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Speaker 1: We're back and we're suing the cops. Uh talking. I

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Speaker 1: just had a conversation in between episodes about the fact

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Speaker 1: that both of us and everyone we know is suing

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Speaker 1: the Portland police in some way. It's fun. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: how it's just so much a part of life that

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Speaker 1: I just forget about it, and every once in a

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Speaker 1: while I remember that, Um, I am suing the City

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Speaker 1: of Portland. Good times. I I don't love lawsuits, but

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Speaker 1: they happen. Um. Yeah, So Tuk, how are you his?

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Speaker 1: His life changed radically for you in the last five minutes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I got a kombucha Now everything's looking up. Is a

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Speaker 1: huge improvement. What flavor, grapefruit nice? It's exciting. I just

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Speaker 1: want to information. You know, I haven't opened it yet,

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Speaker 1: but I'll tell you. I'm sure. I'm sure it's great.

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Speaker 1: A rinking. I have a diet orange crush um, and

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Speaker 1: actually pretty recently I waterboarded a friend of mine with

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Speaker 1: diet orange crush as an experiment, and it turns out

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Speaker 1: it's terrible. Shocked that if you combine if you combine

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Speaker 1: diet orange crush and waterboarding, it's bad. I know. Well,

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Speaker 1: I can update this kombucha is good, fantastic. What are

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Speaker 1: you drinking, Sophie. It's a brambleberry hybiscus tea. Oh wow,

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Speaker 1: everyone's fancy today. It's very well. Orange crush is very fancy. Okay,

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Speaker 1: there's several words involved in describing It's not like water,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's like diet orange crush, bramble berry iced tea,

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Speaker 1: a lot of consonants. Now that you guys are just

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Speaker 1: hooked on this conversation, this is the whole podcast. So

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Speaker 1: I've decided that it's going to be too bleak to

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Speaker 1: keep going with this conversation, and so I'm going to

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Speaker 1: talk about beverages for an hour. Welcome to Behind the

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Speaker 1: Beverages about things that drink. Uh no, this is this

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Speaker 1: is a podcast about bad people, um the worst people.

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Speaker 1: And today we're talking again about the Portland Police Association

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Speaker 1: and kind of just about the Portland Police which is

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Speaker 1: shockingly one of the most influential police departments and unions

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Speaker 1: in the entire country, maybe the most. You could make

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Speaker 1: a case, although the NYPD isd um so after after

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Speaker 1: single handedly doing more damage to Portland's economy than the

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Speaker 1: decades of protests that would follow. The Portland Police Association

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Speaker 1: was in a pretty good position as nineteen seventy dawned.

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Speaker 1: Their first big test of the modern era came in

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Speaker 1: May of that year, when students and faculty at Portland

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Speaker 1: State University went on strike to protest the Kent State

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Speaker 1: shootings in the Vietnam War. After four days, the protesters

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Speaker 1: struck an agreement with the city to end the strike.

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Speaker 1: So that's good, right, protesters go on strike and solidarity

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Speaker 1: over a shooting in another state. The city's like, we

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Speaker 1: get what you're doing. Let's negotiate a way to bring

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Speaker 1: this to an in then the negotiate a way to

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Speaker 1: bring this to an end. Sounds ideal and very democratic.

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Speaker 1: But before the protesters could start to disassemble the structures

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Speaker 1: they'd set up for the occupation, the Portland Police Riot

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Speaker 1: control team showed up to take down a hospital tent.

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Speaker 1: Protesters felt betrayed by this, since they had already worked

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Speaker 1: out a plan to end the strike with the city.

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Speaker 1: They walled off the tent with their bodies. This piste

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Speaker 1: off the riot cops, who are more or less the

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Speaker 1: same as the riot cops we have today. The riot

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Speaker 1: squad tear gas the students and professors and then charged

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Speaker 1: into the gas cloud to beat them with batons. Yeah

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Speaker 1: sounds right, sounds like they do. Yeah. One officer noted

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Speaker 1: that the violence was not pretty, but the streets were cleared,

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Speaker 1: which again would have happened if the cops hadn't shown up. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: An activist who was present, Lester Lamb, recalled his friend's

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Speaker 1: head being split open like a pumpkin by a riot

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Speaker 1: cops baton. Thirty one people went to the hospital for

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Speaker 1: injuries sustained from police violence. Um. The whole mess set

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Speaker 1: off an avalante of condemnation from local media, which had

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Speaker 1: either ignored or been critical of the protests before the

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Speaker 1: cops beat everybody up. After what became called the park

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Speaker 1: Block Riots, the PPB faced some of the first mass

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Speaker 1: criticism for violence to protesters in its history. This was

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Speaker 1: largely due to the fact that its victims had been

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Speaker 1: mostly white. Um. Go figure. The bad pr was enough

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Speaker 1: that the Portland Police Bureau made a public statement where

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Speaker 1: they agreed to never use force against non violent protesters. Again.

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Speaker 1: Oh cool, they well, it's so nice. How that paved

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Speaker 1: the way for them just being so chill and cool today. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's why. For example, when people sat in an intersection

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Speaker 1: last May. They did not beat them in the face

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Speaker 1: with sticks that would go against their promised. The controversy

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Speaker 1: over the park block riots faded soon enough, and the

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Speaker 1: Portland Police Association succeeded in winning another contract in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy two and yet more money. They withdrew from the

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Speaker 1: International Police Union they'd helped to start in March of

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Speaker 1: that year after deciding that it lacked focus in direction.

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Speaker 1: The Portland Police Association was now an independent union because

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Speaker 1: they also pulled out of AFTS MET with no ties

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Speaker 1: to any national organization. It remains that way to this day,

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Speaker 1: loyal to no one but itself. Yeah, they don't want

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Speaker 1: any influences that might give them like a conscience or something,

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Speaker 1: you know, stay here to their ideology. Not even influences

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Speaker 1: that would lead them to support other cops who weren't

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Speaker 1: Portland cops. It's pretty good. So the p p A

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Speaker 1: had ensured that its officers were highly paid and basically unaccountable.

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Speaker 1: Now that the President had been said that Portland cops

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Speaker 1: could go on strike if they were angry and created

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Speaker 1: the local economy, there was very little that the city

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Speaker 1: government could hold over them. As you might expect this

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Speaker 1: emboldened the worst officers in the department to carry out

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Speaker 1: acts of horrifying racial violence. On March fourteenth, nineteen seventy five,

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Speaker 1: Portland police officer Kenneth Sandford shot seventeen year old Ricky

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Speaker 1: Johnson in the back him Johnson was the fourth person

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Speaker 1: of color shot and killed by Portland police in five months,

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Speaker 1: and his death ignited a city wide outrage. The details

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Speaker 1: of the killing were just sketchy enough that even the

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Speaker 1: city's white majority couldn't all sit by and pretend it

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Speaker 1: hadn't happened. In essence, two kids with an empty, broken

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Speaker 1: gun had been ordering Chinese food and then robbing cab

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Speaker 1: drivers who dropped it off. One of those drivers called

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Speaker 1: the cops, and they set up a sting operation. Now,

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Speaker 1: despite the fact that everything in the PPBS by laws

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Speaker 1: said that this kind of operation should only be conducted

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Speaker 1: by multiple officers, they sent one guy in. They dressed

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Speaker 1: him as a cab driver, and he had a gun

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Speaker 1: hidden in an empty to go box of food. When

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Speaker 1: he showed up at the house, the kids pulled a

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Speaker 1: gun on him, so he pulled his own gun. What

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Speaker 1: happened next is debated. The cop claimed that Ricky knelt

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Speaker 1: down and prepared to fire, so he shot the boy dead.

