What Happened to James Chasse

New Chasse Information at New Web Site

2009-05-06T20:50:00.001-07:00

Everything made publicly available about what happened to James Chasse until September 2008 is archived at this web site.

It will not be taken down. Email info@mentalhealthportland.org about broken links or for information about the site.

For information about what happened to James Chasse which we have accumulated since September 2008, see the web site for the Mental Health Association of Portland.

Thanks!

Crisis training takes some cues from Memphis

2008-09-11T07:03:00.000-07:00

Portland program requires all street cops to be taught intervention techniques
From the Portland Tribune, September 11 2008

In Memphis, as in Portland, change started with a death.

In Portland, two years ago, the death of 42-year-old schizophrenic James Chasse Jr. at the hands of Portland police prompted public outcry for change in the way officers here deal with people suffering mental illness.

In Memphis, Tenn., a similar death 20 years ago — of a 27-year-old schizophrenic man who was shot by police after he brandished a knife — was the beginning not only of change for the Memphis police department, but for police throughout the country.

The outcry from the Memphis mental health community led the Memphis police department, in partnership with local mental health activists, to form the nation’s first Crisis Intervention Training program. It’s a program similar to one that, after Chasse’s death, Portland police have turned to as their primary response to the local call for change.

But the evolving Portland program is significantly different from the one in Memphis — for the better, according to some, and for the worse, according to others. The critics say the police don’t have adequate backup in their new efforts to help the mentally ill.

Crisis Intervention Training is based on 40 hours of classroom work designed to teach police officers to recognize the signs of mental illness in people they are dealing with, and then to use social worker techniques to defuse situations that might otherwise lead to use of force.

By the end of 2008, Portland will be the largest city in the country to have required all its street officers to be trained in crisis intervention.

Nevertheless, many experts say that Portland’s program, as currently configured, never will achieve the success that Memphis has had.

Memphis effort multipronged

According to Memphis officials, crisis intervention training is only one part of their overall solution, which includes a designated place for police to take people with uncontrolled mental illness, and a partnership between police and local mental health advocacy organizations.

“I believe the Memphis model is the gold standard,” says Bradley Cobb, executive director of the Memphis chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “I believe it is a lifesaver.”

A 2000 analysis of three cities and how their police responded to incidents involving people with mental illness showed that Memphis police rarely ended up arresting subjects with mental illness — only about two out of every 100 they dealt with on the street.

In some cities, as many as 20 percent or 30 percent of people with mental illness are taken to jail. In Memphis, a city comparable in size to Portland, almost all are directed into mental health care rather than the criminal justice system — an outcome mental health and police officials agree is preferable.

Departments in Memphis and Portland do not track police use of force involving people with mental illness. But Memphis police say they’ve got a pretty good idea that their use of force dropped when they instituted crisis intervention.

According to Sam Cochran, who has coordinated the crisis intervention program for Memphis police since its inception, in the first three years after the program was instituted, injuries suffered by police officers during crisis events dropped by more than 80 percent.

“If you’re seeing where officers are not getting hurt, you can pretty much conclude that (citizens) are not getting hurt,” Cochran says.

But the program being developed in Portland differs from the Memphis model in three significant ways.

All Portland street cops trained

In Memphis, not all officers are trained in crisis intervention, and that is intentional. In fact, Cobb says, after early successes, the Memphis chief of police told him he wanted to train all of the city’s officers, and Cobb says he told the chief that wouldn’t be a good idea.

Cobb says that — similar to a police agency’s special tactics team — not all officers are qualified to routinely deal with people suffering mental illness.

“It’s more than just training,” Cobb says. “You can get training anywhere. It depends on the officer. It really has to come from the heart.”

In Memphis, police officers volunteer to be trained in crisis intervention, and then are screened, so only those selected get to wear the crisis intervention badge and are in charge on calls involving people showing signs of uncontrolled mental illness.

Before Chasse’s death, about 250 Portland police had received crisis intervention training, following the Memphis model. Now, Portland is training all its street level officers. And that’s a good idea, says Jason Renaud, a longtime Portland mental health activist and former executive director of the Multnomah County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“They’re wrong,” Renaud says of Memphis. “I’m convinced James Chasse proves that. The people who took crisis intervention in the past (in Portland) were looking for promotions, or were people already sensitized to the issue (of mental illness) and knew it was useful. It’s the folks who think it’s not useful training who benefit the most from it.”

Training helps alliance form

Another difference between crisis intervention training in Memphis and in Portland is the training itself. In Memphis, mental health advocates take part in the classes, from describing their own experiences with police to role-playing.

Cobb says that approach has forced the mental health community and police officers into what has become a strong alliance. “They (mental health activists) feel they have ownership in this program because they help do it,” Cobb says.

Portland is training more than 500 officers. But Liesbeth Gerritsen, a crisis counselor hired by the city to coordinate its crisis intervention training, said that while the city once used mental health advocates in its training, it was unable to find enough advocates to continue participating.

Instead she uses a videotape of interviews with local advocates.

Still, even with an entire street level force trained in crisis intervention, Portland’s police are at a disadvantage in dealing with the mentally ill because of the city’s lack of a dedicated mental health triage facility, according to Cobb and Cochran.

Portland police don’t have a place to take people once they have them in custody — something Cochran, in charge of Memphis’ program for 20 years, calls “a tragedy.”

“You’re undermining crisis intervention training,” he says.

In Memphis, crisis intervention officers are trained to take subjects they suspect of having out-of-control mental illness to a special center set up at the University of Tennessee medical center. The officers are able to drop the subjects off there and leave within minutes, and by agreement with the city, no drop-offs are refused.

In Portland, police officers’ choices are usually jail or one of the local hospital’s overcrowded emergency departments, where the officers cannot leave until physicians have signed off on a transfer.

That process often takes hours, according to police officials. That makes dropping them off at jail a much more appealing alternative, even if officers know people won’t get the help they need.
Assessment center lacking

Multnomah County officials have plans for a mental health crisis and assessment center to be located in Northeast Portland, but details and funding have not yet been worked out. The facility, if funded, could be years away from opening.

Portland police get calls about people whose primary problem appears to be mental illness about 360 times a year, according to bureau statistics.

But Gerritsen says the collapse of the Multnomah County mental health system, from the near bankruptcy of Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, the county’s primary provider of mental health services, to inadequate state funding for psychiatric services for the poor, means there are more Portlanders with untreated mental illness than ever.

Add in the lack of an assessment center, and that means there probably will be another James Chasse event in Portland — despite improved policing.

Still, the new system appears to be working so far. Renaud says he hasn’t heard a complaint about police abusing someone with mental illness in at least six months — and those complaints used to come in regularly, he says.

“Portland has done a terrific job at getting prepared for the next experience,” Renaud says. “Perhaps the next experience has already happened and the crisis intervention training intervened and no one was hurt or killed.”

Some plans turned into action

In the wake of James Chasse Jr.’s death, Mayor Tom Potter launched a Mental Health and Public Safety Initiative, involving regular meetings by a wide variety of mental health providers, county and city officials, and advocates, that produced a 10-page action plan involving 14 separate recommendations.

Two years later, some have become reality and some haven’t.

Based on one recommendation, the Portland Police Bureau and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office have trained officers and law enforcement deputies with special Crisis Intervention Training classes. To address another recommendation, the county has increased its funding for Project Respond, a nonprofit group that specializes in crisis intervention with the mentally ill.

However, the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners did not fund mental health screening nurses for the jail booking area, and local jurisdictions have not produced funding for a new mental health coordination and oversight body.

The county is making progress toward setting up a 16-bed mental health crisis and assessment center, so police don’t have to take the mentally ill to jail.

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Julie Frantz and county Community Health Services Director Joanne Fuller chair the committee that was supposed to oversee the implementation of the initiative’s recommendations. The committee has shifted its focus to setting up a “mental health court” intended to divert the mentally ill from the criminal justice system.

Why did James Chasse die?

2008-09-11T06:09:00.000-07:00

From the Portland Tribune, September 11 2008

Police tactics and handling of mentally ill still being challenged two years after man’s violent death

James Chasse Jr. was a gentle but troubled soul in his youth. In 1980, he fronted a local band, the Psychedelic Unknowns. Over the next two decades, Chasse descended into schizophrenia until he was taken into police custody on Sept. 17, 2006, and died a short time later.

Almost two years ago, on a late sunny September afternoon, near the corner of Northwest 18th Avenue and Everett Street, a gaunt, 145-pound man behaving erratically came to the attention of Portland Police officers and one Multnomah County sheriff’s deputy.

He ran. They chased him. And then, somehow, he ended up with at least 26 broken and shattered bones in his rib cage and a punctured left lung. Less than two hours after the start of the encounter, after being taken to the jail, then toward the hospital, the man died in the back seat of a police car, at the age of 42.

Known to his many Portland friends as “Jim-Jim,” James Chasse Jr. had been a gentle but troubled kid who became a singer in local punk bands before descending into schizophrenia.

Since his death Sept. 17, 2006, he has become both a symbol and a rallying cry for mental health advocates as well as police critics, while for police he is viewed as yet more evidence that the mentally ill should be cared for by caseworkers, not cops.

But despite the tremendous attention given to Chasse’s death, the investigations, and a lawsuit filed by his family, there’s still uncertainty about how and why James “Jim Jim” Chasse died. His death remains an unsolved whodunit — or maybe, a whatdunit.

Conflicting accounts from those involved, officers contradicting the official story, and attacks on the state medical examiner’s autopsy have hung large question marks over Chasse’s death. And none of the officers who fought with him themselves admit to punching, elbowing, kneeing, kicking, tackling or otherwise making contact with Chasse with anything close to enough force to explain his injuries.

An old friend of Chasse’s, Jason Renaud, a longtime activist and volunteer with the Mental Health Association of Portland, says “the unanswered questions” about Chasse’s death have made his case almost a parable in the mental health community. “Everybody knows the case, every clinician, every patient,” he said.

Adding to the continuing questions, the city of Portland has persuaded a judge to keep secret key public records until the federal lawsuit filed by Chasse’s family either goes to trial next February, or is settled.

While the Portland Police Bureau has released records of a two-week criminal investigation into Chasse’s death, a nearly two-year internal affairs investigation will remain secret. A spokesman for Portland Mayor Tom Potter called that confidentiality a “routine legal step.”

As a result, the main source of new information concerning Chasse’s death has been his family members’ lawsuit and their lawyer, Tom Steenson, a civil-rights specialist with a reputation as a mild-mannered legal pit bull.

