Citizen Review Committee Meeting
04/03/04
DELEGATO: Sorry. I’ll start over. This is the April 3rd, 2024, Citizen Review Committee Meeting. I am the Chair, YUME DELEGATO, joined here tonight by the other members of the Citizen Review Committee, and as well as Chief BOB DAY. So, just to get started here, we’ll go ahead and just go around the room; do some quick introductions. If you could tell us your name and what part of Portland you’re from, and maybe just something you’re looking forward to this spring as a little ice breaker. And then, we’ll get into a little discussion with Chief DAY here. So, I’ll go first. YUME DELEGATO. I am the current Chair of the CRC and was reappointed this afternoon for another three-year term on the CRC, along with GREG, and JESSICA, and KYRA. Congratulations to all three of you. I’m calling in from down here in Southwest Portland, and I am really looking forward to some warmer nights because I am tired of it being so cold every morning when I wake up. So, I’m going to pass it to MICHAEL and then CHRIS, since you’re at the top of my screen here.
WALSH: Okay. Hi, everybody. I’m MIKE WALSH, and I’m a CRC member. Congratulations, y’all, who were reappointed. That’s great. And I am literally on the border of North and Northeast Portland.
PIEKARSKI: Hello. I’m CHRIS PIEKARSKI. I’m a CRC member in Southeast Portland. He/him pronouns. And I am looking forward to having to restock my allergy medicine.
WALSH: Oh, yeah. I’m looking forward to allergies going away. It might be more medicine for me. Yeah.
DELEGATO: All right. And KYRA and then JESSICA.
PAPPAS: Hi. I’m KYRA PAPPAS. I’m one of the CRC members. And I’m just happy the sun is up past 4 o’clock. So, I feel like I was going to work in the dark and then leaving in the dark, so it’s nice to have the sunshine coming through still.
KATZ: Hi, everybody. JESSICA KATZ. She/her pronouns. I am in Northeast Portland. I apologize. I have a non-working camera on today. But I am looking forward to getting better at growing things this spring.
DELEGATO: And then, ROSS and DAVID, if you wanna introduce yourselves.
CALDWELL: Hey, everybody. ROSS CALDWELL, IPR. He/him pronouns. Yeah. Like everybody else, I love the rain. I’m a Northwest native, but even I am looking forward to a little bit of sunshine and longer walks with the dog.
NGUYEN: Hello, everybody. My name is DAVID. I work for IPR. He/him pronouns. And I look forward to doing some yard work.
DELEGATO: Wonderful. All right. So, we have kind of a modified schedule today. We’re gonna hold our normal agenda until after our special guest here. We have Chief DAY joining us, who was appointed as Police Chief pretty recently. So, Chief DAY, I’ll give you a chance to introduce yourself. I’m sure some of the CRC members may have some questions for you, but this is kind of a - just a introductory opportunity to hear from you and to give you an opportunity to meet the CRC. So, we appreciate you taking the time this evening, and welcome.
DAY: Well, thank you very much. Thanks, everyone. I appreciate the opportunity. I do have a hard stop at 6:00, but I’m looking forward to some conversation here. And I have a tendency to ramble, so I don’t wanna take up all the time with just my thoughts and ideas. I do wanna hear from folks. So feel free to interrupt, interject. But, you know, just a couple of thoughts I just wanna share. One, as you mentioned, you know, I came back on board here in last fall after being in retirement for a little over four years. I worked in the Bureau from 1990 to 2019. And when Chief LOVELL decided to step down, and the mayor was looking for a replacement, and they called and asked if I would kinda help through this time of transition. And after a lot of careful consideration, I chose to do so. And a lot of people have asked me why I would do that, for a variety of reasons, all of which are pretty good, reasonable questions to ask. And, you know, my motivation has been pretty clear. You know, I love the Bureau. I love the City. And I care deeply about, you know, where we’ve been and where we’re going. And in my just over three, almost three-and-a-half decades of service with the City, I have seen such an amazing response out of the community in the last year, year-and-a-half in terms of really - kind of a wholesale effort from, you know, many different - all different parts of town and all different walks of life to say, “Yeah. We want Portland to be a, you know, to be a vibrant place for people to live and work and play for everyone.” So, you know, that was very encouraging to me, very hopeful for me, and not only as a police leader but just as, you know, living in the area and caring deeply about the success of where Portland goes, as well as the region goes, where the state goes, there’s a tremendous amount of responsibility that comes with being, you know, in the City of Portland and kind of the influence we have. So, that really encouraged me, and I came on board. And since I’ve been on board, I have really been focusing in three primary areas. I talk a lot about community and about transforming the dynamic between police and the people we serve. And you’ll notice, you know, I was intentional there not to use the word trust. Every Chief that I’ve worked for talks about building trust or earning trust. It’s a very common refrain for chiefs. And it’s absolutely appropriate, and I believe that the entire system that rely upon the criminal justice system is built upon community trust. So, I don’t want to in any way, shape, or form diminish the importance and the significance. I fully understand it, and I talk about it extensively in my leadership. But I also think trust is really hard to measure, and there’s also a lot of opinions about trust. Is it given? Is it earned? Is it built? You know, what does it look like? How do we know when we’ve achieved trust? So, you know, I talk about transforming the dynamic. I’m intentional in that wording because, you know, dynamic is active, and it requires us to move in a direction. And I think oftentimes, and particularly in law enforcement, we can sometimes just sort of be passive. And that effort - and I don’t wanna be passive in that effort - I wanna be dynamic. I wanna be intentional. I wanna be moving towards that effort around the community and the people we serve. And that’s, I said people we serve, but it’s not just Portland, or it’s anybody that the Portland Police Bureau provides a service to, I wanna us to be available to a high level. So, Number One, community and transforming that dynamic, which I believe is always going to be in a constant state of flux. People come and go, and organizations, our systems, are complicated and have a lot of different connecting parts. But it’s critical because this is a public service profession. And I can speak more later with questions about what that looks like. The second priority I’ve talked about is reducing crime and the fear of