The Portland, Ore., police officer applied for a job with the Oregon State Police in Salem. As usual, the prospective employer asked the applicant why he wanted to leave his current job.
The Portland officer told of how he had pulled over a speeding driver and ticketed him. The driver, who was black, warned the cop that he was going to file a complaint for racial profiling.
The driver followed through on his complaint. It was duly investigated and declared unfounded. Yet that unfounded complaint remained in the cop’s file. The officer decided he didn’t want to continue working for an agency that treated even unfounded citizen complaint as righteous, especially in a city where citizen complaints are practically encouraged.
The story of the black Portland police officer – yes, the cop was black – wanting to get out of Portland made the rounds of the state Capitol building in Salem a few months ago. The story was symbolic of what’s happening in Portland’s police department.
In Portland, there are at least five citizen watchdog groups or public bodies keeping an eye on cops. After a year of meetings of one quasi-governmental group – the Community Oversight Advisory Board, which is recommending police reforms in how law enforcement treats the mentally ill – it appears the inmates have taken over the asylum.
One inmate in particular.
David Kif Davis, 45, is a white man with a shaved head who says he’s homeless and suffers from PTSD. (He goes by his middle name, pronounced “Keef.”) Davis is never without his digital camera and has become a regular at any public meeting in the metro area involving the police.
A couple of months ago, Davis was part of a group that hijacked a Gresham City Council meeting. A Portland Tribune story detailed how “bubbling with anger over … Gresham’s recent move to fence off an area along the Springwater Trail,” this group demanded that their stories be heard.
Check out one of the Tribune’s photos of Davis pointing his video camera at Gresham resident Scott Moulton, who countered with his own story. Moulton told of the damage vagrant campers had done to Gresham Woods and how they had threatened his family. This is how Davis attempts to bully people who disagree with him.
What’s different between Gresham City Council and Portland’s Community Oversight Advisory Board (COAB) is that in Gresham citizens stood up to Davis and his group.
In Portland, some members of the police oversight board sided with Davis and turned against Chairwoman Kathleen Saadat. She had called for a uniformed officer to escort Davis from a recent meeting after he refused to move to the area designated for public filming.
Davis stood where he wanted to, sat where he wanted to with his video camera.
“I am asking you to please move. … Put your camera away or move,” Saadat said more than once.
“I’m not going to do that. It’s a violation of my constitutional rights,” replied Davis.
“I agree with you Mr. Davis,” said COAB member Tom Steenson.
Steenson is a white attorney who specializes in suing the police. He was originally appointed as an alternate member, but there have been so many resignations he became a full-fledged member. He pushes for every possible increased restriction on what police can do on the job, which could lead to more lawsuits.
For example, he wanted to further limit when officers could use pepper spray and Tasers. If you make it harder for cops to use pepper spray and Tasers, don’t be surprised if more of them reach for their guns when they are threatened. Attorneys like Steenson are standing by.
Saadat is a 76-year-old black woman and a long-time Portland civil rights activist. She was tapped to take over the advisory board after former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul DeMuniz asked to step down after one meeting. He cited health reasons. I think after one meeting he quickly deduced where it was headed.
No former chief justice wants to kowtow to a bunch of gadflies like Davis or try to herd a 15-member board, many of whom represent a “protected class” or self-described tribe. (If you are a deaf pansexual or a transgendered person or a Latin-American lesbian, you have a spokesperson on the board, even if he/she may not represent your best interests.)
The irony is that Davis probably best represents the challenges of dealing with the mentally ill, and this board of experts can’t seem to handle him. They seem inclined to acquiesce to him.
In the past year that I have been attending COAB meetings, Saadat has repeatedly reminded Davis, and occasionally several others in his cohort, of the ground rules pertaining to public comment. There is a time limit, and those who speak on a particular item are expected to address that item. These are standard requirements at many city, county and state public hearings.
