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Thursday, June 14, 2007
News Cop Appeals To Be Held In Scary Setting
Posted by on Thu, Jun 14 at 2:49 PM
The city’s Independent Police Review is coming under fire for holding two citizen appeals next Tuesday night at the County Courthouse—and refusing to listen to concerns raised by Portland Copwatch that the setting is intimidating.
“I’d say it’s sad that an organization that works daily with people who feel they have been wronged by the police [the Independent Police Review] doesn’t understand fundamentally why that might be an issue,” says Copwatch Activist, Dan Handelman.
The review meeting at 5.30 on June 19 is currently set to take place in room 320 of the county courthouse on SW 4th Ave—which has metal detectors and is manned by armed sheriff’s deputies. Usually, the IPR conducts its Citizens Review Committee (CRC) meetings at city hall, or out in the community.
The setting is particularly unfortunate given the sensitive nature of the citizen appeals: One appeal is by someone alleging officers detained and handcuffed him without cause, harassed him, and falsely cited him, while the second appeal is by someone alleging that officers harassed him because he is Hispanic and falsely arrested him for Misuse of 911 when he called dispatch to report the officers and ask that a supervisor be sent to the location. Both victims are likely to be nerve-wracked by showing up at the courthouse.
The city is currently choosing a consultant to conduct a review of the IPR, to assess its effectiveness—3 years after it originally promised to do so. One area of the review process will be “the satisfaction level of the community as it relates to access, approachability, and treatment” at the hands of the IPR.
An IPR representative says the location of meetings is ultimately decided by the chair of the CRC, Hank Miggins. He’s been contacted, apparently. We’ll let you know what happens.
Comments
Yes, it can. Although have you been inside the County Courthouse? The last word that comes to mind in there is "legitimacy."
It's an intimidating environment, even for a "legitimate" reporter. Of course, I'm not really one of those, but I'm intimidated, none the less.
The cop game is pure intimidation. Guilty until proven innocent. A close friend falsely accused by a psycho ex had to deal with this recently. Cops - get a life. Everyone who you come into contact with is paying you, so treat them with respect. You need cooperation to trace the real bad dudes and you won't get it by dissing everyone you encounter! Dis someone today - that's a lifetime of noncooperation.
911 is in bad shape, they can't even answer the phone. Citing someone for using it to request a supervisor is not cool. How else are you going to get one?
Metal detectors are intimidating, for sure. But the courthouse itself, isn't. Once you get past the guards, the building's not terrible—standard issue court house. And hey—the halls of justice are legit! Or at least are supposed to be.
Damn right it's intimidating. Every time I've been in that building I either ended up in jail or ended up paying more alimony!
Dave, can I make your next campaign mailer? Solely out of comments you've left on Blogtown? :)
Why does this dysfunctional committee get such expensive digs at city hall?
'Independent' from who? the landlord across the hall.
Amy,
You bet. We need something out of the ordinary to spice up these campaigns. It doesn't look like we'll have another tram to rag about.
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Can't it be argued that holding hearings like this in a courthouse lend them an air of legitimacy? That's something IPR's system sorely lacks at the moment—and it doesn't help that reputation when they hold hearings in community centers and city hall meeting rooms. (There are pros and cons to both, obviously.)