By Aimee Green
The Oregonian
MULTNOMAH COUNTY, Ore. — The Multnomah County district attorney won’t prosecute a 33-year-old man who was arrested June 14 by a Portland police officer for posting a flier on the federal courthouse calling three Portland police officers “murderers” and “scumbags.”
Richard Prentice says he was taken into custody and cited for unlawfully “advertising on streets” because his flier offended the police — a violation of his constitutional rights.
“It was an abuse of power,” said Prentice, a senior at Portland State University, who said he was handcuffed, locked in a cell and then berated by several police officers. He was cited and released later that evening.
The 8-by-11-inch flier has the names and photographs of Portland police officers Brett Burton, Kyle Nice and Christopher Humphreys. It reads “WANTED . . . These SCUM BAGS killed an innocent man named Jim Chasse by beating him to death. They are still employed by the Portland police department.”
The district attorney’s office declined to prosecute this week, and on Wednesday the Police Bureau released the arrest report.
According to the report, Officer Matt Wells was driving by the federal courthouse in downtown when he spotted Prentice taping up a flier. Wells told Prentice to take it down. Prentice responded, “I’ll post them someplace else then” and ripped it down.
Prentice says Wells handcuffed him and seized his stack of fliers, which included others critical of police. One was a photo of a burning police car and the other depicted a large gun pointed at a police officer’s head under the words “Revolutions don’t happen by themselves. We need your help.”
Portland police spokeswoman Officer Cathe Kent said Wells was within his rights to handcuff and detain Prentice. “It depends on (Prentice’s) demeanor,” Kent said.
Prentice says Wells was wrong to charge him with a crime when he was exercising his free speech rights. Prentice says he is also upset that the police depicted in the poster came to confront him as he sat in a holding cell at Central Precinct.
The Multnomah County district attorney’s office rejected the case this week because of the dubious constitutionality of the ordinance cited by the officer. In a memo, the district attorney cites the city attorney’s own reservations about the law, which bans the posting of notices on public buildings but is seen as vague and overbroad.
The officers involved could not be reached for comment. Kent said that Officer Wells charged Prentice with a legitimate crime: “Advertising on Streets” is still listed in the city code, even though it turns out that city leaders aren’t standing by it.
Prentice said he was never read his rights. The two officers who drove him to Central Precinct berated him for criticizing police for the death of James P. Chasse Jr. Chasse, who had schizophrenia, died Sept. 17 from multiple rib fractures after police chased him and tackled him.
“They were telling me how stupid I was and I didn’t know anything about the Chasse incident,” Prentice said.
Prentice said he had waited about 45 minutes when Sgt. Kyle Nice, one of the officers on the flier, came into the cell. He said Nice told him he had no right to put up the fliers, he wasn’t at the grand jury hearing and that it was the medical staff’s fault that Chasse died. Prentice said Nice left, and another officer on the flier showed up 45 minutes later. He said Officer Christopher Humphreys was more civil. Humphreys told Prentice he felt bad about what happened to Chasse and thinks about it every day.
Prentice estimated he was held for a few hours. Police spokesman Brian Schmautz said it was more like 70 minutes.
“He exaggerates,” Schmautz said. Schmautz said Nice did go into the cell to talk to Prentice but he did not know if Humphreys did.
Schmautz also said it would not have been against bureau practice for the officers to visit Prentice in his cell. Schmautz said they might have been in the building as part of their regular duties and stopped by to hand Prentice a business card and invite him to discuss his concerns at a future date.
Prentice said it felt more like a confrontation.
“I would have been happy to have dialogue with them on more equal terms,” he said.
Prentice has filed a complaint with the city’s police oversight agency, the Independent Police Review Division, which will investigate the case and make a recommendation to the bureau about whether it should further investigate the incident and the officers for possible wrongdoing.
Copyright 2007 Oregon Live LLC