Players in Chasse’s death

The family’s disclosures, combined with public records and other information, give a glimpse into the various players who had a role, or may have had a role, in James Chasse’s death. Here are the details on those players:

• Cop No. 1 — Portland Police officer Christopher Humphreys

Several eyewitnesses, including a fellow cop, reported that Portland Police officer Christopher Humphreys tackled Chasse and fell on him. However, Humphreys denied it, saying he pushed Chasse, then flew over him.

Police officials say Humphreys forgot about landing on Chasse due to the excitement, and contend it was mainly that impact — not the ensuing fracas — that led to Chasse’s many broken ribs and other bones.

The State Medical Examiner, Karen Gunson, found that Chasse died of “broad-based blunt force trauma to his chest.” A second autopsy commissioned by the family, concluded that his injuries were from a beating.

• Cop No. 2 — Portland Police Sgt. Kyle Nice

Portland Police Sgt. Kyle Nice joined in the fight to subdue Chasse, who according to police and civilian eyewitnesses, was resisting vigorously. According to a police timeline, Nice called for an ambulance “for an unconscious male” about five minutes after the initial contact with Chasse.

Minutes later, medics from American Medical Response, the company that holds the county contract on emergency ambulance services, arrived.

Although the bureau maintains the medics cleared Chasse to be taken to jail rather than the hospital, Nice, when interviewed by detectives, suggested that the decision was his. He said the medics asked, “Do you want him transported?” and that he replied, “No, we have criminal charges. He’ll be going to jail.”

• Ambulance crew — American Medical Response

AMR’s medics said they found Chasse’s vital signs to be normal. They also reported Chasse fought them as they tried to render aid. Steenson, however, has suggested that there’s no way Chasse could have suffered the injuries documented by the state’s autopsy — let alone the additional ones found by the family’s autopsy — and still have normal vital signs.

The family’s lawsuit accuses the AMR medics of failing to do a complete medical exam.

• Jail medical staff

Although, according to the police bureau, the AMR medics felt Chasse was in good enough shape to go to jail, the nurses at the downtown Multnomah County Detention Center did not agree. Looking at him through the window of a separation cell, they told the officers to take him to the hospital, causing the officers to drive him toward Portland Adventist in outer Southeast Portland.

The lawsuit faults the jail nurses for not attending to Chasse in jail. However, a corrections grand jury later that year laid the blame elsewhere, saying the officers failed to inform the jail nurses of the extent of Chasse’s injuries.

• The system — the county’s mental health system

In the wake of Chasse’s death, Potter and Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer both said the county’s frayed mental health system should bear part of the responsibility.

According to a police report, Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare documents show that on Aug. 17, 2006, and Sept. 8, 2006, Chasse’s mental state was worsening and hospitalization was called for.

On Sept. 15, 2006, two days before Chasse’s death, a caseworker accompanied by a police officer conducted a welfare check at his apartment at Northwest Broadway near West Burnside Street, intending to try to put a mental- health hold on Chasse, only to have Chasse flee when he saw the officer.

• The mayor and the police chief — Potter and Sizer

In the wake of Chasse’s death, Potter said Sizer told him the officers who arrested Chasse were under pressure to reduce public drunkenness and other public antisocial activities. The family’s lawsuit faults a variety of city policies, including what it calls an unwritten one of trying to remove the mentally ill from downtown.

Finally, it claims that Portland city officials should have known that Humphreys had a history of excessive force and misconduct. After Chasse’s death, a Portland Tribune public records request showed that Humphreys was one of the most prolific users of force in the police bureau, with 78 reported incidents in his seven years on the force.

Though critics claim a variety of breakdowns and misconduct led to Chasse’s death, a federal court hearing in June suggested his family’s lawsuit faces tough odds.

There, in the federal courthouse downtown, Steenson, wearing a dark suit, sat alone at one table while his four opposing lawyers —one for the county, two for the city and one for AMR — sat at two others.

Judge Garr King, a former Multnomah County prosecutor, was openly skeptical of some of Steenson’s legal arguments, and ruled against him by directing that the case be split into two. One trial will involve the officers and the other will consider whether city policies were to blame. Legal observers say the ruling will make the case more difficult for the family to win.

Renaud, however, thinks the family has a strong case. “They are very determined,” he said. “They’re not going to settle. So it’s going to be public, and it’s going to be ugly.”

EXTRA - What Happened to James Chasse

Judge Orders Chasse Trial Split In Two

2008-06-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

from the Portland Mercury, June 4, 2008

A Federal Judge has ordered that the James Chasse jr. trial be split in two this morning, between the individual police officers and the City of Portland, in a move that could drastically affect the outcome of the case.

Chasse Family Attorney Tom Steenson: Determined before court today…

Federal Judge Garr King this morning approved the city’s motion to bifurcate the case, splitting it into two trials, one to decide whether Officer Christopher Humphreys, Sergeant Kyle Nice, and Sheriff’s Deputy Brett Burton were liable for Chasse’s death, and one to decide whether the city, (and also the county, and American Medical Response, the ambulance firm) were responsible for Chasse’s death by failing to adequately train and supervise those officers. There’s lengthy analysis after the jump.

While the city and county will end up paying for damages in both trials, the decision to split the case in two is controversial, since Steenson has been arguing all along that the city and its cops were dually responsible for what happened.

Importantly, Judge King granted the motion to bifurcate the case based on the city's assurance that it will not rely on a "qualified immunity" defense. In other words, Officers Humphreys, Nice and Burton, do not plan to argue that they are immune from prosecution because the law, and the city's policies, did not explicitly prohibit them from handling Chasse the way they did. Often, police officers use the qualified immunity defense to avoid prosecution in cases like these. For example, a boiled-down qualified immunity defense is: "You didn't tell me I couldn't hit him in the head with my fist."

It's likely that the city would prefer to split the cases in two so that Steenson is less able to show a jury that the officers involved are representative of the systemic failure of the police bureau to train and adequately supervise its officers. Strategically, it makes the case harder for Steenson to win by breaking it down into smaller, less emotionally loaded chunks. But waiving the qualified immunity defense also places the individual officers at higher risk of being found liable for what happened in the first trial.

Evidently the city feels it has a pretty strong case.

Judge King also denied the city's motion for summary judgment to dismiss injunctive relief in the case today. Essentially, the city was arguing that if it is found guilty of causing Chasse's death through lack of proper procedures, by, for example, ignoring one of the key recommendations of the 2004 Parc Report to raise the level of impact strikes to the head, sternum and ribs to "deadly force" level, it shouldn't have to do anything to change its policies and procedures after the trial. Judge King said it's way too early to tell.

Chasse's father, brother, and mother were in court today. So was Sheriff's Deputy Brett Burton.

Chasse's father, James Senior: Walks into court this morning...

Before court this morning, Steenson said: "The Chasse family has been very committed to seeing that the city makes changes to its policies and procedures." On the bifurcation, he said the city and individuals' responsibility "should not be separate," and he is likely to be disappointed by today's outcome.

The case continues. Currently a trial date is set for September 2009, although Judge King this morning talked about moving for an earlier trial, possibly in early 2009. You can also find out more about the case here.

Familiar Face to Sue City After Cops Bust Down Door

2008-05-29T23:49:00.000-07:00

From Willamette Week, May 27, 2008

A Portland State University student who's been a persistent headache for local cops is back in action.

Richard Prentice, 34, gave notice to the city last Friday that he intends to sue for $10,000 after police allegedly broke down his door without a warrant.

"The whole apartment was shaking," Prentice tells WWire. "They said, 'we're coming in no matter what.' "

Prentice says the incident happened in part as retaliation by police for his role in a well-publicized incident June 14, 2007. Prentice was arrested that evening while taping posters to the wall of the federal courthouse downtown that accused officers of murdering James Chasse Jr., a schizophrenic who died in police custody in 2006.

Prentice told reporters he was intimidated by officers in his cell after he was arrested that evening. He notified the city of his intent to sue over that incident, but a lawsuit has not yet been launched.

In his latest court filing, Prentice says he also plans to sue after police responded Feb. 12 to a neighbor's noise complaint at his apartment at 3110 SW 13th Ave. He says police broke down his door and arrested him. His trial for disorderly conduct is scheduled for June 2 in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

Prentice says he has no doubt his latest arrest was connected with his poster incident last year. "They know who I am. They don't like me," he says.

The police and the city attorney's office do not comment on pending lawsuits.

‘Alien Boy’ makes guest appearance in Portland lawsuit

2008-05-18T14:50:00.000-07:00

From the Portland Mercury, May 17, 2008

City attorneys say Chasse film could stoke hostility against police officers

“Alien Boy,” a local documentary about a schizophrenic man who died in police custody in 2006 has been dragged into a legal tug-of-war between the victim’s family and the city of Portland.

Portland filmmaker Brian Lindstrom has only just begun shooting the project, which focuses on the life and death of James Chasse Jr., a 42-year-old Old Town resident who succumbed to blunt-force trauma after being tackled and tazered by police officers outside the upscale Pearl District restaurant Bluehour.

But city attorneys say the film, together with continued media scrutiny into the episode, could stoke hostility toward the officers involved and make it impossible for them to get a fair trial in the civil wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Chasse family in U.S. District Court.

At stake is a gag order imposed in October by Judge Dennis Hubel, who sealed key documents in the case, including an internal police bureau investigation; Independent Police Review records; records of previous disciplinary action against the officers; cell phone records; and medical records.

Lawyers for the Chasse family and the news media (including the Portland Tribune) have asked the judge to release those documents; lawyers representing the city have tried to keep them under wraps.

As long as the order remains in place, it remains unclear what information the documents contain. But city lawyers now argue that the documents could turn public opinion against the officers, even if they are ultimately withheld from a jury.

“Releasing irrelevant information, which is inadmissible at trial, could prejudice defendants by resulting in hostility towards them,” wrote Deputy City Attorneys James G Rice and David A Landrum in a May 6 court brief. “City defendants’ concern about potential hostility due to dissemination of irrelevant discovery material is exacerbated by the media scrutiny of Mr. Chasse’s death, including the documentary film, ‘Alien Boy,’ being made about Mr. Chasse.”

The brief was filed in response to a motion by Tom Steenson, the Chasse family’s lawyer, requesting that the documents be unsealed. Steenson had no comment about the motion, the lawsuit or the film.

Deadly encounter in the Pearl District

The deadly encounter took place on Sept. 17, 2006, when Portland police officers saw Chasse walking down Northwest Everett Street near the I-405 overpass. According to published accounts, the officers believed Chasse was “acting odd” and suspected him of urinating against a tree. They followed him for several blocks, catching up with him near the intersection of Northwest 13th Avenue, where they ordered him to halt. Instead, Chasse attempted to run away, prompting Officer Christopher Humphreys to knock him to the ground.

