight this collaboration that's been going on for a few years now, so I appreciate it.
My name is James Crooker.
I'm the commander of the Specialized Resources Division, which includes a number of units including the Focused Intervention Team, the Enhanced Community Safety Team, CERT, and our NIBIN program.
In 2021, the City of Portland experienced a gun violence crisis that was unlike anything that we had ever seen before.
Shootings reached record levels.
With 1,315 shootings in that year.
And I was approached and asked to create a team focused on gun violence, which later became known as the Focused Intervention Team.
It was clear that we needed to start this team differently than we had used in any other approach previous.
It had to be tailored around the community's needs and our legal environment while following the best practices in gun violence this required collaboration with a number of partners and a real investment in education in the discipline of gun violence reduction.
The FIT team was built to have a data-driven and investigation-driven approach with accountability and legitimacy at the heart of all of their interactions with the community from the very beginning.
The Focused Intervention Team Community Oversight Group, or FITCOG, was created alongside FIT as a partner to ensure that the community's voice and legitimacy were built into every strategy.
The FITCOG was not an afterthought.
FITCOG was designed as a core part of our model.
In January of 2022, the newly developed FIT team began its work.
To this day, it remains the only uniformed team in the Portland Police Bureau whose full-time mission it is to address gun violence.
FIT officers develop deep, real-time knowledge of gun violence trends, groups in conflict, and active investigations including homicides.
In addition to ongoing community feedback, they receive ongoing enhanced training in a variety of topics including touch DNA collection and a number of other areas which I can go into during the Q&A session if needed.
The FIT team works closely with our NIBIN coordinator and our Strategic Services Division to identify and prioritize repeat, repeat crime guns.
So those are guns that are involved in more than one shooting.
This focus is why FIT regularly attends high-risk events such as funerals, parades, and large gatherings with a history of violence or the likelihood of retaliation.
They are very effective at interrupting the cycle of violence wherever they go.
The FIT officers also participate in biweekly shooting reviews with a number of partners, including the U.S. Attorney's Office, The FBI, neighboring agencies, the DA's office, the ceasefire partners, and a number of other partners.
An important internal Portland Police Bureau partnership to highlight is the relationship between the FIT team and the Enhanced Community Safety Team.
Can you hear me?
Mindy Johnston
Yes.
James Crooker
All right.
The important relationship between PPB's FIT team and ECST Their collaboration has strengthened the investigative capacity in both units.
ECST now generates the highest volume of missions for our CERT team, which increased from 114 missions in 2021 to 222 in 2025, and I believe that'll exceed 300 this year.
These are almost all search warrants and arrest warrants related to gun violence cases, and every single time we execute one of these, it has an immediate impact in stopping ongoing gun violence with At this point in 2024, we had already begun seeing significant reductions of gun violence from its peak.
And at this point in 2024, we were at 30 homicides year to date.
As of now in 2026, we continue to improve.
We are currently at 11 as, as I'm sitting here right now.
And all of the partners that I've mentioned in this introduction are extremely busy with those cases.
Thank you.
And focused on trying to prevent any more cases from occurring.
FITCOG members have participated in every FIT officer selection process since the team was created.
That includes the sergeant positions.
The chair and the vice chair joined me in Florida for a week-long executive law enforcement training through the FBI's Project Safe Neighborhoods program, and the Portland Police Bureau and the City of Portland have also invested in sending leaders in in the Bureau as well as other parts of the city to the University of Chicago's Policing Leadership Academy for a 6-month-long master's level program focused on the latest practices in gun violence reduction.
FIT is critical to implementing these strategies with our partners.
FIT and the FITCOG meets regularly so that these strategies and community-police interactions are continuously discussed and reviewed through a lens of legitimacy.
FIT is the only uniformed PPB member that has such direct relationship with the community group, constantly shaping and improving community interactions while engaging in this extremely dangerous work.
Treating the community with respect, dignity, and fairness remains central to the FIT team's work.
The FIT COG helps to keep us accountable to that standard.
These integrated public safety partnerships have resulted in shooting incidents dropping from 1,315 documented shootings in 2021 to 574 in 2025.
And I didn't write this down, but in April we just experienced the lowest number of shootings that brought us back to pre-2019 levels.
And just today I received a report showing that our shootings for the month of May were below 40, and that's, I think, the 4th consecutive month below 40 that we've seen.
And in the previous 5 years, I think we only saw that one time.
While we've made real progress, gun violence does continue to have a lasting impact on individuals and on our community.
There is still more work to do, and I'd like to thank the FITCOG's current and past members for their selflessness in volunteering for this civic partnership.
I'll be available after the presentation for questions.
With that, I'll turn it back over to Edith or Earl.
Earl Riley
Thank you very much.
My name is Earl Riley, Vice Chair of FITCOG.
FITCOG launched on June 23rd, 2019.
21 Members recruited by City Council and, you know, neogov, but officially appointed by the mayor.
Members have varying backgrounds, like the— I believe our vice chair and chair before was Edward— Pastor Edwards and Kim.
And then we had Terrence Hayes, who also ran for City Council.
And Dr. Gina Rowland.
And then we preceded me, Juma and myself.
Let's see, people with lived experience.
I came in with lived experience.
Juma also is a community member as well.
We assist with recommendations to reduce gun violence through prevention and intervention and response.
Actively recruiting right now.
I'll just speak off of that.
I would say I personally have helped and called and emailed lieutenant.
Just being a community member, I've emailed and called Lieutenant and talked with him because I've gotten information from community members who have seen gun violence and have been involved and I was able to call and let them know about activity that goes on in the community.
A little bit about myself, I was also involved in gang violence at a young age.
I've been through the system.
So it was a little bit hard for me at first being on this, on this committee and doing ride-alongs because Of course, there was a mistrust when it came to dealing with the PBB or Portland, the police.
So working with FITCOC has helped me, I believe, gain more trust with PBB.
I'm able to go on ride-alongs, go to roll calls, and be able to comfortably sit and talk with them and talk about issues in the community.
And I will say FIT has made it very, very easy working with some of the officers, understanding because they understand and want to understand, and they have the compassion to want to understand and deal with the community and work with the community.
We go to the next slide.
What's that?
Edith Thrower
It's down there, but we can go straight to current projects.
You wanna talk about the FITCOG?
Earl Riley
No, we can go to current projects.
All right, so current projects right now, we have a survey that we have developed that basically has a scan you can scan in, and we put it out in the community, and the community basically have given us feedback on what they see in certain areas.
We put the actual survey in different demographics, like people who live in higher earning communities and lower earning communities.
And we've got pretty much the same feedback.
They want to see a change and—.
Eric Zimmerman
For what?
Angelita Morillo
General feedback.
Earl Riley
Yeah, uh, the respondents from a wide range of Portland neighborhoods describe regular exposure to shootings, stabbings, overdose, uh, break-ins and thefts, street racing, frequent police and emergency responses, uh, and, uh, excuse me, strong support for combined approach and accountability and provision, uh, prevention.
There's no single preferred solution, and residents consistently expressed support for outreach events, block parties, foot patrols, regular non-crisis engagement, and being able to recognize and know officers, which leads to a recommendation that PB— the COG came up with and discussed with PBB about the patches.
So now FIT-COG does have patches that are— they can be identified in the community when they're out and serving the community, which I think helps a lot.
It kind of helps them stick out like a sore thumb when it comes to them doing work in the community and going to events.
People know who the FIT officers are.
Mindy Johnston
All right.
Tristan Edwards
Service activities.
Earl Riley
Our service activities, we do things like ride-alongs.
We go to, we go to let's see, the roll calls, uh, we do it.
Community engagements, we invite the FIT officers out to community engagements.
They're very active in the community.
Edith Thrower
Um, get back, see this.
Earl Riley
Okay, in the beginning of— sorry guys, I'm, I'm trying to read this.
Uh, in the beginning of August 1st, 2025, a FIT, uh, FIT COG workgroup recommended in lieu of 2 FITCOG meetings per month.
That member engaged in a service activity to enhance learning and build relationships and inform recommendations.
For example, if we— if you choose, you could discuss some of the activities below.
We go on ride-alongs, attend a FIT roll call, we participate in FIT interviews, we the COG, the vice chair and the chair himself, we actually are very active in interviewing new FIT officers.
And also we interview some members that come onto the COG as well.
We do one-to-one with FIT officers, one-on-ones with FIT officers, relevant neighborhood associations and community meetings or events.
We attend other city public safety advisory body meetings or events, Community Police Academy, citizen review committee meetings, police review board meetings, Portland Committee and Community Engaged Policing meetings, training advisory council meetings, police equity advisory council meetings, and community board for police academy meetings.
Edith Thrower
All right.
Okay, uh, thank you, Earl.
Um, and so, and those are just some of the things that they, that they can do, and, um, and, and all to, uh, gather information, build relationships, and build up, build their learnings to inform their recommendations.
