Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian
A new team of community members, police, city officials and attorneys will meet Wednesday to begin its review of Portland Police Bureau policy and training in the wake of the police shooting of Kendra James.
Portland Police Chief Mark Kroeker expects the 31-member Community Police Organizational Review Team, dubbed CPORT, to meet twice a month through November and recommend changes that can be adopted quickly to improve the bureau.
The team will meet as discipline is pending against Portland Officer Scott McCollister, who fired one 9 mm shot that killed 21-year-old James as she tried to drive off after a traffic stop in North Portland early May 5.
Kroeker recommended a substantial suspension for McCollister stemming from a bureau administrative review that identified questionable tactics used before the shooting -- such as McCollister’s decision to enter the car to get James out.
“Our objective is to make sure that something like that never happens again,” Kroeker told the Chief’s Forum at its regular meeting Monday.
Later Monday afternoon, Kroeker told The Oregonian’s editorial board that the team will focus on “what is it we can do to get better as a result of this tragedy?”
McCollister, 27, is scheduled to challenge the proposed discipline at a hearing before the chief Aug. 13. The hearing was postponed from last month to allow McCollister more time to prepare.
Assistant Chief Lynnae Berg is leading the team, made up of 12 community members, retired Portland police Officer Dave Barrios, Portland’s retired FBI special agent-in-charge Charlie Mathews, police union President Robert King, three officers and a sergeant, three police captains, three police commanders, a Multnomah County prosecutor, a deputy city attorney, the head of the bureau’s Planning and Support Division, the city human resources manager, and the director of Portland’s Independent Police Review Division.
In a letter to CPORT members, the chief outlined general topics to consider. They include police policy and procedure on use of deadly force; training on use of force and levels of police control; supervision of officers, staffing levels and deployment of officers; recruitment, selection and police hiring; discipline; and citizen oversight.
Richard Brown, a member of the Chief’s Forum who is active in the Northeast Portland community, was asked to be among the community members on the new team. He said he is concerned that the size of the group may be too big to get things done, but he said he will push for policy changes.
Already, Berg has led a group of officers -- including Assistant Chief Scott Anderson, police union president King and Deputy City Attorney David Woboril -- to Phoenix, Ariz., where police shootings are reviewed by a Use of Force Board. A civilian sits on the board with police and can vote on whether the use of force fell within department policy.
In Portland, despite community demands for citizen oversight of police use of deadly force and deaths in custody, the Citizen Review Committee that reviews complaints of alleged police misconduct has no immediate oversight of police shootings.
Yet, Kroeker said he likes Phoenix’s approach.
“I think it has a lot of good to offer to our situation,” the chief said.
A Multnomah County grand jury ruled in May that there was no criminal wrongdoing by McCollister. McCollister said 80 percent of his body was inside the car when it started to move forward, and he feared getting dragged beneath it. James had a warrant for her arrest for failure to appear in court on an attempted drug possession charge and had cocaine in her blood at the time of the shooting.
Following the grand jury ruling, the bureau began an administrative review of the shooting to determine whether it adhered to bureau policy and procedures.
Portland detectives, in interviews with McCollister during the criminal investigation, questioned why he entered the car to get James out when he was not trained to do so, why he failed to use his pepper spray, and why he dined or talked by phone with two other officers who were witnesses to the shooting before his formal police interview.
Since the shooting, Mayor Vera Katz said she would support a clear police policy that prohibits officers who are involved in or witnesses to a police shooting from meeting with or talking to one another before their interviews with detectives.
An internal affairs investigation is also getting under way into the actions of other officers after the early morning shooting. The internal inquiry is looking into, for example, whether supervisors took appropriate steps to separate the officers involved in the traffic stop and shooting immediately after the incident.
As of last Tuesday, the internal inquiry was “barely under way,” an investigator had not been assigned, and no internal affairs interviews had been held, said records manager Debra Haugen.