In the ensuing melee, Chasse was tackled, tazered, punched, kicked and hogtied as he struggled desperately against Humphreys, police Sgt. Kyle Nice and Multnomah County sheriff’s Deputy Brett Burton.

The altercation occurred near Bluehour, where several patrons dining al fresco — including developer Homer Williams — witnessed the struggle.

Chasse died in the back seat of a police cruiser of the injuries sustained in the encounter, which included a punctured lung, 16 broken ribs and multiple contusions.

The Multnomah County medical examiner ruled that Chasse died of blunt-force trauma to the chest, but declared the death “accidental.” A grand jury later cleared the officers of criminal wrongdoing.

The family, however, believes Chasse was beaten to death.

Documentary dragged into hall of mirrors

The Chasse case has become a flashpoint in the ongoing debate about police brutality and the larger issue of how police officers should approach people with mental illness, who sometimes react in unexpected ways, and whose symptoms may mislead officers into thinking they are drunk or high.

Chasse, who was also known as “Jim-Jim,” was a well-known figure in the Portland music scene who lived independently in an Old Town apartment building, and had no criminal history.

It was with the aim of rendering a more complete, three-dimensional portrait of Chasse, that director Brian Lindstrom embarked on “Alien Boy.” His last film, “Finding Normal,” a documentary about recovering addicts in Portland, won wide praise for its sensitive approach and has been screened in City Hall.

Other contributors to “Alien Boy” include reporter Matt Davis of the Portland Mercury, who broke crucial elements of the story; and advocate Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland, who knew Chasse in high school.

The film’s title comes from a song written about Chasse in 1979 by his friend, Greg Sage, lead singer of the seminal Portland punk band, the Wipers.

Keeping documents from the public

Initially, filmmakers simply wanted to shoot a film about the tragedy. But now the project in being dragged into the legal battle.

“We’re disappointed, but not surprised,” says Renaud. “The city is trying to use the film as a rationale to keep these documents from the public.”

Renaud agreed that the film’s viewers might walk away from the theater believing that the officers involved in the incident were responsible for Chasse’s death. But, he said, the vast majority of potential jurors were unlikely ever to see the film; and those who were swayed by it would be excluded from the jury pool by the city’s lawyers.

No date has been set for arguments on whether the documents should be released.

Portland police, firefighters unions mostly sitting out politics this year

2008-04-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

The groups say they're frustrated with a general lack of respect from City Hall
From The Oregonian, April 9, 2008

Most election years, Portland's police and firefighters help play kingmaker, giving thousands of dollars and priceless get-out-the-vote help to a slate of carefully chosen candidates. This year, however, they're largely sitting it out.

They're fed up with the guys who currently occupy City Hall and frustrated by what they say is a general sense of disrespect.

For certain candidates, it's a real blow. Symbolically, what's better than appearing in a campaign ad or flier next to a firetruck? Practically, what candidate can't use the telephone banks and lawn sign parties both unions are well-known for?

"Not getting involved represents a dramatic response for both of our unions," said Robert King, a Portland detective and president of the Portland Police Association. "Part of what it indicates is that we would both like to see more support out of the people in leadership positions than what we've gotten. The people who work in public safety in this city do not feel respected or heard."

King's more than 1,000 members decided to endorse Nick Fish, Amanda Fritz and Commissioner Randy Leonard in the three city commissioner campaigns. They're staying mum in the race to replace Mayor Tom Potter, the first time in years they've chosen neutrality.

The cops say they've spent the past four years feeling scrutinized and painted as thugs by city leaders.

They point to the outraged responses among elected officials to the death of a mentally ill man named James Chasse Jr. in police custody in 2006, to the City Council's decision to end Portland's drug- and prostitution-free zones, to Potter's decision to fire a respected lieutenant in an on-duty shooting last year even though Chief Rosie Sizer recommended a lesser punishment.

"In this election, we really are hoping for a change," King said. "We hope for a group of people who are more understanding of what we're doing, who are more likely to look at the good work that so many of us do every day.

"In the mayor's race at least, it just seems like the best way to ensure that is to stay neutral."

Both major candidates for mayor, City Commissioner Sam Adams and travel business owner Sho Dozono, sat through endorsement interviews with the police, and King said there were things that union leaders liked about both of them. There are also things they worry about.

Adams has suggested that if elected, he might give control of the Police Bureau to someone else -- perhaps Leonard, a retired firefighter, something that intrigues union leaders. Adams has worked hard to be a friend to labor during his first term on the City Council, including working to stop Wal-Mart, famously anti-union, from building in Portland and devoting one part-time staff position to a labor relations expert.

But Adams can be abrasive and stubborn, as the union leaders know from watching him operate for more than a dozen years, during his time as a city commissioner and the decade he spent as Mayor Vera Katz's chief of staff.

Dozono has generally been on the pro-cop side of downtown safety issues as a leader in the Portland Business Alliance and its predecessors. But he's also new to government -- something of an unknown quantity, in other words -- and won the endorsement of Potter, the union's public enemy No. 1.

There's a certain irony there: Potter, after all, was a career police officer and retired as Portland police chief in 1992. Yet he was never beloved during his days in uniform and has made even fewer friends as mayor.

Four years ago, the police union endorsed Potter's opponent, Jim Francesconi, although the union rescinded that after Francesconi ran a radio spot criticizing Potter -- and, union members thought, the police as well -- for his handling of a disciplinary case.

Officers feel as if they've spent four years paying for the original Francesconi nod, King said.

Portland firefighters have a more specific grievance: They want a healthy raise.

Last year, the union's 680 members elected a slate of new leaders who ran on a promise to get them more money. The problem: City leaders have changed their approach to bargaining and say they've already conceded a lot in trying to get all the city's unions on the same contract schedule.

The new leaders among Portland's firefighters weren't part of those meetings and say their members have been underpaid for years compared with other departments in Oregon and elsewhere. At various points over months of negotiations, they've argued for a 3.5 percent, across-the-board pay increase -- on top of an annual cost of living increase -- a shorter workweek and higher overtime pay. The city has offered smaller raises and bonus pay for officers during shifts spent operating heavy machinery.

But the two sides haven't been able to craft a contract, and things have grown tense. The city and the union seem headed toward arbitration this summer.

So, the union's leaders opted not to endorse anyone this year. What, they decided, is the point? "There's really no reason we're going to arbitration except for poor communication," said Ken Burns, the union president. "We think, quite frankly, that's a commissioner's job."

Burns and his colleagues are even on the outs with Leonard, a former firefighter who ran the union before entering politics. Leonard said his endorsement interview with union leaders focused solely on the details of the contract and ended with both the candidate and his questioners feeling angry and insulted.

How will it end? Both unions still have plenty of time to change their collective minds.

In the meantime, the two mayoral candidates bear the stamp of approval from other labor unions: Adams got the nod from the Northwest Council of Laborers, and Dozono has the endorsement from the Carpenters Union Local 247.

Commitment Issues: Chasse Death Cited in Involuntary Detention

2008-03-19T20:21:00.000-07:00

From the Portland Mercury, March 20, 2008

Multnomah County's commitment court ruled at the end of 2006 that an allegedly mentally ill woman should be locked in a psychiatric hospital, because it would be safer than wandering the streets like James Chasse — where the person risked being "beaten to death" by cops, according to the judge.

The Oregon State Appeals Court overturned the woman's involuntary commitment last Wednesday, March 12—and, in the process, revealed the judge's statements—saying Judge Lewis B. Lawrence (pictured) was wrong to draw the conclusion that the woman "was a danger to herself because some officer, at some unknown point in the future, might kill or harm her."

The woman, who was not named under commitment statutes designed to protect her confidentiality, had fought with police when she was originally taken into custody on a mental health hold.

Referring to this, the commitment court took "absolute judicial notice" of the fact that "fighting with police... is certainly something that puts mentally ill people at risk of death or serious physical injury," according to the appeals court verdict.

"The court commented on the then-recent death of James Chasse, stating that Chasse, an unarmed mentally ill person, 'was confronted by police, and he was beaten to death,'" the appeals court verdict continues.

Significantly, the commitment court took "absolute judicial notice" of Chasse's having been "beaten to death." In legal terms, a judge is only supposed to take judicial notice of a fact when it is obvious and undisputed.

Chasse, a schizophrenic, died following an altercation with police officers and sheriff's deputies on the corner of NW 13th and Everett on September 17, 2006, though the exact circumstances of his death are mysterious. His family is continuing to pursue a lawsuit against the City of Portland, Multnomah County, and the ambulance firm American Medical Response, who cleared Chasse for transport to jail.

Commitment verdicts are sealed from public scrutiny once they are made, unless they are overturned at appeal. However, the appeals court has overturned 23 commitments in Multnomah County since December 2006, either because the commitment court had insufficient evidence to commit the person, or because procedures weren't followed.

In one case, a commitment was overturned because it was held "in the hallway of a hospital while appellant was naked in a hospital room, in the midst of a medical crisis, and unable to hear or participate meaningfully in the entire proceeding," according to the appeals court verdict.

Usually, a person is ruled a danger to themselves or others because of, for example, repeated suicide attempts, thinking bleach is a magic drink sent from heaven, carrying a knife around and believing they are on a divine quest, or believing they are impervious to gunfire.

Simply having a tendency to fight with police isn't sufficient, says the appeals court, no matter how dangerous a judge may believe the police to be.

Policing the Mentally Ill

2008-03-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

From OPB.com, March 18. 2008

LISTEN TO "Policing the Mentally Ill" (24MB MP3)

In September of 2006, a schizophrenic man named James Chasse died in police custody, sending shockwaves throughout Portland and the state. At the time, Mayor Potter promised an overhaul of the system that failed Chasse.

A year and a half later, the Mental Health Association of Portland is working on a documentary to make sure we never forget James Chasse, and Portland police are well into a training program designed to help avoid any repeat incidents. The Crisis Intervention Training program, which used to be voluntary, is now required for all current officers and a new law this year made this sort of training mandatory for all new police officers statewide.

Is this enough? What else needs to be done to ensure the inevitable interactions between law enforcement and the mentally ill are as positive as possible?