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Speaker 1: Ricky's friend claimed that both boys ran like hell and

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Speaker 1: dropped the gun immediately, and then the officers shot Ricky

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Speaker 1: in the back. The physical evidence supported the second version

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Speaker 1: of events. Investigators found the broken gun ten feet away

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Speaker 1: from Ricky's body, and Ricky had been shot in the

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Speaker 1: back of the head, which probably wouldn't have happened if

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Speaker 1: he'd been facing the officer. Just physics and such, many

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Speaker 1: white Portlanders were able to see that while armed robbery is,

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Speaker 1: you know, not good, shooting a fleeing robber in the

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Speaker 1: back of the head is worse. The rage was augmented

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Speaker 1: by the fact that the PPB had murdered again three

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Speaker 1: other black men over the course of the last several months.

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Speaker 1: All of the cases had been sketchy in some way.

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Speaker 1: Kenneth Allen, aged seven, was murdered in a prostitution sting.

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Speaker 1: His death was ruled a justifiable homicide because he had

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Speaker 1: a gun, but the gun was never found and introduced

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Speaker 1: into evidence. The cops just said that he had one,

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Speaker 1: and also he was shot multiple times in the back.

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Speaker 1: Um hmmm, yeah, it's just sucking me up a little bit.

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Speaker 1: How I guess this isn't pp A because it's right

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Speaker 1: across the river or popleb. But like such a similar

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Speaker 1: thing is happening, like right now across the Rand Vancouver

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Speaker 1: and cool. Just just how it goes forever, Just how

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Speaker 1: it goes forever. This is the song that never ends.

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Speaker 1: Charles Minifrey was killed after twenty mile car chase which

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Speaker 1: started when Canby, Oregon cops pulled him over without probable cause.

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Speaker 1: I witnessed his report that minife had his hands in

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Speaker 1: the air and was standing outside his car when he

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Speaker 1: was shot to death. None of the witnesses to his death,

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Speaker 1: or the witnesses to any of the other deaths of

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Speaker 1: black men killed by Portland police during this period, were

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Speaker 1: called to testify in court. And again, all of these

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Speaker 1: men were black men who lived in Albina. Uh. None

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Speaker 1: of their deaths provoked any outcry until Officer Sanford shot

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Speaker 1: Ricky Johnson in the back of the head. Everyone living

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Speaker 1: in the year of the George Floyd Uprising knows how

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Speaker 1: this works. It's kind of impossible to predict when the

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Speaker 1: violent death of a person of color at the hands

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Speaker 1: of cops will provoke outraged and enough white people that

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Speaker 1: the police actually have to address it. Um. But it

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Speaker 1: did here um. And I should note here that in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two there were also plenty of back the

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Speaker 1: blue types who defended the PPB from all of its murdering.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from Katherine Nelson again here. One citizen

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Speaker 1: even sent officer Sandford, who shot the seventeen year old,

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Speaker 1: a twenty dollar check for his vacation fund and offered

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Speaker 1: to provide him with a babysitter. The donor, Esther Nichols,

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Speaker 1: stated that a community cannot say or accept that black

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Speaker 1: is bad, so it has to be the police that

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Speaker 1: are wrong. What. Yeah, I'll read that again. Esther Nichols,

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Speaker 1: who gave money to the cop that killed that guy,

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Speaker 1: stated that the community cannot say or except that black

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Speaker 1: is bad, so it has to be the police that

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Speaker 1: are wrong. Cool esther, You see, rad Esther, Esther, thanks

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Speaker 1: for being really openly racist as opposed to just claiming

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Speaker 1: you support cops. Uh, that's at least honest. She's like

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Speaker 1: the progenitor of all the cop go fund me is now.

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Speaker 1: But it's just one person, master. Yeah, you seem cool. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Johnson's death revealed that a large portion of Portland's white

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Speaker 1: residents held racist views and respected the decision of the

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Speaker 1: police to use extreme violence against black citizens. Uh Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: Johnson's death inspired black Portland's to create the Black Justice Committee.

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Speaker 1: The b j C teamed up with several existing advocacy

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Speaker 1: organizations to pushed the city to order an inquest into

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Speaker 1: Johnson's death. A public inquest is essentially a trial that

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Speaker 1: occurs after a suspicious death, and it was hoped that

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Speaker 1: this would make it clear that criminal behavior had been,

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Speaker 1: you know, evident on behalf of the officer involved. The

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Speaker 1: Portland Black Student Union was another group that pushed for

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Speaker 1: the same cause. Now, when awful lot of Portland's were

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Speaker 1: willing to support a public inquest, this was a very

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Speaker 1: popular cause. It was, after all, a pretty basic thing

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Speaker 1: to do and not exactly a revolutionary demand, like we

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Speaker 1: should investigate the suspicious killing. Is you can get most

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Speaker 1: people on board that thing. There were, however, some boot

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Speaker 1: liquers who thought this went too far. Opponents of the

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Speaker 1: inquest wrote into local papers complaining that Johnson's death was

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Speaker 1: being turned into a race issue. Watford Read of Portland

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Speaker 1: wrote a letter to the police chief in which he

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Speaker 1: complained that a public inquest would prove black people are

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Speaker 1: privileged in Portland. Pardons when they're murdered, they're privileged. Uh

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Speaker 1: Uh fucking jelical catch ship where everyone's just like the Actually,

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Speaker 1: the most privileged thing would just be to send to

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Speaker 1: the heavens right now. Uh. It would be fun if

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Speaker 1: his argument was like, well, no, this planet is terrible

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Speaker 1: and being to send out of life. Uh. Mayor Neil

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Speaker 1: gold Schmidt, who was basically the same as every other

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Speaker 1: mayor of Portland as ever, had knew that outrage over

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Speaker 1: the Johnson shooting was too popular for him to come

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Speaker 1: out against the inquest, but he was also terrified of

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Speaker 1: the p p A, who were clearly more powerful than

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Speaker 1: the city government. So gold Schmidt tried to thread the

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Speaker 1: needle by supporting the inquest in order to appease the

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Speaker 1: liberals and stating publicly that he expected Officer Sanford to

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Speaker 1: be totally vindicated. He actually announced that he thought the

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Speaker 1: inquest would be a good opportunity for black Portlanders to

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Speaker 1: learn why it was totally okay to shoot a seventeen

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Speaker 1: year old in the back of the head. Great Mayor

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Speaker 1: solid marrying He does sound a bit like our current mayor. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was gonna totally about Portland is all the good mayor's,

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Speaker 1: all the great mayors that we have here. So the

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Speaker 1: p P as president at this point was a total

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Speaker 1: dick bag named Stan Peters, which is a dick bag name,

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Speaker 1: like it's a name of a jerk. Uh so he was.

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Speaker 1: Peters was enraged by even the mild support the mayor

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Speaker 1: gave to the idea of an inquest. Um He was

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Speaker 1: just like, this is like the fact that you would

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Speaker 1: even question one of my cops shooting somebody is offensive

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Speaker 1: to me. The police chief was a little bit more

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Speaker 1: reasonable and decided the benefits of having an inquest outweighed

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Speaker 1: the risks. In the end, the inquest happened, and it

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Speaker 1: revealed some pretty damning stuff about the conduct of Portland

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Speaker 1: police officers from Katherine Nelson. Witnesses who testified included Melva Thrower,

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Speaker 1: a neighbor on North Gandon Bean. She testified that the

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Speaker 1: officers used profanity and handled Zachary roughly upon his arrest.

