From: Roger David Hardesty

To: U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights

Division
Date: 31 July 2016
Subject: PDX Proposed Changes to Appeal Process - High Magnitude Non-compliance Requires

Federal Response
U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division Team in USA v City of Portland ~
The City of Portland circumvents community engagement processes, outlined in the
above Settlement Agreement. Steady-state noncompliance brought about late-stage
awareness that at least one party anticipates the Agreement will be voided, or renegotiated. Please inform, as to CRDs position on this matter. Should the City
convene a 1 August Town Hall, organized so as to avoid greater public outreach
and engagement? (SA 146f) Does CRD believe the Agreement can remain in effect,
following proposed appeal process consolidation away from the presently
defined role of the Citizen Review Committee (CRC)? Five petitions for redress of
grievances. (20 mins)
Process subversion
The Settlement Agreement (SA) provides, The Chief shall post on PPBs website
final drafts of all new or revised policies that are proposed, specific to officer
accountability, and community engagement, to allow the public an opportunity for
notice and comment, prior to finalizing such policies. (SA 170)
Those who click City of Portland Town Hall: Officer Discipline Code Changes will
discover they are unable to study proposed changes. None are offered. General
community intelligence is largely confined to a 13 July press report, referencing
seven meetings over a four-month period by staff, on a need-to-know basis, in the
Mayor's office. On 6 July, Portlands Auditor quietly informed CRC members (not on
a posted agenda) that Council asked the Police Bureau and the Auditors Office to
draft a plan for a consolidated model that keeps the best of the CRC and the Police
Review Board (PRB). Best is not defined, but the near-secret charge does not
draw from community aspiration: it arises distinctly from perpetrator inclination.
Certainly, whenever drafting a plan, PPB shall collect and maintain all data and
records necessary to facilitate and ensure transparency and wide public access to
information related to PPB decision making and activities, and compliance with this
Agreement (SA 159) This provision obviously never came to fruition during the
18-month tenure of the Citys recalcitrant Compliance Officer Community Liaison
(COCL). Cloistered negotiations are likely to reproduce failings which emerge in a
similarly configured Settlement Agreement, and in camera police contract
negotiations. An end result appears: no one knows if any authority or their
appointee ever spoke for any other outcome. As with absence of whistle-blower
protections, fait accompli offers a difficult environment for change agents to identify
one another keenly important to bridging community/police divide. Anonymity
prevents an informed electorate from setting obstructionists on a hot seat.

Ask perpetrators when they entered Mondays town hall in their personal calendars.
The Auditors Independent Police Review Division (IPRD) sent a 1pm Friday email
(below), immediately forwarded by vigilant Portland Copwatch activists. Decide for
yourselves whether the Citys outreach effort satisfies the spirit of the Agreement.
In the plea deal, contractors town hall meetings are to be well publicized with
sufficient advance notice wherein significant efforts are made to procure
attendance of a community body broadly representative of the many and diverse
communities in Portland. (SA 163) Shouldnt similar procurement apply to core
wrongdoers, when they attempt to conjure substantial change to police oversight
structure, and the Settlement Agreement itself?
Petition for redress
Get the out-of-compliance Town Hall cancelled. Given historical deception, and
unwillingness to serve the public in a transparent manner, its foolhardy to think
that, via SA 159 or 170, PPB will disseminate any plans, let alone those which might
further constrict an appeal process to follow their self-exoneration. Yet this
disclosure practice is called for in the Agreement. It is unjust for the City to convene
on Monday, absent cops complete adherence to the provisions (to include releasing
un-redacted notes describing decision-making, over these past five months).
Agreement subversion
While Im alarmed at how failure to adhere to defined process debilitates
community response, I realize the content of the Police Plan for Police
Accountability Changes spells the end of the Settlement Agreement, as justice
advocates have come to know it. It seems unlikely the parties can simply couch
pertinent provisions in Section VIII, Officer Accountability, as merely aspirational.
Enhancing IPR and CRC is embedded in the plea deal. From what has been leaked,
I understand proposed Code Changes are to remove from CRC their responsibility
to convene public appeal following police exoneration. Perpetrators are rushing a
narrowly conceived change (of great magnitude) to the Settlement Agreement,
heretofore never amendable.