GUESTS:

* Jason Renaud: Volunteer with Mental Health Association of Portland and former executive director for local National Alliance on Mental Illness chapters
* Raul Ramirez: Executive Director of the Oregon State Sheriff's Association
* David Zeiss: Coordinator of White Bird Clinic's "Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets" (CAHOOTS) program

Report faults jail care

2008-03-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

County memo says two in-custody deaths will not be charged as homicides

From The Portland Tribune

A 43-year-old man told nurses he had chest pain. He received anti-anxiety medication, only to die of a heart attack.

A 36-year-old woman told nurses she had pneumonia – and that her spleen had been removed, making the disease particularly dangerous to her. Already coughing, she was given an inhaler, which did not stop her from asphyxiating on her own lung fluid early the next morning.

Both were inmates at the Multnomah County Detention Center, and both told the admitting nurses not just of their current symptoms but of red flags in their medical history. And in both cases the nurses did not consult with doctors before administering medications which, in the end, did not work.

These, at least, were the findings of criminal investigations into the deaths of Jody Gilbert Norman and Holly Jean Casey, released Thursday by the Multnomah County district attorney’s office.

Despite the findings, the March 10 memo detailed why no one would be prosecuted for the inmates’ deaths, although it raised questions about the quality of care received in jails.

In the memo, Senior Deputy District Attorney Don Rees wrote that “after reviewing the facts and circumstances surrounding the deaths of inmates Holly Jean Casey and Jody Gilbert Norman I conclude that no single person or persons can be held liable for any degree of criminal homicide as defined in (state law).”

Reese added, “To the investigators who worked on these cases and I, the deaths of inmates Casey and Norman seem to raise serious questions about inmate management and health care practices within the Multnomah County corrections system and the level of health services.”

While prosecutors will not charge anyone with homicide, they are pursuing charges against two nurses who worked in Multnomah County jails. One, William Lee James, is alleged to have altered patient records to falsely suggest he consulted with a doctor prior to prescribing anti-anxiety medication to Norman. Another, Kimberly Joers, is accused of falsifying drug records.

Moreover, Casey’s ex-husband has retained two local attorneys, Hala Gores and Matt Kaplan, to sue the county.

One nurse still on leave

Asked about the jail deaths, county health Director Lillian Shirley, who oversees the corrections health division, said, “This is something that we take extremely seriously and put a lot of planning time around analyzing what went wrong.”

Shirley added, “Now that the criminal complaint is done we can proceed with our personnel investigation, and I promise you it will be completed within a week.”

The first of the two deaths investigated occurred in 2005, after Norman, a petty thief, was admitted to jail while complaining of chest pain and a history of angina. The nurse, James, gave him Ativan and indicated in records that he’d spoken with a doctor before administering the drug.

Contacted in December, James told the Portland Tribune he was following an unofficial policy at the corrections health division and said he felt terrible about Norman’s death.

Shirley denied that her department had tolerated the practice described by James.

The second death, that of Casey, occurred Jan. 4 of this year.

Casey, with a history of drug abuse, was booked for failing to appear in court on a second-degree theft charge. She was given an inhaler after reporting difficulty breathing at 11 p.m. She “reportedly” showed some improvement, but then continued to complain about stomach and breathing problems, the Rees memo said.

At about 5 a.m., the deputy on duty advised a jail nurse that Casey was continuing to ask for medical care, but the nurse “declined to contact or treat Casey,” Rees wrote.

She was found to be dead at 7:30 a.m.

The nurse involved, Glenda Baxter, remains on leave while the county decides whether to discipline her for the treatment of Holly Jean Casey, according to Shirley.

Asked hypothetically about the standard of care when a patient with no spleen complains of pneumonia, Dr. Scott Fields, the vice chairman of the family medicine department of Oregon Health & Science University, cautioned that “confounding factors” can complicate cases, and that it’s hard to generalize when a pneumonia diagnosis depends on detectable symptoms.

However, he said the spleen “happens to be very important” for removing the bacteria responsible for strep pneumonia, meaning a patient lacking that organ could receive special attention.

He said he would evaluate that patient to confirm signs of pneumonia – check the heart rate, listen to the lungs and perhaps do an X-ray. Once the symptoms were confirmed, antibiotics would be administered.

Cases include Chasse in 2006

These are hardly the first controversial deaths to occur at or be involved with Multnomah County jails.

In 2003, an unemployed bricklayer who was well-known in the Portland music scene, Nick Baccelleri, died when corrections health personnel gave him an overdose of methadone rather than his prescribed medication. The county paid $200,000 to his family in that case.

In the past three years, according to County Attorney Agnes Sowle, the county has paid out $233,000 to settle four claims against the corrections health division. The largest of those, for $200,000, was paid to the family of Anthony Delarosa in January 2007.

According to a lawsuit filed by his estate in 2006 that accused corrections health of inadequate medical care, Delarosa died on Oct. 1, 2004, while suffering heroin withdrawal symptoms. He vomited and slipped into a withdrawal coma in his cell, but, according to the lawsuit, the jail defibrillator either was missing or did not function properly.

And in 2006, a corrections grand jury faulted the jail’s handling of James Chasse Jr. on Sept. 17 following a controversial altercation with two Portland police officers and a county sheriff’s deputy that led to his in-custody death.

According to the grand jury’s report, the jail nurse was not informed of the extent of Chasse’s injuries, the inmate was not taken immediately to the closest hospital when it looked as if his injuries might be life-threatening, and the jail lacks a protocol requiring arresting officers to specify the extent of any physical force used on an inmate being booked.

Jail’s not ‘a well population’

Shirley said that after any death at the jail, her department takes action to prevent any contributing factors in that death from happening again.

She noted that her unit examines some 40,000 inmates each year, many of them in poor health, drunk or on drugs, and with prior medical problems. So are deaths inevitable?

“This is a very tough job,” Shirley said. “Every day with the prison population, the people that are charged to take care of their health have to make a tremendous amount of decisions. And we’re not talking about a well population here.”

Rees’ memo also notes that Joers, the nurse prosecuted for tampering with drug records, was an admitted drug abuser who was hired by the county just one month after being fired from a Portland hospital for “misconduct involving the loss of a narcotic medication.”

Two weeks ago, in a separate case, a former county jail nurse, Catherine Earp, filed a threat of lawsuit, saying she had been forced to resign after blowing the whistle on poor oversight in county jails and observing substandard medical care.

The county has not yet responded to her allegations.

Alleged Mentally Ill Person At Risk Of Being “Beaten To Death” By Cops, Said Commitment Court

2008-03-13T16:02:00.000-07:00

From the Portland Mercury

Multnomah County’s commitment court ruled two years ago an alleged mentally ill person should be locked in a psychiatric hospital because there was a risk she might be “beaten to death” by cops like James Chasse, if she were left to wander the streets, it was revealed yesterday.

The appeals court yesterday overturned the woman’s involuntary commitment, saying the conclusion that she “was a danger to herself because some officer, at some unknown point in the future, might kill or harm her is unduly speculative and does not establish, by clear and convincing evidence, that appellant is a danger to herself.”

The woman had fought with police when she was originally taken into custody on a mental health hold. So the commitment court said that “fighting with police…is certainly something that puts mentally ill people at risk of death or serious physical injury,” according to the appeals court verdict.

“The court commented on the then-recent death of James Chasse, stating that Chasse, an unarmed mentally ill person, “was confronted by police, and he was beaten to death.”,” the appeals court verdict continues.

Nevertheless, that’s not her fault, according to the appeals court.

It’s significant that the commitment court took “absolute judicial notice” of the fact that “fighting with the police” is “certainly something that puts mentally ill people at risk of death or serious physical injury,” because in legal terms, a judge would only take judicial notice of a fact when it is obvious and undisputed.

For example, a judge might take judicial notice of the fact that the Mercury is an alternative weekly newspaper, or of the fact that the sun set yesterday just after 7 pm. For a judge to take “absolute judicial notice” of the fact that mentally ill people are at risk of being beaten to death by police is a strong position.

Usually, a person is ruled a danger to themselves or others because of, for example: repeated suicide attempts, or thinking bleach is a magic drink sent from heaven, or for carrying a knife around and believing they are on a divine quest, or believing they are impervious to gunfire. Simply having a tendency to fight with police isn't sufficient, says the appeals court. You can read more about the commitment process here.

The appeals court verdict is unlikely to help the person who was committed, however. She has already spent up to 180 days in the psychiatric hospital, and has no legal recourse. 23 commitments in Multnomah County have been overturned by the appeals court since December 2006, either because the Commitment Court had insufficient evidence to commit the person, or simply because procedures weren't followed. In one case, a commitment was overturned because it was held "in the hallway of a hospital while appellant was naked in a hospital room, in the midst of a medical crisis, and unable to hear or participate meaningfully in the entire proceeding."

Critics of the system say civil commitment should not be used as a dumping ground for a failed public safety or mental health system. They argue that you can't just lock people up because society doesn't want to take care of them, or because it doesn't know how to.

Film will examine Chasse's life, death

2008-02-12T19:06:00.000-08:00

Documentary - "Alien Boy" deals with the case of James Chasse Jr., who died in police custody

From The Oregonian

The Mental Health Association of Portland will be working with a Portland filmmaker to produce a documentary about the life and death of James P. Chasse Jr.

The title, "Alien Boy," refers to a song written by a friend of Chasse, Greg Sage, the lead singer of The Wipers band. As a young teenager, Chasse described The Wipers as "my fave local band" in a magazine he wrote called "The Oregon Organism."

Sage dedicated the lyrics from his 1979 song "Alien Boy" as a memorial to Chasse, a 42-year-old man who died in police custody Sept. 17, 2006. Chasse, who suffered from schizophrenia, died of broad-based trauma to his chest after police struggled to take him into custody in the Pearl District.

Sage's lyrics are: "Go and grab your gun; Got him on the run; Cause he's an alien; They hurt what they don't understand."

The association will work with Portland filmmaker Brian Lindstrom to make the film, and follow the family's civil case against the city and police.

The federal lawsuit, pending in U.S. District Court in Portland, contends that the officers involved violated Chasse's civil rights and that the city has a pattern of failing to discipline officers involved in use of deadly force.

Lindstrom has made two other documentaries, called "Kicking," about drug detoxification in Portland, and "Finding Normal," about recovery from drug addiction, also made in Portland.

"Our hope is to create a film powerful enough to persuade other cities to make the changes Portland did after James died -- before someone like James in their hometown dies," said Jason Renaud, a friend of Chasse's and a volunteer board member of the mental health association.

The film's Web site lists the following positive changes made since Chasse's death: the requirement that all Portland officers complete 40 hours of crisis intervention training; Multnomah County's call for a sub-acute center to treat people suffering from a mental health crisis; and changes to the Portland Police Bureau's Use of Force policy that encourages officers to use the "least force reasonably necessary."