crime. We have seen a lot of increase in crime in a variety of areas, and so we’re trying to be very intentional about reducing crime. And, frankly, law enforcement and the police are pretty good about reducing crime numbers. For example, in January of ’23, we had almost 1000 stolen vehicles in the City of Portland. We began our Stolen Vehicle Operations Missions last year, based on data cooperation with OHSU and some researchers, and in January of ’24, we had 356, 360 stolen vehicles. So, you know, we can say this number is this number then and this number now, which would be a crime reduction, but I’m more interested in how do we reduce the fear of crime. And the fear of crime is much more difficult because of the fact that we, you know, we all have experiences, and we cannot not believe our experiences. And that’s why I emphasize that. We cannot not believe our experiences. They’re real. They’re true for us as people, as human beings, and if ROSS is telling me he’s in pain, and I tell him he’s not in pain, that’s not very helpful. So, you know, for me, just to tell people it’s safer, or these numbers reflect that it’s safer, it’s not very beneficial. And what we need to really - I really wanna focus on - this goes in line with my community effort - is we have to create new experiences: new experiences for the police, new experiences for the community. And one of the things I’m emphasizing organizationally is not referring to the police in the community but just referring to us as the community. We’re fully aware of our responsibility and our role in society as police officers, but we are part of the community, and our actions have impact and influence in the community. And I wanna us to see ourselves more holistically in that regard. So, I think we reduce crime and the fear of crime by being intentional about trying to, not only as an enforcement for crime reduction but fear of crimes through relationship-building, understanding, empathy, curiosity. That’s why I instituted walking beats for a brief period of time when I first came on board, with no enforcement expectation. I just wanted officers out walking around, connecting, being seen, having relationships, having coffee, just not go out and do any enforcement, just create a different experience for both the community and police. I hope to continue more of that. We just did some of that with NCAA Tournament that was in town, wanting to have an in our presence, but really just being available. And then, the third priority is around community engagement. I mean, excuse me, organizational growth and development and really just continuing to emphasize the well-being of our membership. I think last year, the PPB - not exact number - but we contacted somewhere in the neighborhood of about 215,000 to 220,000 calls for service. And if the people, the men and women that are going to those calls for service are not in a good place, I can preach and pontificate all I want and get out as much as I can, but reality is, it’s the, you know, several hundred members of the organization that touch the community every day that need to be in a place that’s healthy and allows them to do their best work. And my message to them, and it was delivered this morning at Central Precinct roll call, was I just want ‘em to be the best they can be right where they’re at. I want them to be the best they can be right where they’re at. I want them at every call they’re on, every phone call they’re on - I don’t want ‘em thinking about the next call; I don’t want ‘em worrying about the next thing, I want them to be focused and just be the best right where they’re at. And there’s a lot of work to be done, and we’re probably not gonna be able to get to all of it, but I’d rather they do four things really well than 10 things really poorly. So, I’m giving them the permission to just be really focused to be the best right where they’re at, and trying to hold ‘em accountable to that, but also giving them the tools and the resources they need to do that. So, that’s a very high-level overview. As I said, you know, I don’t wanna take up all the time, but those are sort of my primary goals, and I’d love to have some questions and some dialogue for the time we have left.
DELEGATO: Thank you, Chief. I guess I will kick it off. I could sit here and ask questions all day. I don’t wanna do that. So, fellow CRC members, I’m gonna encourage you to think about anything that you would like to ask the Chief here. But, Chief, I’m gonna ask sort of a bifurcated question here, and I wanna preface this by saying this is not a got you sort of meeting that you’ve come to. But thinking about the relationship between the Citizen Review Committee and, more broadly speaking, sort of the police oversight system and the Bureau, it’s a complex topic. Right. And I think when I look at CRC’s past, which I think you were, you know, part of the Bureau for, and I look to the future, you know, there’s some questions I have, or some areas that I think this body, which is comprised, I think, almost exclusively now, of people who have served three years and a day or less, you know, we don’t necessarily have all of the historical experience, but we are probably the ones who are going to have to implement solutions as we move forward. So, two things that I’d be curious if you have any insight on or any thoughts on. One is surrounding maybe what has traditionally not always been the most productive relationship between the CRC and the Bureau in the past, and I wanna emphasize the past because none of those people are here, and most of the people that were in decision-making positions at the Bureau are also no longer with the Bureau, but I know that, in the past, Bureau members were much more involved in appeals hearings and would come to the meetings and, you know, we’ve been graced by some appearances by the brass, so to speak, and I know that you don’t control what the PPA tells it’s members to do or what the coed tells it’s supervisors to do, but I think that is an area that we perceive as being sort of a missed opportunity and perhaps a missed opportunity for officers as well. You know, I think we’ve seen at least anecdotal statistics that indicate that outcomes were sometimes better when we were able to have a more open dialogue. And then, I also think about that in a more technical sense as we look at the new system of accountability that’s coming with the proposal by the City, and I think, also, the proposed ballot measure by the PPA, we leave some uncertainty in the air about what the transition will be like and things that are not exclusively carved out in that area of review, whether or not the Police Review Board system or the CRC or IPR will have to stay spun up to address some of those issues. So, intentionally giving you kind of a broad series of questions to start with. Just curious to see if you have any thoughts on both the past or the present side of that issue?