So, um, the, the group thought it was more practical, uh, a better use of time to engage in these service activities.
Um, I would like to share another current project of the FITCOG, and that is that a direct, um, observation assessment tool for ride-alongs.
And I, I won't go over the tool unless you ask me specific questions.
I did bring it with me.
However, what that encompasses, it's, it's intended to support FITCOG's oversight and learning by capturing capturing high-level observations about how the FIT engages with the community and partners.
It is not intended, however, to evaluate individual officers or document specific incidents.
And they're careful to avoid overreach into operational and personnel-level evaluation.
Many of our members have been on ride-alongs, and it is pretty much required that they do it on a regular basis, again, to gain learning, to enhance their learning, to inform their recommendations, to be able to better engage with the officers and, uh, make suggestions about how they police.
Loretta Smith
Another—.
Edith Thrower
I'm sorry, could you go back to the previous slide?
The performance dashboard, um, assesses whether FITCAG is an effective oversight and advisory body.
So the dashboard is in the works.
It will likely be an interactive Excel dashboard but will include the repeatable survey that Earl, uh, spoke of earlier, uh, the repeatable community impact survey.
And it will also include information gathered from the ride-alongs that Earl also noted.
Together with this dashboard to include information that is gathered from the community, to include information that is gathered during ride-alongs, this group believes that it will be able to track its own effectiveness as an advisory body, assess community-level impact of the focus intervention team, The fit and systemically or systematically capture learning from direct observation activities.
This approach is consistent with the intent to support data-informed recommendations, community temperature checks, and continuous improvement, and builds directly on the findings from the themes identified in the community engagement survey that Earl referenced earlier.
Um, The data collected, however, and I wanna note, is unofficial and for the express purpose of informing recommendations.
PPB collects data, as you know, and that is obviously official public safety data, whereas this is designed to inform FITCOG recommendations.
Sorry, I didn't bring my glasses.
Another, another, uh, another current project is, uh, forming community partnerships with community-based organizations that share FITCAG's mission.
So a memorandum of agreement is underway in a subcommittee and being crafted for, uh, city attorney's review, after which community partnerships will be formed with a view toward expanding community outreach and learning more about community public safety concerns.
And there have been several community groups who have expressed an interest in partnering with the FITCOG, like Dads Helping Dads, Elate for Youth, Black Men in Training, just for example, and there are many more.
So we're, we're really excited about that.
As you may know, the FITCOG has met all around the city and all around the county trying to get in areas, trying to get in the troubled areas, uh, trying to engage those communities.
And sometimes we have a— we, we gather a big crowd, sometimes they gather a very small crowd.
So they came up with the idea of partnering with organizations to help, um, inform the community better about, um, what the FITCOG is doing, what the FIT is doing, and also to get, uh, to better assess their concerns around public safety.
Earl also talked about, um, participating in FIT interviews.
So the FITCOG has been allowed the privilege and honor of participating in interviews where 2 members typically sit on an interview panel to interview officers and sergeants.
They've been doing this, I think, since the very beginning of the group.
And Earl, I don't know, you've been in an interview.
Can you share your interview experience?
Earl Riley
I've only interviewed, I believe, just COG members.
I've never had the opportunity to really interview officers.
I believe that was just Juma.
Edith Thrower
Some of the questions that they ask in these interviews of fit officers and sergeants are, what are your strategies for building trust with the community?
Describe a time you had a difficult dispute and what was the outcome.
Questions are already prepared for the officers by the FIT.
However, FITCOG members are allowed to ask questions.
So the ongoing compact survey, the service activities in lieu of a monthly meeting, the direct observation assessment tool for ride-alongs, the FITCOG performance dashboards to assess FITCAG's effectiveness and forming community partnerships with community-based organizations are just a few of the current projects on the table with the FITCAG.
Currently, there are 2 recommendations being considered by the mayor's office.
Loretta Smith
Earl?
Earl Riley
One is for— excuse me.
A formal FIT training needs assessment and historical respiratory.
Enhance FIT's legitimacy through varied experience and community trust.
And informal is uniform patches, which we already went over.
One of those, enhance FIT's legitimacy through varied experiences and community trust, is one that I wrote myself.
Bob Day
Councilor Smith.
Earl Riley
It's basically wanting to keep what we have as far as the dynamic of FITS legitimacy and what they're doing right now, because they are doing a great job.
And lived experience, having that mirror the communities that they are policing, specifically the Black and brown communities.
So that's the gist of it.
I know we're working with Law and Equity right now to kind of change some of the verbiage because I kind of want a little ham in that.
But we're working on it.
Currently, it looks like the FIT training needs assessment historical proposal, it's already been on the table and approved.
The second one that we're working on right now.
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Edith Thrower
And I can speak to the training needs assessment.
Strategic Training Plan, COG Collaboration Model, Community-Based Training Standards, and Historical Learning Repository recommendation that was submitted to the mayor late last year.
I'd like to quote PPB first, and then I can let you know the, the impetus behind this recommendation.
Law enforcement on patrol face a particular challenge pertaining to skill perishability especially with events that are high stress and low frequency in nature, as they are forced to make split-second decisions in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving.
These decision points are analyzed through the totality of circumstances and reasonableness of the officer's actions.
Continual training is critical to ensure that officers can perform at their best under these unpredictable and complicated circumstances.
PPP Training Bureau Division 2024.
In 2024 also, the Portland Police Bureau's Training Division completed a comprehensive bureau-wide training needs assessment.
This assessment affirmed that PP— that the PPP Training Division does not create or oversee FIT-specific training, although FIT officers enter their role with varying degrees of training.
In fact, they complete 65 additional hours to participate, um, as officers in the FIT.
There is no standardized training framework for FIT officers, nor a pathway for ongoing professional development or reduction— or, um, or the reduction of perishable skills.
So that's how they came up with the recommendation for a training needs assessment and a strategic plan going forward.
Uh, currently we have a subcommittee meeting with FIT officers and 2 consultants, uh, retained by the FIT to determine, uh, the needs assessment and, and the strategic plan going forward.
So we're very happy about that recommendation and that, that, that was approved by the mayor's office to move forward.
That is a photograph of an officer, um, I believe Officer Trummer.
Earl Riley
Mr. Trummer, yeah.
Edith Thrower
Uh-huh.
And on the back of his his uniform or vest is the patch that we talked— that Earl mentioned earlier, that was approved by PPB.
So they are readily identifiable in communities.
And that was what we like to refer to as an informal recommendation by the FIT COG, but that was formalized by PPB.
Angelita Morillo
Next slide.
Edith Thrower
I apologize, Earl, I cannot see that.
Earl Riley
I can read it for you.
2 Bodies, one mission.
The FIT, Focused Intervention Team, PBV's specialized unit deployed to neighborhoods hit hardest by gun violence.
FIT builds relationships, responds to gun-related violence, intervenes before violence erupts, and responds with both enforcement and outreach.
The FITCOG Community Oversight Group, the independent community body that oversees FIT, ensuring that strategies are equitable and just and accountable.
FITCOG is the reason Portland's gun violence response has community trust behind it.
Relationship between FIT and the FITCOG.
FITCOG provides guidance and mentorship to the FIT to reduce gun violence.
This unique approach to community policing could easily become a national model.
Oversight bodies like FITCA independently lend their support to enhance police accountability, transparency, and rebuild public trust with a view toward continuous improvement, collaboration amongst our teams, and crucial next slide.
Meetings and cadence.
We have hybrid meetings on the 3rd Thursday of each month from 6 to 8.
Quarterly listening sessions are held 4 times per year.
Annual retreat planning sessions, January or February annual meetings our next meeting will be with FIT COP meeting will be community listening session at East Portland Community Center multipurpose room from 6 to 8.
Questions?
Edith Thrower
I'd like to make one more comment about the rec— there are 2 recommendations on the table.
Wanted to be clear, one's regarding training, one's regarding the structure of the FIT.
Earl talked a little bit about it.
He was the crafter of the proposal for the recommendation to enhance the focus intervention team's legitimacy through varied experiences and accessibility.
I know that's a mouthful, but basically what it boils down to is putting the right team together to address communities, to be able to to approach communities, be received by communities, so that these officers can do their work effectively.
So they recommended that they prioritize varied experiences within the structure and operations, as it's essential to build legitimacy, trust, and collaboration with impacted communities.
And this is currently before the mayor's office, as Earl Earl said that we're meeting with both representatives from the Law Department as well as Equity to kind of frame the recommendation a little differently.
Earl was very passionate about the recommendation, and so we probably included some things that we can use in another way for another purpose.
And so that is something that we're We're very proud of.
And he doesn't— he didn't read this, but I'm going to read it because he wrote it.
And I, and I think we can conclude on this and then answer your questions thereafter.
As a young man who grew up on the South Side of Chicago and lived on the streets of Gary, Indiana, I didn't just witness gun violence, I was a part of it.