Public comment on narrow Code Changes is certainly a far cry from broad
discussion on opening Agreement language for revision, a necessary premise for the
City to consolidate accountability structures and yet find compliance.
Petition for redress
Set expectations for effective adherence to PPB Community Engagement and
Outreach Plan (CEOP) provisions. (SA 146f) CRC consolidation is certainly a
preferred starting point for perpetrators who want cops to drive revision to officer
accountability mechanisms. I counter that effective reform and procedural justice
are more likely to emerge from a thoroughly consulted public. What changes are
generally desired in the Agreement? What is the problem definition set, in public
perception of police accountability as anchored in it? What features does the
community desire, to increase efficacy of corrective action?
The People were supposed to receive this remedy. Perpetrator fears, that the Court
will discover non-compliance, need not automatically translate into a City spasm,
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and dimly thought-out rush to throw something together. Let the Court see CEOP is
in play.
Beyond wisdom-accumulating features brought on by community engagement,
following a plan promises more comprehensive resolution to a complex and
interlinked set of conditions. A good-faith CEOP is likely to address up- and downstream deficiencies. Even with a years advance notice, its ludicrous to think Council
will, in two hours, receive adequate testimony pertinent to any intention to void or
re-negotiate their plea deal ... and, presumably, prepare amendment to the City
Charter. Historically, when testimony exceeds time Council provides, perpetrators
then limit uninvited (unprocured) testimony to 120 seconds. The work-around, to
provide written testimony, is also subverted: its a hit-and-miss proposition for
advocates to find, online, one anothers written submissions, once they are put in
the Auditors hands. Implementation of a community engagement plan can be
expected to provide for a freer flow of ideas.
Even if properly circulated, IPRDs invitation is to a sham process. Even if PPB were
to, say, begin posting agendas for their Community Police Relations Committee
(CPRC), including position statements and documents under consideration, the
Citys underlying penchant for insular policy development in police accountability
remains corrupt. Councils crippling indifference to recommendations offered by
your Federally mandated Community Oversight Advisory Board (COAB), reported
here two weeks ago, informs us that perpetrators have no desire to actually
incorporate public influence. At highest execution, Council continues merely to
simulate soliciting input. At base execution, as with pending policy for body-worn
cameras, the City is advanced in plans to entirely wall public involvement from
outcome: the last proposal I saw is to have an arbitrator, deep behind the scenes,
choose final language. (See PPB hasn't circulated any proposed policies, in The
Oregonian here.)
Officer assessment and disciplinary adjudication needs to be embraced holistically,
not piecemeal. Planned community engagement offers comprehensive analysis and
concerted approach to integrated problem solving. I humbly submit, city-initiated
plans, concocted in a vacuum, led directly to systemic Fourteenth Amendment
violations. Further: empowered by involvement in a robust CEOP, potential victims
and their allies might be inoculated against future depredations.
Historic subversion
Your Findings (pg. 27), depict CRC as part of a byzantine, self-defeating
accountability system the parties with some detail agreed to retain. A proposed
swap-out with the Chiefs Review Board forms one element in an historic pattern of
self-defeat. Pattern features include simulation of public participation in policy
deliberation thats already underway, elsewhere on trajectory to foregone
outcome and even in cases of superior community response the pattern
culminates with refutation of input in ultimate design. Tremendous complexity has
been our result which always eschews independent fact finding and typically
engenders disciplinary outcomes at great variance from appointee
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recommendations. (See the latest PRB report here, for the Chiefs persistent refusal to
abide by majority recommendations from his peers.)

A crippling stall, along a wide spectrum of police reform, sits on our near horizon. If
CRD or the court fail to require adherence the defined community engagement and
PPB disclosure processes, of multi-stage document release and iterative receipt of
public comment, the injustice pattern will advance as has happened before. A prepackaged deal will appear for rubber-stamp approval on 7 September at Council. If
the Citys last lawsuit or the Courts 13-month-long, intra-party mediation are
indicators; and if CRD has not already greenlighted the Police Plan with a wink from
the court; subsequent legal wrangling will immediately destabilize all Agreement
provisions with which perpetrators are loath to comply. (None of the 26, SA-related
police hires lose their jobs, however, as parties dither away.)