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Speaker 1: That was the other kid who was with the kid

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Speaker 1: who got shot to death. She stated that they threw

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Speaker 1: Zachary on top of the police car before tossing him

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Speaker 1: into the back seat. When Zachary asked about Johnson, they

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Speaker 1: said that bitch is dead and asked where does that

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Speaker 1: motherfucker live? Instead of focusing on the treatment of Zachary,

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Speaker 1: More questioned the officers about throwers testimony and asked if

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Speaker 1: they used profanity. The officers admitted that profanity was used,

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Speaker 1: but they couldn't remember what profanities. Another officer claimed that

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Speaker 1: he heard loud language but could not determine that they

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Speaker 1: were profanities. After the assistant district attorney question Stanford, the

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Speaker 1: six person jury voted as to whether Sanford should be

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Speaker 1: held accountable. Vote returned five to one that Sanford's actions

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Speaker 1: were justifiable. The only black jury member casted the soul

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Speaker 1: vote against Sanford's innocence. So lots going on there. One

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Speaker 1: is that after hearing that they had referred to they

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Speaker 1: had like said that bitch is dead and asked where

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Speaker 1: he lived and all that sort of stuff, and had

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Speaker 1: abused an arrested person. The district attorney's concerned was that

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Speaker 1: they'd used profanity, which is problem here. The real issue

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Speaker 1: cops are cursing. You can murder people, but you can't

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Speaker 1: call them a bit afterwards, that's offensive. That's gonna make

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Speaker 1: people angry. Yeah. Um, and yeah. Also that obviously all

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Speaker 1: of the white people and the jury voted that the

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Speaker 1: cop was right to shoot that kid, and uh, the

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Speaker 1: only black jury member was the only vote against his innocence.

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Speaker 1: I will state here that the story did not end

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Speaker 1: happily for officers Sanford. Despite being described as a model

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Speaker 1: officer prior to the shooting, Sandford received increasing complaints about

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Speaker 1: his performance after the inquest. He was suspended from duty

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five for accepting a gift from a

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Speaker 1: citizen in nineteen seventy seven for the use of illegal

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Speaker 1: drugs while off duty. Later that year, he was put

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Speaker 1: on permanent disability for PTSD. And this next bit is interesting,

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Speaker 1: not that I expect people to have sympathy for this guy,

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Speaker 1: but that it makes the point that the Portland Police

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Speaker 1: Union is actually bad for officers in some ways to

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Speaker 1: the p PBS. Culture of resistance supported by the p

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Speaker 1: p A negated Sanford's professional and moral accountability. P p

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Speaker 1: A president Stan Peters claimed Stanford would receive psychological help

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Speaker 1: after Johnson's death, yet there is no evidence that he

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Speaker 1: did to so easily brush aside. Johnson's death is just

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Speaker 1: afiable emphasized not only the inadequate services Portland police officers

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Speaker 1: received from the Bureau, but also the unspoken norm that

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Speaker 1: black lives did not matter. This obviously and ultimately disrespected

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Speaker 1: the sacred deus of black lives throughout Portland and question

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Speaker 1: the worth of black people kind of like, it's bad

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Speaker 1: for everyone for white supremacy to be enshrined by institutions. Arguably,

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Speaker 1: but does that stop it? No, not at all. This

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Speaker 1: is bad for everyone. Should we stop it in the

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Speaker 1: next fifty years? No, absolutely not. Let's keep having the

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Speaker 1: same fight went on. We don't have anything else to

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Speaker 1: do in society. Everything else is good, Yeah, everything else

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Speaker 1: is smooth. Them just chugging right along, like that train

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Speaker 1: the police used to shoot Longshore from. So the rest

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Speaker 1: of the early seventies continued the by now well worn

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Speaker 1: pattern of Portland police only suffering consequences when they offended

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Speaker 1: the white majority with their actions. In nineteen, the Bureau

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Speaker 1: was rocked by a series of scandals in the Narcotics Division,

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Speaker 1: most of which revolved around the fact that the entire

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Speaker 1: Narcotics Division was addicted to illegal drugs one PPB detective

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Speaker 1: testified that narcotics officers frequently did huge amounts of cocaine

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Speaker 1: before going out on drug rates. Mean, I'm gonna be honest,

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Speaker 1: I've seen them riding along on their Riot vans and

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Speaker 1: thought it would be fun to do a funckload of

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Speaker 1: blow and then like hang off the side of a

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Speaker 1: four D F three fifty rolling around the streets. That

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Speaker 1: does seem rad is It's just like how not subtle

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Speaker 1: it is? That just like makes my brain explode, where

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Speaker 1: it's like, let us do drugs before busting people for

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Speaker 1: drugs for drugs good, because that way we'll have more drugs, Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: which is actually getting ready to oh my god, it's

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Speaker 1: a perfect cycle. There is at least one clear case

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Speaker 1: of the PPB murdering and then faking the suicide of

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Speaker 1: a drug dealer in order to get his heroine. Um good,

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Speaker 1: good guys Portland' narcotics cops. Uh. And in fact, when

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Speaker 1: that dead kid's mom pressed for an investigation into his death,

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Speaker 1: she received a phone call from a white dude who

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Speaker 1: was probably a Portland narcotics officer. He told her to

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Speaker 1: back off on the investigation unless she wanted more family

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Speaker 1: members dead. Yeah, that's good. Um, good police good, fine,

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Speaker 1: that's fine police work. So the detective Dupay who was

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Speaker 1: the uh, I guess the best Portland copper're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about in this he's the one who reported that

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Speaker 1: Portland narcotics officers were doing a shipload a blow before

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Speaker 1: going out on drug raids. He investigated the murder of

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Speaker 1: this drug dealer and he submitted a report to the

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Speaker 1: police chief with his findings, which were pretty damning to

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Speaker 1: the Portland Police Bureau. Years later, when he attempted to

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Speaker 1: get a copy of the report, I think to give

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Speaker 1: to a reporter, but I'm not sure, a clerk told

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Speaker 1: him that it had been shredded as soon as he

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Speaker 1: filed it, like almost immediately. That's good stuff, good stuff.

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Speaker 1: If you're wondering why didn't anyone do anything about these

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Speaker 1: drug adduled out of control cops, the answer is p

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Speaker 1: p A. President Stan Peters one of the worst people

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Speaker 1: to ever live in the city of Portland. He was

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Speaker 1: a potent negotiator, though, and when the city negotiators angered

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Speaker 1: him during a contract dispute like this is the story

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Speaker 1: that everyone tells about Stan Peters. He was negotiating with

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Speaker 1: the city for more money, and when they wouldn't play

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Speaker 1: ball with him, he drew his gun and slammed it

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Speaker 1: on the table and told them these are my ground rules. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: I just sat here. They can see I just sat

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Speaker 1: here with my mom and went for like thirty straight seconds.

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Speaker 1: And they just they just keep out doing themselves. It's

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Speaker 1: of themselves, and they keep doing ship. That is again

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Speaker 1: literal criminal stuff, right, It's a thing. No, it's just

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Speaker 1: a thing where like I feel like we get desensitized

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Speaker 1: to it, Like I get desensitized at anything that they

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Speaker 1: do because I'm just like, yeah, of course they're doing that.

