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  • illustration by neil perry
A police bureau advisory panel charged with reviewing officer misconduct strongly recommended four Portland cops lose their jobs over accusations including dishonesty, dodging parking tickets, and a positive test for steroids, according to a new batch of public released late Thursday.

The 59-page document (pdf)—which chronicles discipline cases that closed between June 15 and December 25, 2014—reveals that each of those officers chose to resign in lieu of facing punishment. One of those four, with the steroid test, resigned before the bureau's Police Review Board even met.

Board members also voted to fire a fifth officer, accused of lying about the reason he or she asked a colleague to run a credit check on someone. But members were conflicted about that case and said they'd also support an 80-hour unpaid suspension, especially if the officer were moved to a post where he or she would no longer have access to sensitive data. That's the discipline the officer ultimately received.

The memos are the second to be released since Portland City Council last year approved the Independent Police Review's request to add more detail, including not just the discipline recommended by the board, but also the final discipline approved by the police chief and police commissioner. That had long been an issue. They're the first to come out since the city began using a new "discipline matrix" to help standardize punishment outcomes for various types of misconduct.

Beyond the cases that ended in resignations, the board addressed two fatal police shootings last year, involving Kelly Swoboda and Nick Davis—ruling that both were "in policy" and commending the officers, in particular, who were part of the Swoboda shooting. It urged the bureau, after exonerating a cop accused of hurting a suspect's arm, to seek body cameras for cops and to push anew for Multnomah County jail to resume recording sound as part of its jail intake surveillance system—an issue the Mercury has so far been the only outlet to raise.

It also sought sanction for two officers described as "experienced" and respected veterans who chased down someone making threats despite being off-duty with their families and then punched the man even after he'd been detained, before on-duty officers could respond. Both of those cops received 20-hour unpaid suspensions.

"The entire evening in questioned seemed to be fraught with peril and poor decision-making," the board's writeup reads, reminding the cops that the bureau's use of force policy was tightened in 2008.

One of the four cops who resigned has already had his troubles aired publicly. KOIN broke the news last April that Officer James Escobar had been investigated by the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office for trying to dodge consequences for parking tickets by making his personal car more difficult to identify. The board's writeup also says Escobar drove for a year without license plates and poked at him for failing to once give his business card to a witness.

But it was the DA's probe and a sense that Escobar brought "reproach and discredit" upon the bureau and city that earned him the unanimous call he be fired. Basically, the board was embarrassed by the news coverage about Escobar and felt he couldn't be trusted to do his duties as a police officer.

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Two of those four cops were blasted over accusations of dishonesty.

In one of those cases, the officer admitted during a second interview with internal affairs that he or she lied in the first interview. That cop was being investigated over inappropriately touching another employee, a finding that was sustained, and ridiculing that employee for making a complaint about yet another police employee. Four of the board's members argued that the dishonesty rap meant that officer would no longer be able to testify in court—a death blow, normally, to a cop's career.

In the second case, the officer who resigned had been accused of mishandling a child abuse call, failing to promptly dispatch detectives to a hospital and losing out on a chance to bring charges. That may have earned an 80-hour unpaid suspension if that was the only accusation. But, instead, that same cop was found to have inappropriately touched another cop and then to have lied during an internal affairs interview. That last finding earned the termination call.

The remaining cases were more mundane. Officer Kent Scott was suspended for "one workweek" without pay for a drunk driving/reckless driving incident out on SE Division, a suspension the board endorsed 4-1 in part because Scott showed remorse.

One cop received a letter of reprimand after a friend of the cop's married girlfriend's spouse (got all that?) was targeted inappropriately after puncturing the cop's tires during an on-duty visit to the cop's girlfriend's house. The cop got a letter of reprimand for running the friend, the spouse, and the girlfriend on the police bureau's data systems.

One cop received a 40-hour unpaid suspension after being heard making inappropriate and derogatory comments about women and talking loudly and inappropriately about his or her personal life. The cop tried to argue that the story was meant as a "teaching moment," but the board says it wasn't swayed.

In another case, a cop who was rude during front desk duty was suspended for 40 hours without pay—a fate driven by the discipline matrix's allowance for "aggravating factors." The cop had faced "prior discipline and admonitions." The board wondered whether this cop ought to be moved somewhere away from customer service (never mind that's mostly what all cops are supposed to be doing, to some degree).

And in one more, a cop was ratted out by his or her colleagues after responding to a burglary call via phone, and spending 90 minutes on it—even though a "hot" priority 1 call had gone out in that cop's district. One member noted the officer has received previous discipline and wouldn't ever change their behavior and also "expresses disrespect for human beings."