DAY: No. I appreciate that very much. Thank you. And just thank you for your service, all that you’re doing. I heard you mention some of you, you know, re-upped today. And, you know, that’s appreciative of me and of the, you know, organization of the City as well. So, you know, and you’re right about the history. Right. I’ve been around a little while. I’ve seen things come and go. You know, cops are historically skeptical people, just in general. I’m not saying that’s good or bad. It’s just an observation of mine, I would say, as a police officer. And, so, you know, going back to my earlier comment about, you know, our experiences. And, you know, there’s a lot of experiences that officers bring forth, stories about their experience with CRC in the past that, you know, wasn’t positive, or they didn’t feel was fair. And I’m not making a judgment as to whether or not it was the case. I’m just saying that’s their experience. And, so, I think, you know, moving forward - and I appreciate you recognizing, you know, some new folks, some new faces - we’re certainly looking towards some very unchartered waters with this new accountability commission and, also, the current ballot measures. I’m not comfortable really speaking into that 'cause I don’t know any of us really know exactly what that’s gonna look like or how it’s gonna land. But this is the time to, you know, try and, you know, maybe renew some of that effort around that connectivity because I do think it can be a lost opportunity. I’m, you know, really talk a lot about transparency, and that’s a word that gets thrown around a lot. But, you know, essentially, what I’m telling the organization is, you know, we need to be responsible for our behavior, and we’re gonna talk about it. And, you know, we’re not - we’re gonna make mistakes. You know, one of my favorite quotes is James Baldwin, a great Civil Rights Leader that said, you know, “Not everything we face can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” And, you know, the reality is, I think we need to face some difficult conversations. But not just conversations about police behavior. We need to really talk as a community about what’s our identity? What do we wanna be known as as a community? What do we wanna be seen as when it comes to public safety? What does that - what does that mean? What does that look like? And how do we include the police in that conversation and also hold the police accountable? So, I’m very much in favor of, you know, trying to be a part of that solution and a part of that conversation. And, you know, maybe these are longer conversations to have when we have more time in the short - in the near future, to be able to think about what that looks like. But there is some need for that credibility to be restored, I think, too, to get those folks back to the table in the way that you’re asking ‘em, and I appreciate you asking for.
DELEGATO: Thank you, Chief. Fellow CRC members, any questions? MIKE
WALSH: Thanks, YUME, and thanks, Chief DAY. I really appreciate you being here. And I really love you laying out the three priorities, and I’m interested of all three of them, of course, but I’m especially interested in this concept of new experiences. You know, that was kind of a sub-heading of you’re reducing crime and the fear of crime. So, by the way, great job on the numbers of stolen cars going down. I live in a neighborhood where that’s, you know, was happening. I’ve noticed it, actually, and I didn’t even know the data. So, I live in a neighborhood where that was happening a lot. It still happens. But I’m really interested - and it kind of builds on what YUME was talking about, about new experiences, and I’d like to hear more of your thoughts on that, and also how it relates to the morale of the officers in the - you know, your patrol officers, and the whole staff, really, in terms of how are they responding to your ideas, 'cause I do believe very strongly - I think we all do; that’s why we’re here in CRC - that having those interpersonal experiences are vital. Obviously, you feel the same way 'cause you’re doing it. So, anyway, I don’t wanna talk too much. I’d just love to hear more about, like, other ideas you have, how is the walking - how are the walking beats going, and how does it relate to morale, and how people are responding.
DAY: Yeah. So, when I came on board and said, you know, “Hey, here’s what we’re gonna do during the holiday season,” you know, there was some raised eyebrows, some reluctance. First of all, this is a requirement that I made for everyone in the organization, myself includes. So, for example, last week, for the NCAA, I walked around Saturday from 4:00 to midnight, where we were going into hotels, restaurants, visiting with people locally. So, this is an expectation I had of all command as well as myself. So, we’re modeling - excuse me - we’re modeling that from the top down. And I will say there was some hesitancy or some resistance, like, you know, “Why are we doing this? What’s the purpose?” The highlight of it for me was actually one of my assistant chiefs was out and about, and it had been going on for about three weeks, and an officer stopped by and saw him, who was also participating, and said, you know, “I know that the Chief thought this would be good for the community,” and we had over 5000 positive contacts and feedbacks and so forth that we recorded in that time period, “but did you think he realized how encouraging this would be to us. Because when I took the burden - took the burden is not the right word - when I took the expectation, like, I literally said, “I do not - I’m not looking for enforcement. I don’t want you to try and ID people.” I mean, obviously, if a crime happens right in front of them, well, they need to do something. But it’s, like, “I just want you to be present. You know, I want you to go to Mother’s and have lunch. I want you to go into the coffee shop. I just want you to, in uniform, be present.” And, you know, there’s been a lot of history, right, over the last couple three years. And Portland has struggled in terms of its perception around public safety and its relationship with police. So, I think I’m starting to see some of that buy-in, and they’re seeing that, you know, there is a desire among the community to have that relationship, and they’re realizing that they can have that in a less confrontational crisis time - centered time. So, I’m really trying to find opportunities like that and model that. And then, you know, there’s a little bit of requirement, but there’s a lot of ask that, you know, we’re seeing more and more buy-in. And the final I’ll say about that is, you know, we’ve lost about 300 officers roughly in the last several years, more give or take that number, but we’ve also hired about 100 to 125. I don’t have the number. I can get the numbers. I apologize throwing ‘em around. But we have a lot of officers that we’ve hired in the last couple years that don’t necessarily have some of the historical experiences from ’20 and ’21 that did arm this ongoing, you know, this relationship. So, you know, we have some newer members that are, like, “Hey, you know, we’re all in.” So, as it was put to me the other day, you know, we’re starting to turn the wheel a little bit, and people are responding, and I’m encouraged by that.
WALSH: I should know, and real quick, I know, JESSICA, you have your hand up, but just data-wise, I should know this, but what is the actual force numbers for officers if it’s a normal - like, you’re at - I’m at the staffing level I wanna be. 'Cause I just wanna -
DAY: Right. So -
WALSH: - you know, put the 125 in context.
DAY: - We’re authorized 883 positions -
WALSH: Eight-hundred eighty - okay.
DAY: - me on down. So, my position, all the way down to the officers we’re gonna hire next month and - or this month. Excuse me. So, we have about 800 and - I think we have about 809, roughly, right now.
WALSH: Eight-hundred-nine?
(Crosstalk)
DAY: - retirements this year, but that’s kind of roughly.
WALSH: Okay. Great. Thanks. And I appreciate your comments. Thank you.
DELEGATO: JESSICA, I think you had your hand up.
KATZ: Yeah. Thanks so much. And thank you, Chief DAY, for your comments. I just have a question, which I hope is a fair question, around your thoughts on, like, what gets us to accountability? I know that we talk a lot about accountability in terms of punishment. And I am curious. You have a lot of years under your belt. And I am sure you have seen it at its best and seen it at its worse, and I was just curious if you might be able to speak to your thoughts on what truly gets us to accountability.