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Speaker 1: And then you know, you know what the protests that

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Speaker 1: we were at, Like someone outside would be like, wait,

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Speaker 1: they're you know, snatching people up in on my fans

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Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, is that not normal? And They're

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Speaker 1: like that's not They're not supposed to do that. I'm like, oh, interesting,

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Speaker 1: So like when they do that, I'm just like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess technically or not supposed to do that just

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Speaker 1: seems like something they would do. There's a there's a

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Speaker 1: local cop that we all know, Brett Taylor, who is

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Speaker 1: most famous in the city of Portland for kind of

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Speaker 1: randomly stabbing car tires during riots, um, for no real

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Speaker 1: purpose that I can see most of the time. I

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Speaker 1: originally knew him as cop who won't stop pointing his

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Speaker 1: gun at people's heads. That's when call him. It was

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Speaker 1: a long moniker, but he just let everyone else would

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Speaker 1: like point out the ground. He would just be still

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Speaker 1: having at your head. But yeah, then he switched to

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Speaker 1: just like really just hating car tires. Yeah he's he's

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Speaker 1: really fucking loves to stab car time. Does he have

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Speaker 1: the joy in his body language? Yeah? Um. He Among

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Speaker 1: other things, we had like a recent like city like

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Speaker 1: in testimony or whatever on police violence, and somebody came

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Speaker 1: on who he had shot in the groin and Brett

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Speaker 1: had to testify that he had never knowingly targeted the

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Speaker 1: growing area. And in another point, he was talking about

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Speaker 1: having addressed protesters and like he was stopped by the

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Speaker 1: modern said, by addressed, you mean you threw grenades at them? Uh,

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Speaker 1: fucking love the Portland police. They're cool. Then they're cool.

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Speaker 1: Now start a conversation with a grenade. I love dialogue.

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Speaker 1: So stan uh, the guy who negotiates with a handgun

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Speaker 1: wound up having an influence that extended far, far beyond

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Speaker 1: the bounds of the Rose City from pickets, pistols, and politics.

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Speaker 1: Shortly after Peters became the union president, he introduced a

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Speaker 1: concept that was relatively new to police officers, political involvement.

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Speaker 1: Peter's predecessor, David Callison, had dabbled lightly, even inviting controversy

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Speaker 1: by offering a PPA endorsement and a few local races,

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Speaker 1: but Peter's scope was broader than that. He wanted the

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Speaker 1: Union to be a political force to be reckoned with.

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Speaker 1: He was tired of the city and state officials writing

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Speaker 1: rough shot over police with seemingly little interest in its

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Speaker 1: rank and file concerns or causes. He wanted the police

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Speaker 1: to be listened to better. Yet, he wanted politicians to

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Speaker 1: quake in their boots if the police were not happy. Huh,

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Speaker 1: And so he pulled his handgun out. Yeah, I mean, yes,

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Speaker 1: he did do that. Um. He's also the start in

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Speaker 1: a lot of ways of police nationwide getting directly involved

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Speaker 1: in political races and having police unions directly endorsed candidates

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Speaker 1: and taking partisan stances. We can also thank the p

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Speaker 1: p A for a lot of that. Yeah no, I yeah,

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Speaker 1: And that showed up last month, this month. Gosh, every

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Speaker 1: month is a years long. Yeah, I mean this month. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: every month of this year has lasted longer than all

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Speaker 1: of the history we're covering in this podcast. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is true. But you know what doesn't take long tuck

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Speaker 1: goods and services. Yeah, it doesn't take long to develop

401
00:21:57,000 --> 00:21:59,520
Speaker 1: an appreciation for the fine products and services that support

402
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Speaker 1: this Podcas asked, can't wait we are back? Okay. So

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Speaker 1: the p p A had made history by becoming the

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Speaker 1: first successful police union, and it made history again here

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Speaker 1: by setting a precedent that police unions would involve themselves

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Speaker 1: directly in local and eventually national races. Stan was clear

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Speaker 1: that his motivation for doing this was to make local

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Speaker 1: elected leaders afraid of him. This, he knew, was the

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Speaker 1: only way that the bureau could protect itself from the

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Speaker 1: dangers of democracy. Yeah, Portland police were going to keep

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Speaker 1: shooting people and engaging in rampant corruption that was going

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Speaker 1: to continue to piss Portlanders off. If they wanted to

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Speaker 1: avoid real consequences for this behavior, the p p A

414
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:49,080
Speaker 1: would have to insert themselves into politics, So they started

415
00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:51,920
Speaker 1: donating the city council candidates paying to run ads attacking

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Speaker 1: leaders who threatened to force any kind of accountability on them.

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Speaker 1: Other police unions around the country paid attention, and true

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Speaker 1: to form, followed suit. In nineteen seventy, one of those

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Speaker 1: coke adult narcotics cops we've been talking about, Officer David Crowther,

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Speaker 1: was shot dead during a drug rate on a motorcycle gang.

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Speaker 1: Since he was, I mean, I don't know specifically that

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Speaker 1: he was a coke head, but other Portland's cops say

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Speaker 1: the narcotics cops were all coke heads, So one one

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Speaker 1: assumes I am sorry if I unfairlylandered him as a

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Speaker 1: coke head just because he was in a unit of

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Speaker 1: coke heads. Um, and there's nothing wrong with being a

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Speaker 1: coke head as long as you weren't also carrying out

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00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:32,680
Speaker 1: drug rates. You know, no shame on cocaine. Uh weren't

429
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:38,560
Speaker 1: you wistfully tweeting about cocaine like yesterday? It was mostly

430
00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 1: a joke. It's been a long time and happened in

431
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:45,400
Speaker 1: countries where it's legal. Let's just say that. Um yeah,

432
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:48,919
Speaker 1: so uh yeah, since he was, you know, possibly a

433
00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:51,640
Speaker 1: cokehead cop who may very well have helped murder people

434
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:54,639
Speaker 1: because again, his unit definitely murdered at least one person

435
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:56,720
Speaker 1: in stage it as a suicide. I'm not going to

436
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 1: say it was a tremendous tragedy that David Crowther got

437
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 1: shot busting another gang um. But the hilariously pro p

438
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: p A book Pistols, Pickets and Politics notes the violent

439
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:09,080
Speaker 1: death of a fellow officer was a terrible blow to

440
00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:11,639
Speaker 1: the members of the Portland Police Bureau and devastating to

441
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:13,639
Speaker 1: the Drug Unit. But it was not the end of

442
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:16,440
Speaker 1: the nightmare. And what that book calls a nightmare was

443
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 1: the fact that Internal Affairs had opened an investigation into

444
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 1: the murders, drug dealing and drug abuse by numerous members

445
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:26,720
Speaker 1: of the Narcotics Division. What a nightmare being held accountable

446
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:31,240
Speaker 1: for our actions. That's for other people. Yeah, I too

447
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 1: have nightmares that I will get in trouble for doing

448
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:40,120
Speaker 1: a shipload of drugs and murdering people. Uh yeah. One

449
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 1: of the most damning complaints against the Drug Unit was

450
00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 1: that they had planted drugs on suspects in order to

451
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 1: charge innocent people with felony crimes they had not committed.

452
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: But that's not the nightmare. The nightmare the nightmares them

453
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:56,480
Speaker 1: getting caught. Yes, now I should note that police planting

454
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 1: fake drugs or drugs that they stole from other people

455
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,439
Speaker 1: and then planting them all people who didn't have those drugs.

