Mayor Charlie Hales is on the way to delivering on what had been a stalled and somewhat troubled police accountability promise under his predecessor: a dramatic reorientation of the psychological vetting the Portland Police Bureau relies on for screening applicants, and current cops, who might be prone to violence or racial bias or are otherwise unfit for duty.

At Hales' prompting, the police bureau this morning announced it was seeking résumés for two separate psychological contracts—one to work with recruits and another to work with current cops. Further, the bureau will be conducting a national search to fill the positions and working hand-in-hand with community groups in hopes of reaching a diverse pool of applicants who either are deeply familiar with "cultural competency" or have a plan to address how they'll get there.

"They're a little bit closer to doing this the right way at this point," says Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch. Handelman sits on the steering committee of the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform, the group that led the push for changes. "We'll see when the applications come through, and the interviews are done, how many people actually applied we whether have a growing sense of diversity."

The bureau's psychological vetting has been handled, for the past 13 years, by a lone white Lake Oswego psychologist named David Corey. Groups like the AMA and Copwatch have long raised questions about Corey and his work in light of police shootings and lingering concerns about racial bias in the bureau.

The AMA was especially rueful when, last year—despite promises its leadership would be closely consulted on recruitment the next time Corey's contract was up for renewal—the police bureau pushed ahead without the group's input. The bureau ultimately chose Corey again, after only one other applicant submitted.

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• carol lay
• Kendra James

To mark the occasion and reflect on how far the city and police bureau have come since then—and how far they haven't—advocates are planning a vigil that night near the spot where James was killed.

Here's a release from the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform:

On Sunday, May 5, the Albina Ministerial Alliance (AMA) Coalition for Justice and Police Reform will lead a memorial vigil for Kendra James, the young woman killed by Officer Scott McCollister exactly 10 years ago on the Skidmore overpass in Portland. The memorial will be held outside the Greater Faith Baptist Church at 931 N Skidmore, just yards away from the spot where McCollister discharged his pistol at James, who was behind the wheel of a car. The vigil will begin at 5 PM. Members of James' family will be in attendance.

Despite McCollister's claims that he "feared for his life," the AMA Coalition presented a detailed analysis that McCollister was not in any danger, knew who the unarmed Kendra James was and could have found her even if she had driven away, and raised serious questions about whether he had collaborated with the other officers on the scene by meeting at a restaurant to get their stories straight before they talked to investigators. McCollister was given 180 days' suspension, but that discipline was overturned by an arbitrator after the Portland Police Association grieved the action.

"The Kendra James case was a key to opening the movement towards bringing justice and police reform in the City of Portland," said Dr. LeRoy Haynes, Jr, Chair of the AMA Coalition. Many in Portland who saw the shooting of an unarmed African American woman as a symptom of a Police Bureau needing major reforms. In many ways her death led the accountability efforts down the path to the changes now being sought as a remedy by the Department of Justice in their lawsuit against the City.

Nearly four months after a jury awarded $306,000 to a Portland man Tasered, punched, pepper-sprayed, and tackled by police outside an Old Town nightclub back in 2010, the city attorney's office is asking for permission to appeal the finding.

The request, like most of these kinds of things, is tucked into the Portland City Council's consent agenda—meaning, unless some intrepid citizen flags it for review, it's expected to pass unanimously during next Wednesday's meeting—with no discussion.

The Mercury reported on Gallagher Smith's scuffle with police not long after it happened, as part of a story about Taser policies and how they weren't changing. The Oregonian covered Smith's trial and the verdict last December, detailing what happened to him.

Jurors found that police falsely arrested, battered and maliciously prosecuted Gallagher Smith after he quarreled with a doorman on Nov. 13, 2010, at the Aura nightclub on West Burnside Street. The doorman told Smith he'd have to wait at the end of a long line again even though he'd just been in the club and had gotten a stamp on his hand before stepping outside. The doorman eventually flagged down police.