DAY: Yeah. I appreciate that. Thank you, JESSICA. You know, probably the single difficult - most difficult conversation in policing is around accountability. And I think where I’m trying to go is a couple things. One, let’s - I would love to have this committee’s input as I wrestle with, you know, are we talking about accountability? Are we talking about discipline? Are we talking about punishment? Right. I mean, I just - and I’m not agnostic about those terms, but I think it’s important that we understand that they have differing roles. Right. And, so, there’s oftentimes the challenge in law enforcement I have found - and this, once again, I’ll take input from you folks maybe when - or next time we meet if you wanna think about it - is rarely is there a disagreement about the behavior and whether the behavior is appropriate or not. The disagreement is in the discipline, is the outcome. Like, should this person be fired? Should they get a day off? Should they get a letter? You know, I mean, that’s where we really start to get into the dissidence about what’s the level, and what’s the expectation? And because of, and I’m not opposed to the protections and things that are put in place, but because of the processes, oftentimes, you know, we can be delayed, you know, weeks or months behind the event. An appropriate - so I do an investigation, etcetera, or whatever, and then we, you know, then, we come up with something, and we apply it, and it’s, like, going retroactive six months. Like, you shouldn’t have done this six months ago. Well, they’ve been working for six months. Like, we don’t have a caveat - 2020 is a great example, right. I mean, I get discipline cases in front of me today that are being resolved from 2020 now. And, so, you know, disciplining an officer who’s been working for four years for something that they may have done in 2020 or 2021, as a leader, as professional organizations wouldn’t typically consider that to be very valuable. But it’s a challenge because you also wanna hold people accountable to their actions. Right. And, so, you know, I guess I’m not trying to skirt around the conversation, JESSICA. I think accountability is absolutely critical. I think it is achievable. I think there are examples of that where we used the discipline process to teach and instruct, and then, sometimes, where we do have to separate people from the organization on the extreme end. But, you know, recognizing our humanity, recognizing cops make mistakes, finding an appropriate response to that mistake in a timely manner so we can hold them accountable and make sure they have clear values going forward is really, you know, what I’m passionate about. And there’s a lot of gray in there. And I, frankly, believe leadership happens in the gray. It’s not black and white. I’m much more comfortable now returning to the Police Bureau in the dissidence and holding sort of competing truths. Two things can be true at the same time. These actions in 2020 were not appropriate, let’s say, and disciplining somebody in 2024 for their actions in 2020 probably is not very beneficial. So, those two things can be true at the same time. The question for us as an organization, the question for us as leaders in this space, how do we marry that up? How do we find understanding? Maybe not agreement, but at least understanding. And I don’t have the answer for that, but I just want you to know that’s where my thought process is and what I’m open to in terms of conversation.
KATZ: Thank you so much. I appreciate your response.
DELEGATO: Thanks JESSICA, and thanks, Chief. I think one thing I will say, just from the experience as a CRC member, and this would be a wonderful conversation to continue in a more expansive setting, but I think I agree with you that there are often cases where there is a disagreement about the nature of discipline to impose. But I think there are also a lot of cases where CRC members and Police Review Board members have an obligation to evaluate the directive as written, right, which is separate from whether or not the directive is just. Right. And, so, that is a challenging thing. And I also think that I share your concern about imposing discipline so long after the fact. But I think, in fairness, some of the onus is on the City, right, both on -
DAY: Oh, absolutely.
DELEGATO: - IPR, and -
DAY: Yeah.
DELEGATO: - I’m sure you’ve been in cases where, you know, you’re looking at something that’s three, four years old, and you say, “Well, gosh, why - you know, why has it taken so long to get here?” And obviously, there are external factors.
DAY: And I just - I’m gonna interrupt you for a minute. I think that’s a great point. And, I mean, I just welcome this conversation. I want you to know. Like, I’m passionate about this stuff. And, you know, I’m not saying that I’m gonna be able to get it right, or we’re gonna get it right, but I just want you to know that I’m available. And sorry, but tonight, I gotta run in a few minutes. But I did wanna emphasize I agree with you. You know, we interpret the directive as written as, not always just. And I say that about laws all the time. Right. We’re a nation of laws. Laws provide for predictability. They provide for consistency. You know, when I drove to work today, I didn’t have to worry about what side of the road to be on 'cause I knew that by driving on a certain side of the road, I would get there safely, relatively, you know. But I couldn’t agree more that, you know, that’s not always just. It’s not always appropriate. So, you know, having those deeper discussions really interests me. So, when time allows, I’d like to have those.
(Crosstalk)
DAY: Sorry to interrupt you. I just wanted to get that in.
DELEGATO: No. That’s the perfect time. And I know you have to go at 6:00. So, I just wanna thank you again, Chief DAY, for being here. I do think that it would be wonderful to continue those conversations in the near future. I know that this is the year where we are going to see the implementation of body cameras. We’re going to see a new, you know, crowd control force going to the field. And we are also going to see a new form of police accountability in some fashion, however that looks. So, we would very much welcome you back, you know, when it’s convenient for you. And I wanna call out 'cause sometimes we don’t - people don’t get credit for this - the minute that we emailed Chief DAY’s office and asked if he would be interested in joining us at the CRC meeting, he made himself available for the next meeting. And I will say that is not necessarily always the experience that we’ve had with the past administration. So, I wanna thank you for that. We will be taking you up on your offer to come back -
DAY: Yeah.
DELEGATO: - speak with us again. And I’ll just, since I know you’re at time, if there’s anything else you’d like to say to wrap up, I’ll give you that opportunity before we -
DAY: Yeah. No. I just appreciate that. Yeah. I’m available. I mean, you know, we can’t shy away from the hard stuff. And, you know, this is difficult. It’s important, though. It’s important to me personally. It’s important to us as an organization, and it’s certainly important to the community and the people we serve. It’s credibility. It’s, you know, about developing that legitimacy, internally and externally, all those buzzwords you throw out. So, you know, ROSS and I talk regularly, and, you know, I wanna be available. So, yeah. Don’t hesitate to reach out and ask. I mean, this is part of why I’m here. So, I look forward to future conversations.