More information about the film can be obtained at the Web site: www.alienboy.org. All donations to the Mental Health Association of Portland this year will go toward the production of the film.

"Only a full, public account of who James was and what happened to him can prevent another tragedy," the film's Web site says.

County Boss Soul Searches on Mental Health Center

2008-01-24T07:34:00.000-08:00

from the Portland Mercury

"Disappointment..." - County Boss Soul Searches on Mental Health Center

County Chair Ted Wheeler met with 60 mental health advocates last week to confess his disappointment over the county's ongoing failure to reopen Portland's sub-acute facility for people in mental health crisis.

Since the closure of the crisis triage center in 2003, cops have had no option but to transport people in such crises to jail or, if they've hurt themselves, to an emergency room.

Reopening a sub-acute facility was the number-one recommendation of Mayor Tom Potter's Mental Health/Public Safety initiative formed in the fall of 2006, following the death in police custody of James Philip Chasse Jr., a 42-year-old schizophrenic, in September of that year.

Since then, Potter has funded crisis intervention training for all the city's police officers to the tune of $500,000, and Police Chief Rosie Sizer has overhauled the cops' use-of-force policies to hold officers more accountable over allegations of excessive force. Meanwhile Wheeler, who took over from Diane Linn as county chair in early 2007, hasn't held up the county's end of the public safety bargain.

Chasse's parents sat intently in row six of a 60-strong audience last Friday evening, January 18, at the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on NW 19th. Wheeler, half-protected by a modest wooden lectern, faced the crowd, which included three county court judges, the head of the state's psychiatric review board, and the heads of two local mental health treatment centers.

He began by justifying his decision last October to vote against a proposal to fund the sub-acute facility by diverting $4 million of county subsidies from Gresham, County Commissioner Lisa Naito's idea ["Less Than a Crisis?" News, Nov 1]. Wheeler said the Gresham money is used to fund essential police services there, and that he did not believe in solving one crisis by creating another.

He also announced plans for an experimental, county-funded Mental Health Court, beginning some time in late spring. The court, which was explained to the group by Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Julie Frantz, will aim to offer a choice of treatment to those with psychiatric needs who are caught up in the criminal justice system.

In the first year, the Mental Health Court aims to divert up to 100 people into treatment, according to the county's director of mental health and addiction services, Karl Brimner. Brimner insisted the treatment services for those people are funded and ready to go, although he faced doubt from the audience about the on-ground availability of those services.

Then the tough questions started. Wheeler was asked how satisfied he is with the state of mental health services in Multnomah County, right now. He responded by mentioning the county's new crisis hotline—a 24-hour phone service for people to call a mental health responder if they're worried about someone in crisis. But he confessed to frustration with the state legislature's refusal last spring to fund the ongoing cost of running the sub-acute center to the tune of $3 million a year—despite his promise to build it with $2 million of one-time county money.

Wheeler was asked when the sub-acute center would be open.

"I think it would be irresponsible to state a date," he said.

He was asked whether he would have failed as county commissioner if the center does not open by the time he's up for reelection in 2010.

"No, I don't think I'll have failed as county chair," he said. "We've done a lot of talking about the importance of this center, but it's not just about me. If we're still talking in three years about how we're going to fund the biggest gap in mental health, that's not just a gap for me, it's a failure for the entire community. There's going to be a lot of disappointment to go around."

While continuing to lobby Salem for the money to run the center—alongside mental health advocates and representatives from Washington and Clackamas Counties—Wheeler is also considering putting a public safety levy on Portlanders' election ballots this November.

Such a tax would require three votes from Wheeler's board of county commissioners and a public hearings process. Voters approved similar levies for schools and libraries last May, but his office will delay a decision on the new tax until late spring.

"Multnomah County voters have shown a willingness to support well-planned ideas," says Wheeler's communications director, Rhys Scholes. "I think that a lot of people understand the depth of this problem."

In the meantime, there's still no sub-acute center, but advocates are hopeful.

"Wheeler is ambitious, optimistic, dynamic, and has a strong personality," said Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland, after the meeting. "The question is, can he get enough people on the bus with him to Salem to make the difference?"

Brett Burton involved - Woman sues for false arrest, battery

2007-12-15T12:55:00.000-08:00

Use of force - The suit is the third filed since last week involving Portland police

From The Oregonian

A 45-year-old mother of eight whose arm was broken when a police officer and a sheriff's deputy put her in a control hold is suing the city of Portland and Multnomah County for false arrest and battery.

According to the suit filed this week in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Lyudmila Trivol arrived home at her Southeast Portland condo on May 27, 2006, to find a tow truck hooked up to the family minivan. The minivan was parked in its proper spot, but its wheels were intruding a half-foot into the condominium association's bark dust. Trivol's husband had already been arguing with the tow-truck driver and had sliced the truck's tire with a knife.

Two Portland police officers and two Multnomah County sheriff's deputies responded. Trivol -- a Ukrainian immigrant who already felt targeted by what the suit describes as repeated, xenophobic harassment by the Cherry Park Condominium Association -- was furious, concedes Gregory Kafoury, Trivol's attorney.

Kafoury said Officer James Botaitis and Deputy Brett Burton had no justification for putting Trivol in a control hold.

"She had not assaulted anyone; she was an upset lady," Kafoury said.

Burton was one of the officers who wrestled to subdue James Chasse Jr., who had schizophrenia, shortly before the mentally ill man died in September 2006.

Trivol was charged in circuit court with resisting arrest, harassment, disorderly conduct and assaulting a public safety officer for kicking Burton in the shin as he lifted her from the ground. Prosecutors, however, dropped the charges in December 2006.

The Portland Police Bureau and the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office do not comment on pending litigation.

The suit seeks $221,000 from the city and the county and $700,000 from the condo association and the association's president.

The suit is the third claiming false arrest and excessive force filed against Portland police since last week.

The City Council on Wednesday is scheduled to approve a $150,000 payment to settle a federal lawsuit against a Portland officer accused of using excessive force against a woman after she swore at him following a traffic stop.

Barbara Weich, formerly of Portland, filed the lawsuit March 23 in U.S. District Court against Officer Gregory Adrian and the city of Portland, also accusing him of malicious prosecution and battery. She suffered a head injury and a broken left arm, according to her lawyer.

Pre-Trial Hearings in the Cop-Related Death of James Chasse Jr.

2007-11-14T17:41:00.000-08:00

The Chasse Files

from the Portland Mercury

It is arguably Portland's most controversial cop lawsuit ever. And even though it will be almost two years before a jury is scheduled to sit down and rule on the case, the pre-trial hearings are already heated, with both sides accusing the other of trying to prejudice a fair trial.

Civil rights attorney Tom Steenson, who is representing the family of James Philip Chasse Jr., won a record half-million dollar settlement against the city in a officer-involved lawsuit last Thursday, November 8, but appears to be pursuing this case with more than just a financial settlement in mind. The Chasse family, along with Steenson, all want sweeping changes in the way the police bureau operates.

James Chasse's father, James Sr., and his brother, Mark—both of whom bear a striking resemblance to photos of James Jr.—have sat patiently behind Steenson on the hardwood courtroom benches on the ninth floor of the Federal Justice Center downtown since the pre-trial hearings began in earnest earlier this year. Mark's jaw occasionally tightens listening to city attorneys make their arguments before Judge Dennis J. Hubel. His father's solid stoicism is unnerving, and both men bring a palpable pressure to the room.

WHAT HAPPENED?

The details of Chasse's death were shocking. Chasse, a 145-pound, 42-year-old schizophrenic, was spotted by police in the Pearl District urinating in the street on September 17, 2006. After a scuffle with police, Chasse died in a squad car being driven by these same officers.

The squad car was en route to Portland Adventist Hospital, 8.4 miles from the Multnomah County Detention Center (MCDC) on SW 3rd—not the Good Samaritan Hospital, 2.6 miles away from the jail, or the emergency room at OHSU, 2.1 miles from the jail.

It remains unclear why Chasse was confined to a holding cell for 23 minutes, and what happened there before a jail nurse looked through the window and noticed he was unconscious. Chasse had been medically cleared at the scene of his arrest earlier on NW 13th and Everett by a team of paramedics. However, an autopsy found extensive evidence of external and internal injuries when Chasse died—including 16 broken ribs, and abrasions and bruising all over his body.

Since his death, several people have come forward to file tort claims and lawsuits alleging they have been beaten by sheriff's deputies—and, occasionally, cops too—in holding cells and the booking area at MCDC, where James was held for 31 minutes before dying on his attempted transport to the Adventist Hospital ["Jail Guards Run Wild!" News, Sept 13]. The alleged beating of 40-year-old Michael Evans in the lobby of the jail was captured on video just six days before Chasse's time there, on September 11, 2006 ["Summary Injustice," News, July 19].

One of the officers involved in Chasse's death, Christopher Humphreys, was found to be the police bureau's second-highest user of force in statistics released last November. Humphreys also has "a history or pattern of falsifying police reports," according to attorney Steenson ["Death in the Public Interest," News, Oct 18], who says his office has evidence to support this allegation. Humphreys had been the subject of seven Internal Affairs Division complaints when the numbers were released, and has subsequently become the subject of another unrelated lawsuit. He still patrols for the police bureau.

THE PAPER TRAIL

Legally speaking, Steenson's pursuit of this case against the city is broader than in previous lawsuits he has filed, because this time he's asked for more documents. Fittingly enough, these documents have become a huge source of contention between the two parties.

"The plaintiffs are asking for all the underlying documents for things that happened years ago in the police department," said Deputy City Attorney Jim Rice in court last Wednesday, November 7. "Tracking this down takes an inordinate amount of time."

Indeed, Steenson is not only asking for documents directly associated with Chasse's death—which include officer disciplinary records and a copy of the police bureau's (still incomplete) internal affairs investigation into the incident—but police files on officer-involved deaths dating back to the 1980s, copies of external reports on those deaths along with the supporting documentation gathered to produce those reports, not to mention reams of training documents and other supporting information.

At issue for Steenson and the Chasse family is that the police bureau could not only have prevented Chasse's death, but the bureau's lack of adequate training and disciplinary procedure directly contributed to his demise. They want to prove that the City of Portland has Chasse's blood on its hands.

The Chasse family gave the police bureau a two-page list of things it wants to see changed after filing the lawsuit on February 14 this year, including: Implementing a more effective early warning system to better deal with officers using high rates of force, and making the city's so-called Independent Police Review truly independent by having investigations conducted by independent attorneys, rather than internal affairs detectives. ("It's kind of like leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse," said Steenson.)