The City expects to replicate a more damaging, long-term stalling tactic. Using
insular processes like that employed to rewrite the PIIAC police accountability
mechanism in 1998, prior to subsequent resignation of all citizen volunteers by
2001, the City once again trundles into a near-sighted, bad-faith effort. Improved
justice delivery is to be denied for years during another give it a try era. 2016
reform demands not yet formally ascertained need not be pre-emptively parried
through laborious adoption and hiring, tinkering, years-later assessment (after
patterns of racist use of force demonstrably resurface in mainstream media) and a
final, throw up our hands phase at a cockeyed plan initiated in a prior
administration. In exchange of PIIAC for IPRD, authorities blatantly pivoted from
majority-backed proposals arising from public process, and which held substantial
community backing. After Federal misconduct Findings, it seems equally criminal for
perpetrators not to allow the community to propose the reform it would like to see.
Calls for police accountability are now at an all-time high: political will for authentic
response is easier to summons than ever before. Its time to more clearly reserve
this particular sphere of policy development initiative to The People. According to
above reporting, the perpetrators unilaterally developed policy is laden with
potential to further remove review of police conduct from transparency, let alone
community influence. Its introduction no doubt seeks to entirely avoid any public
discussion on elevating civilian directive as a genuine check on police power. It is
my goal to stop letting cops build their own accountability systems.
Current conditions
Its outright violation of 2012-era promises to allow IPRD to convene prior to
anything less than publishing un-redacted minutes and prior drafts which preceded
these proposed Code Changes. Importantly, the perpetrators impending Town Hall
seeks to subvert your negotiated community engagement strategy; which I imagine
as a pathway for study, testimonial acquisition, stakeholder assessment and interim
report. Mondays convening is out-and-out violation of CEOP provisions. It is
contrary to legislative intent AAG Perez laid out in 2012. He asserted the Agreement
would provide opportunities to put festering tensions squarely on the table, not on
ad hoc basis, but on a systemic basis. (Italics mine.) He spoke to the need for more
input from community for sustained engagement in order to make progress
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in policy. City strategies which now circumvent COAB repeat historic attempts to
get small groups of political insiders to lend legitimacy to machinations that do not
arise, generally, from the Will of The People. Mondays end-around play by the
Mayor, Auditor and City Attorney are likely intended to reveal COAB as entirely
divorced from City connectivity. I assert COAB is the logical starting point: for
proposal receipt; soliciting testimony upon; amendment construction; and providing
dispassionate, good-faith assessment of; any changes to the Agreement.
If you remain inert, watch Monday for an absence of cogent, written testimony
provided by long-term justice advocates. After being allowed to see whats on the
table, many require advanced lead times, to follow study with pursuit of positional
approval from their delegating body (churches, the League of Women Voters,
NAACP PDX, and the Multnomah Chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness,
in particular). Its an old scheme: months in backroom dealing, followed by a
blazingly short cycle of disjointed community input, after which the police proposal
is rarely amended. Its a process where, with even they Citys customary, lateMonday notice that a published ordinance will be addressed Wednesday, citizen
participants scramble to understand jargon, connect to best practices elsewhere, or
fathom complex institutional relationships and established legislation. CRD
investigators might recall how long it took them to come up to speed on the
contours of our IPRD/CRC/PRB juggernaut.
The public is unlikely to provide written testimony, due to last-minute public
invitation. Rapid response, if any not employed by the city do testify, often requires
individuals to offer oral testimony, on their own volition and disconnected from tideturning community consensus. No link was provided, so the community could watch
the Town Hall, live-streamed. Perhaps youll be let in, remotely, to observe the
conclave: I ask you to compare for quality of response what transpires Monday,
against work products likely to be derived from broad, empowering, and sustained
public engagement.
Refutation of coherent public input, in a reasoned and transparent process, is a
logical precursor to abject protest.
Petition for redress
Tell us whether CRD expects public influence is to impact what have traditionally
been backroom deals, travelling insular paths, to get to 3 necessary votes in Council.