DELEGATO: Wonderful.
DAY: Thanks so much.
DELEGATO: Expect that invitation soon.
DAY: All right. Take care. Thanks.
KATZ: Thank you very much.
DELEGATO: All right. So, moving on to our regular agenda. Thank you all for participating in that conversation.
WALSH: Thanks for setting it up.
DELEGATO: Yes. Next, I think we have - let me look at my agenda here. So, next, I think we have the January 3rd and February 7th minutes. DAVID, can we vote on those as one item, or do we need to go separately?
NGUYEN: No. You can vote on - as one item.
DELEGATO: Okay. If there is anyone who has an issue, like, has to abstain because they weren’t at a meeting, we can do this separately. Otherwise, I will entertain a motion to approve both sets of minutes as submitted?
PAPPAS: YUME, I wasn’t at the January - I was out for the January one.
DELEGATO: Okay. Well, why don’t we do January 1st, then, and then we will move on to February?
WALSH: MIKE WALSH moves to approve January -
DELEGATO: Okay.
WALSH: - minutes.
DELEGATO: I will second, and I’m just gonna go in order as I see it on the screen. So, we’ll start with MIKE since you are unmuted.
WALSH: Yes. Aye, yes, approve it.
DELEGATO: JESSICA?
KATZ: Aye.
DELEGATO: CHRIS?
PIEKARSKI: Aye.
DELEGATO: And GREG?
GRIFFIN: Aye.
DELEGATO: And moving on to February minutes.
WALSH: So moved to approve.
DELEGATO: All right. Second it. MIKE, I’m gonna go back to you again?
WALSH: Yeah. Aye.
DELEGATO: Aye vote as well. KYRA, since you were here for the February meeting?
PAPPAS: Aye.
DELEGATO: CHRIS?
PIEKARSKI: Aye.
DELEGATO: GREG?
GRIFFIN: Aye.
DELEGATO: And JESSICA?
KATZ: I can approve up until the final two comments. I left, I think, two minutes before the meeting ended. So, I’m not sure, technically, whether I am an aye, or I should abstain.
DELEGATO: DAVID, I will defer to the -
(Crosstalk)
NGUYEN: I think she was present for the majority of the meeting. So, yeah.
KATZ: Okay. Good enough. Aye.
DELEGATO: All right. You guys have it - okay. So, moving on, we’ll go into the Director’s Report and the Chair’s report, and then we also have elections after that. So, ROSS, I’m gonna turn it over to you.
CALDWELL: Thanks. So, we’ve got our regular report with all the numbers, so please take a look at that. If anybody has any questions, as always, please reach out to me, or if you have any tonight, go ahead and let me know. And then there’s several things that I didn’t put in the report. First off, I just wanted to say thank you to some people first of all. KYRA, JESSICA, GREG, YUME all re-upped today for another trip through the CRC universe. So, thank you so much. I appreciate it. You know, YUME, I appreciated your comments today and SAMERE (ph) as well. You know, I know it’s extra challenging to keep something going when it’s kind of in a limbo state, and this has been in a limbo state for a long time. So, you know, we can’t keep the old system running without you all. So, I just very much appreciate your dedication. I know it’s a lot of work, and I know it’s a lot of (inaudible - 00:33:42). So, thank you for that. SAMERE, I see, is here. I think - yeah, he’s still here. I just wanna say thank you to him for all his work on the recruitment that we have going for more CRC members and get the numbers back up. Much appreciated. I know that’s a ton of work. And then the people that have worked on the application process while ranking applications and sitting through the interviews. I know that takes a lot of time. So, thank you much CHRIS, MIKE. DEBBIE IONA (ph) is here. I know that she did that. There’s a couple other people that aren’t here, but appreciate them as well. And then, lastly, I just wanted to mention there’s some changes that we’re watching. A lot of these were mentioned in the discussion with the Chief. But, you know, with the new Chief coming in, there have been quite a few moves within the Police Bureau. And, you know, our office works with the Police Bureau. We work with Internal Affairs. And there’s always people that are - you know, people will work in Internal Affairs for a while, and maybe work somewhere else in Professional Standards, and then they will maybe move on to somewhere else in the Bureau. And, so, that’s one thing that, you know, I’ve learned. Whenever there’s moves up in the Bureau, it can create some challenges for us because we know kinda the people that we think we can depend on if we wanna a supervisory investigation to focus on a certain thing. If we wanna precinct referral to focus on a certain thing. If we really wanna encourage mediation on a certain case. You know, we kinda get who we know we can reach out to in the various precincts or in Detectives or in, you know, whatever unit of the Police Bureau it is. And then, when those move around, it’s a big challenge. And, so far, I really - without getting into too much detail - I really think that those moves have been good ones, and those moves have been ones that, at least in my opinion, encourage accountability. So, I think they’ve been really positive for the Bureau. And I imagine there will probably be more moves coming up. So, that’s something we’re keeping an eye on. Obviously, body cams rolling out is gonna be a huge change. You know, we had the body cam pilot. We had a handful of cases that had body cam video, and it was - you know, it’s a night and day difference. You just have so much more information to work with. People that serve on a lot of PRBs, and I’m sure we’ll get an appeal of the body cam video at some point. But, you know, you’ll start seeing these as well. And it is - I mean, you feel like you’re driving around with you lights on as opposed to the officers - it was a little frustrating to have a pilot and get to turn the lights on and then turn them off, but continue to drive. So, I’m hearing that this summer, full rollout will happen. I really hope that doesn’t get pushed out. But, you know, it’s a big lift. So, hopefully, that will roll out as quick as possible and without too many hitches. And I think, YUME, you mentioned this. The new Crowd Control Team. That’s something we’re really keeping an eye on. There have been some kind of smaller-scale protest events in Portland, and there have been a few police interactions there. Pretty small numbers from what I understand, but we do have some investigations going already. So, it’ll be very interesting to see, you know, the lessons that the Bureau has taken from 2020. You know, I know this - you all put a report together, and there’s a critical assessment we’re still working on some investigations from that time. So, you know, hopefully, that will be a good lesson to learn the situation as the Bureau moves forward with the new Crowd Control Team. And then, the last thing I’ll mention. Soon, the City is gonna name who the monitor for the settlement agreement is gonna be. And that’s gonna be a big change for us. It’s kinda similar to people moving around within the Bureau. The four years and change that I’ve worked here has been DOJ and the COCL Team, and, you know, COCL Team won’t be around anymore. And now I - at least my understanding is that the heavy lifting on the settlement agreement is gonna be done by the monitor now. And, so, that’s gonna be a whole new people that we don’t know, and we’ll have to introduce to our very strange, convoluted, overly-complicated system and try to get them to understand the work we do and all that kind of stuff. So, that’ll be, I’m sure, a big change for us, and, you know, it’ll be interesting. And, of course, as always, the rollout of the new accountability system, if and when we learn more about that. So, that’s all I got. Any questions for me on any of that or anything else? Okay. Thank you much. Thanks again for all of your time.