I was a gang member, and I have dealt with the police more times than I can count.
Most of those times I wasn't on the right side of the law.
However, even, even when I was, I still faced the discrimination and stereotypes that come with the color of my skin.
I know exactly what it feels like to look at the— look at a uniform and see an enemy.
But for the last 2 years, serving as a leader within the FITCOG, my perspective has been forced to change.
I have gone on ride-alongs I have watched these officers do the street work, not just making arrests, but knowing the families, talking to mothers on their porches, and building real relationships with the children in our communities.
I am living proof that when the police look like the community they serve, and by look like, that means have— Without trying to—.
Earl Riley
Oh, sorry.
Edith Thrower
I'm sorry, that means have attributes that are appropriate for the work and the body of work that they do.
Trust isn't just a word, it's a result, end quote.
Earl Riley.
So the short of it is that this is working.
It's a great platform.
And I love the quote that Earl, or the statement Earl made about this potentially being a national model.
Actually, we, we borrowed that from a FIT officer, Lieutenant Dullio.
He used to always say it in meetings because no one's doing this.
I would also like to note this is the only oversight body within PPB.
Um, they, they decided early on to approach this work, um, collaboratively.
And so we, we want— we thank you for your continued support of the FIT and the FITCOG and are happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Steve Novick
Thank you so much.
Councilor Smith, is that a legacy hand or is that for this?
Loretta Smith
It, it was a legacy hand, but I do have a question in terms of being able to continue this training.
Do you see any issues with the reduced training dollars that were I defer to the commander.
James Crooker
I expected there to be a question about training, so I brought the annual training schedule for the FIT team, uh, that it goes from January to December, uh, that annual training.
So, you know, the Police Bureau puts a pretty high premium on training.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any other agency that's similar to ours that has as much of an emphasis on training as we do.
Right now we have, for the FIT team, in addition to the training that every officer receives, the FIT team receives an additional training day every month, which is fairly significant for a police organization.
So for the month, or for the year that we're in right now, calendar year, the curricula— I'm just going to read it directly off the special order for the current year.
And, you know, year after year, it's going to be something similar, building on what we have.
So for this year, we have officers receiving additional training on the FIT team in active threats, elevated-risk traffic stops, emergency entries, critical incident response, weapon range weapon drills, rescues, surveillance and follows, anti-bias and ABLE principles in shootings and gang investigations.
Introduction to tactical emergency casualty care provided by our Fire Bureau, investigative use of social media, crime scene management and evidence processing, the ceasefire model, which our FIT team works really closely with, control tactics, and training around wellness.
Particularly, they are exposed to a lot of sort of the highest profile calls that are experienced on the streets.
I don't know if that answers your question.
Getting into the budget is going to be outside of the scope of what I can answer for the next calendar year or the next fiscal year.
I can say that training has been a priority and will continue to be a priority.
And if we can squeeze training into the next year's calendar for the FIT team, we will.
And I don't think anything is going to— I don't see anything right now anyway that would stop us from doing that.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
You believe that you'll still be able to have a very aggressive training schedule?
James Crooker
Yeah, I can't imagine anything stopping us from doing that next year.
Now, I reserve the right to be wrong about that, of course, because I have bosses, but I think that right now we're gonna be able to squeeze this training calendar into the following calendar year and fiscal year as well.
Loretta Smith
Okay, I understand.
Thank you so much for all that you do.
Earl Riley
You're welcome.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Councilor.
I put myself in the queue to ask a couple of questions.
One is, and Commander, you just mentioned this, could you describe the relationship between FIT and the FITCOG and our ceasefire partners?
James Crooker
So there's a huge ecosystem of partners that are involved in gun violence reduction, and it's not just ceasefire, it's not just FIT, it's not just FITCOG.
There are other partners as well, and internally in the police bureau, we obviously have have strong partnerships between ECST and FIT and Homicide and Major Crimes and all the other investigative units and patrol officers who respond to the calls the moment the call happens.
But externally, outside of the Police Bureau, we have partners ranging from probation and parole, other law enforcement agencies in the area, and neighboring agencies.
We have a number of federal partners who routinely sit in on our weekly— or biweekly now— shooting reviews.
They include, you know, the U.S. Attorney's Office, And the FBI and a number of other partners.
So there are, as we see a shooting occur, there is an analysis on the likelihood for retaliation in that shooting, and our FIT team is present for all of those discussions.
And then those discussions turn into a conversation about which individuals are appropriate for referral for ceasefire services, which there's a wide range of services, and I know that you already had a meeting about that.
And so we partner really closely with Ceasefire to make sure that those call-ins— that we— they do regular call-ins and something called custom notifications.
If there's— if it would be inappropriate to bring a large group of people who are in conflict with each other into a meeting together, the Portland Police Bureau and the FIT team in particular partner with Ceasefire to ensure that we've identified the people for those events and probably the best way to be successful in those events with ceasefire.
Steve Novick
A really basic question.
How many officers are in FIT and how many members are there of the FITCOG?
James Crooker
Yeah, the FIT team has 12.
We're authorized to have 12 officers and 2 sergeants.
The police bureau is in a staffing crisis.
I think we all know that.
So we're not up to full staff right now, but that is what our authorized strength is.
Earl Riley
Uh, we can have up to 15, but we currently have 9, and we're actively doing interviews right now.
Edith Thrower
Regarding interviewing, I'd like to add that when they started— when they began this work, City Council members were permitted to submit names to the mayor.
I don't know why you haven't, but you are permitted to.
The mayor solely makes appointments, and, you know, we welcome your recommendations.
Currently, they've been taking recruitment applications off the NeoGov— from the NeoGov system.
However, you are welcome to make recommendations to the mayor for members to the FIDCAG, and we are actively recruiting.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
And Mr. Riley, I think that you talked about engagement with the Community Police Academy.
And I've gone through that a couple of times and I was just curious what that engagement is.
I mean, are you involved in like reviewing that and trying to figure out ways to make it more realistic or more valuable?
Just hold forth on that, please.
Earl Riley
I know we have been through several trainings there and it's just kind of like to get the COG kind of familiar with the trainings that FIT goes through and that the PBB goes through.
Edith Thrower
I'd like to add that we require this of every member of the COG.
It is, it is, it's part of their orientation to enter into the CPA, the, the commu— the Community Police Academy.
Um, everyone has reported a very— well, we've had mixed reviews.
Um, in fact, uh, we've— one of the recommendations came, um, out of a member's observation there, but pretty much, um, people Members have expressed, you know, gratitude for going.
Um, it's, it's, uh, very well done.
Um, and, um, and they, they've learned a lot about police practices.
So the, the group does support the academy.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Chair Novick.
Uh, thanks everybody for being here.
I appreciate the members that are all— I like the list of names you mentioned earlier Terrence and Gina and all the work that, that they've done.
Juma as well.
I appreciate the staff as well.
Edith, uh, good to see you.
Liz, good to see you.
Mila, Commander Crooker, and more.
Um, full disclosure before I start, I worked with FIT Cog and supported their work in my old job from July 2022 to October 2024.
Um, couple comments and I have a couple questions at the end.
I've done some ride-alongs, um, and one was with FIT with Officer Hubert specifically.
I look forward to doing one with ECST as well.
I think it was really helpful for me personally to see And understand a bit of the work.
I also appreciate, Commander Crooker, your point about the level of training.
I think that's a really important part of this conversation as well.
I understand that FITCOC was not an afterthought.
I kind of saw the beginning of that development.
I hope that next time we talk about it, we can talk about from PPB getting some context as to why the FIT's predecessors, which did not have an attached oversight group, were not as successful.
Thank you.
I think that comparison point would be helpful.
Also why they didn't continue, meaning I'd like the history as to why there wasn't a dedicated gun violence reduction-oriented team at PPB at the time that the choice was made to create the FIT.
FIT and ECST are examples of PPB focusing on a primary priority that I think is a consensus in this community, responding to gun violence and reducing the recurrence of it.
The last topic raised issues of changing away from a culture of response or punishment to a culture of repair.
It raised a concern for me that we can't even get majority support on this council to ask PPB to prioritize within the responses on things like prioritizing human trafficking over protest response.
But FIT is a good example of that priority.
It is also the question of how that priority would be pursued.
And that's where I think that historical context would be helpful, as well as more information on the claim of no complaints.
That was a bit of a surprise to me.
I know there was an internal review.
On cases like that of Tyrone Johnson, for example.
And I, I might follow up for more information offline on that, um, and, and understand what you mean exactly by that.
Um, very interested in the FIT training needs assessment historical repository recommendation and the patches recommendation.
I'll probably follow up for more on that too.
Um, I just wanted to get on the record something that I wish I had understood when I started working with FITCOG, um, in my earlier years.
If anyone's looking at the word oversight Right.
In the name and thinking of it in a reactive way or a responsive way, an after-the-fact, let's hold you accountable for the thing that you did or didn't do kind of way.