Ive long proclaimed theres a tremendous body of local, pertinent knowledge;
resident among academics, authors, activists, filmmakers, professional associations,
faith-based organizations and community bodies in Portland. These resources have
for too long not been procured for community service. Until I watched COCL forgo a
liaisonal role, directed anywhere but toward their employers, I expected these
resident resources would enjoy the fruits of an effective CEOP (SA 141). It is unjust
for you to quietly acquiesce in a City intention to zip forward unilaterally, while
structurally dampening public involvement and simultaneously suppressing the
fullest realization of COAB capacity. A gun was brandished at civilians protesting
fatal police shootings on 7 July. Its unwise for CRD to remain aloof: even if you (or
the Federal Court) exercise power behind the scenes, to have PPB post online
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whatever they flash past IPRDs chosen audience. It is long past time for another
CRD press conference, to convey whether Portlanders are to have any faith in
processes depicted in the Agreement. Or, conversely, to release those who put in
countless hours under these directives from such expectations. Continued silence
telegraphs to our local knowledge and skill repository that its unwise to make a
time commitment to COAB. Lack of such declaration is to leave police accountability
decision-making in the hands of armed men who have never admitted wrongdoing
at an institutional level.
Under SA 146g, COAB is specifically permitted to provide information on systems of
accountability to PPB. I prefer that such information initiates reform; but the
perpetrators fast-track, insular process makes it difficult to even weigh in as the
Police Plan flies past. Speak out. COAB members need to know whether their
authority was merely aspirational, or to what degree historic, unilateral policy
development is now to be influenced by deliberated positions, as offered by this
advisory body.
Changing conditions
Re-jigging the IPRD/CRC/PRB is no longer acceptable. Close to the issue, Marilyn J.
Mosby, Marylands attorney for Baltimore, Thursday opined a need for truly
independent investigators and prosecutors to handle police misconduct cases.
Perpetrators very premise of police self-investigation is in play, yet the
perpetrators Police Plan is based on the premise that the Chief makes the ultimate
decisions about discipline. We know, that in consent decrees which follow
Portlands, civilian review boards have subpoena power and the authority to make
sure discipline sticks when officers are found to have engaged in wrongdoing. (USA
vs. Newark)

On Wednesday, POTUS challenged CRD to emerge from the shadows: If you want
more justice in the justice system, then weve all got to work with police and
protesters until laws and practices are changed. I say, If you want reform
thwarted, discount reasoned participation by justice advocates, then punish
protestors while authorities dictate change from closed-door sessions. Allow citizen
volunteers on boards to realize that change will not arise from their noble effort, but
instead from city officials who have refused to even acknowledge recommendations
born of their diligent labor: reform will stall as we burn out those volunteers.
Please note: burnout/denial of political support has completely undermined the
Citys Human Rights Commission (HRC, SA 142) & PPBs CPRC. Neither CRC nor
COAB operate with a full complement of uncompensated volunteers. Weve
sacrificed institutional wisdom in extant accountability mechanisms. Its another
stall tactic, to starve and then periodically reset membership on these bodies: it
takes a long time for political appointees to get beyond perpetrators false
contentions and then acknowledge lack of political backing. With a weekends
notice, I doubt we can hope disgruntled, former CRC members have been procured
to testify on integrity of the current process.
I also urge you to consider how much work the DoJ has done, since 2012. OJP NIJ,
COPS and BJA are much further advanced in tying police legitimacy to procedural
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justice, in tying stronger public support for police to increased oversight

compliance. The public appreciates being listened to and treated fairly and with
respect, says BJA. I contend this enjoyment is not confined to officer interaction: it
also arises when police policy germinates from citizen initiative. I contend, by not
sharing this body of Justice Department work, CRD keeps ignorant the victims of
unconstitutional policing. Portlanders remain marginalized from national effort.
Petition for redress
I tell you, our community has capacity and a whole new set of expectations about
a role in crafting police accountability mechanisms. Unwillingness to disclose the
Police Plan for Police Accountability Changes and crucially failure to embrace
public influence at the front end, are contra-indicated in 2016. I call upon CRD and
Federal Court to defend the Settlement Agreement as if it has the force of law.
Fractional, spasmodic tinkering led by cops can no longer be countenanced. Reform
must now arise through planned community engagement strategies. Particularly in
the absence of our recently demoted police command staff, a truculent COCL, and in
a lame duck mayoralty: it becomes vital for CRD or a presiding Judge to make
prompt, public appearance in support of the Agreement. Silence becomes
complicity in government-to-government refusal to cradle consent of the governed.