WALSH: Thanks, Ross.
DELEGATO: All right. Moving onto the Chair’s Report, as ROSS alluded to, and as I mentioned at the top of the meeting here, four of us were reappointed for another three-year term at City Council this morning. It was a pretty marathon session. I think we went about two hours after we were expecting to go up. But thank you to GREG and to ROSS and to SAMERE from the Community Safety Division for being there for that. And thank you to all of you for your continued service to the Citizen Review Committee. I know most of us three years ago, we were the new members of the CRC, and now we are the senior members. I don’t think many of us anticipated that we would be here doing this work for years on. But as the wheels very slowly move towards a new system of accountability, it’s really crucial that we continue to do this work. So, I wanna thank all of you. GREG, I want to second the record straight here. I think it was mentioned - there was one area in your bio, and I just wanna clarify that work for - go the distance as a Run Supervisor now. And then, also, I just want to extend some thanks to JULIE FALK who is still, technically, serving in this capacity until her successor is reappointed. But she has served eight years on the Citizen Review Committee, and I know is looking forward to a very well-earned respite as soon as recruitment ends. To that end, as ROSS mentioned, we are wrapping up the first round of recruitment for the Citizen Review Committee. Those applications are in, and IRP, with support from the Community Safety Division, will perform those interviews, and then they will send those nominations to counsel. The City is still accepting applications to serve on the Citizen Review Committee. We don’t know how many slots they will fill from that first traunch of applicants. And, obviously, we need alternates. We need future - potentially people to fill future vacancies. So, I will go ahead and put that link in the chat again. But if you are interested in serving on the Citizen Review Committee or on any of the other City panels that deal with policing, please feel free to visit us at the City’s website, and you can look at those opportunities. And hopefully, that clarifies some questions that came up at City Council today about sort of this process that is - most of these agencies are doing involving recruitment. I also really wanna thank the Community Safety Division for stepping up and assisting us in this process. That has been at the request and with much gratitude from both IPR and from leadership here at the Citizen Review Committee. IPR does not have a community engagement coordinator, and so it’s really important that we have assistance in this process. CRC really has, you know, a broad pool of distribution channels that they can engage to get the word out, so to speak. So, much appreciation to CSD. Much appreciation to IPR for shepherding that process through. And hopefully, we will be fully staffed here within the next few months here. So, appreciate all of your continued efforts not only doing this work, and not only doing the Police Review Boards that I know all of you are having to step up and do, but also making sure that we have quorum every month. So, much appreciation to you. Again, appreciation to Chief DAY for coming to this meeting, and hope that we can continue to engage with the Bureau. As ROSS mentioned, there are a lot of really salient topics that we have not really started to dig into from an operational standpoint, but we will wanna continue to engage with the Bureau as this year wears on, especially as we have more information. So, next up, we have election of officers. That’s why I went to Council today so that we actually had people that were electable. So, what I’d like to do - and DAVID, you can tell me if we need to do something different here - but I’d like us to take care of putting all the nominations forward so people know who is being nominated. And then, I believe we have to take public comment. Is it possible to do one round of public comment after all the nominations are done, or do we need to do it by position?
NGUYEN: Either way. I mean, I don’t see anything wrong with just doing just one round.
DELEGATO: Okay. All right. So, we’ll do nominations, and then we’ll take public comment. Obviously, also, the nominees can say a little something if they wish, and then we’ll go into voting. And typically, we, I believe, start at the top. We vote for Chair, and then for Vice Chair, and then for Recorder. So, if you had your eye on the big Chair, and you wanna hedge your bets and run for something else, you can do that. So, we’ll go ahead and open nominations, starting with nominations for Chair, which is currently my seat.
WALSH: I’d like to nominate YUME for Chair.
MALE: Second.
DELEGATO: Thank you. Yeah. I will be honest that my ambition or my hope is to be the last Chair of the CRC, not because I wanna do it forever or because it’s the most glamorous job, but because we are, hopefully, very close to the finish line. And it would - I would really like to see us through that process. So, I don’t know if it’s gonna be, you know, 12 months or 12 years before we’re done here. Yeah. GREG’s shaking his head no. I don’t know how long it’s gonna be. Right. We don’t know what the outcome of this year’s Collective Bargaining will be. We don’t know the outcome of any ballot measures. We don’t know if the City Council or State Legislature will make other changes. But as it stands, it is likely that for at least another year to two years, maybe three years even, the Citizen Review Committee will have to stay in force in order to continue this work. And, so, it’s really been an honor to serve on this committee. It’s been an honor to serve in leadership as Vice Chair, and it’s been an honor these past, what, six months to serve as your Chair. So, appreciate the nomination. And if elected, I look forward to continuing to serve. I’m going to make a nomination for Vice Chair, which is not to preclude any nominations for Chair. So, feel free to make any nominations you like. But I would like to nominate GREG as Vice Chair for another term or for a full term this time. So, GREG has been a great thought partner and a great support on his short tenure as Chair, and I would love to see him - or Vice Chair - and I would love to see him continue. If there’s a second.
MALE: Second.
KATZ: I second that.
DELEGATO: Well -
MALE: Got three seconds. That’s a good sign.
(Crosstalk)
PAPPAS: Make it four. Make it four. I second.