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With police bureau layoffs looking very likely this year, Mayor Charlie Hales asked two of his fellow city commissioners to scare up some kind of one-time "bridge" money that would let police commanders trim their ranks through retirements and natural attrition rather than axing the city's least senior cops—who are also likely to be our most diverse cops.

Commissioners Nick Fish and Steve Novick have suggested tapping into the city's insurance reserves to make that possible—one of several controversial suggestions contained in a report (PDF) sent to Hales' office on Monday.

That recommendation is one of several Hales and his staff will consider as they get ready for his State of the City address (in two weeks from tomorrow) and then his proposed budget. Fish and Novick, in all, identified $4.7 million in one-time moeny for next year's budget and ongoing savings of $5.4 million. The city is now looking at a $21.5 million deficit with only as much as $800,000 in one-time money. Traditionally, the council has used millions in one-time money to fund programs that are, essentially, permanent.

The other big recommendations for the reserve cash include commissioning a study to thin the ranks of city management, something Multnomah County has already done, and easing some utility rate hikes.

In addition, the report includes some other potential suggestions for long-term savings above and beyond the 10 percent cuts bureaus were asked to provide. Two stand out:

(1) Cutting the $634,000 the city contributes to the county's Crisis Assessment and Treatment Center, which the Mercury revealed earlier this year has yet to be used by the police bureau. And (2) eliminating the police bureau's air support program, the planes it keeps in a hangar to help do surveillance and monitor protests from on high, for a savings of $155,000.

Hours after Willamette Week broke the story about the suit (PDF), filed Tuesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court (which the Oregonian re-reported without giving a sliver of credit), the bureau released its own copy of the video and accompanying police reports and investigative documents that revealed its internal affairs division didn't have a problem with what it was looking at.

Lieutenant Chris Davis, who's since moved on to the bureau's traffic division, wrote to the complainant, Jason Matthew Cox, and said the video showed him struggling with officers as they tried to handcuff him outside the Pallas Club about 10:20 at night, June 18, 2011. The letter also says the cops, Sarah Kerwin, Robert Bruders, and Jeffrey Elias, were afraid of Cox because he had been drinking and was a veteran.

The video the bureau produced is a longer version of the clip shared by Cox's attorneys, Greg and Jason Kafoury, and posted by other outlets today. Supervisors pulled a copy of it almost immediately after the incident, records show.

The Kafourys, meanwhile, say the video clearly shows Cox and the officers acting relaxed until they tried to handcuff him. Their complaint says the cops, after struggling to bring Cox down, "repeatedly beat him, repeatedly Tased him and then yanked on his left arm and shoulder, all causing injury." The attorneys hadn't seen the internal affairs letter and its description of the video as of this afternoon.

"If you show the video to 12 random people," Jason Kafoury told me (deliberately choosing his words), "they'll think it's egregious and excessive."

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A bill filed this month on behalf of two prominent Portland lawyers and police accountability advocates boasts something of a lofty goal in a Legislature that's largely very close to labor interests: It would strip away arbitration appeals for Portland cops disciplined over the use of force—leaving the mayor and police chief as the last word outside the court system.

SB 747 was submitted by Senator Chip Shields, a Democrat representing North and Northeast Portland, on behalf of father-and-son activists Greg and Jason Kafoury. The pair have fashioned a reputation for hard-nosed crusading on police misconduct—winning hundreds of thousands of dollars in judgments and settlements against the police bureau in cases involving force and civil right violations.

The bill is due for a hearing Wednesday in the Senate's general government committee, which Shields runs. It would ban the city, when negotiating contracts with the Portland Police Association and Portland Police Commanding Officers Association, from agreeing to allow binding arbitration in discipline cases that involve the use of force.

"He's very concerned about the city's police bureau and how they handle the use of force," says Amanda Hess, a legislative aide in Shields' office. "He believes the bill needs airing in committee."

It comes nearly a year after arbitrator Jane Wilkinson ordered Portland to reinstate Ron Frashour, the cop fired in 2010 for shooting Aaron Campbell in the back with his AR-15 rifle. Wilkinson found Frashour committed no misconduct. (The bill was first reported by Willamette Week.)