If you are complicit in the Citys desire to now dissect the Settlement Agreement,
ostensibly to solve a mere subset of its shortcomings, I call upon you in the name
of Tom Perez to consider comprehensive need beyond that of City governments
and clarify your intentions about amendment or abandoning the deal.
If youre unwilling to be prompt, I ask CRD in the interim to confound
perpetrator intent to engage in another round of narrowly premised policy
development. That intention, like Mayor Hales aspiration to pre-emptively commit
Portland to another, long-term PPA contract, will almost assuredly retard police
reform through an upcoming, our hands are tied era. Pent up, community-based
aspirations must drive redress of grievances. Given a rising tide of agitation, I
humbly suggest it wise to deflect City subversion in short order. Following USAOR
Amanda Marshalls and PPB Chief ODeas attempts to avoid investigation into their
own wrongdoing, its not as if Oregon law enforcements underlying inhibitions to
corrective mechanisms has gone away while the Agreement has been in effect. Its
not as if the need for justice has evaporated either: absence of COAB opportunity to
make PPB demographic data collection credible, sufficient to make accurate
assessment of race-based deprivation of Constitutional protections (SA 148); and for
CPRC to simply deconstruct neglecting their own backroom process of developing
a Police Plan to Address Racial Profiling (SA 146b); these are likely indicators that
police performance assessment and disciplinary adjudication needs to be embraced
holistically and much more comprehensively than simply consolidating
accountability mechanisms.
Pointed petition for redress
Portland cops were never likely to carry out reform responsibilities. It transpires
that unsupported citizen volunteers cannot do so either. I urge you, while the
Agreement seems up for grabs, to advocate recently voiced COAB member
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aspirations for self-governance, adequate staff to include researchers and

independent counsel, and resources (including Federal) sufficient to procure subject
matter experts of national standing and to entice a suffering community to
empowering, COAB-based Town Halls (SA 163). I deem these capacity-enhancers as
minimally necessary to adopt an informed, advisory role over what features are wise
to include in any IPRD/CRC/PRB re-configuring. Proposed changes to the
Agreement, and to appeal processes, should - by my assessment - be placed
squarely in COABs bailiwick. Trust-building change should emerge there. Given
Councils refusal to even acknowledge receipt of recommendations, remaining
citizen volunteers now require your verification of their authority. With stature
stabilization, participation might be astutely procured among stout hearts and
deployed into COAB, CRC, HRC and CPRC so as to get work done in public
subcommittee. As-yet unselected member replacements might be recruited for highorder organizational capacity, so as to then draw on the broadest array of native
intelligence, long alienated by City Hall.
To do otherwise is to court rebelliousness.
Best,
Roger David Hardesty,
Co-originator of a proposed, 2012 Civilian Compliance & Reform Authority draft
model for police oversight in Portland, Oregon
-----Original Message----From: amacoalition-request@lists.riseup.net On Behalf Of Portland Copwatch
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2016 1:12 PM
To: AMA Coalition Membership <amacoalition@lists.riseup.net>
Subject: [amacoalition] Meeting: Portland City Council Town Hall on Police Accountability Changes
Slightly longer announcement can be found at here.
--------------------Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 12:50:55
From: Independent Police Review ipr@portlandoregon.gov
Subject: Public Notification: Portland City Council Town Hall on Police Accountability Changes
City of Portland
1221 SW 4th Avenue, Room 140 | Portland, OR 97204 | (503) 823-0146
Fax: 503-823-4571 | IPR@portlandoregon.gov
MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 2016
TIME:
6:00 p.m. ? 8:00 p.m.
SUBJECT: PROPOSED CHANGES TO POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY PROCESSES IN CITY CODE
LOCATION: PCC Cascade Campus, Terrell Hall, 122-Small Auditorium, 705 N Killingsworth St., Portland,
OR 97217
CONTACT: Deanna Wesson-Mitchell, Office of Mayor Hales, 503-823-4277
You also can submit your views in writing to the Mayor and Commissioners if you are unable to attend
the town hall. Find their contact information here (http://www.portlandoregon.gov/25999).
1221 SW 4th Ave #140 | Portland, OR 97204 US
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