That's, that's holding FITCOG to a standard that's not the standard of FITCOG.
It's not the point.
I think that what I learned during it is that FITCOG is more actively involved during the conversation and, and frankly prior to many of the occurrences that occur on a FIT officer shift.
They've at times called themselves a proactive oversight model, and I think that's really valuable to differentiate and very helpful to do.
I think you referred to it here as guidance and mentorship in the slides, and that's valid and it's valuable, and that's okay, and it's different from what like a CBPA offers.
So there's often a question of why is there a redundancy or something like that.
There isn't one.
They just happen to use the name oversight.
Oversight, the word oversight.
So I think it's really helpful to know it was good for me.
My questions.
Commander Crooker, you mentioned that there are an authorized staffing level of 2 sergeants and 12 officers.
A lot of the officers that have been with FIT have been there for a long time, but the sergeants I know have rotated.
Can you speak to how that works and what the— if there have been any impacts of that?
James Crooker
Yeah, I mean, maintaining continuity in a team when you have a change in supervision is always, you know, a challenge.
That's something that we pay attention to.
The FIT team also has, as a result of that, that we're currently working on a contract or a partnership with to make sure that we have enhanced training supervision for the lieutenant and the sergeants of the FITCOG.
I think for me, For me, because I was there from the beginning, the important thing is to understand what the mission and the goal of the team is and making sure that the sergeants, sergeants are probably the most important leadership rank in any organization, that line-level supervision is critical in making sure that we are going in the right direction.
And when we have sergeants come on, I make sure that we have really intentional conversations with those sergeants about the goal, the vision, the direction of what the team is, and ensuring that we adhere to that and that there is not a deviation from that into something that might seem easy to have happen in the absence of that close oversight.
And we've been very lucky in the fact that we've selected very capable and bright and engaging sergeants and so, you know, everybody's encouraged to look to the future and, you know, to build their career the way that they would like to build their careers and have a future in the Bureau the way that they'd like to have it.
And I think the FIT team is a really good launching board for a lot of supervisors to go on to bigger and better things in the organization.
And I don't want to stand in the way of that.
And so we just are very intentional about making sure that every time we have a new sergeant come in, that they they are following all of those sort of, you know, genesis documents to make sure that we stick to the principles that we started with, that you were part of a little bit of that.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, I appreciate that.
I think that relates to the historical repository side from the COG recommendation side too.
So that aligns.
Thank you for that.
Edith Thrower
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
With relation to the COG, 9 out of 15 are filled right now, as you mentioned.
Has anyone new been appointed since Mayor Wilson took office?
Edith Thrower
Yes, excuse me, yes, 4 members were appointed.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, this is one of the ones where, um, obviously Mayor Wilson has the right to appoint, um, and I think one of the things we haven't yet addressed, uh, and this is more for the administrator, is how we have the transparency around that.
Normally, um, a lot of advisory groups around the, the city, and this is, this is more than just an advisory group, so I, I think that's a a, a bar that we should exceed.
Um, we would do a report.
Um, and so I would love to, to talk about how we do that, because one of the great things, um, that happened in the last year or so is I— well, actually, let me confirm that.
Is funding now ongoing?
Edith Thrower
It is, and thank you.
Okay, well, that's premature, but pending the vote that occurs this week.
Sameer Kanal
Uh, so FITCOC's been one-time funded after one- Yeah.
And so if that goes through, I think that's really important and I'm supportive of it.
One thing though, I think FITCOG, other than the budget authorization, is primarily created through a set of press releases.
And I think getting things written down, including how we have that transparency into appointments, would be really helpful because I actually didn't know and I probably could have just asked a while ago.
It'd be helpful to know that.
And I think to ensure that the folks on this side of the dais are aware on a regularized basis as people are being appointed of the work.
In other words, I think there are levels of low to high profile within the ranks of volunteer groups in the city.
And we should probably take this one up at least a rung on the ladder.
And I think one of the ways to do that is the appointments.
And I think that's all I have right now.
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Councilor.
Seeing no one else in the queue, I really appreciate your reaching out to ask to come here.
And I'm one of the people that was woefully uninformed about the work of the FITCOG.
So I really, I in particular personally really appreciate it and look forward to continuing conversations.
Edith, was there something you wanted to add at the—.
Edith Thrower
One final comment.
We made a presentation before Mr. Lee.
It was a little more comprehensive than, than this presentation, um, but, uh, uh, we didn't have the time constraint.
Robert Taylor
His—.
Edith Thrower
After observing, um, our presentation and another advisory body's presentation, he asked, where do you see yourselves going from here?
And we were all like, well, you know, where?
Steve Novick
Where?
Edith Thrower
We're so involved in doing the work, we're not thinking about where we're going from here necessarily, but we're not thinking about an endgame.
To his point and to Councilor Kanal's point, we see ourselves, and I've discussed this both with the Vice Chair and the Chair, as being more proactive as opposed to reactive in this body of work.
One of the overall community sentiment in the ongoing survey that they're doing and what we've gathered so far is that residents describe gun violence as a related disorder as— I mean, I'm sorry, describe gun violence and related disorder as a real and persistent issue and expressed a strong desire for practical, balanced solutions rather than ideological positions.
So it behooves us to be proactive in our work.
And that's the goal.
That's the aim.
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Thank you so much.
We're now going to— the council president has waited patiently to talk about concealed carry.
By pursuant to the council president's directions, I need to give everybody a 12-minute break.
We will come back at 11:34.
I actually— excuse me.
Could you read the first item?
And then I am gonna wait a minute because I kind of think that we need most— we need more of us here, even though I said 11:34.
Tristan Edwards
Certainly.
Item number 4, document number 2026-123, amend code related to prohibitions on possession of firearms within certain city buildings to disallow affirmative defense for persons with concealed handgun licenses.
Amend City Code Sections 3.18.020, 14A60.010, and 20.12.050.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Mr. President, Mr. Harford, could you come up slowly?
I'm hoping at least one more councilor will join us.
Okay.
Now we got 4.
And it has been a while, so if you could give a recap of what the legislation is about and then describe the amendment that grows out of the last conversation we have.
Eben Harford
Absolutely.
I will do my very best.
Thanks all.
So in brief, there are pretty wide-ranging limitations on the kinds of weapons that you can have in a public building.
Michael
Under—.
Eben Harford
Until last year, concealed handguns were presumptively allowed in any public building in a public meeting.
It was an affirmative defense to any law that attempted to limit that.
In last year's long session, the legislature allowed localities to say, you know what, that affirmative defense of I have a concealed handgun, license on a city-by-city basis or a locality-by-locality basis, you can say, no, we don't want to have that anymore.
So late last year, Multnomah County instantiated that.
They said we're going to not have concealed handguns be allowed in public buildings where there is a public hearing.
So things like council chambers, the meeting space over where the planning commission meets yeah.
Jamie Dunphy
Et cetera.
Eben Harford
So the county did that last fall.
This ordinance does essentially the exact same thing for the city.
So it's specific to places where we have public meetings, which is this room, it's the 1900 building, and where there are official oversight bodies that meet in those spaces as well when those are stood up.
If it's in a public building, you wouldn't be able to have a concealed handgun there either.
And the actual code, there's 3 exhibits.
So it touches the law in 3 places.
You have rules of conduct at city property, which is Exhibit A.
So there's a number of weapons here that you can't have on city property.
And we add a bit of text that says the affirmative defense that says I have a concealed handgun license, that's not going to work anymore on city property.
Over in Exhibit B, I'll just say Exhibit A is the main event, and then there's a couple other places where there's lists of weapons you can't have places, and then we kind of true up the language in those spots.
So Exhibit B controls having a loaded firearm in a public place, which is something you can't do in Portland, and it basically ports in that same language.
So in case you read 14A-60-010 and thought that it maybe superseded the prohibition on having a gun in a public meeting.
It doesn't.
And then over in Exhibit C, we have the situation, public parks.
So parks also have a prohibition on carrying weapons.
It does the same thing, flies in that same language, says in the weird situation in which there was a you flew council chambers in the future into a public park once again.
This exemption, this affirmative defense does not apply here.
So everywhere where we have those lists of prohibited weapons, this mention of the affirmative defense is added.
So that's what this does.
Relatively narrow.
There's 2 things that came up in conversation at the last hearing.
Sameer Kanal
Yes.
Eben Harford
The first was around the exact way that Exhibit C was fixed up by the legal folks.
In that wording, we also added a reference to 14A-60-030, which is this sort of relatively new description of tear gas and pepper spray and tear gas canisters.
The way that this was worded would seem to make carrying pepper spray for personal protection, for personal defense, a mace canister or something like that, presumptively illegal in a park.
And if you're just passing through a park, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
So what the amendment does is it takes out the word tear gas, mace, and pepper mace, which are together in the first first prong, there's like 2 buckets of kinds of deleterious aerosol agent in the relevant code, and says, all right, that's not something we're going to list as presumptively illegal.