456
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: This happens constantly all around the country. Google the Dallas

457
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: fake drugs scandal if you want another example of huge

458
00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 1: numbers of officers being involved in the planting of fake

459
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:13,360
Speaker 1: drugs on people. Anyway, law and order is important, um so.

460
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 1: The internal affairs investigation was completed in the summer of

461
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:22,840
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty and it led to the resignations of two

462
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 1: officers who'd been assigned to the narcotics unit. One of

463
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:28,400
Speaker 1: those officers was later arrested on charges of illegally obtaining

464
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:30,680
Speaker 1: narcotics from a drug dealer with the intent to deal.

465
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: He was convicted, and the p PA did not sue

466
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 1: to get this cop back his job. So that's we

467
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: found a line. The investigation revealed at least fifty nine

468
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 1: cases where people had been convicted due to falsified evidence

469
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 1: from Portland's cops, and thirty five more cases that were

470
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 1: in the process of being like like argued out based

471
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:54,399
Speaker 1: on the same bogus evidence. And all of these cases,

472
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,639
Speaker 1: nearly a hundred, were overturned. Even Officer Crowther's killer was

473
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,120
Speaker 1: released from prison after it was proven that the cops

474
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: who testified at his trial head led on the stand. Okay,

475
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 1: that's very funny. Actually, that's extremely funny because he's absolutely

476
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:10,240
Speaker 1: a murderer and they just couldn't stop themselves from lying.

477
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:18,119
Speaker 1: Uh so, you know he's an extra murderer. Yeah. I

478
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: would say, you're shooting yourself in the foot, but maybe

479
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: you're shooting your friend in the back. Yeah. So by

480
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: the time rolled around, the Portland Police were not doing

481
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 1: particularly well in the Winning Hearts and Minds department, and

482
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 1: things got worse for them on March twelve. The Burger

483
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:37,440
Speaker 1: Barn was at the time one of very few black

484
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 1: owned businesses in Portland. It was, of course, in Albina.

485
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: The cops claimed that the Burger Barn was a major

486
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 1: gathering place for criminal activity. Gangsters and drug dealers and

487
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: pimps would all that meet there all the time. And

488
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:50,520
Speaker 1: I have no idea if this was true. Considering the

489
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:52,640
Speaker 1: fact that the PPBS whole Drug Unit was a bunch

490
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:54,920
Speaker 1: of coke hed murderers who planted fake drugs on people,

491
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 1: I'm going to take what they say with a grain

492
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 1: of salt. Here, Like the p p A book like

493
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 1: just sort of goes like, well, criminals were gathering here,

494
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 1: and cops were just so angry that that all these

495
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: people they couldn't catch were always gathering at this restaurant

496
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: and that's why they did what they did. But it's

497
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 1: like they also led all the time. So yeah, um yeah. So,

498
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:18,160
Speaker 1: as the story goes to Portland police officers got fed

499
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:19,919
Speaker 1: up with all of the bad men hanging out at

500
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: this restaurant and they decided to get revenged with what

501
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:25,159
Speaker 1: the p p as biographer describes as a prank. This

502
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,479
Speaker 1: prank involved gathering up for dead possums and dumping them

503
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 1: at the doorway of the burger barn. Now, if you

504
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: aren't aware, the word possum has been a derogatory slur

505
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:36,479
Speaker 1: for black people since the early eighteen hundreds. It has

506
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: the same etymology as the use of like the term

507
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:41,960
Speaker 1: raccoon as in the same sense, like that they come

508
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: from the same origin point. This was not a prank

509
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: by dumping dead possums at the door of a black

510
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: owned business. These cops were making what amounted to a

511
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 1: death threat, right, Like, that's what that means, um, not,

512
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it a prank. The officers took no

513
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:58,199
Speaker 1: steps to be stealthy about what they were doing. And

514
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 1: according to the Power family, who owned to the restaurant,

515
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: and this was just the latest in a long line

516
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 1: of harassing actions from the Portland Police, they believed this

517
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:08,439
Speaker 1: harassment was designed to scare away their customers and destroy

518
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,919
Speaker 1: the business. You should probably also keep in mind that

519
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 1: while the Portland Police claimed this restaurant was a famous

520
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:16,640
Speaker 1: taunt of drug dealers and pimps, for literal decades prostitution

521
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: and drug dealing in Albino had been carried out under

522
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 1: the approval and sometimes the direction of the Portland Police. Um. Yeah,

523
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:27,400
Speaker 1: So an investigation was launched and the officers responsible admitted

524
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 1: what they've done immediately. They were not publicly identified because

525
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: there was a clause in the pp A contract that

526
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: said officers who were disciplined should not be disciplined publicly.

527
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: In other words, the p p A contract guaranteed that

528
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: officers who harmed people would not be publicly named or punished,

529
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: which some might suggest means they probably wouldn't be punished

530
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 1: at all. This is now the standard nationwide. So yes,

531
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: it's frustrating and consistent. It's not great. It reminds me

532
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: of now when just for people who aren't aware, maybe

533
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 1: everyone ideas, uh, they actually covered all the name badges

534
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: and numbers on the Portland Police and so there is

535
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: actually no way to hold them accountable. And the only

536
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: thing you can do is like submit a description to

537
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: PPP and they're like, oh, yeah, well we'll look into

538
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: it privately. You know, you're not allowed to like name

539
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: the person who shot you in the head, because that

540
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 1: would be going too far according to the p p A.

541
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 1: Apparently that would be. But whenever they arrest people, they

542
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: will tweet out all of their identifying information. Yeah, all

543
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: those people are getting dogs. It's fair, fair, is what

544
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: it is? Fair, cool, good, just or just. Now. In

545
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: this case, there was enough public outrage that the p

546
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 1: p A couldn't just sweep things under the rugs and

547
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 1: do an internal investigation. The officers responsible, Craig Ward and

548
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 1: Jim Galloway, voluntarily appeared at a press conference before black

549
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 1: community leaders. They identified themselves and apologized, and I'm gonna

550
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: quote here from Pickets, Pistols, and Politics. Ward and Galloway

551
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: claimed they had acted out of frustration, not racial hatred.

552
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: When they made their late night deposit of the possums

553
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 1: at the restaurant's door. But the black community, already incensed

554
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:13,479
Speaker 1: over incidents of alleged discrimination by police, labeled the possum

555
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 1: dumping is more evidence of racism and deliberate targeting of

556
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 1: blacks by police. Just a month and a half earlier,

557
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: Black United Front co chairman Ron Herndon and neighborhood activists

558
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: Vestia Loving had called on the United Nations to investigate

559
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 1: human rights violations in the Oregon because of the high

560
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 1: percentage of blacks that had they said, had been killed

561
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 1: by police over the previous ten years. Um yeah, I

562
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 1: didn't realize that people had called on the UN to

563
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: investigate or get police for racism. Um. Probably not the

564
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: last time, but yeah, that's wild. Yeah, yeah, we could

565
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 1: use another UN investigation, although that would probably just increase

566
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: the conspiracy theories that Antifa's part of a UN scheme

567
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: to take over the United States. Is that actually already

568
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: absolutely I missed that one with the U n There's

569
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 1: too many Antifa's doing too show it once it's time

570
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 1: to keep jack. I I wasn't going to throw out

571
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: criticisms here, but I do think they're they're going a

572
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 1: little bit broad um, they're trying to provide rest brators,

573
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: they're making suit for my family, and they're taking over

574
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: the u N. So. The Black United Front is one

575
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 1: of the advocacy groups that I don't think they'd formed