The Oregon Employment Board then slapped the city last fall after it refused to abide by Wilkinson's order—arguing, so far in vain, that the reinstatement runs afoul of "public policy" and violated a largely untested state law written after an arbitrator overturned discipline in a 1993 Portland police shooting. Frashour is back with the bureau, and the city has since filed with the Oregon Court of Appeals.

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Someone delightful is posting semi-regular police blotter roundups from Lake Oswego and West Linn. Any more setup than that would be a disservice. Enjoy.

Two suspicious men wearing suits were seen entering a bank on Mercantile Drive. It turned out they were bank employees.

A dispute over garbage can placement has broken out between neighbors.

“DARN DARN” was tagged on fence in the 1600 block of S.E. Oak Street.

A man walking his dog near Trillium Creek School yelled at a woman’s parking job.

“MARRY XMAS” in red spray paint was reported at S.E. Cedar Street and Fifth Avenue.

A woman on Oak Street became suspicious when she discovered a wet footprint on her front porch. It was her own.

And what the shit is going on down on Country Club Road? Goddamned anarchy, it sounds like.

A group of five or six young females, including one with pink hair, was observed talking on Country Club Road.

Baseballs were being thrown at cars driving down Country Club Road.

(Tip o' the cap on this one to the also delightful Alex Zielinski)

Mayor Charlie Hales today explained his office's decision, reported yesterday, to hold the city's upcoming bargaining talks with the Portland Police Association partly behind closed doors.

In an interview with the Mercury, he said he'd prefer to have all the talks be public, on city property. But with mediation on the Department of Justice settlement and the city's budget crisis both bearing down at the same time, there wasn't time to draw any proverbial lines in the sand.

Instead, the city is sticking with a compromise much like the one it reached with the PPA in 2010, before both sides falsely declared, after a couple of sessions, in a story reported by the Mercury, that all meetings would be open. The mayor has also promised to allow "community review" of the contract after it's negotiated and before it's approved by the Portland City Council.

"I'm less concerned with how the negotiations look and more concerned about the outcome," Hales says. "What matters is the agreement produced and does that agreement pass the acid test of a bureau that's credible with the public and is spending its money wisely and where we have a good work environment for our officers."

Hales, at a forum last year, had decried the secret negotiations after candidates were asked about the Mercury's story. The compromise, in light of those comments, is notable.

Today, he said his preference would still be talks conducted "in a glass cube, with mics on, and in the light of day." But with a "perfect storm" of conflicts looming—including changes related to the DOJ settlement, touchy discussions over subjects like overtime and layoffs, and the backdrop of pension reform plotting in Salem, he didn't want to fight it out with the PPA over ground rules.

His comments last year, he also argued, were more about the city breaking a promise. He says he's not willing to do that.

"I'd rather people know that right up front," he said, "and not deceive people by saying, 'They're all open,' and have people actually meeting in a bar to work it out. Let's not play games with the public."

PPA President Daryl Turner, when asked for comment on the arrangement, said, at first, "That's what they say. We haven't really talked about it amongst ourselves and decided what we're going to do." He also said he hadn't spoken personally with the mayor yet about contract talks.

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Perhaps bending to reality over rhetoric, the city of Portland's labor negotiations with the Portland Police Association will be only partly public, the Mercury has learned—with some bargaining meetings held on city property and the rest held either at the union's headquarters in Northwest or some other private locale.

The compromise was confirmed by David Rhys, deputy director of the Bureau of Human Resources, and also by Baruti Artharee, Mayor Charlie Hales' director of public safety. Other sources in recent days had been describing a similar arrangement.

"The PPA negotiations are split between public facilities, which we would [send notices for] and are open to the public, and meetings held at the PPA union hall," says Rhys. "That is a private facility and those meetings aren't open to the public."

This was a major issue in 2010 when the PPA's contract was last up for renegotiation. After then-Mayor Sam Adams insisted on opening the meetings, talks stalled for months until a compromise just like the one in place for this round of talks was hammered out. Half the meetings would be public, with the other half private.