Instead, if you go up above, it would just categorize— be categorized as any object carried with the intent to threaten or cause bodily harm to another.
So if you're carrying that mace for your own protection, it should be okay.
If you're walking around with a, with a big can of bear mace threatening people, that would not be okay.
So that's what the amendment does, just, just trying to be responsive to the questions from the dais last time.
Finally, there was some concern from the dais in the last reading of this about whether employees of the city who had a concealed handgun license whether this would change their status of whether or not they could have their weapon with them while they were at work.
And we had a lot of back and forth about that.
We clarified in an email after the hearing that currently under HRAR 4.12, it's a condition of employment with the city that you can't have a dangerous or deadly weapon, which does include a handgun and specifically includes It doesn't matter whether you have a CHL or not.
And that's been law in the city.
We went back into the arc— sorry, you're right.
That has been administrative rule in the city or binding city policy, not law, since 2002.
That was when that was first passed in by council via ordinance.
And it's pursuant to the option of an employer to contract freely with an employee.
So that can be the conditions of contract.
Thank you.
Which is constitutionally protected as well.
Anyway, so that's what this is.
Thank you for listening to that somewhat long explanation, but hopefully we're all up to speed.
Loretta Smith
Bless you.
Steve Novick
Councilor Smith, is that a legacy hand or a new hand?
Loretta Smith
Thank you so much.
But currently, just so that we're clear, folks from the outside can come in here with their concealed weapon permit and they're allowed to come into City Hall?
Jamie Dunphy
Yes, members of the— sorry, for the record, uh, Jamie Dunphy, Portland City Councilor.
Uh, yes, currently under, under the existing rules, any member of the public who has a concealed handgun license can walk through City Hall and be able to come into a meeting in a public space.
Loretta Smith
But—.
Jamie Dunphy
But employees cannot.
Loretta Smith
But employees cannot.
Jamie Dunphy
Correct, unless otherwise explicitly described in their okay, and counselors cannot?
Correct.
Loretta Smith
Okay, just wanted to make sure because I saw some folks coming in with their concealed weapon permit.
I was like, okay, thanks.
Steve Novick
I have a question about— I think, Mr. Harper, you're talking about buildings where there are public meetings like the 1900 Building and City Hall.
When I look at the language, it refers to buildings owned or controlled by the city for use for official meetings.
And that would seem to me to include any official meeting, whether the public is invited or not.
Eben Harford
I would have to defer to the lawyers on that one.
If we have legal counsel here, we may not.
But if you'll give me a second to look into the code, I can try to answer that question a little better.
Steve Novick
I confess that one of the reasons I was interested in that is I was looking for some reason at the concealed carry rules in Oklahoma, and they ban concealed carry in buildings which I think involve meetings that the public is involved in.
So I was curious as to whether this is the same as that or different.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
I am really, really hoping that I just want to make sure that everybody who's going to take a vote on this can think about some of the terms that we're using and that we have our kind of our facts and ducks in a row in terms of what it is that you're, you're considering taking here.
Last time it was almost confusing listening to this panel and the presenters talk about what it meant to have a concealed weapon, and it was so bad that it almost seemed like people thought folks were walking in here with visible weapons.
Brandon Brown
I think that's a good point.
Eric Zimmerman
And that isn't the case, right?
And I think that I last time cited that in 5 years there were 3 incidents, or it was in 3 years there were 5 incidents, something along those lines.
And in those cases, a person was stopped at our metal detectors, proved that they had a legal right to carry, and that's the end of the story because they were carrying a firearm legally.
Thank you.
Part of the idea of a concealed carry permit is that you've gone through the required local sheriff, you know, steps to get that, which is another way of saying you've followed the law.
The state's previous ability to have the affirmative defense, I guess I don't understand the rush.
Well, Councilor Dunphy, to change something.
I'm not sure what's not working.
I'm not sure what you're trying to solve here with respect to now that cities can get rid of that affirmative defense for those people who have chosen to say, I'm going to put my name on a public registry that says I have a, a concealed weapons permit and I've followed the law, why it is that they're your target versus illegal gun owners or people who seek to do violence?
Because I'm not seeing the connective tissue right now.
And I wasn't understanding what was broken prior to this state action that you're trying to fix now that the state has said, if you want to, cities, you can do it.
What are you trying to solve here?
Jamie Dunphy
Yeah, I mean, philosophically, I'm trying to have no guns in City Hall.
Eric Zimmerman
Does that work for— I mean, I get that.
I have that same desire.
Yeah, but there's— so there's, there's 2 people on either side of you right now who are carrying guns, and there's a few people outside who are carrying guns solely for the fact that sometimes people don't give a damn about what law you just said, right, or just passed.
So what about this keeps a person intent on doing violence from doing violence?
Jamie Dunphy
Yeah, well, as I, I think I said last time I was here, And a philosophical argument that I learned was that 75% of people won't— don't need a law to do what's right, and 10% of people won't ever do what's right no matter what the law.
And so we're governing for the 15%.
And you're right, absolutely, we do need to have police.
We need our security to be able to keep us safe, and we need additional tools at every level in order to be able to make sure that that is the case.
This seems to me, you know, first of all, not a rushed situation as the state we passed it last year, and in the time since then, the Oregon Health Authority, the Oregon Youth Authority, the Oregon Department of Administrative Services, Port of Portland, Multnomah County have all passed this as a rule for their public bodies.
So we're actually a little bit behind.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, so let's be clear.
Angelita Morillo
Yeah.
Eric Zimmerman
Rules and laws are very different.
Bob Day
Sure.
Eric Zimmerman
Am I incorrect?
Are you trying to pass a rule, which is just enforceable by, you know, an HR thing, or are you trying to pass a law, Councilor?
Jamie Dunphy
Yeah, this is an ordinance.
Eric Zimmerman
I am trying to the Oregon Health Authority doesn't pass laws.
James Crooker
Correct.
Eric Zimmerman
The Oregon Youth Authority doesn't pass laws.
They pass policy in their place.
The reason— this is what I'm hoping folks will really gear into— is I appreciate that there are policies, and those are, those are applicable to the extent that that policy hits.
But what you're asking to do is change a law.
Bob Day
Yes.
Eric Zimmerman
And so if a person violates this law in the future, What type of crime will they be guilty of or accused of?
Eben Harford
All the way through this, at the very end of the process, there is a felony charge.
Eric Zimmerman
A felony, folks.
So in their presentation, they tried to equate an HR policy, which, you know, any employee is going to take that into their— and, you know, I drove a county car once over the speed limit.
I violated policy.
By God, slap me with a felony.
My point is, let's not conflate the two.
And I think you are conflating the two in a manner that is kind of disrespectful, frankly, to people who have chosen to follow the law and get a permit.
And so an HR policy is fine to have, but a felony, a felony for otherwise doing what the state has said Here's how you will have— here's how you follow the law.
And so I am just asking us to please take a look at what this means.
I want to give you one example from the staff one which they just presented.
They're, they're making some changes.
And last time we talked a lot about mace, pepper spray.
Hell, I think even Novick over here was talking about nunchucks or something.
There was something that— there was some weapon that we were all unfamiliar— it was a different kind A mace.
Sameer Kanal
That's what it was.
Eric Zimmerman
Anyway, my point—.
Steve Novick
I thought I was asking about the difference between dirks and daggers.
Eric Zimmerman
Yeah, so my point here, I do appreciate those changes.
I want to, I want to give credit where credit's due.
I disagree that this needs to come forward, but thank you for addressing the fact that I bet we have employees today who have mace in their pocket, in their locker, or in their purse.
That might be a violation of city policy, and no one will ever know until the day it has to get used.
And then I'd say I dare the city to enforce that policy.
So this is one of those— there's a silliness that sometimes it comes along with certain types of things.
But at the same time, this change for parks was a really good one.
I think that'll be an important— if you guys end up passing this, pass that amendment.
But here's what the staff said: mace for your own protection is okay, but carrying a big can of bear spray or intimidating others is not okay.
And I would, I would give to you, everybody, that is the exact example of the difference between an open carry of a rifle or even a gun on the hip versus a concealed carry.
Because a concealed carry, one should never know that someone is concealed carrying.
That's the whole point.
And so in the sponsor's own language about why mace in a park is okay, I think they've given you why a concealed weapons permit holder should not be the concern if your concern is violence, if your concern is gun violence, in the list of people to be worried about, those who put their name on a, on a public registry, ask for a background check, ask for a course, and carry a permit to do so, they're not the concern here.
So if you have a concealed permit for your own protection, it's not okay, but if you have mace for your own protection, it's okay.
Edith Thrower
Yes.
Eric Zimmerman
But carrying a big can of pepper spray is not okay.
But what are we trying to do here?
So the, the— it doesn't hold up.
And the consequences are why this matters, colleagues.
This is not an HR policy.