Further recommendations are: Changing the bureau's written policy on mental illness to include an anti-discrimination clause; changing the bureau's foot pursuit policy to prohibit taking innocent citizens to the ground unless officers have probable cause to believe the suspect is highly dangerous; changing the bureau's policy on officers using hands and feet to make impact strikes to a person's vital areas; and raising the burden of proof on an officer using deadly force from a "reasonable belief" that a suspect is dangerous, to "probable cause" that they pose an imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury.

So far, the police bureau and the city have implemented none of those changes. However officers are now required to obtain paramedics' permission to take someone in Chasse's situation to a hospital from MCDC, as well as inform paramedics on how much force was used.

In October 2006, Mayor Tom Potter mandated 40 hours of widely touted crisis intervention training for all officers, 25 percent of whom are now trained, but an urgently needed 16-bed crisis triage center—somewhere for officers to take mentally ill people in crisis—appears to be slipping further down the county's list of funding priorities with each passing month ["Less Than a Crisis?" News, Nov 1].

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

Steenson has been frustrated by the city's failure, so far, to produce any of the documents he's asked for—despite Judge Hubel's order on October 16 for the city to complete discovery by three weeks ago, on Friday, October 26.

"I've seriously considered filing a motion for contempt," said Steenson in court last Wednesday, November 7, protesting against the city's failure to comply with the judge's order.

"We're not trying to slough it off," replied Deputy City Attorney Rice. "It's just a lot of information."

Rice said he now thinks the city might be able to produce the documents to Steenson by the end of November, beginning on November 16. Despite having only one other attorney, David Landrum, and one paralegal supervisor, Cheryl Noll, working on the case, Rice argued the city is doing its best to comply with Steenson's request for production of the documents.

"The increased complexity of litigation requires enormous efforts," Rice said. "We don't have another place for a paralegal physically in the building—we have taken closets and put lawyers in them."

Steenson responded by saying, with respect, that he had "no reason to believe what they are saying to the court."

A FAIR TRIAL

The longer the city waits to produce necessary documents in this case, the less time experts retained by Steenson have to review those documents before the pre-trial moves to its next stage, depositions, in January.

The city, too, has raised questions about whether it is possible to try this case fairly, arguing newspaper journalists and TV reporters are prejudicing the public's viewpoint. In the past, when the city has been involved in, or settled, cop lawsuits, it has always bought silence from the victims' families with a so-called "protective order," preventing public release of sensitive documents both during and after the trial.

Chief Rosie Sizer and Mayor Potter have spoken often about wanting the police bureau to be more transparent ["Chief Concerns," Feature, Jan 18] but such protective orders make it impossible for the public to have a thorough, evidence-based discussion about what might be wrong with the Portland Police Bureau.

That's why a conglomerate of local media including the Portland Tribune, the Oregonian, and all of the city's TV stations hired attorney firm Davis Wright Tremaine to intervene as a third party in the case on October 10—arguing that a protective order should not cover the city's production of documents in this case.

The city objected to the intervention on the grounds of officer safety—delivering an affidavit from Officer Humphreys saying he has been stalked in the past by an "armed individual." But in a counter-argument, Steenson said in writing on November 2 that "the potential consequences of shielding these documents from the public eye should not be underestimated, particularly where one of those consequences could be the more unnecessary and tragic deaths of innocent citizens."

"I think something that hasn't been spoken to is the issue of citizen safety," Steenson said, arguing in court this past Tuesday, November 13. "The public airing of Chasse's death and some of its follow-up has had a profound effect on some people in the city."

Regardless of its outcome, the public will most likely maintain a high level of interest in the outcome of the Chasse case—which will have far reaching consequences for Portland and the way it is policed.

The case continues.

Mayor Responds to Questions on Chasse Case

2007-11-07T20:41:00.000-08:00

from the Portland Mercury

Emergency Response - Mayor Responds to Questions on Chasse Case

Mayor Tom Potter responded in writing on Monday, November 5, to a list of 28 "unanswered questions" given to his communications director outside city hall on the one-year anniversary of the death of James Philip Chasse Jr. two months ago.

The questions, collated by the Mental Health Association of Portland (MHA) and delivered on September 17, were broad in their scope—ranging from asking what recommendations have been implemented by the mayor's mental health initiative since it started work in January, to how Portlanders can explain Chasse's death to their children.

Potter began his four-page response by declining to discuss the actions of individual officers or parties to the lawsuit filed by Chasse's family, which is still ongoing. Then he listed 11 "important actions" resulting from his mental health initiative.

Those include $290,000 of extra funding for Cascadia's Project Respond, to create a dedicated unit to work with cops on calls involving mental illness; mandatory crisis intervention training for all cops coordinated by a mental health professional—Potter said around 25 percent of officers have now completed the training; and the expansion of a Voluntary Substance Abuse Treatment program to help those with dual diagnosis into long-term housing and treatment.

"When you ask who is responsible and how do we hold them accountable, I look at society as being responsible for not funding proper mental health services," Potter wrote. "And instead, leaving it to police officers to respond."

"We're pretty happy with the letter," says Jason Renaud of MHA, who thinks Potter is taking his organization's concerns seriously. "I'm glad he took the time to write it and list the city's accomplishments, and that he didn't blow us off."

Nevertheless, Potter's letter included five measures beyond his jurisdiction—instead, they're up to the cash-strapped folks at Multnomah County. They include mental health screening for people being booked into jail, expansion of the so-called "Treatment Not Punishment" program, a court advocate program for those with mental illness, and most controversially, the establishment of a crisis triage center with 16 beds.

Last week, the Mercury reported that Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler appears to be letting the crisis triage center slip down his list of funding priorities ["Less Than a Crisis?" News, Nov 1]. While Wheeler denies this is the case, he told the Mercury he may not be able to secure funding for it until 2010, or November 2008 at the very earliest.

As a result, the MHA wrote to Wheeler last Thursday, November 1, asking him to speak at a public meeting about mental illness, in a question-and-answer format, to address some unanswered questions of his own. Wheeler has yet to respond and could not be reached by the Mercury for comment by press time.

City mired in a paper chase

2007-11-06T19:49:00.000-08:00

From the Portland Tribune

A federal judge is wondering why the Portland city attorney’s office has not complied with a court order he issued last month demanding that the city turn over reams of requested documents to lawyers for the family of James Chasse Jr.

Chasse’s death in 2006 after an altercation with police sparked the biggest cop-shop controversy of the year.

Oregon District Judge Dennis Hubel has called a hearing for 10 a.m. Wednesday to hear the city’s explanations, spurred by a letter from civil rights lawyer Tom Steenson.

Steenson on Friday morning told Sources Say he felt obligated to inform the judge that he had not received a single document by the Oct. 26 deadline set by Hubel.

On Friday afternoon, however, Deputy City Attorney Jim Rice said the city has partially complied with the order. He said the logistics of assembling and copying the thousands of documents overwhelmed his office’s already swamped support staff.

“They’re working hard on it,” he said.

Less Than a Crisis?

2007-11-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

from the Portland Mercury

County Goes Limp on Mental Health Triage Center

A mental health triage center prioritized by Mayor Tom Potter's Mental Health/Public Safety Initiative work group in January now looks like it's slipping lower on Multnomah County's list of funding priorities—leaving Portland's cops with no option but to transport people in mental health crisis to jail.

Portland has been missing a crisis center since 2001, when the Crisis Triage Center and BHC-Pacific Gateway hospital in Sellwood were de-funded following the police shooting of Jose Mejia Poot at BHC. State investigators said Poot's shooting could not "be said to be totally unexpected," given the poor conditions at both centers.

After James Philip Chasse Jr.'s death last year—which also occurred in police hands—and the Mental Health Initiative recommendations that followed, County Chair Ted Wheeler has been trying to secure funding for a new center. He went with Potter to Salem to ask for $1.6 million in the last legislative session, but was turned down ["Mental Wealth," News, Feb 8].

On October 4, Wheeler's fellow County Commissioner Lisa Naito proposed diverting $4 million of the county's business income tax funding from Gresham to fund a triage center, arguing Gresham no longer needed the county's subsidy.

"The county can no longer afford [to give the money to Gresham]," Naito argued. "We have hacked health and mental health care services for thousands of people... we shut down the Crisis Triage Center that so many in our community depended upon."

Nevertheless, Wheeler and Commissioners Jeff Cogen and Lonnie Roberts voted against Naito's plans. Now, Wheeler says he plans to seek more funding for the center in November 2008.

"November 2008 means it's not a top priority," says Jason Renaud at the Mental Health Association, a member of the initiative's work group.

"You have to be creative in getting funding for things like this," says John Holmes, executive director of the Multnomah County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and another member of the work group. "I don't know what Ted's reasons were for voting against Lisa's plan, but it makes me feel like there's not much of a commitment there. People like James Chasse needed this center."

"It's not slipping down my list of priorities," Wheeler told the Mercury on Tuesday, October 30. "But I am asking for patience in getting it done. I understand and have compassion for those affected, but the bottom line is, I can't just print money here at Multnomah County."

Death in the Public Interest

2007-10-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

from Portland Mercury

Media Wants You to See Chasse Files

A federal judge finally ordered the City of Portland last week to turn over crucial documents regarding James Philip Chasse Jr.—the schizophrenic man beaten and killed by Portland police last September—but added one condition: The attorney for Chasse's family cannot release any of the information in the documents to the public.

That's not good enough, says a conglomerate of local media including the Portland Tribune, the Oregonian, and all of the city's TV stations, which hired attorney firm Davis Wright Tremaine to intervene as a third party in the case last week. The interveners say the information is in the public interest and should be released not just to Tom Steenson, the Chasse family's attorney, but also to the public at large.

Protective orders, such as the one keeping the Chasse documents out of the public eye, are often imposed on information about police officers involved in controversial in-custody deaths like Chasse's. The city agrees to release information to the victim's attorneys about the officers, like their disciplinary and phone records, but copies of the documents are made on pink paper to signify their confidentiality between the parties involved in the lawsuit.

If the case is settled financially between those parties before it goes to trial, as often happens with in-custody deaths, then the most controversial documents never get a public airing. The officers can continue working for the police bureau without journalists or the public being able to ask tough, evidence-based questions about their fitness for the job.

The stakes over the Chasse case's protective order are high, and a fight between the city and Steenson over whether to impose one has delayed "discovery," or handing over, of many documents in the lawsuit so far.

Among the most controversial documents Steenson asked for last week was a copy of the cops' Internal Affairs Division (IAD) investigation into what happened. Over a year since Chasse's death, that investigation is still incomplete.