DELEGATO: Any other nominations for Chair or Vice Chair. Okay.
PAPPAS: You know, you all have just been super impressive stepping up in the middle of a very random, like, last nine months, ten months, and just have appreciated your, like, kind relational style in terms of leading us as we’re going through the larger structural transformation and then the micro-transformations that happened - transitions that have happened on our term.
DELEGATO: I appreciate you saying that, KYRA. Speaking of KYRA, I believe you have been our Recorder for the last couple months here. Would you be interested in staying on in that position, or would you like to -
PAPPAS: I would say yes. If somebody else is wanting to take that position, they are more than welcome to do that. Otherwise, I can stay on.
KATZ: Second.
PAPPAS: JESSICA, did I hear you say you wanted the position?
KATZ: No. I was seconding the motion.
WALSH: That was a second.
KATZ: Yes.
WALSH: I think YUME nominated you, and JESSICA seconded, is what I hear.
PAPPAS: Oh, okay.
DELEGATO: I think that’s - yeah, I think that’s how we’re gonna record that. So, we have one panel of nominees. We have a nominee for Chair, we have a nominee for Vice Chair, and we have a nominee for Recorder. Before we head to public comment, any other nominations for any of those three positions?
GRIFFIN: I move to close nominations.
WALSH: Second.
DELEGATO: All right. Before we vote, we will do public comment. So, I’m going to open up the floor to members of the public. If you wish to speak, please raise your hand, and we will go ahead and promote you. All right. Going once. Going twice. All right. And obviously, there will be a chance for general public comments at the end of the meeting. So, since we only have one nominee for each position, I’m going to treat that as a slate and ask you to vote yay or nay on it. If anyone would like to split out those positions, please let me know, and we can do it like we did the minutes. But otherwise, we will just vote on the slate of nominees before you. So, just to reiterate, myself, YUME DELEGATO for Chair, which would be a re-election, re-electing GREG GRIFFIN for Vice Chair, and re-electing KYRA PAPPAS for Recorder for full one-year terms now as opposed to - what was it - October to - or November to April. So, let’s see here. We’ll just go back to MIKE 'cause you’ve off mute for the last two times.
WALSH: Okay. I vote aye.
DELEGATO: JESSICA?
KATZ: Aye.
DELEGATO: GREG?
GRIFFIN: Aye.
DELEGATO: CHRIS?
PIEKARSKI: Aye.
DELEGATO: KYRA?
PAPPAS: Aye.
DELEGATO: All right. And I vote aye as well. The measure passes. Congratulations to our returning officers for the 2024-2025 year. So, thank you again for your service. Thanks to all of you for your work on the Citizen Review Committee. I think next up, we have workgroup updates. As we talked about at the start of the year, we are going to try and keep these short on a monthly basis, but every quarter, we are gonna expect maybe a little bit more of a full-sum update. So, MIKE, we’ll start with you. If you have anything that you wanna share, we can -
WALSH: Yeah. Thank you. So, the mission statement is in the agenda, so I don’t think I need to read that unless you want me to, YUME. But we met on March 6th - or sorry, March 5th at 6:00 p.m. for our first meeting, and we had a good conversation about the mission. We spent some time honing that, and that’s what we got there in the agenda that’s our mission. I guess I will say a few words on it. What we came up with was to monitor and assist the City and relay community input as appropriate towards the implementation of a transition plan for civilian oversight of police in the City of Portland with respect to City Charter. So, that’s our mission. And I asked at the end of the meeting for people to email me and let me know if they wanna be engaged members. And we got DEBBIE IONA, who emailed back. And the DAN - and you can talk to him at the public comment about this, but I’m pretty sure you said you wanted to engage during the meeting, so you didn’t need to email. So, if I got that wrong, let me know. And then, I thought we would have a meeting this week, but I’ve been trying to get a hold of HEIDI (ph) about questions I had emailed her way back in early March regarding - it came after our meeting with her when she came to visit, and I had a whole list of questions. And then, I haven’t gotten an email back from her. And really, a lot of what we need to do in our next meeting is predicated on information we get back from her. So, one of the things on the list here is, how can the IPR or CRC help us? I think that might be just to kinda nudge her, maybe, to get an answer to that. And I think ROSS, I’ve already - yeah, we’re already working on that. And I did ping her back again this week. So, not a big deal. But I’ve asked DAVID to schedule for next week. Is that right, DAVID? Do you remember the date? I think -
NGUYEN: Yep. It’s April 10 -
WALSH: Yeah.
NGUYEN: - next Tuesday.
WALSH: So, my hope is, you know, we’ll have something -
NGUYEN: Wednesday.
WALSH: It’s - yeah. My hope is we’ll have something - answers from HEIDI 'cause that’s gonna help a lot with that mission for our next meeting. 'Cause next meeting, we’ll get together and just talk over those responses and, you know, how we can dig into the reports and everything we need to do to kind of create - help the City, essentially, help us get there. I think that’s it that I need to talk about.
DELEGATO: Thank you, MIKE. That was a great update. And just - I guess I should have clarified. MIKE is leading our transition.
WALSH: Oh, yeah.
DELEGATO: All right. And then moving onto recurring audit. I know that KYRA and GREG are sort of co-convening that. If you have an update, we’d love to hear it. No pressure if you’re still in the organizational phase.
PAPPAS: We were - I was gonna say if GREG wants to speak on it - but we were able to meet, and we have noticed that there is a lack of files. And, so, we’re just gonna be needing to contact DAVID and possibly CHRIS to get some more information - or sorry, not CHRIS, ROSS - to get some more information about where some of the files are. And then, also, trying to figure - we’re wanting to put together a roadmap on what do we need to do to make sure the information that we’re getting lines up with the transition to the new committee so that we’re functioning with whatever that vision is and with the information that they need.