This is not an employment policy.
You are asking to place a felony on those who right now under state law can do a thing.
And you're saying we don't think that's the truth.
If you think that we have this grand problem inside this building or any other Portland building with concealed weapon permit holders doing violence or threatening violence, I am all ears and I will help.
But I have had zero complaints in my time in office, and I've had zero complaints in my time as a chief of staff or as a senior staffer at this government or any other.
So I don't know what we're trying to solve.
And if you are dead set on this, I hope you will at least consider that you are adding a significant legal risk to people who are otherwise following the law.
And I, I think that deserves our pause.
And I don't think that right now that this is going to make any one person or any group of people thank you, Chair.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Chair Novick.
Can I just start by asking a process question?
Are we currently still on the underlying, or has the amendment been moved?
Steve Novick
Um, still on the underlining, but if you like to move the, move the amendment to put it to get it out there, I'd be fine with that.
Although I expect that we might want to discuss the underlying a bit further before we get to vote on the amendment.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, then I will wait to do that so that we can have I think one of the things that we have an opportunity to do in committee is have the broader conversation.
And I know this is something a few of us have talked about, so I, I do intend to move it.
I think it's worth discussing, and I, I will get to that when I get to it.
Um, I, I struggle with a couple of the conversations here because there are many things that I agree with in what Councilor Zimmerman just said.
Um, I, I also know that there are some— we do not have the authority under the, uh, the new form of government to write administrative rules, to write HRARs, even ones that apply to us evidently, which I think is something we have to get some additional guidance on because that, that doesn't make any sense.
Um, and I think as an independent branch of government, we should not be subject to mayor's, uh, HRARs.
Having said that, um, I also know that, that there are, um, some questions that I think are not yet resolved and I do think it's fair to say that there has been a recognition by the state that anyone can currently get a concealed carry permit going through a process in their relevant counties.
And this idea that we all have to sort of honor each other's, and also that there was a gap that they felt was sufficient enough to allow local jurisdictions to address, not to address themselves, But to allow us to, and so to enable that conversation.
I have a feeling that no matter what we do here, we're gonna end up having this debate again at the full council.
So I'm inclined to support having that debate at the full council because I know our other 7 colleagues will have thoughts on it.
But I also know that we should have conversations around how to make this the best product possible when it gets there.
And I think that thank you, Councilor.
Steve Novick
Um, I have— what about Councilor Zimmerman's point that this is a felony, which is a pretty darn serious thing?
Would there have been an option to go with a misdemeanor instead of a felony?
Do they have the other— um, has— well, the Port of Portland— I mean, does Multnomah County make it a felony to my understanding is that the proposal before us would bring us on parity with Multnomah County and the Port of Portland.
Okay.
Would you be willing to contemplate downgrading it to a misdemeanor?
Jamie Dunphy
My understanding is that it's more of a— that the felony is at the end of the process, but that there are— it's not that if you showed up downstairs and presented your concealed carry card and said that immediately you'd be prosecuted.
Thrown into it with a charge.
That there's some level of processing and steps between and some discretion to be able to get to that level.
If it were something egregious, then a felony charge is an option for the charging officer, but that it's not necessarily guaranteed that that would be the first reaction from— for enforcement.
Steve Novick
Hmm.
But I mean, is that— but is there any like lesser included charge that could be brought?
Eben Harford
Yes, Councilor.
So again, let me introduce myself as not a lawyer.
However, I am speaking to one.
So, you know, the first thing here is that this is in the police code.
Earl Riley
Right.
Eben Harford
And public order and police.
And so violations of the local code carry a potential fine and potential brief jail time.
So those citations can be issued if necessary.
I can even go back another step.
So what you would need to do is to arrive at a public meeting with a concealed handgun, not disclose that handgun, gain access yes.
To the meeting, have it be discovered, refuse to leave.
And then the situation would need to be such that the city decided that whatever sanctions that it could issue via Portland City Code were insufficient and that pressing charges were necessary.
So there's discretion at a number of steps of the process.
Steve Novick
So when you say that it has to be discovered and you have to be asked to leave, does that mean that if it was not discovered, but then somebody found out later on that somebody carried a concealed weapon into a public meeting, then there's— they could not be prosecuted?
Eben Harford
Oh, I wouldn't say that.
Okay.
There would need to be— you would have to the first thing that happens is you go through a metal detector, right?
If somebody then discovers that you have a concealed handgun, there's your first moment.
You say, hey, I have a CHL.
And the person says, hey, look at the sign that, you know, you can't bring that in here regardless.
Okay, what choice do you make in that moment?
Do you say, no, I'm coming in?
Or do you say, all right, I'm gonna— I'm not coming in.
There's a choice that somebody gets to make.
Say there's a room without a metal detector.
Somebody comes in, is carrying a CHL.
They see the clearly posted sign that says, can't do that here.
And they say, eh, I'm going to do it anyway.
And then something happens in that meeting where it becomes clear that they're carrying a loaded weapon.
Then there's another decision point.
Somebody has a conversation with them.
What is their conduct in that moment?
All those things could be considered in the context of what?
Bob Day
The risk.
Eben Harford
Ultimately, it is possible if you're carrying a loaded firearm in a place where you're not under state statute to be charged with, I think, a Class C felony.
Steve Novick
But okay, I'm still a little confused.
I mean, sure, I can understand a scenario where you can be charged with a felony if you refuse to leave after it's been discovered that you carried in a weapon, but if you're carrying If a firearm in a place where you're not allowed to carry a weapon, it simply turned out that you carried in a weapon and nobody ever found out about it until afterwards and you never refused anything, then that might be a misdemeanor.
I mean, that strikes me as one possible way to address this.
Eben Harford
In the context of whether it's a felony or a misdemeanor, Councilor, really is a matter of the state statute.
And so we don't— all we are doing here is saying for the purpose of this situation that affirmative defense is not qualified.
Steve Novick
So the state statute gives us no choice as to whether it's a felony or a misdemeanor?
What I refer to—.
Sameer Kanal
We just asked legal to come up to answer some of these questions.
I would lean on legal to address some of these questions.
Steve Novick
Um, actually, so we have one of our lawyers here?
Sameer Kanal
They should be on their way.
Eben Harford
We've reached out.
Okay.
I think the, the general point, Councilor, that we're trying to make is that As I think all of us know, there's discretion in how law enforcement works.
So the idea that you put a finger over the line, somebody finds out about it a month later, and boom, you have a felony record, that's not true to reality.
The exact mechanics of how that works, we should absolutely defer to legal counsel.
Steve Novick
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay.
That conversation in context to a felony as the consequence is— should give everybody great pause.
But I will also offer that that conversation, I think, provides us with a much better option that gets the same intent without the harsh legal aspect, which is We can certainly say upon discovery you are excluded.
And so if you come to— we could say that, yes, Joe Schmo coming through the metal detector, you do have a CHL, but we have noticed this weapon that in the City of Portland's building is still not permitted, and you are excluded if you decide you want to come in with it.
Okay.
Same outcome, different stick.
And if they choose then to say, no, I have my God-given and sheriff-given and state constitution-given right, I believe it's fully within our scope to be able to say, okay, that's fine, but you are then excluded from this building.
And we have a host of, which we're all more familiar with, Councilor Smith.
I think that if your goal is that no person enter in with a weapon, even those who are legally doing so, that this idea of exclusion and using those, those rules are far more appropriate than what's being proposed.
And I would say that allows the concealed weapon holder to make a choice I think we should make a choice instead of— because frankly, this after-the-fact conversation is alarming.
After the fact, we're going to then maybe charge you with something, whether it be a felony or not.
How about we just say no longer does a CHL grant you the permission to come into a public building with a weapon on its surface if that building has a policy that says no.
So if you guys are dead set on passing something, I'd say pass something close which is about upon discovery— and let's say they're sitting in the audience— upon discovery, ma'am, you cannot have that.
I need you to leave City Hall for that purpose.
And if they don't, then we have a law that says exclusion.
We have a rule that says exclusion, trespassing.
We can do that.
We don't have to put the threat of a felony against people who own and, and have a license as the thing.
So I think there's an option here.
I think we can work through it if we use our regular ordinances.
Thank you.
Big boy and big girl brains and, and, and really want to get into this.
I think we can do this.
But that conversation, the back and forth about how it will be applied, should scare the hell out of us in terms of that's not how laws are supposed to be written.
I worry about that a lot.
But it is why local trespass policies, local what you can and can't have policies— you know what else you can't have in here?
Big noisemakers.
You can have a choice to leave that noisemaker at the, at the door, but if you come in, we're going to trespass you with that thing.
But we didn't threaten them with a felony on the back end if they bring in the noisemaker, right?
So I think there's an expectation here for what the expectation is inside a public building and a public deliberating body space.
I respect that a lot.
Let's work in that let's amend this to not have a backdrop which is a felony, because I think we can do everything that the council president and the sponsor is asking us to do in a more reasonable manner.