576
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: over the outrage in Rickie Johnson's death, but they had

577
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: really like come together in a big way after that

578
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 1: because a number of groups that formed after Johnson's death

579
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: had been merged into the United Front. They gave a

580
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 1: press conference themselves where they pointed out that the possum

581
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: incident was part of a pattern of police harassment of

582
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 1: black Portland's. The p p as paid biographer rights. Begrudgingly,

583
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: the people of Portland's seemed to agree. For the most part,

584
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 1: public sympathy lay with the power family in the black community,

585
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: not with the police. Yes, I'm so proud of everybody. Yeah,

586
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: they figured it out. Yeah, two protesters picketed city hall

587
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: and lo and behold, this forced the police chief and

588
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 1: commissioner to fire officers ward in Galloway. Great, surely that's

589
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: the end of the story. And no one ever did

590
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: anything racist again, No, uh no, they immediately did something

591
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,080
Speaker 1: racist because Stan Peters was still the head of the

592
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 1: Portland Police Association, and he was pissed as hell. Quote,

593
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: it appeared that no one was willing to stand up

594
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 1: for Ward and Galloway, no one but stand Peters. As

595
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: president of the Portland Police Association, it was his duty

596
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: to protect the rights of members. Once the executive board

597
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: determined that warden Galloway had not committed a crime and

598
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: that they had a legitimate grievance due to their summary

599
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 1: dismissal from their jobs, the union, led by Peters, rose

600
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:35,959
Speaker 1: up to defend them. Is good, It's so cool that

601
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:37,640
Speaker 1: they just like, I want to make sure that you

602
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: have your legal right to be racist. Yeah. The p

603
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 1: PA was saying that as long as Portland cops didn't

604
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: break the law, it was okay for them to racially

605
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 1: harass citizens. Like that's the argument Peters is making. Peters

606
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: was a rampaging racist and sexist by the way, Yeah,

607
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I could tell from your intro. He yeah,

608
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: it's like that. Good can see this this dude with

609
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:03,600
Speaker 1: the terrible mustache, Robert Yes, you know he has a

610
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 1: mustache by the name stand Peters, and the fact that

611
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: he was a cop, like he has to have had

612
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 1: a mustache. The universe would have shattered into a thousand

613
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: pieces if he had been a clean shaven He's like,

614
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: this is a terrible face. I'm guessing this is the

615
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 1: right guy. Yeah, No, he's he's he looks exactly. If

616
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 1: you just picture old timey cop in your head, it's

617
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: Stan Peters, like seventies cop. Yeah. I just it just

618
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: reminds me so much of like, not Stan Peters in

619
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 1: his face. I don't know about that, but it just

620
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 1: reminds me so much about like people who somehow conflate

621
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 1: the Second Amendment with like the right to say whatever

622
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: the funk you want and still keep your job. It's

623
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: like that thing. It's like, Oh, because you legally can

624
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: threaten people's lives by leaving dead possums outside of their job,

625
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 1: you also should be able to keep your job and

626
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 1: still do that, because those two things are the same. Also,

627
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: I would guess that if protesters made an explicit death

628
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 1: threat towards officers in a similar way to the officers

629
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 1: had threatened to kill members of the Power family, they

630
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: would probably be arrested. M some people made some death

631
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:08,520
Speaker 1: threats against me, and all I get to do is say,

632
00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 1: hope that won't kill me. Well, yeah, but you know

633
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:15,800
Speaker 1: you're not a cop to No, I know, made a mistake,

634
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: just kidding. Should have been a copy in your life

635
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 1: would matter. Wow. I just opened the photo and it

636
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 1: is truly everything I imagined and more. Yeah, he doesn't

637
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 1: go and I kind of imagine him being bald. He

638
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: does have some top hair. Wow, this mustache. Yeah, I

639
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:34,920
Speaker 1: know it is a It is a cop stash. It

640
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 1: is a powerful cop stash. He's like leaning against a desk,

641
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 1: just like it. Rules. Don't mean the stereotype, but he

642
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 1: is cop ugly. Yeah, no, he looks he looks like

643
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 1: a cop. If you saw him on the street and

644
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 1: you were a director and you were trying to cast

645
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 1: a cop, you'd be like, hey, like, let me get

646
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 1: your digits. This does look more like the still from

647
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 1: a Hollywood film about an old timey cop than it

648
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:59,319
Speaker 1: does an actual old timey cop. Yeah, he looks like

649
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: the guy who like yells at Dirty Harry for shooting

650
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:04,959
Speaker 1: too many people. But in reality, Stan Peters never yelled

651
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 1: at anyone for shooting too many people. He was like,

652
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:10,440
Speaker 1: he didn't shoot enough people this month? Why are there

653
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:17,800
Speaker 1: so many alive people in this town? Uh? Yeah? So um, yeah,

654
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:20,799
Speaker 1: the Stan Peters makes the union rise up to defend

655
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 1: these officers who were fired for making racist threats. And

656
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,440
Speaker 1: this was actually pretty groundbreaking. UM. Thanks to the p

657
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:29,840
Speaker 1: p A, it was common for unions around the country

658
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 1: to weigh in on disciplinary matters when cops did bad

659
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 1: stuff UM, and officers could appeal punishments for bad behaviors,

660
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:39,280
Speaker 1: but once a cop was fired, they tended to stay fired.

661
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: Stan Peters set out to change that. First, he demanded

662
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 1: the case go to binding arbitration, which the contract allowed

663
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: him to do. Then he organized a petition drive to

664
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: fire the police commissioner. He sent ballots to the pp

665
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:53,840
Speaker 1: A members to get a vote of no confidence in

666
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,400
Speaker 1: both the chief and the police commissioner. And last, but

667
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: not least, he announced a protest march to compete with

668
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: the Black United Fronts March. This one would consist of

669
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: off duty cops, their family members, and local supporters versus

670
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: Black lives mattering thing. Okay, what years? This this is nine?

671
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: Okay yep. The p PAS march gathered a staggering eight

672
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty people waving signs that said reinstate the blue, two,

673
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:25,279
Speaker 1: justice not politics, and may the Force be with you.

674
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 1: Craig and Jim Star wars pretty new at the time.

675
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 1: Um fucking nerds. Uh. Many police elements, including sharpshooters, protected

676
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 1: the march, which is interesting because it was a private

677
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 1: organization doing a march being protected by public funds in

678
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: a way that I'll guarantee you, the Black United Front

679
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: protesters weren't protected. Not a thing that ever happened again

680
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: say repeatedly. Um. So. Some brave counter protesters did show

681
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:58,360
Speaker 1: up with pigs heads on spikes, which infuriated Stan Peters.

682
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 1: Um and udos to those folks. But on the whole,

683
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:04,839
Speaker 1: the march was a massive success for the p p A.

684
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 1: All the pressure exercised by Peters eventually did its job.

685
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: The arbitrator decided that termination of both officers had been

686
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: too harsh a penalty. Both men were reinstated to their jobs.

