Totality of Circumstances

The Portland Police Bureau is developing a Five Year Strategic Plan over the course of 2018, and is holding two Community Focus Groups to hear community priorities. Police Chief Danielle Outlaw announced the strategic plan process in July. PPB says the plan is designed to bring the Bureau in line with the so-called “ Pillars of Twenty-First Century Policing ,” established by a presidential task force during the Obama administration with the aim of establishing local trust in police. The Bureau promises “360-degree accountability” during the planning process. Pres. Obama and VP Biden meet with rank-and-file officers, Feb 2015 (Creative Commons) Prior to 2012, the Bureau had a  five-year strategic community policing plan . According to the Bureau, it has since been using the  2012 settlement agreement  with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) as a strategic plan, an agreement that lacks the wide support of both Bureau members and community members. That settlement w

Hello again! I have been out of commission, blogwise, for the better parts of June and July, and there are many updates to be made. I started this post in the middle of July and it has dragged on, due to the need to keep on top of new information; my disorganized free time; and the grim and frustrating subject matter.  Going forward, I’ll probably write round-up type articles like this every week or so. Also, there is plenty of local coverage of some--not all--of these incidents, especially in the Portland area, and I think what I am able to offer is follow-up long after the fact; research into public records; and a perspective exemplified by the title of this blog. In the immediate wake of these incidents, my primary sources are still law enforcement, government and institutional releases, and local media. In between news-oriented posts, I hope to write more in-depth articles about issues surrounding deadly force and actions people are taking, or not taking, to tackle the prob

On Tuesday, July 24, 44-year-old Cashus Dean Case was shot and killed by two Seaside Police officers at the Seasider RV park. According to a City of Seaside press release , around 1:36 in the afternoon dispatch received a call about an armed man at the RV park, located off of Avenue P and Roosevelt Drive, near Route 101 in the southern part of town. When officers arrived at the scene, “a confrontation occurred resulting in shots being fired and the death of a civilian.” No officers were injured. It has still not been officially said how many shots were fired, though a witness later told KOIN she heard five shots. Oregon State Police are leading the investigation by the inter-agency Clatsop County Major Crime Team , along with Chief Deputy DA Ron Brown . Initially, Clatsop County DA Josh Marquis said that only one officer was placed on paid administrative leave following the shooting, but on July 25 Case’s name was released and it was announced that two officers were on leave, tho

The Deschutes County Sheriff's Office announced on Wednesday that one of its deputies shot and killed a person at a camp in the High Cascades west of Bend. The shooting occurred at "a camp" off of Forest Road 4610, off of Century Drive in the Deschutes National Forest. Deschutes County in Oregon (Creative Commons) Details are sparse: there is no mention of an altercation or any cause for the shooting, or reason given why the deputies were in the area. One deputy was involved in the shooting incident, but apparently two were on scene--both were placed on paid administrative leave. According to the website Campendium , which hosts user reviews of campsites, the road is a dirt road and sees more traffic than other roads in the area. The shooting is being investigated by the county's inter-agency Major Incident Team , though it was not announced which agency is heading the investigation (the Sheriff's Office is prohibited from doing so by state law, since its

An inmate at the Multnomah County Detention Center (MCDC) died there today, after what the Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) is calling a “medical emergency.” The cause of the emergency is unclear at this time. According to a press release from MCSO, medical backup was called for the inmate at 11:34 AM. Sergeant Brandon White, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office, told me that staff on the scene called the emergency backup immediately upon discovering the medical emergency. Sheriff’s deputies, Corrections Health Division staff (part of the county Health Authority), American Medical Response (AMR), and Portland Fire & Rescue all responded to the call for backup, but despite life-saving efforts the inmate was pronounced dead. The cause of death has not been released, nor has the nature of the medical emergency. I reached out to the County Medical Examiner’s Office for more information and will update this article when I get a response. Sergeant White of MCSO says the name will not be

On Friday morning the Oregon State Police announced that a citizen received “minor injuries” when they were shot by an Aumsville police officer. Aumsville, with a population of just over 3500, is located southeast of Salem in Marion County. According to OSP, the shooting occurred at about 1:30 Friday morning, when an Aumsville officer stopped a vehicle on Bates Road, east of the intersection with West Stayton Road. Beyond that, details are very scarce. The press release states only that “at some point during the stop shots were fired from the officer." The citizen received minor injuries and the officer was unhurt. No other information, including the names of either party, were released. In accordance with Marion County’s Post-Deadly Physical Force Plan , the Oregon State Police will lead the investigation into the shooting. It is the fourth officer-involved shooting in Marion County this year, and the eighteenth in Oregon overall. Aumsville Residents Protest "Public S