Strong Words, Dilution and Delays: What’s Going On With The New Police Oversight Board

The Portland City Council has formally voted to enshrine stronger police oversight in city code – while criticizing a court-ordered delay to the board’s creation. 

In 2020, Portland voters overwhelmingly approved the creation of the Community Board for Police Accountability, which would have some subpoenaing and disciplinary power over police in misconduct cases. Measure 26-217, drafted by then-city commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, prohibited current and former law enforcement officers, as well as the immediate family members of those in law enforcement, from serving on the board; instead, citizens with a history of police interactions, as well as those from marginalized communities, would be encouraged to apply. 

It has been a long and twisting road for the measure, with a federal judge ruling two weeks ago on certain aspects of how the board can be implemented.

“I had planned to support this code language on emergency,” Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, a mayoral candidate, said. “However, a federal judge’s decision to placate police abolitionists, and abolitionist-adjacent segments in our community, and undermine a democratically elected body, has changed my mind.”

Gonzalez won his seat in a run-off election against Hardesty in 2022, and quickly differentiated himself as the most conservative voice on the city council. He cast the lone dissenting vote in approving the new code.

“We have a federal judge in this case that appears to be enamored with the protester class,” Gonzalez concluded. “He should consider this a protest vote. I vote no.”

What Changed

Former city commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty introduced Measure 26-217 in October 2020, after more than 100 consecutive days of protests that began in response to George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police. In Portland, a city where in 2012 the U.S. Department of Justice found the police had violated the rights of people with mental illness, voters passed the measure by 82%.

In September, the 20-member volunteer Police Accountability Commission (PAC) presented new city code recommendations to the city council after a reported 128 public meetings and 23 community engagement sessions. In November, a number of PAC members testified against the city’s “diluted” draft of the new code, which proposed the police oversight board be cut from 33 members to 21, require a third of the nominating committee be comprised by law enforcement officials and require board members to participate in police ride-alongs.

In addition, the city introduced new restrictions on Community Board for Police Accountability (CBPA) membership, barring "any individual who has a demonstrated bias for or against law enforcement" from serving.

Stephanie Howard, the mayor's director of community safety, said the city had taken recent community engagement into account and made some changes to the code package:

Anyone who files a complaint against a member of law enforcement will be connected with a “complaint navigator” to guide them through the processAt the mayor’s suggestion, family members of victims of officer-involved shootings will automatically receive the support of a complaint navigatorThe board will be run under city operations, rather than public safety services. “It’s where our human (resources) group is, those sort of independent city bureaus that are responsible for navigating employee conduct – that was a natural place for that to land, and that was a request made by community,” Howard said. Members of the oversight board will be able to provide feedback on all internal affairs investigations, while the police chief may do the same for oversight board investigations

The new code was submitted for a fairness hearing overseen by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon on Aug. 29. Under the Department of Justice’s 2014 settlement with Portland, the city is required to have an active police oversight board – and changes to it must be reviewed and approved by the DOJ.

Simon signed off on the city’s proposed code amendment in general, even as lengthy testimony from Hardesty and others argued against an added requirement that potential CBPA members attend police ride-alongs, the inclusion of law enforcement members in the nomination process and disqualification based on bias.

Simon did make one substantive change to the city’s plans: The new oversight committee cannot be formed until Jan. 2, under the new 12-member city council. With three council representatives from each of the city’s four geographic council districts overseeing the new board, the judge argued, there was likely to be more public trust in the process.

His decision united members of the current city council in frustration at the four-month delay.

“This current council took this seriously for the last 18 months,” Commissioner Dan Ryan said. “We had frequent, frequent dialog on this and we didn’t always agree on every point, but we stayed at the table – it’s not always easy to get consensus, and we got there. Then we’re struck with an 11th-hour setback like this.

"It’s a gut punch to those of us sitting up here and the hundreds of city employees who are dedicated to making progress on this settlement.”

To remain in compliance with the federal settlement, Portland will continue its current police oversight system through the end of the year, which includes the volunteer Police Review Board, the volunteer Citizens Review Committee and the Independent Police Review division.

“Under the settlement agreement, those bodies that are currently in place are to continue to take cases until the new board is stood up within that year and can begin, and this existing body would stop taking cases and finish the cases they have,” Howard said. “However, those cases – depending on the cases they are – can take months if not years, and so what really happened here is two things: We’ve lost four months of this new system’s timeline to stand up and begin taking cases, four months that we cannot do anything to get the board seated. (Volunteers) are kind of continuing on in limbo.”

Objections

While the city grappled with its new timeline, many community members criticized what they saw as the city’s fundamental misunderstanding of voter intent.

“It’s clear that the amendments have strayed far from the original intentions of the 82% of Portland voters,” Chris Olson, a candidate for city council district 2, told the council during a Sept. 4 session. “In 2020, our community demanded true, independent oversight of our police, yet the current framework does not reflect that will.

"Allowing police to select a third of the nominating committee for the CBPA fundamentally undermines its independence that the voters called for.”

Many took issue with the city’s new bias requirement.

“We talked with the court about how a lack of bias is a requirement for jurors in cases, it’s a requirement for judges to apply, and there’s all sorts of decision-makers that we expect not to bring their biases to their decision-making, such that they don’t make fair and impartial decisions anymore,” chief deputy attorney Heidi Brown told the city council earlier this month.

Activist Charlie Michelle-Westley warned that this was “unfair and I daresay racist manipulation” to prevent police accountability activists from sitting on the board.

“It’s to prevent those of us who fight for police accountability to save Black, Brown, Indigenous and other lives – people who have a lived experience like mine – from (being on) the new oversight system or hiring committee. Yet the city found a pro-police bias loophole to allow three law enforcement members on the hiring committee – that goes against the required independence from allowing any law enforcement influence. Along with that goes community trust.”

She added, “We are all biased to some extent, and for those of us who have been out in the streets protesting for real police accountability – it’s really just radical truth demanding change.”