Davis speaks in a low, nasally monotone, ignores time limits and drones on about his constitutional rights, about his PTSD, about how many times he’s been denied medical care, about how “cocktail liberal” City Commissioner Amanda Fritz had him tossed from a City Council meeting, about his constitutional rights, about a handcuff injury he suffered when he was 19 in jail in California that flares up every time he gets arrested again, about his constitutional rights, about how many complaints he’s filed against police and intends to keep on filing. One officer in particular really bugs him.
“I refer to him as Officer Pig Claws,” Davis said at a February meeting.
“We try to keep a civil tone … and not assign to people negative characteristics,” Saadat reminded him.
“I’ve got First Amendment rights…,” Davis said. “I can call him Officer Pig Claws.”
Davis reminds me of some of the regulars I dealt with on the crisis line at Spokane Mental Health. His mind recycles the same thoughts. He doesn’t seek resolution. He keeps circling the drain hole.
That’s why it’s disturbing that some COAB members like Steenson and Myrlaviani Rivier embolden him. They are supposed to be offering recommendations to help police in their interactions with the mentally ill.
Is it any wonder that a Portland police officer would be looking for another job? Imagine David Kif Davis filing a complaint against him, having the complaint unfounded – yet it remains in the officer’s file.
For the year’s worth of COAB meetings I have attended, Saadat has been patient with Davis. Her comments to him are typically “Time’s up, Mr. Davis. … Your time is running out. … Mr. Davis, you’re done having the floor. … Time’s up.”
While Davis has pushed the time limits, he has had freedom to move about the hearing room, standing where he wanted to and shooting what he wanted to with his video camera.
About two months ago, one board member – former state Sen. Avel Gordly, who is black – asked Davis how he was using all the video he was shooting.
He gave a vague answer but mentioned he had access to a copwatch website. (He also posts on an aptly named website called garbagebrain.com.)
Then a little more than a month ago, another police watchdog group – the Citizens Review Committee, which is part of City Hall’s Independent Police Review – had an incident in which one of Davis’ cohorts named Charles Johnson, threw a cup of water on a committee member who sided with a police officer.
That led to the city attorney’s office reviewing the law and determining that the Citizens Review Committee could enforce new security measures – including removing disruptive people. That same right applied to Saadat when she asked Davis to cooperate or leave.
This is police reform in Portland: Johnson, the guy who tossed the water at the other hearing, was at the COAB meeting to cheer on Davis as he squared off with Saadat.
While Saadat called a recess to wait for a uniformed officer to arrive, Davis mingled with the audience and dug into a plateful of Middle Eastern salad that was among the food selections provided at the meeting.
“I better eat this,” he said to no one in particular. “In jail it’s a baloney sandwich.”
Saadat, apparently seeking to reassure everyone that she, indeed, had the authority to remove Davis, found a copy of the city attorney’s ruling and leaned into her microphone and read the law. All around her were COAB and audience members milling about, chatting and laughing. No one seemed to be listening. It was a sad and disrespectful moment for a woman regarded as a lioness in Portland’s civil rights history.
Within hours of Davis’ removal, YouTube and other social media sites were vilifying Saadat. Roger David Hardesty (husband of NAACP President JoAnn Hardesty) criticized Saadat, saying her “failure, to act as a ‘liaison’ in favor of a warden’s role, is evidence enough that the City continues to lack respect for Constitutional protection . . . not only in policing, but in the sham accountability systems as well.”
The Community Oversight Advisory Board will have an accountability problem, but not because of Saadat.
In an interview with The Skanner newspaper after she was appointed chair of COAB, Saadat said the meetings would be an opportunity for Portland citizens and the police to work together and learn.
Unfortunately, most Portland residents are busy with work and family. They don’t have the time or inclination to go to meetings or read reports. The majority of Portlanders also have few interactions with the police.
At many COAB meetings, Dan Handelman of Portland CopWatch is the only public speaker who appears to have studied the issue under discussion. He has long been a critic of the cops.
Police are often justifiably accused of having an us vs. them mentality. But there is an us vs. them mentality as well on the Community Oversight Advisory Board. Too often, members immediately side with anyone who is anti-cop, even if it is someone like David Kif Davis.