Steve Novick
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
Um, first, I, I'd like to just indicate that in the future, I think if there is going to be legislation that will eventually have a vote I think in committee we should have an attorney here as a default item.
I understand that we might need to have some conversations around capacity and staffing and all that, but I, I, I, and I appreciate that, but I, I'm saying up here, and I appreciate, uh, Robert Taylor being here.
Um, I also note that our security manager's here, and I, I appreciate that as well.
Um, the discretion conversation did scare the hell out of me.
Um, just, just fundamentally that I, I am concerned about the idea of there being a felony for some of us and not for all of us.
In that scenario, I am comfortable with the idea that there should be a consequence.
I don't have discomfort around that because this is— I appreciate the comparison to a noisemaker.
A noisemaker generally, under very, very— the odds are probably a million to one that they'll cause they're a lot higher with a firearm.
So I do think it's, it's, it's, it's, and I don't think it's just a matter of same kind, different degree.
I do think it's a different kind.
At the same time, I am concerned about the idea of there being that much discretion in the context of it.
This is a thing I've been pretty consistent about as we've had the conversation around all of the debates that we've had that relate to the criminal justice system.
So I'm interested in that conversation a little bit more.
I couldn't find in any of the 3 pieces of code that were referenced a place where it said it was a felony.
So I appreciate the conversation around it's state law.
Council President, could you speak a little bit more to, I guess, just build on what we've been talking about here with how this particular methodology— it sounds like we sort of were given an option by the state.
We're looking at the state's recommendation.
Robert Taylor
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
The state.
I'm open to the conversation around is there a better way to get to the same end goal.
I think that's a good idea, and I think it's a good use of committee time.
So I'm just trying to understand what am I missing, if anything?
But yeah, because I appreciate the intent very much.
Jamie Dunphy
Yeah, I will just first start by saying I didn't actually author this.
This came out of Bree Brown out of the City Attorney's Office.
This was me working directly with the administration on what they see as a security gap.
I'm happy to be the sponsor of this because anything that I think we can do to get guns out of public spaces is great.
If there's a better way to do foot forward, this committee, that is the point of these committees.
If this committee believes there is a better way to get the same outcome, I'm absolutely open to, you know, whatever you all decide is the best way forward.
This, however, this specific language was not drafted by me or by Eben.
We've helped, obviously, but this was coming from City Attorney's Office.
Thank you.
Eben Harford
And we do have the city attorney here to clarify the legal risk to individuals at this point.
I personally misspoke.
I was incorrect.
So we should defer to Robert on that.
Steve Novick
Yeah, actually, I would like to— Councilor Kanal, would it be okay to bring the city attorney up to answer some of these questions?
And as Councilor Zimmerman just muttered, it actually would be nice to have people in the administration who wanted to bring this forward here too.
Eric Zimmerman
But yeah, but because it inherently makes it more political when it comes from a councilor, right?
So I appreciate you sharing that, Council President.
You've seemed kind of— your answers in the previous session and this one kind of seemed like this was your pet project.
And so, yeah, I think— I feel like there is an opening to a conversation here to have.
So let's do that.
But We've got to— if the security needs to bring things to the committee, we need to be hearing that.
Steve Novick
Uh, Mr. Taylor, can you come up?
And other councilors might have other questions to ask, but I, I just kind of want to know, do we have options other than this is a felony or this isn't if we want to discourage people from bringing firearms into public buildings?
Robert Taylor
Hello, Robert Taylor, City Attorney.
If I can just start with a process point that might be helpful.
We have a lawyer in our office who has been handling this.
They have a conflict.
They're handling other city business right now.
If members of the committee or proponents of legislation want a lawyer who's handling this to be available.
It's very helpful to have that communication so that they can be sure to be available to answer those questions.
I'm happy to be here to pinch-hit today on this, and I'll give you my best answers.
And as this continues to move through the process, we're happy to update any information that we share today.
So for— First, let me just say that this is all a creature of state statute, of state criminal law, and anything we do needs to be consistent with the state criminal law.
This law regarding possession of weapons in a public building is complicated, and it has been subject to amendments over the years.
2025, When the legislature took action, it was illegal— it was a felony to carry a weapon into a public building.
There was an affirmative defense, however, to that felony, which was if you had a concealed handgun license, you can assert that affirmative defense and you would not be prosecuted.
In 2025, the law was changed and it gave governing bodies the ability to have a policy that says that affirmative defense no longer applies.
So if you have— and if you have a policy that says the concealed handgun license no longer applies, then you can't prosecute for that.
Okay.
Then, if you have a weapon in a public building where the governing body holds official meetings, then if you have the CHL, it's not an affirmative defense.
Instead, it is a misdemeanor.
So what this legislation does is it says the affirmative defense under state law no longer applies.
So that if you have a CHL at a meeting where the governing body is present, then in a building where the governing body holds official meetings, then that is a misdemeanor, not a felony, but it is still subject to a criminal penalty in a way that it wasn't before.
And Councilor Novick asked a question earlier about what types of buildings does it apply to?
Under the state statute, you can make a policy governing buildings where a governing body has official meetings.
So it's not just any meeting of staff in a building.
It's got to be a governing body where they hold official meetings.
Steve Novick
Could we narrow it to a subset of that, to like meetings where the public— where the public are in attendance?
Eric Zimmerman
Have any official meetings that they aren't in attendance?
Steve Novick
Um, I don't know, but it just seems like there might be— I mean, there might be meetings that are somewhat official in some part of the city.
You might be having a meeting that somebody would consider official that the public isn't involved in.
Robert Taylor
It's— it— under the state statute, I believe it's got to be a governing body.
So Planning Commission would be a governing body.
We have advisory bodies that might be considered governing bodies.
Governing bodies, but it's not just any building where staff meet, for example.
So that's why the City Hall governing body meets, we have official meetings here, 1900 building, that happens there, might happen in the Portland building.
So that's the intent of the legislature, So they've sort of predefined official meeting in a narrow way.
Well, they didn't really define what official meetings is, but it's in the statute.
It's buildings where okay.
Steve Novick
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Oh, thank you.
Steve Novick
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, uh, for the responses.
It's with relation to governing body definitions.
So ultimately what we're talking about is a decision that is, is directly made at the gov— at the, at the body.
Is that a good way of— because I understand the planning commission's piece.
I'm a little concerned around, like, for example, the CBPA, the Committee Board for Police Accountability, is a governing body.
And I just want to verify that and be kind of— what's the simplest way for us to articulate the difference on that?
Robert Taylor
I mean, the simplest way to articulate the difference is a governing body is one that's subject to the public meetings law, and their meetings need to be open to the public because they are making decisions on behalf of the entity or making recommendations to the council.
That's what a governing body is.
And if you are one of those types of bodies, then you are also subject to the public meetings law, which I think is why the legislature used that term.
So governing bodies are subject to the public meetings law.
They need to let the public have access to the meeting.
And so I think that's why the legislature constructed the statute that way.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, so anybody that makes recommendations to council, because council is subject to public meetings law the same way a city council committee is subject to it, anybody that makes a recommendation to us is also subject to it.
Robert Taylor
Formally, right?
Roughly speaking, yeah.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, um, thanks.
Uh, on a somewhat related piece, um, if a city leases a building and we hold a meeting there, does that still count?
Robert Taylor
I think the statute is owned, like, owned or controlled by.
So yeah, so if we lease a building, if we lease a building and you want to have city council If we're holding council meetings there, that would be the same as holding it in City Hall.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, and then we have no committee or council meetings on Monday or Friday, so is— or Saturday or Sunday for that matter.
How does that apply in terms of City Hall?
Would it be only at times where it's meeting?
Is it any building where we're holding it?
I'm just trying to get these things on the record, by the way.
Robert Taylor
So the statute says does not apply to the possession of firearms within a building owned or controlled by the governing body that is used by the governing body for official meetings.
So I think you could— I mean, you can interpret that either way to say it applies to the whole building.
Eric Zimmerman
I think it's the whole building.
Robert Taylor
If you have official meetings in the building, then you can't have guns in that building.
Bob Day
Okay.
Sameer Kanal
And then—.
Robert Taylor
Or if you wanted to narrow that so that you're only abolishing the affirmative defense at specific times when meetings are held, you could do that.
I think that there are logistical concerns you would want to think through with that.
In terms of making sure signage is posted and people really know what the rules are when they're entering a building or not.
Sameer Kanal
So 2 final questions.
One is just to kind of follow up on that.
One of the conversations we've had sort of behind the scenes, or it's in front of the scenes, but periodically, sporadically at this point actually, is what if we held a City Council meeting in D1?
And in order to do that, we'd probably be renting a space As a one-off.
I mean, maybe the McPhish can handle it, but, but, uh, there's— if it was a one-off rental for something like that, that still counts, right?
Robert Taylor
Yes.
Michael
Okay.