Steenson also asked for police training documents and standard operating procedures relating to use of force in encounters like Chasse's. The city attorney's office says it has tried to get those documents from the police bureau's training division, but for some reason the division has withheld them.

Furthermore, Steenson wants copies of all 2,400 police reports written by Officer Christopher Humphreys during his eight-year career at the police bureau. Humphreys has the bureau's second-highest use-of-force rate according to statistics released last November, and Steenson argued that his office has evidence that Humphreys has a "history or pattern of falsifying police reports," and wants further information to prove it.

Humphreys had been the subject of seven IAD complaints when the numbers were released. Since the Chasse incident, Humphreys has been accused (along with three other officers) of beating another man, Charles Manigo, during an arrest at the Rose Quarter TriMet stop in May 2006. Manigo is seeking $135,000 in damages in that lawsuit, filed on August 21 of this year.

"There won't be a written policy saying, 'We're not going to discipline officers based on what they do,'" Steenson said in his opening arguments on Thursday, October 11. "But I believe there will be evidence [in these documents] that the city does not take the steps necessary to discipline or terminate officers in cases like these.

"The word on the street [is] if you're a police officer," Steenson added, "you can essentially act with impunity."

Judge Dennis J. Hubel struck a compromise: He ordered the city to produce some of the documents Steenson is asking for—including the incomplete internal affairs investigation, training documents, and Officer Humphreys' arrest reports—but only the ones leading to legal claims against the city.

Hubel also scheduled a separate hearing for Tuesday, November 13, to hear the media's arguments over the protective order and to decide whether it should still stand, and if so, precisely which documents it should include. Nevertheless, Steenson and Deputy City Attorney James Rice took the opportunity last week to argue about the protective order.

"[The information] relates to the operation of the Portland Police Bureau," Steenson said. "And I believe that... historically, lawyers have not been as conscious about the public's right to look at things as perhaps we should have over the years.

"The public interest here is probably off the chart," Steenson continued. "I don't think that the generalized concerns the defendants have [about the protective order]... are enough to outweigh citizens' concerns in this case."

Rice countered by arguing that releasing the information to the public would threaten the officers involved.

"The threat of harm to officers in this case is not theoretical," he said.

Man Claims Cops Retaliated Over Free Speech

2007-10-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

from the Portland Mercury

Reader: Are you sensing a pattern, here? As I mentioned earlier, three people filed lawsuits today against the Portland Police Bureau, and one person has filed a tort claim. Here’s the second of the quartet:

Richard Prentice filed a tort claim today, laying the ground to file a full-blown lawsuit. Prentice is the man arrested and intimidated in a holding cell in June for putting up anti-cop posters downtown (“Thought Police,” News, June 28). Prentice wants an apology from the officers involved, and unspecified financial compensation for the violation of his constitutional rights.

VIOLATION OF HIS RIGHTS: Richard Prentice (left) with girlfriend, Susannah Thiel (center) outside the Gus Solomon courthouse this afternoon…

Prentice’s posters featured the three officers implicated in the death last September of James Chasse—a schizophrenic beaten to death for taking a leak in the Pearl District. Prentice was arrested and intimidated in a holding cell by two of those officers, one of whom, Kyle Nice, later emailed the Mercury essentially confessing to having intimidated Prentice for calling him a “murderer” in his posters.

Prentice’s posters were used last week by the City Attorney as a reason to keep certain information about the officers involved in Chasse’s death a secret from the press: “We have the info that there’s an element in the community that goes around putting up posters of heavy-caliber Smith & Wesson pistols pointing at police,” said Deputy City Attorney James Rice—even though in fact, Prentice did not put up such a poster, thinking better of it. Nice had to fish through his bag back at Central Precinct in order to pull it out, before scanning it and emailing us a copy.

The only poster Prentice actually put up looked like this.

Asked whether he expects the officers involved to apologize for the way he was treated, Prentice says: “It would be a first in the history of the Police Bureau.”

Four claim Portland police use 'dirty tactics'

2007-10-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

from The Oregonian

Rights cases - Plaintiffs' attorneys want independent investigations

Four men who say Portland police ran roughshod over their constitutional rights are taking their cases to court.

At a news conference Monday, their attorneys called for independent investigators to review complaints against police, and for the mayor and chief to curb what they called officers' "dirty tactics." Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz said he couldn't comment on pending litigation.

The names of the defendants and their cases filed in state court are:

Frank Waterhouse is suing for unlawful seizure with excessive force, alleging that police fired a Taser and bean bag rounds at him May 27, 2006, because he was videotaping their search of a friend's property in the 5800 block of Northeast Portland Highway.

Police officers followed a police dog onto the property during a search for a fleeing suspect. After the dog keyed on a car, officers broke out a window. Waterhouse was standing on a dirt embankment at the edge of the property videotaping the search. At one point, he yelled to his friend, "Yes, I got it all on film. They had no right to come on this property." He says in the suit that police immediately came after him, yelling at him to put the camera down. Waterhouse said seconds later he was shot with a bean bag gun and a Taser and fell to the ground.

Officers wrote in their reports that Waterhouse ran off, they chased and then bean-bagged and Tasered him. One officer wrote, "He had refused to drop the camera which could be used as a weapon."

Waterhouse was arrested, accused of criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. A jury acquitted him of all charges.

Ryan Dunn is suing for unlawful seizure, saying he was singled out at a public demonstration after criticizing the police for interfering with the Oct. 5, 2006, demonstration.

He says officers went through the crowd, seized Dunn on the sidewalk, shoved him up against the wall of a building, grabbed him by his hair and beard and dragged him through the police line into custody. He was charged with interfering with police and disorderly conduct. A jury acquitted him.

Gregory Benton is suing for unlawful search and seizure, saying police forced him out of his apartment at gunpoint in the middle of the night, and searched his home without probable cause on Sept. 18, 2006. Police, responding to an anonymous call of a shooting, tried to search his apartment. Benton refused to allow the police in without a warrant, but said he eventually capitulated to escalating threats from the police. When he came out of his apartment he was faced with nine police officers with guns drawn. He said officers then went through his apartment, looking in drawers and cupboards. Benton was not charged with a crime.

Richard Prentice is filing a tort claim notice with the city, saying he plans to sue for false arrest and violation of his right to freedom of speech. On June 14, Prentice was posting fliers critical of the officers involved in the death of James P. Chasse Jr., a 42-year-old man who suffered from schizophrenia.

When Prentice began to tape to the federal court house a flier that accused the police of murder, an officer told him to take it down. Prentice says he agreed to take it down, but told the officer that he'd just put it up somewhere else. He claims the officer forced him to the ground, arrested him and took him to a holding cell, where he was confronted with two of the officers involved in the Chasse death.

Three of the four men are represented by the Portland law firm Haile-Greenwald. Burton is represented by attorney Ashlee Albies.

Motions by Chasse Intervenors

2007-10-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

Motions were filed by intervenors in the case of Chasse v Humphreys on October 11.

Intervenors include The Oregonian, Willamette Week, AP, KATU, KPTV, KOIN, KGW and the Portland Tribune.

The claimant is Maxine Bernstein, reporter for the Oregonian. The motion asks the court to not protect discovery documents requested by the Chasse attorney Tom Steenson from the City and County, and presumably also from Tri-Met and American Medical Response.

Attorneys for the intervenors are with Davis Wright Tremaine of Portland and include Duane Bosworth, Derek Green and Vanessa Usui.

Memo in support of motion to intervention (PDF)
Declaration Of Maxine Bernstein In Support Of Motion To Intervene (PDF)
Motion to Intervene (PDF)

Police ordered to supply Chasse files

2007-10-12T07:45:00.001-07:00

Suit - Judge Dennis Hubel tells the city and the bureau to hurry up and produce documents

from The Oregonian

A federal judge, disturbed by what he called the "snail's pace" of discovery in a civil rights lawsuit filed by the family of James P. Chasse Jr., on Thursday gave the city and the Portland Police Bureau several ultimatums to cough up a slew of documents in the man's death.

Documents sought range from officers' cell phone records to internal investigative reports and training bulletins.

In cases in which city attorneys said they weren't sure whether the documents existed or who had them, U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis J. Hubel directed the city and the police chief to find them.

Chasse, who suffered from schizophrenia, died of broad-based trauma to his chest after police struggled to take him into custody Sept. 17, 2006, in the Pearl District. The lawsuit contends the officers violated Chasse's civil rights, and it says the city has a pattern of failing to discipline officers involved in use of deadly force.

Tom Steenson, the lawyer representing Chasse's family, told the judge he had requested but not received any police policy and training documents related to officers' use of force.

Jim Rice, a deputy city attorney, countered that the city doesn't know where all those documents might be. He said finding them would be a costly, time-consuming process.

Rice said his office went to the Police Bureau's training division and asked for materials without success. He concluded delivering documents might not be the training officers' highest priority.

At that, Hubel suggested the training division might respond when it learns he's ordering Rice to outline within 15 days the documents available and the time and cost to produce them.

"Please let them know they'll be on the carpet next, answering my questions," Hubel said.

Hubel also ordered the city to provide documents relating to the bureau's internal review of Chasse's death.

The city has maintained that the investigation was ongoing, and Chasse's lawyers could not obtain the documents until it was completed.

"We're not going to wait until you're done," Hubel said.

Steenson also is seeking all documents the Police Bureau provided to an outside consultant, the Police Assessment Resource Center, which has studied the city's review of officer-involved shootings and deaths in custody since 2003.

After the city argued it didn't know what documents the center received, the judge ordered Police Chief Rosie Sizer to send a memo to officers to find out exactly what material was shared and whether it's available. The chief must report back to him within 20 days.

To move the case along, the judge ordered the release of most documents in question under protective order, meaning they cannot be distributed publicly. Steenson agreed to that provision for now.

However, the judge is expected to rule on whether to issue a protective order for the discovery items pending trial.

The city argued that the documents' release would harm the officers involved, impede a fair trial and chill the free flow of information among officers. Steenson urged the judge not to grant a protective order.

Chasse Case: Local Media Group Hires Bigshot Attorney To Compel City to Publicly Release Officers’ Disciplinary Records

2007-10-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

from Portland Mercury

A conglomerate of Portland Media including the Oregonian and Willamette Week, the Tribune and all our local TV stations has hired an attorney, Duane Bosworth, of the international law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, to argue that Federal Court should force the City of Portland to release information publicly about the disciplinary records of the Portland Police Bureau Officers and Sheriff’s Deputy involved in the controversial death in custody of James Philip Chasse last September.

