Blogtown, PDX

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

News Cops cancel meeting with Private Police at Business Alliance’s request

Posted by Matt Davis on Tue, Apr 24 at 9:24 AM

Since arriving in Portland, I’ve attended bi-weekly meetings at Central Precinct between the cops and Portland Patrol Inc (PPI)—otherwise known as Portland’s Private Police. There was initially some concern that I was attending the meetings, but I assured PPI boss, John Hren, that I would not quote him in return for a seat at the table.

“If you keep coming to these meetings,” he told me at the time, “they will simply move somewhere else.”

But I was a little saddened this morning, in the wake of doing some reporting about PPI’s activities and lack of public oversight, to find that indeed, the meetings have moved somewhere else, reportedly at the behest of PBA head of safety and security Mike Kuykendall—who pays for PPI through the PBA’s Clean & Safe Program. Kuykendall is also co-chairing the mayor’s Street Access For Everyone (SAFE) committee, and has been pushing for a sit/lie ordinance of late.

The official police line is that the bi-weekly meetings have been “merged” into the mayor’s monthly PSAC meetings, which take place at City Hall. But in reality, less is discussed at these meetings and the “merge” will have the effect of keeping the public from knowing what’s going on between these organizations.

I can only assume that communication between the police and PPI will now take place behind closed doors—presumably via phone and email. Central Precinct commander Mike Reese was unavailable for comment by phone this morning, and so was Kuykendall.

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Comments

Holy fuck. They're not even trying to pretend that it's anything but mercenary policing now. This sickens me.

Posted by Ralph | April 24, 2007 10:49 AM

Wait until you read next week's feature...

Posted by Matt Davis | April 24, 2007 11:04 AM

That's awesome. I mean, CLEARLY, the only reason for them to do such a thing is because there's absolutely nothing wrong with the arrangement. Nope. Nothing.

Posted by b!X | April 24, 2007 11:10 AM

Nope, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH IT, WHATSOEVER:

http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/2007/04/on_my_soapbox.php

Posted by Matt Davis | April 24, 2007 11:17 AM

What good is a secret police force if they can't hold secret meetings?

Posted by Dave Lister | April 24, 2007 11:19 AM

So if they've moved their "event" to elsewhere, does that make it the Secret Policeman's Other Ball?

Posted by b!X | April 24, 2007 1:09 PM

Central Precinct Commander Mike Reese called back, to say that the meetings have been merged due to concerns that the mayor's monthly PSAC meetings were not being well represented by the police, and that he had asked for the mayor's PSAC meetings to go bi-weekly, but that he was "over-ruled on that, I guess."

Apparently Mike Kukendall said there was "pretty strong consensus" for taking the meetings to once a month.

"I suspect that by September, we will be back to meeting twice a month," said Reese.

Posted by Matt Davis | April 24, 2007 1:51 PM

Aw, c'mon, it's not all bad. Everybody knows that once you privatize the police, the next logical step is RoboCop.
And RoboCop is awesome.

Posted by atul | April 24, 2007 6:19 PM

My God, Atul, you're right:

"The film is set in a dystopian near future, in Detroit, Michigan. Violent crime is out of control, and the city is in financial ruin. The city contracts the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) to fund and operate the police department, in effect privatizing it. OCP is not interested in rebuilding "Old Detroit" but with replacing it with a modern utopia called "Delta City"."

Posted by Matt Davis | April 24, 2007 6:27 PM

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