Sameer Kanal
And then last question, in terms of who is exempted from it, um, we have a conversation around, uh, it says police officers that are active, which makes sense, but also says honorably retired.
Is that something within, um, Within city council's authorization, like, are we able to exempt— to not exempt people who are no longer in that field?
Robert Taylor
I believe that is an exception in state law.
Sameer Kanal
Meaning we could not supersede that?
Robert Taylor
We could not supersede that.
Any criminal statute the council passes must be consistent with state criminal law.
Sameer Kanal
Sure, just making sure I understand.
Steve Novick
Councilor Morillo, you're good with Brian.
So this is a, this is a situation where, um, I'm particularly frustrated by the public meetings law because I think based on this conversation, what I ideally would like to do is to I would like to sit down with Councilor Zimmerman and Councilor Kanal, who has expressed an interest, and with Councilor Dunphy and with the administration and with the lawyers and try to figure out if we can work out something that we can all more or less agree on.
I can't do that because then that would be 3 members of this committee involved.
But I'm sort of hoping— I don't think that we're prepared to vote on this today, and I think that there's no real point to moving the amendment if we don't know what we're doing with the underlying ordinance.
Eric Zimmerman
I think that's a good point.
Steve Novick
Well, actually, okay, do you want to move the amendment anyway, Councilor Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
I do.
I think the question of the prohibit— what the consequences are is a lot of what we're talking about here.
But I do think the idea of ensuring our definitions are not inadvertently self-contradictory is good, which I think is the concern that the amendment seeks to address.
So I do think it's worth moving, and I will move it at this moment.
Because I think it's, even if we're not getting everything done today, and I agree with your broader approach, I think it's worth getting one piece done today.
Steve Novick
All right, second.
Should we just go ahead and vote on the amendment since that seems to be a matter of— any debate on the amendment previously described?
Clerk, could you call the roll?
Tristan Edwards
This is the motion to amend Exhibit C to the ordinance, moved by Kanal and seconded by Novick.
Steve Novick
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
James Crooker
Murillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
James Crooker
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Tristan Edwards
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Angelita Morillo
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Tristan Edwards
With a vote of 5 ayes, the motion to amend Exhibit C to the ordinance as shown in Councilor Dunphy 1 has been approved.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Mr. President, do you have some thoughts as to how we should proceed and who should be involved in discussions before we bring this up again?
Jamie Dunphy
I would love to be involved in the conversations.
I'd like to make sure also that the administration's involved and absolutely support the continued conversation about this and not rushing this to a vote.
I think that there will be obviously more conversation at the full council, but this is a good conversation to have.
So I would be happy to be involved in whatever way you need me.
Steve Novick
I think I'd hope Councilor Zimmerman would be involved.
Councilor Kanal, should you and I flip a coin as to which of us is also involved in the discussion?
Sameer Kanal
We'll make sure that there's not a— we can make sure there's not a quorum.
Steve Novick
We'll flip a coin afterwards.
Jamie Dunphy
Sounds good.
Steve Novick
All right.
Really appreciate this discussion.
Eric Zimmerman
I did make a request that— I mean, we've got— when the council president said that there was some aspect that the administration wanted this to come forward Is there— I see Manny.
Is it possible?
Steve Novick
Oh, sure, sure.
Yeah.
Eric Zimmerman
Manny, if you're able, if there is a role in which— because this question is hanging for me, which is, are we looking for an exclusion, or are we looking to enforce a felony law, or, or sometimes a misdemeanor law?
What is it that you're trying to solve if this is truly coming from the administration through the president's office what is at issue here?
Manny Guerra
Well, for the record, my name is Manny Guerra.
I'm the security manager.
Just to step back just a little bit, this wasn't brought forth by security itself.
This wasn't like integrated security saying, hey, we need to have it, this needs to happen.
This is prior to, I think, everybody here on the dais and especially the CA.
There was state law that went into effect that prohibited having firearms, even if you had a concealed carry, to go in.
A lot of cities got upset because they, at the time, they were not included in that statute.
So then the following year, I guess there were some folks that went to the state and said, hey, we feel like the cities should also be included in this.
We should have the right to also exclude folks that have a concealed carry.
The City of Portland also went in on that.
On my end, I would just say that's a little bit of the background.
But on my end, I would just say that when it comes to this, somebody that comes in with a CHL and tells us upfront that they have a CHL and shows it to us and then goes through the processes of what we have, which is give us a few minutes, we're going to contact PBB, they're going to send an officer and then verify your CHL.
Once it's verified, I do not have an issue with that at all.
That is actually somebody that is abiding by current law, is letting us know exactly what they have on their persons, and is able to verify that they actually have—it's valid for them to carry that firearm.
So not an issue in that aspect.
In my concern is always for the person that has a nefarious.
Reason why they're concealed carrying, they somehow are able to make it into so-called facility without us knowing about that.
That is the concern.
In the big picture, more guns do not make areas more safe, but I also understand the reality of the world that we live in currently.
So, I would just, I would be very comfortable with the idea of just saying, hey, if you refuse to leave, you have, we understand you have a valid CHL, we ask you to leave.
You cannot come in because of this rule that we have, this code.
You are ejected from, you know, or you're not welcome to come in for this.
Usually, I'll just tell you that most folks will abide by that the next time they come back.
Okay.
So there's no reason to say like, hey, we need to have a trespass for more than, you know, for long term if they understand what the rules are.
So that's how I feel about it.
I don't think it should go automatically to a criminal matter since, I mean, they are abiding by state and, you know, state law and state rules.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay.
Jamie Dunphy
Follow-up.
Eric Zimmerman
So, you know, Councilor Smith and I come from the experience in the early 2010s at Multnomah County where there were at various times, you know, they would pack the chambers, so to speak, and they'd pack the chambers with their weapons out.
And this was this point of time when it was also happening at the state capitol.
Where our, our Western roots were showing, I'll just say.
And, uh, and it is, it is not inherently unsafe, and it is inherently, um, I'm missing the word here, but it is, it is, it is a— it's intimidating.
Thank you, Councilor.
It's inherently an intimidating moment.
And I say that because as I look at this crowd Yeah.
Um, there are key indicators of someone's behavior or things that I will visualize and know that's off, something's off.
When the whole room is packed that way, to pick up on small movements is hard to do.
I'll just— that's just me being incredibly transparent.
So having a whole room of folks with weapons on their shoulders, on their hips, Yes.
Not great.
Not a great look.
As a weapon carrier myself, as a CHL holder myself, I find it stupid.
I think that that has, in some communities, the presence of a CHL has been a way in which people were getting around the exclusion of weapons inside official chambers.
And I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that is not acceptable, and I think that's part partially where the state law is coming from, that that can't be an excuse for an intimidation tactic.
And I think that that's reasonable to talk about.
And I appreciate the direction that you're going, Chair.
I think that we can work this out.
There is more here to work out if our whole goal is to exclude weapons from a deliberative body's decision-making place.
Tristan Edwards
Councilor Dan Ryan.
Eric Zimmerman
But it's also a small part in which we're carving out, right?
Councilor Smith has an office in East Portland.
Since the body doesn't meet there, this does not apply to that office, even though she's a member of this body.
But until we go as a group, that's not a body, right?
To Councilor Kanal's points, I think that those things that we're really talking about, a few buildings only, which is why I think it's, I think it's appropriate to talk about what is our exclusion policy, and we can say something like the City of Portland now has state law that say we don't actually have to recognize that a CHL must be allowed to be permitted in.
I think that's a reasonable discussion to have, but it worries me when we go down the path of criminal enforcement.
And so I'd like to continue that conversation.
I appreciate the nodded heads.
Manny, I thank you for because I actually approach it very much the way your conversation was, is like, we're going to identify, we're going to know.
If we say they're excluded, most people are going to say, okay, I'm out, or I'm going to go put it away somewhere.
But I also add the one thing that is concerning here is I don't want to do anything that adds to the prevalence of guns being left in cars.
The DA would slap me sideways if, if he knew we were doing anything that gets people to go leave their guns in cars, because I don't want to say the majority, but a tremendous amount of Stolen weapons are coming from cars because people leave them in there because they couldn't take them to a place, etc., etc., etc.
It's wild, actually.
It would shock the pants off you when you start figuring that stuff out.
So let's keep working this.
There's a route here that doesn't have to be a hard yes or a hard no on what came to committee.
And I think that it is fair to say we're trying to solve against what I would say was an intimidation tactic from 10-some-odd years ago, and I'm sure it's happened more recently in, in other communities in Portland.
I'm just talking about my experience at Multnomah County, and it probably happened here too.
Thanks, Chair.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Councilor.
I hope that by the next meeting we can work things out so that we either have an agreement or we know what are the insoluble disagreements, but we can't guarantee that.
But let's work towards that to see if we can take some action on July 7th.
Thank you all very much.
This meeting of the Community and Public Safety Committee is right on time adjourned.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.