That won’t work if this board wants its recommendations taken seriously. After Davis was ejected, the board recommended the City Council immediately remove the 48-Hour Rule from the police union’s contract.
The rule allows a cop to wait 48 hours before being questioned by internal affairs after he has been involved in on-the-job deadly force. Police unions support the rule. Probably no work place in America is as rife with office politics as a police department. (Remember, even unfounded complaints don’t go away.)
Still, the 48-Hour Rule needs to go. It looks suspicious and is bad PR for police.
It will also be bad PR for the Community Oversight Advisory Board if it comes to represent the whims of guys like Davis who – not surprisingly – also opposes the 48-Hour Rule.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
Related:
Hi, Pamela! Bud Feuless… Trust “transgendered” person and Chair of COAB Exec committee here. Can we talk? You’ve captured some good facts and made some great observations, but there are a few things you may not know that might change your viewpoint on COAB itself. Feel free to message me on Facebook at Bud at The Portland COAB. Maybe we could have coffee? Thanks, Bud
I’ll be in touch. Thanks for writing.
I was invited to COAB’s outreach program last month. I hadn’t been to a meeting since the first one. My son’s had problems with the police due mostly to drugs use. We have more drug dealers in Portland than cops so I’m not one to blame them for everything.
We need parent reform. I’ve tried hard with my son. The friends he’s made thru drugs I don’t know where their parents are. If Mr. Davis has kids, whose raising them.
I wish COAB luck. Davis and his kind should butt out.
I’m certain that Bud is a peppy jam-side up person. However, the situation is irretrievable for and by reasonable.
Irretrievable? I don’t know. I was discouraged when I went back and read one of my essays from a year ago. Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch (like Kif Davis would later) tried to commandeer the meeting’s agenda and declared his group was not interested in collaboration. Now a year later, Handelman practically looks like an elder statesman compared to the activists who have taken over.
David Kif Davis claims to be half Reptilian but actually his great grandmother was a monitor lizard.
He is a menace!
I don’t know about his great-grandmother, but Kif’s mother is Pamela Snowhite Davis, who owned an 80-acre farm in Carroll County, Maryland. Twenty-three years ago, she was sentenced to two years in prison on a felony drug charge related to marijuana. (The sentence was for five years, but the judge suspended three years.)
Kif, who would have been about 22, “declared war against the law-enforcement community,” according to a story in the Baltimore Sun.
His mother’s sentence seems excessive now, but in 1993 there was more concern about drug abuse. Now we’re giving away free meth pipes and trying to find housing for drug addicts (some of whom pass themselves off as mentally ill.
If Kif, now a middle-aged man, has wasted his life trying to get even with a judge in Maryland over his mom’s two-year prison sentence, that’s also excessive. Your explanation makes just as much sense.
You’re right that he’s a menace — at least to the cause he thinks he’s fighting (police reform). Last night at the Citizens Review Committee, which holds public hearings on individual complaints filed against officers, Kif was there, moving chairs around, doing what he wanted. He overstayed every visit at the mic. He seemed to be enjoying himself, until the police were allowed to leave — before he got to have his last word. Kif loves a captive audience.
Oh, just to throw something in as this is really about the unbelievable hypocrisy and idealist junk science/thinking that is strangling our culture/nation:
A gay activist named Milo Yanopolis is the subject of much comment at Oregonlive. I like the guy for several reasons, but mostly because he is outspoken in a really unusual way.
My comment below has been repeatedly deleted by the Olive people the last couple days as has been the cartoon:
This clown has probably seen homosexuals pitched off of roof tops overseas and hung by judicial authority in the middle-east. Prolly seen dozens of Muslim scare stories about gay men getting beaten into unconsciousness in Rotterdam. London, Brussels, and Paris. Prolly read those stories of the rape and torture of gays anywhere Muslims predominate or hold sway.
What a clown.
It’s like those European women that complain about mass sexual assaults and etc. by Muslims. The new guidelines for European women, set by the female political wizards on that continent is sound: don’t dress provocatively, don’t go around alone at night, be deferential to Muslim men, dress modestly.