687
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:16,919
Speaker 1: This would turn out to be quite possibly the most

688
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:20,240
Speaker 1: influential thing the Portland Police ever did. From pickets, pistols,

689
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 1: and politics, the City of Portland versus Ward and Galloway

690
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: case is still the leading police discipline case in the

691
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:29,319
Speaker 1: United States and in labor lost circles. It is the

692
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 1: arbitration decision referred to most often. Its legal nomenclature is

693
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: simply City of Portland. So you know, we started this

694
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:41,879
Speaker 1: by saying that all fired cops and some cities more

695
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 1: like seventy to get reinstated by union appeals. The legal

696
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 1: underpinning of that is City of Portland. That is the

697
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 1: name of the case that is most often referred to

698
00:37:51,520 --> 00:38:00,200
Speaker 1: when police firings are revealed. But a cool city that

699
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: I live in, a great legacy to be here. We

700
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:09,799
Speaker 1: have a lot of roses too, you know, Robert. It's

701
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: okay because as we were discussing right before this, there's

702
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:13,959
Speaker 1: a current lawsuit that I'm not allowed to talk about

703
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:16,439
Speaker 1: called Woodstock versus City of Portland, and we're just gonna

704
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 1: slide that one in and that's going to be the

705
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:23,880
Speaker 1: one everyone references now. Make the city. Yeah, figures crossed.

706
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 1: Figures crossed. So I found an interesting interview with labor

707
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:32,279
Speaker 1: historian Norman Diamond on the website Street Roots. He was

708
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 1: actually on the Portland Labor Board when all this was

709
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:36,839
Speaker 1: going on, so he's very familiar with how the pp

710
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 1: A works because again, like the p p A was

711
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 1: part of the Labor Board at this point, and he

712
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: pointed out that initially the p PA's goal was, quote,

713
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:45,800
Speaker 1: if any of our members commits an act subject to discipline,

714
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:49,319
Speaker 1: we want them to have union representation. That's reasonable. Their

715
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 1: claim was cops have to have the same rights as

716
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:53,920
Speaker 1: anybody else in society, and I do agree with that,

717
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:57,799
Speaker 1: but he says, with successive contracts, they extended those rights

718
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:00,319
Speaker 1: beyond anything the rest of us have. Now, the event

719
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:03,240
Speaker 1: of a shooting, you can't question a police officer until

720
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: two days have passed. Their superiors can't, the District attorney's

721
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 1: office can't, and that's part of the labor contract. So

722
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: they have a chance to meet with other officers involved

723
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:14,239
Speaker 1: in the shooting to get their story straight and go

724
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 1: over everything with their lawyers, and then after two days

725
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:20,360
Speaker 1: they can bring back what becomes the official version. I'm sorry,

726
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:25,720
Speaker 1: what the fuck? They're like, Yeah, it's really just like you.

727
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 1: Your union means that. Our union says you get to

728
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 1: have this specified collision time. And now that's very common

729
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: around the entire country. Because of the Portland Police, I

730
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: can't even like fully process that because it's just so

731
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 1: obviously correct, right, I Mean that's what we're saying this

732
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:47,279
Speaker 1: whole time, right, It's like every single thing in it's

733
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: like you're not being subtle about it. You're just like, oh,

734
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:53,239
Speaker 1: here's like me being just like literally doing criminal things

735
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:57,440
Speaker 1: behind the cops, and so I just get to do it. Yeah,

736
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:01,320
Speaker 1: you know, when the when the is like big protests

737
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 1: started up after George Floyd's murder, I was kind of

738
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: there was there was an element of me that was like,

739
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: you know, Portland's not a big city, and our police

740
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 1: department is not a big police department, and it's not

741
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: a nationally it wasn't, at least now it's more famous.

742
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: It was not a nationally famous police department. And it

743
00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: seems strange to me that this city would become the

744
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: nexus of so much resistance to the police. And it

745
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 1: makes more sense now because the Portland police are the

746
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: center nationwide of a lot of our problems with police

747
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 1: violence and brutality. Like I wish it worked in reverse,

748
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 1: where like, oh, Portland's started all of it. And so

749
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: if something happened to Portland Police like every other police station,

750
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:46,040
Speaker 1: like why something happened, I mean like contractually, like legally,

751
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: like something got taken away, then it's like, oh, that

752
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 1: actually just ribbles out to everywhere. But I have a

753
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: feeling it doesn't work in reverse. No, it would not.

754
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: It's going to require an agonizing and probably decades long

755
00:40:56,200 --> 00:41:02,320
Speaker 1: process of yeah, good time. In ninety five, Portland police

756
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:05,440
Speaker 1: responded to a shoplifting incident at a seven eleven. They

757
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 1: noticed a fight happening in the stores parking lot, and

758
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: the p p As biography describes it, telling Lee as

759
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:13,319
Speaker 1: between two white men and a tall black man. It's

760
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 1: interesting to me that they didn't feel the need to

761
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 1: describe any of the physical attributes of the white men. Um, No,

762
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 1: I gotta know he's tall. So the cops decided that

763
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 1: this tall black man must be responsible for whatever was happening,

764
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: and they put him in a sleeper hold, which killed him.

765
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 1: It turned out that the victim, Lloyd Stevenson, was a

766
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: former marine and a father of five, as well as

767
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:35,920
Speaker 1: the security guard at fred Meyer More outrage swept through

768
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:38,760
Speaker 1: the city. The city government acted quickly, banning the police

769
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 1: from using choke holds. Seems kind of familiar. I think

770
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: we've heard this story before. Of course, the police complained.

771
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,840
Speaker 1: Portland police were trained to use force and gradually escalating

772
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: levels from one to six. Level one is the presence

773
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 1: of a cop. Level two is voice commands. Level three

774
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:59,360
Speaker 1: is physical restraint, Level four is the carotid artery hold

775
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: that killed Aid, and level five is the use of

776
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:05,440
Speaker 1: a nightstick or mace. In six is of course deadly force,

777
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:08,240
Speaker 1: but of course really so was four because the grodit

778
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: hold killed people. Yeah. Now, the Portland police complained that

779
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: taking their chokehold away would escalate things dangerously, leaving them

780
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 1: with less non lethal options to respond to crime with

781
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 1: because most cops didn't like to carry night sticks because

782
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: they were heavy and thought carrying mace was a hassle,

783
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:26,399
Speaker 1: So just all they would have as a gun like

784
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:29,279
Speaker 1: this will give us basically, this will say that this

785
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: will make our only option be shooting people. Um now, yeah,

786
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 1: if you don't let us kill them this way, we'll

787
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:37,959
Speaker 1: have to kill them this other way because we can't

788
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:41,280
Speaker 1: carry mace around because we can't it's too heavy mace.

789
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,839
Speaker 1: To Portland's cops, Monte and Wickersham were particularly angry at

790
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:50,440
Speaker 1: being banned from choking people, and the p p A

791
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,839
Speaker 1: biography notes that they were in the process of being

792
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 1: trained to give chokeholds at the time, so it kind

793
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 1: of leaves you with the impression that, like they were

794
00:42:56,560 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 1: so excited to choke people and then they got their power.

795
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:01,719
Speaker 1: Well I don't get to choke anybody now, I'm new

796
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 1: to being a cop. Come on, do you say their

797
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: names are Monty and Wicker Shim's Monty and wickershim. Yeah,

798
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: they sound British as hell. They a couple of bobbies

799
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:15,120
Speaker 1: in the in the old p p A. They like

800
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 1: they traveled here because they're like I hear you get

801
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 1: to choke people more in the Portland Police Bureau. Yeah,

802
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 1: it's funny. When I was a little conservative, well I

803
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 1: guess more conservative than I am now. I remember a

804
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:29,800
Speaker 1: videos circulating around that was like a bunch of British

805
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 1: cops like like a circle of them all around one

806
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:34,919
Speaker 1: man with a machete and they had like chairs I think,

807
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 1: and we're like like basically like all in a huge

808
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 1: circle trying to like calm this, like stop this guy

809
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: from swinging a knife, and eventually de escalated him and

810
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: nobody died. And it was like portrayed as like, look,

811
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 1: how silly it is because English cops don't have guns.