DELEGATO: Awesome. Please let us know how the broader CRC can assist you with that. And obviously, IPR is a great resource for that that works. So, look forward to hearing what you all decided. Just as some broader context, I had a short chat with GREG offline about this, but I think it’s important that your workgroup tackles something that is relevant to what you have the bandwidth for. And, so, less setting an expectation of we need a specific report on a specific topic, but wanna give you the flexibility to make sure that any work that the recurring audit undertakes is gonna be something that feels fruitful for you all to do rather than just saying, “Hey, look at these files and do that.” So, appreciate you, and appreciate you both for taking leadership on that process, and we’ll look forward to hearing more. Any items of new business from any member of the staff or CRC? All right. Hearing none. That takes us to public comment. So, as always, we have three minutes for public comment. Please raise your hand if you would like to speak. And, KYRA, as our newly-elected Recorder, I’ll trust on you to take care of monitoring time for people. All right. (Inaudible - 00:55:22), or I’m assuming that’s DAN HANDELMAN (ph). We’ll have you go first.
HANDELMAN: Yes, Chair DELEGATO, can you hear me?
DELEGATO: We can, DAN.
HANDELMAN: DAN HANDELMAN.
DELEGATO: Welcome.
HANDELMAN: Okay. Great. Good evening. DAN HANDELMAN. He/him pronouns. Portland Cop Watch. Congratulations to everybody on being reappointed and being re-elected and so forth. So, I was waiting for that City Council hearing today, too. Yeah. It was this afternoon. It wasn’t this morning. It was supposed to be at, like, 10:45, and it ended up being about 1:15 before it got on there. But it did raise some important questions about why is the Community Safety Division - I mean, I understand that there’s not a average person for the IPR - but the Community Safety Division works with these groups that are very closely tied with the police. The Police Review Board is actually a board that’s within the Bureau, and the IPR helps pick the members for that. And the PCCP is required by their charter to work directly with the police. But it really feels like there should be more distance between the CRC and the Police Bureau. I know there’s not a lot of choices, but I just wanted to repeat that to you all. There was a discussion about the crowd control stuff. I was interested to hear that there was an incident with protesters and police. I’m not sure if that’s something I had heard about, or maybe I missed something. The City Council just approved a new Public Order Team, or POT, P-O-T, and the Bureau, in the month that you didn’t have a meeting, put out their directive for crowd control, and Cop Watch commented on it and, as usual, reminded them that you made your own recommendations about policy changes 'cause they never seem to acknowledge what you wrote and took a lot of time to write. Incidentally, with the Police Review Board - and it was interesting to hear how long it’s taking for these cases to go through there - I went through their reports, and 10 - there have been 10 officers who have been held accountable for what they did at protests in 2020, and some of them have been recent, those accountability findings. The Police Accountability Commission was told my Chief LOVELL that he did not like making decisions about whether or not officers violated policy and how to discipline them. I was wondering if somebody could bring that back up with Chief DAY if he does come back. I didn’t wanna put it in the chat and interrupt his conversation with you, but that was informative towards what the new system is supposed to look like under the charter that exists right now. The Director’s Report was also - you know, there were no comments other than the data that are in there every month this time, and it’s very frustrating. The history of those reports - I’ve told you before - is that the Director always used to do verbal reports, then they gave the written ones and always didn’t save those into the record, and now we have - I don't know, it’s just very hard to follow. So, I was wondering about OAR Group, which was supposed to review shootings by the Portland Police deadly force incidents. They have not had -
PAPPAS: Ten seconds, Mr. HANDELMAN.
HANDELMAN: What’s that?
PAPPAS: Ten seconds, Mr. HANDELMAN.
HANDELMAN: Okay. Thank you. And yeah. So, yeah. I just wanna say that it’s gonna be a while before the new system is up and running, so it’s probably worthwhile getting an OAR contract now before the cases get too old. And just to answer Mr. WALSH’s question, yeah, I did say that I would like to participate in the subcommittee meetings. I really hope you’ll think about having them on Tuesdays instead of Wednesdays 'cause there’s a lot of accountability groups meet on Wednesdays.
WALSH: I appreciate that, Mr. HANDELMAN. I’LL talk to DAVID about it. I don’t think it’s been posted, and then we can move it to Tuesday. I appreciate that. I talk to you later, DAVID.
DELEGATO: Thank you, DAN. So, a couple of things just in response to you, DAN. I agree with you on one thing, which is that I, too, was interested to hear ROSS mention that there have already been some cases that, you know, deal with more recent crowd-control instances. So, we will definitely watch with some expectancy here to see if those matriculate through the system and make their way to a PRB or to an appeal. As always, I encourage the public to avail themselves of IPR and of the process. That’s the only way that we can continue to provide accountability is if people make complaints and appeal the decisions if they feel a need to. So, I’m not encouraging people to make them arbitrarily, but that’s what the system is there for. So, (inaudible - 01:00:00) with you, and I hear you on your comments with regard to CSD. I respectfully don’t agree with you, but I understand that perspective. I think that the Community Safety Division, you know, does staff organizations that deal with the Police Department more directly in some cases, but they are not part of the Portland Police Bureau. And again, we have been, you know, very much in their debt for their assistance in this process. I also wanna stress that just because Community Safety Division is helping with outreach and some technical support for that, it does not mean that the nominating process has changed. That remains with IPR and the nominating committee that’s mandated by, I believe, it’s City Code. I might be wrong on that front. And then, certainly, ROSS, I guess I will just pose the question to you. Do we know if there is going to be another OAR report in the foreseeable future?
CALDWELL: We’re working on it.
DELEGATO: Okay.
CALDWELL: Yeah. There should be. We are working on it, as I think I’ve told you many times before. But yeah. We’re working on it.
DELEGATO: Okay. Well, we will look forward to seeing the next chapter of that ongoing analysis. Any other public comment this evening? All right. Going once. Going twice. All right. That concludes our agenda for this evening. I wanna thank - oh, I guess, JULIE was serving nine years. So, again, our thanks to JULIE FALK for her service. But that ends our agenda for this evening. Thank you all for being here. Again, thank you to our returning CRC members and our recurring officers. And the time is 6:33. This meeting is adjourned. Have a great evening, everyone.
WALSH: Thanks, YUME.
(Crosstalk)
PAPPAS: Thanks, YUME. Thank you.
MALE: (Inaudible - 01:02:14) everybody.