Above all, do not report rapes and homosexual beatings as well as Jewish assaults in the media. In other words, meet the Muslims halfway and you’ll prolly be aright.
This Milo guy, what is he thinking?
I went over and looked at that story. Milo Yiannopoulos likes to provoke. I wonder how much of what he says he truly believes. But I’m glad he was invited to the University of Oregon. A little diversity is good for the kids.
Even The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof thinks college campuses have become too exclusively liberal. Maybe his soul-searching is because of Donald Trump.
Several weeks ago, I heard a report on NPR’s “Here and Now” trying to link Trump’s success with Fox News. I sent them an e-mail: “Do you honestly not see how NPR has contributed to Trump’s success?”
It’s part of the famous “Ferguson effect.” People are angry and tired of being force-fed stories they don’t believe, e.g. martyred teen Michael Brown, the campus “rape culture” epidemic, bathroom/locker room equality, anti-Christian intolerance and pro-Muslim tolerance, free all prison inmates and end mass incarceration now.
Still, a backlash is no way to elect a president.
At the post, ‘DoJ Reference Points,’ we offer wider analysis of expectations set by US AAG Tom Perez following Findings of unconstitutional patterns and practices at the City of Portland. Involved deeply in the call for investigation, and assembling testimony to meet the burden of proof, we offered COAB points of reference as they organized. (COAB itself is based on a model Consult Hardesty proposed.) Sadly, the inclusive Liaison engagement strategy was subverted by the perpetrators; instead of an empowered civilian body, conducting citizen input to action items navigating reform efforts, it busied itself as a cul-de-sac for aspirations. Perez has moved on to SecLabor; no one at a Federal level has taken initiative to counter structural deficiencies, and inhibitive role of contractors. (There are no plans for implementation review: when the City sued to prevent Federal Judge Simon from accepting annual public testimony, all feedback loops closed.) For an improved model, look to the Consent Decree negotiated in Newark, NJ. While contractors bemoan ‘outsiders’ in a public process, the nation looks to Newark as a citizen empowerment structure, with real authority to shape and mandate changes.
I have always maintained that the most effective remedy is to inoculate the public so that we, as individuals, are aware of and can assert our liberties and constitutional protections … long after funding for COAB expires.
http://consulthardesty.com/status-report/doj-ref-pts
I humbly present the post by Roger David Hardesty, in all of its… glory, as exhibit 1, in my case for why citizen oversight into police matters is ridiculous.
I suspect the majority of Portlanders agree with you.
What’s curious is that in recent years, medical errors have been the third leading cause of death in the U.S. Yet the medical profession doesn’t receive nearly as much scrutiny as cops.
“Do you honestly not see how NPR has contributed to Trump’s success?” _ Absolutely correct.
“People are angry and tired of being force-fed . . .” Absolutely correct again.
“…Yiannopoulos likes to provoke. I wonder how much of what he says he truly believes.” Beats me, but I’m glad he’s doing some provoking.
Read today about Obama’s recent visit from Black Lies Matter at the White House. Lotta “justice involved youth.”
Just Googled the name of “A prominent Black Lives Matter activist [who] was arrested for allegedly forcing a 17-year-old girl into prostitution . . .” and it is primarily being reported by minor league conservative media.
Trump – a cartoon, Hilary, a corrupt autocrat. What to do?
I had not heard of Charles Wade until I read your comment referring to the BLM activist accused of human trafficking. I found a story about him at the New York Daily News. He was once an image consultant to Beyoncé’s sister, Solange Knowles. The death of Michael Ferguson prompted him to do something more meaningful with his life.
What to do about the presidential race? At this point, I can’t imagine voting for either Trump or Clinton. I loathe her in a way that can only come from having once admired someone. As for Trump, I never paid attention to him; he was just an American celebrity. He’s done something useful by tearing apart the Republican Party. Maybe if he selects a radical centrist for a running mate, even a Democrat, I could vote for him.
Bernie Sanders is also to be commended for taking on the Democratic Party elite. Who says it has to be “Hillary’s turn?”