James Rice, Deputy City Attorney, and Carlo(s) driello and Susan Denaway, attorneys for the County, and attorneys for American Medical Response, filed a claim earlier this year asking the court for a “protective order,” which would keep the officers’ disciplinary records secret from the public. On that condition, they would then be given to attorney Tom Steenson, who is litigating the Chasse case on behalf of the dead man’s family, but he would not then be able to disseminate them outside his office.

Yesterday, Bosworth, whose services are extremely expensive, filed a motion to intervene in the case, on behalf of the local media conglomerate—arguing that the disciplinary records of the officers are not only crucial to the Chasse family’s case against the city and county (Steenson is arguing that the bureau could have intervened earlier to discipline Officer Christopher Humphreys, who has the second-highest record of use of force in the police bureau)—but that the public, too, has a right to know about these things.

That motion will not be heard today, as it was filed so late yesterday evening, said Judge Dennis Hubel, presiding. But it will proceed later, and will have far-reaching implications for all Portlanders.

Bosworth, talking to an Oregonian reporter in the elevator after this morning’s hearing, who it felt like was semi-frantically gesturing, trying to get him to shut up, described Hubel’s statement about the timing of his motion to intervene, as “preposterous.”

READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP

Update, 5pm: What follows is pretty much everything that happened with regard to releasing information to the public about the Chasse case, at today's court hearing. There'll be a story in next week's paper that boils it all down, but since one of the major issues in today's arguments was "the public interest," I thought why not simply lay it all out for those of you who want to know, and let you read as closely as possible about what happened. It's loooong, but I was interested all the way through. So who knows, maybe you will be, too.

Original Post: If the city and county eventually win the right to keep the information secret, then Police Chief Rosie Sizer and Sheriff Bernie Giusto will continue to have their hands tied with regard to improving transparency in cases like this—unlikely to improve the community’s trust in the Police Bureau and Sheriff’s office.

This morning’s oral argument, in Courtroom 9B of the Federal Courthouse on SW 3rd, was just between Steenson and the city, county, and AMR—the ambulance firm which did not transport Chasse to hospital after his beating, but instead sent him with the officers to jail.

Regardless of whether he can eventually make it public, Steenson wants more information from the city as soon as possible.

That kind of information includes personnel and medical records for Officer Humphreys and Sergeant Nice, their phone records, information about whom they spoke to within hours of the incident, and so on. It also includes information about standard operating procedures and training procedures in the police bureau, both written and anecdotal.

“There won’t be a written policy saying ‘we’re not going to discipline officers based on what they do.’ But I believe there will be evidence that the city does not take the steps necessary to discipline or terminate officers in cases like these,” said Steenson, in his opening arguments.

“The word on the street if you’re a police officer is that essentially you can act with impunity,” he continued. “And in order to prove that claim, we have to have the various materials.”

Deputy City Attorney James Rice responded: “The protective order really is integral to what we’re talking about today. We’ve produced 5500 pages worth of information, and my legal assistant has worked hard with Mr.Steenson’s legal assistant. We have submitted a significant number of documents in this case. In a way it’s a man who creates a barrier, and then complains to the defendants about the barrier that exists.”

Steenson agreed, until the issue of any protective order can be resolved, to treat any documents released by the city as if they were under protective order.

“If the court were to issue a protective order, then everything else would fall like dominoes,” said Rice.

Judge Hubel said he’s not going to tell the court what his thoughts are on the protective order at this stage, but that he thinks there’s going to be some information subject to protective order, and some, not.

Among other things, Steenson is seeking disciplinary information from the police bureau for the last 25 years about the city’s handling of deaths in custody.

“We absolutely need that kind of discovery in order to proceed with proving the claim we are making against the city,” he said.

Steenson also wants details of the cops’ Internal Affairs investigation into Chasse’s death. That includes the decision of the Bureau’s performance review board, its use of force review board, the officers’ disciplinary records, and whether or not they were identified by the Bureau’s “early warning system.”

“All of those types of processes are identified in the Police Bureau’s directives as part of its management system, and we have received none of that information,” said Steenson. “They should be produced, and should certainly not go under any protective order.”

The city tried to argue that it shouldn’t release the information until the internal affairs investigation is complete, although it could not give a date when that will be.

“Why should Mr.Steenson have to wait until it’s over to start his investigation, when everything is stale?” asked Judge Hubel. “We’re not going to wait until they’re done. You’ll supply them now. And as things come into your possession, at some reasonable frequency,” [the city will have to give them over.]

Hubel also ordered the City Attorney to get information from the Police Bureau’s training division on its standard operating procedures, within ten days. Rice implied that the training division has not been forthcoming with information, “because it is focused on its primary task” of training police officers.

Hubel told the City Attorney to tell the training division they need to get him the information, or tell him how much effort is going to be required to get it, within 10 days—or else they’ll see him in court.

Steenson also wants to see any complaints relating to the officers named in the case. “We do think we are entitled to performance and misconduct type complaints,” he said.

The City Attorney is happy to produce those documents under protective order, which Steenson agreed to, until that issue can be worked out.

Steenson also asked for Officer Humphreys’ career-long 2400 arrest reports, saying his office “has evidence,” it believes, that Humphreys has a “history or pattern of falsifying police reports.”

The City Attorney said that would be time-intensive, adding that “this sort of gill-netting operation” would be very expensive.

Judge Hubel ordered the production only of Humphreys’ reports as they relate to tort claims filed against the city, and for the City Attorney’s office to find out if there’s a way to link Humphreys’ alleged falsification of reports to use of force, prior to the introduction of use of force reports, which happened relatively recently in the bureau's history.

Then they broke for lunch. They pick back up at 1.15pm, when Judge Hubel hopes the details of a protective order will be thrashed out.

Update, 3pm: Between 1.15 and 2:45, Judge Hubel ordered more information to be released:

1.All the city’s information on Crisis Intervention Training, except where it includes information about psychological issues as they relate to individuals—which will be redacted.

2.The City Attorney’s office must also now work with the Police Bureau, Independent Police Review, and PARC—the California-based agency which has produced three reports on officer-involved shootings, and has another one due out next year—to produce as much source-information as possible upon which the 4 PARC reports are based. The Chief of Police will also communicate with all her officers, asking them to come forward with any documents they may have had returned to them by Parc over the last few years.

3.The city must also release documents it has already released in another case called Price, which is currently under appeal at the 9th circuit court of appeal, which describe what the police bureau has done, and is doing, to address use of force by police officers, back to the mid 1980s.

4.The city must produce all supporting documentation, which led to the production by the Police Bureau of its Spring 2007 use of force report.

Update, 4.30pm: The Judge in the Chasse case is going to think about whether or not to issue a protective order to keep information about the police officers involved in James Chasse’s death largely secret between the City Attorney’s office and that of Chasse’s attorney, Tom Steenson, before it goes to court.

“Whatever rights the public have to watching their court system in action, and I concede and agree that there are rights to that to take place, the primary purpose for the courts being here is to resolve the disputes between the litigants as far as possible,” said Judge Hubel, this afternoon. “The vast majority of the time, the public pay no attention to what we do here. In this case they have been, and I would expect them to continue to pay attention.”

Here’s Deputy City Attorney Jame’s Rice’s justification to keep the information under wraps: “The threat of harm to officers in this case is not theoretical. We’ve had officer Humphreys say in his affidavit that he’s been stopped by an armed person who had information about him.”

Judge Hubel asked if this was before or after the Chasse incident. It was actually beforehand, Rice said.

“He also works under cover—information about him jeopardizes him,” Rice continued. “We have the info that there’s an element in the community that goes around putting up posters of heavy-caliber Smith & Wesson pistols pointing at police. Why should an officer be jeopardized by discovery matters? We’re interested in it not getting out there, and in today’s world, placed on the Internet. It’s more than annoyance and embarrassment, it’s a level, truly, of oppression to the police officers.”

“Ultimately another of the issues in this city is having a fair trial,” Rice said. “It simply doesn’t lend itself to the defendant’s having a fair trial down the road later. Protective orders tend to morph. At the present time, I think we’ve laid out good cause reasons for the implementation of the protective order. For now, it seems to me, is that the proper thing to do is to accept that the court impose a protective order.”

Attorneys for the county and American Medical Response also said they wanted the information kept private.

Steenson, attorney for the Chasse family, responded: “Those IAD reports, all of that information, that type of information, that comprises the kind of information we’re talking about, relates to the operation of the Portland Police Bureau. And I believe that it’s a fair statement to make that historically, lawyers have not been as conscious about the public’s right to look at things as perhaps we should have over the years. I also think it’s fair to say there’s been sort of a shift, whether it’s because of more aggressive litigation over the issue, as to the recognition by the courts, to the judiciary being much more careful about what information ought to be kept away from the public.”

“The public interest here is probably off the chart. I don’t think that the generalized concerns the defendants have about the standard operating procedures are enough to outweigh the citizens’ concerns.”

Rice responded: “One of the things lawyers do have to be concerned about is not impeding a fair trial. And that’s going to be difficult once the media circus gets going. What we’re looking for is to have the jury be able to come into trial in an unbiased fashion. For purposes right now, if we’ve got good cause, let’s put the protective order in place, and move the litigation along. I don’t see why he has a say in this other than this ‘right of the public,’ which he is not representing when he makes this argument because it is going to be harder to have a fair trial.”

“I’m going to take the motion under advisement, for now,” said Judge Hubel—meaning he’s going to make a decision in a few days. “But I can’t ignore what is glaring in this case, and that is that discovery has been essentially going at a snail’s pace because of a dispute about the protective order. We would all be much further down the road if there had been some kind of protective order in place and some discovery could have happened.”

Attorneys in the Case of James Chasse

2007-10-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

Attorneys for the Defense

James Rice - City of Portland

Susan Marie Dunaway, Assistant Multnomah County Attorney, BA Immaculate Heart College, JD Loyola at Los Angeles. Susan advises the Sheriff's Office and Corrections Health and represents the County in tort litigation, appellate issues and other matters in state and federal courts.

Carlo Calandriello, Assistant Multnomah County Attorney, BS, MS, Florida International University, JD Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College. Carlo represents the County in tort and civil rights litigation and other matters in state and federal courts. Carlo is fluent in Spanish.

UNKNOWN - American Medical Response (general counsel for AMR is Todd Zimmerman.)

Attorneys for the Plaintiff

Tom Steenson - Steenson, Schumann, Tewksbury, Creighton & Rose

Attorneys for the Interventor(s)

Duane Bosworth - Davis Wright Tremaine