There was some further drama last time, after PPA President Daryl Turner and former HR director Yvonne Deckard announced, after the first few public sessions, that all future meetings would be public. But as the Mercury reported in 2011, via a public records request, that turned out to be political theater.

Talks eventually headed into private mediation after a few months. And, before then, much of the contract was hashed out in private meetings at nearby hotels and at union HQ and also over the phone and via email.

The city's rationale is unclear. But when Mayor Charlie Hales was asked about the Mercury report at a candidates forum held last March by the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform, his answer in support of fully opening the talks was very clear (albeit he was referring to a commitment the previous administration had made and then broken):

"The reason is not just that it's your money, it's that these issues are very important at a policy level as well," he said. "It's sad that commitment was made but not kept. We need to restore the credibility of this office."

I'll have updates from the mayor's office and, hopefully, Turner. So stay tuned.

• Denis C. Theriault
• Deputy City Attorney David Woboril, from left, Police Chief Mike Reese, and Assistant Police Chief Eric Hendricks.

The comments came before Hales reluctantly gave his assent to the report, notwithstanding his concerns, saying it fulfilled the technical requirements laid down by the city two years ago.

"I am very skeptical of the process of entanglement of our police bureau, which should be focused on peacekeeping in the community, with the work the FBI does in addressing global terrorism," Hales said, promising to weigh not only the report but also "larger questions" on whether working with the JTTF is "wise, good public policy, and cost-effective for the police bureau."

In a moment of modest intrigue, Hales found himself the deciding vote after Commissioners Amanda Fritz (silenced last year while asking questions) and Steve Novick both emphatically voted to say no. Hales, for he record, actually cast the first vote against the JTTF more than a decade ago, when he was a city commissioner.

The document is mostly built on Reese's personal assurances that our cops haven't been asked to violate Oregon's strict civil rights laws during the course of their case-by-case work with the feds. It details only the number of investigations our cops helped with ("at least" one this year, outside of Portland) and gives no details about the nature of those investigations or how many officers or hours the police bureau spent on them.

Both Novick and Fritz found those omissions troubling. They also weren't necessarily buying the chief's blanket assertion that giving those details would jeopardize terrorism cases.

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Stephanie Harper, a deputy city attorney who helped guide Portland officials through several contentious labor battles with the Portland Police Association—including ongoing Department of Justice reforms, contract negotiations, and the fallout from the 2010 Aaron Campbell shooting—has left the city for a job with Portland Public Schools, the Mercury has learned.

The city attorney's office wouldn't say much about Harper's departure, other than to note that it came a couple of weeks ago and that they expect to hire someone to take over her police bureau portfolio in the next month. Attorneys David Woboril and Ellen Osoinach, both of whom have spent years advising the police bureau on training and policy issues, are helping out in the meantime, the office also says.

"We've got it covered," a staffer told me.

The timing, however, is less than ideal. Mediation over the DOJ reforms, involving the city, the union, and the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform is in the wings. Harper had been appearing in federal court on the city's behalf.

Complications involving the DOJ settlement and changes to the bureau's use of force and Taser policies also have sparked a legal fight between the city and PPA over contract talks expected to start up this spring. Harper in February wrote the legal memo that persuaded city commissioners to haul the PPA in front of a state board to iron out the issue. She'd been point of contact in dealing with PPA counsel Anil Karia on DOJ issues.

Harper also helped the city argue some losing arbitration cases against the PPA, including the attempted dismissal of the cop who shot and killed Aaron Campbell, Ron Frashour, and now-overturned suspensions for two cops, Kyle Nice and Christopher Humphreys, rapped for failing to insist on medical care for James Chasse Jr.

Observers in city hall have long muttered about the city's track record against the PPA. But sources tell the Mercury that Harper's departure wasn't forced. She joins two other city labor officials in working for PPS: former human resources director Yvonne Deckard, and former police bureau human resources manager Sean Murray.