Larry Norton, a retired Berkeley, Calif., attorney who now lives in Portland, has a website that monitors news from all over the world. He, too, has been wrestling with the presidential choices:
“The Democrats ought to accept Sanders and move Hillarious to the side, maybe bring the FBI investigations to the front. Sanders has a chance against Trump. They have similar goals, at least more than Clinton and Trump. And Sanders comes off as a better person.”
Norton could also consider voting for a ticket like Donald Trump/Patrick Buchanan.
Buchanan’s not a radical centrist, but it’s a thought-provoking idea.
“The story of the black Portland police officer”
An anecdote about an unnamed officer. This is not reporting- it’s story telling. Please begin your posts “Once upon a time…”
Once upon a time, everybody in Portland, Ore., agreed that cops were brutal, and criminal offenders were victims — especially if they were black.
You like that better?
In 2016, using an anecdote to illustrate a story is indeed reporting. Haven’t you noticed how even the big media (especially NPR and The New York Times) are constantly reporting issues through “narrative?” If you haven’t, maybe it’s because those stories fit your politics.
Here’s a fact: Between January and April, the Portland Police Bureau lost six officers to other police agencies. Police have always been free to change jobs and move among other agencies. But good community policing requires that officers get to know their community and feel a connection. It takes time. Turnover is not how you build community policing.
Losing six officers to other agencies when Portland, as the big city, should be the place where career opportunity and benefits draw officers from the suburbs is disturbing. Do you have info about where those officers went? Was it to bigger agencies with more opportunities or local suburban agencies with less opportunity but also less drama?
The lack of ability of police agencies to hire people to even balance out retirements is a nationwide problem. Portland cops make 80-90K per year after five years, and it only requires a couple of years of college! How is it possible that non-felonious college grads would prefer work that assuredly makes them much less than half of the salary of a Portland cop? That is the question real journalists should be asking.
A spokeswoman for the Portland Police Personnel Office said why officers choose to leave is a personal matter and not public. Off the top of her head, she recalled that among the agencies they had moved to were Lake Oswego, Oregon City, Port of Portland and federal ATF.
Officer Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association, said other agencies included Clackamas County and King County.
“It’s not about monetary compensation … Oregon City and Lake Oswego pay less than we do. Port of Portland pays less …,” he said.
In his 25 years with the department, Turner has not seen so many people leaving in a six-month period, and the department is already understaffed.
“Between 8 a.m. and noon there are less than 30 officers on the street,” he said. It adds to the feeling of danger on some calls when cover may not be available for three minutes — a long time in especially risky circumstances.
You are correct about the draw of less drama.
“Political dynamics are very hard in this city,” said Turner, citing the layers of government oversight: the PRB (Police Review Board), CRC (Citizen Review Committee), IPR (Independent Police Review), IAD (Internal Affairs Dept.) There are also the citizen groups like PortlandCopWatch and Police911 and the court-mandated Community Oversight Advisory Board (COAB).
Consider that Charles Johnson, the man who threw water in the face of one of the Citizen Review Committee members, has been welcomed at subsequent meetings of the CRC.
It’s part of the political dynamics of being a cop in Portland.
“Clinton. I loathe her in a way that can only come from having once admired someone.” I’m not sure what that means. I’d like to suggest a compromise for this years election. All I want is that Trump not be president so we don’t have an election for President this year. Paul Ryan will take over the White House for 4 years while the Dems and Repubs regroup and contemplate what this year has taught them. Giving over control of the Executive and Representative branches of government to the Republicans should make them very happy and they can “fix” the country after 8 years of the Obama Tyranny. They have to though appoint Obama to fill the empty place on the Supreme Court as an apology for being so obstinate for the last 4 years and to provide some balance to the Government. The Republican in control can then fully investigate Hillary’s e-mails and Trumps taxes and let the American people know if either one is fit to run for President again ever again. Hopefully in that time both parties can present the American People with some more likable alternatives. Everyone but Clinton and Trump get a win. You with me?
Regarding Clinton: I admired her when she was First Lady, and how she handled the scandal with her husband. Not because she stayed married to him, but because she hung in there in the face of what looked like a special prosecutor’s attempt to destroy her family. It would have been easy for her to fade from public view after she left the White House. Instead, she chose to run for U.S. Senate even though she knew a portion of the public would make a sport of her.
I spent a lot of time defending her to friends and family. I started to lose regard for her when she voted to invade Iraq. The kicker for me was when she said she was “dead broke.” That’s an insult to the millions of people who are dead broke. (She’s as money-hungry as a Portland progressive.)
Politicians should be willing to change their minds, but she stands for nothing. She defends abortion rights but says abortion should be “rare.” (It will be rare when heterosexual sex becomes rare.) She once praised Bill Clinton’s Crime Bill but now condemns it (even though black Congressional leaders wanted that bill because inner-city black neighborhoods were under seige by black thugs).
Now this presidential idea of yours is certainly original. I don’t see a guy like Paul Ryan being merely a placeholder for four years. Obama on the Supreme Court? Too much work, and he wouldn’t even be chief justice. He’ll write books, dabble at Harvard and spend the rest of his life on a permanent book tour with the media hanging on every word.
If Trump manages to get elected, he’ll quit mid-term. He will have more money and freedom as Donald Trump than as President Trump (which would say something about how irrelevant the presidency is becoming).
If Clinton gets elected, power suits and shoulder pads will come back in fashion. She will play at being the most powerful woman in the world even though she won’t be.
Those old white men who wrote the U.S. Constitution envisioned lousy presidents. Look at what the country has already survived.
The cliche of the French aristocracy comes to mind for both political parties: They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
We will see how durable an instrument the constitution remains. Many would like to see it go. A surprising number.
Feelings trump all and where it will end and how it will end …
[…] “The Tail Wagging the Police Dog” […]
I’m pretty sure police job dissatisfaction has more to do with a parade of Chiefs resigning under suspicious circumstance and their direct reports being demoted for covering their boss’s asses. Plus the police file both internal and IPR complaints against each other a LOT.
And while cops got a raise in the last contract, they dismissed a bunch of lawsuits against the City in exchange.
They also HATE the surveillance that came in the wake of failing the DOJ investigation into their brutality. Pete Simpson encouraged that dissatisfaction by writing inflammatory statements like “why should we submit to scrutiny by those who have not walked in our shoes” and claiming they can’t do their jobs if we’re watching.
But sure, blame the activists or Trump or Clinton or Obama. I blame a parade of mayors who ran on police reform, held on to the police commissioner role, and once in office proved ineffectual or reversed tack entirely (like Wheeler arming PPB with more advanced weaponry like CS Gas & sting grenades).
Violence begets violence. Escalation begets escalation.
Policing protests used to be easy safe O.T. and public meetings used to manageable. If they are not, it’s because our Mayors & police have not learned to De-Escalate.
Maybe focus on pushing that agenda instead of blaming, shaming & escalating.
If we had real reform, our mentally ill would not need to act out in public meetings to press for reform already mandated by a federal judge.
It’s not as if Dan Handelman is given any respect by Mayor Hales. I’ve watched. He barely acknowledges Dan’s 25 years of experience or his intelligent commentary. It’s disrespectful and counter-productive, and tells others that behaving well and working within channels gets you nowhere.
I don’t know. Police chiefs come and go. For some cops I’m sure it’s embarrassing when the boss accidentally shoots his friend and then lies about it. But cops are also an irreverent bunch. They often see people at their worst. They learn to laugh at things that might upset the rest of us.
You’re correct that Portland mayors always seize the role of police commissioner. It’s especially ridiculous when they dispatch themselves to major crime scenes and then make statements to the media about whatever crime has occurred.
Portland needs a more efficient form of government where a city manager oversees the daily business of running the city. Portland likes to be different, though.
I’ve been to many public meetings. There is a clan of antagonists who show up regularly, claiming to be mentally ill and issuing various demands. Mostly, they’re out for themselves. Being mentally ill should not confer special rights.