812
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:49,960
Speaker 1: This is what it takes to deal with a man

813
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 1: with a machete. And I was like, well, but they

814
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: didn't kill anybody. Like everyone walked away alive. Isn't this

815
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 1: a good story? Yeah, we're gonna arm everyone with the

816
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:00,839
Speaker 1: chairs now they're going to be heavy, but no one's

817
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: going to die. Yeah. So I'm gonna quote here from

818
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 1: the p p AS biography, Monty and Wickersham reacted to

819
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:11,880
Speaker 1: the situation with the typical black humor of police officers.

820
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: They had T shirts printed with the slogan don't choke him,

821
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: smoke him. Yeah. Sorry, Yeah, that's just the typical black

822
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: humor of police officers. Making a T shirt about an

823
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 1: innocent man you choke to death? Good times? Uh? I

824
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: mean as somebody who's wearing a novelty police violence T

825
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 1: shirt right now, I guess I can't talk. But it's

826
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: a little different. Someone in the city of Portland has

827
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 1: found it don't choke him smoke um T shirt at

828
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:48,080
Speaker 1: like a fucking vintage store, like and didn't know what

829
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 1: it was for. The biography goes on the state. The

830
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 1: message they wished to convey was clear. If the karated

831
00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:59,839
Speaker 1: hold was no longer available to police, why not just shoot? Why?

832
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 1: Why else are we going to do a lot to

833
00:45:03,760 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: shoot people? Yeah? They started selling the T shirts in

834
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 1: the Justice center's break room on the exact same day

835
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 1: if Lloyd Stevenson's funeral um classy. They were fired and

836
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 1: the case went into arbitration. The union argued that the

837
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 1: officers apparent insensitivity had been unintentional because the officers hadn't

838
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 1: known that Stevenson's funeral was taking place the same day.

839
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:36,840
Speaker 1: The firings were overturned and the officers reinstated. You know,

840
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 1: I am loving this city of Portland, citing more and

841
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: more every time. Is their job back? Yeah, it's great.

842
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: You know what's better than people mocking murder victim and

843
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:56,800
Speaker 1: then getting back pay. I would say, honestly most things,

844
00:45:56,840 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 1: but possibly products and services. Yeah, very certainly, products and services.

845
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 1: We are back. Okay. So there have been a lot

846
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 1: of horrible crimes committed by the Portland Police and defended

847
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:15,240
Speaker 1: by the p p A. We've gone through a number

848
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: of them. Um, we only have so much time in

849
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 1: our lives and in this episode, so in the sake

850
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: of brevity, I'm going to outline just one more and

851
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 1: this time the victim is not a black man. It's

852
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 1: a twelve year old boy. Oh good. Yeah. A home

853
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:33,839
Speaker 1: invader broke into the house where Nathan Thomas, the aforementioned

854
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 1: twelve year old child and his parents lived. The police

855
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 1: arrived while the invader was in the house, and the

856
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: man grabbed Nathan as a hostage and held a knife

857
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: to his throat. The home invader was twenty years old, drunk,

858
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:47,840
Speaker 1: and reportedly suicidal. Now, this is obviously a nightmare situation,

859
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:51,320
Speaker 1: and like right, my criticisms of the police aside, there's

860
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:53,399
Speaker 1: not going to be a perfect way to handle this.

861
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 1: This could there's a good chance that he would have

862
00:46:55,520 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 1: died no matter what had happened. This is a bad situation.

863
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 1: That said, the tactic the cops chose to deal with

864
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 1: this hostage situation was shall I say, less than delicate.

865
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 1: Instead of doing any of the kind of things you

866
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:11,880
Speaker 1: might expect police to do during a hostage situation that

867
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 1: threatens the life of a twelve year old, five different

868
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:16,799
Speaker 1: Portland officers opened fire from outside of the house with

869
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: their handguns, pumping dozens of rounds into the house. The

870
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:23,080
Speaker 1: hostage taker was shot fourteen times. Nathan was also shot,

871
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: and he died in the hospital. Just five guys start

872
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: shooting into the building. What's even the point at that point, Like, sensibly,

873
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 1: you're there to help, like you're not. But like ostensibly

874
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 1: they're there to help the kid, but they're not, so

875
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:42,440
Speaker 1: why are they're And it's also like I will say,

876
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:46,239
Speaker 1: it can be justified to use a firearm in that situation,

877
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 1: But you don't use a pistol, all right, you don't try.

878
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:52,239
Speaker 1: You don't try from outside of a house too. I

879
00:47:52,280 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 1: shoot a lot of handguns, right, They're very inaccurate compared

880
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: to a rifle, Like, they are only good at short distances,

881
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:00,800
Speaker 1: and they are not for pursue. Shouldn't work. That's not

882
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: what a handguns for. Um, you would have a sniper

883
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 1: come in and try to shoot the guy threatening a

884
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:08,279
Speaker 1: twelve year old with it. That's a reasonable time to

885
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:10,760
Speaker 1: use a sniper. They just had five guys start shooting

886
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:15,680
Speaker 1: handguns into the building. Um, it's so fucked up. The

887
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 1: president of the p p A at the time was

888
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 1: a guy named Morse, and he showed up on the

889
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:20,880
Speaker 1: scene with a p p A lawyer as soon as

890
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:22,880
Speaker 1: he heard that his cops had gotten down a small child.

891
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:25,840
Speaker 1: Now I want to read you this next paragraph from Pickets, Pistols,

892
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 1: and Politics because it has to be one of the

893
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:30,880
Speaker 1: most sociopathic things I have ever read in my entire life.

894
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: As the father of three young sons, Morse's heart went

895
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 1: out to the family of Nathan Thomas. The boy's accidental

896
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:39,800
Speaker 1: death was devastating, but Morse, a Marine Corps veteran and

897
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:41,920
Speaker 1: a longtime police officer, was a man who had been

898
00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: thoroughly trained to maintain his focus and perform his duty

899
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:46,800
Speaker 1: no matter how much he heard inside. As he dialed

900
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 1: the telephone number had contacted one sleepy lawyer after another,

901
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:52,840
Speaker 1: his focus was on the five police officers who needed

902
00:48:52,880 --> 00:49:02,160
Speaker 1: his help. M cool stuff, good guys. So I just

903
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: even just calling it like an accidental death, and it's like,

904
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:06,960
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced it was an accident. I don't think

905
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: you just have five people shooting handguns into a house

906
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:13,600
Speaker 1: and be like that, oh oops, if someone died, if

907
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,680
Speaker 1: five people shoot handguns into a house filled with people.

908
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:20,279
Speaker 1: What you're saying, because I love nonverbal communication, and the

909
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:23,319
Speaker 1: nonverbal communication that you're giving off when you and four

910
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:25,480
Speaker 1: other men of fire handguns into a house is I

911
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 1: don't really care who I hit inside that house exactly exactly,

912
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:36,440
Speaker 1: So obviously, um, none of these guys were fired or

913
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:42,520
Speaker 1: seriously disciplined for wild and wildly. Uh. Now, don't worry though,

914
00:49:42,560 --> 00:49:45,120
Speaker 1: talk the p P as biographer wants us all to

915
00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 1: know that the police cared about what had happened and

916
00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:53,760
Speaker 1: they wanted to make it right. Quote. The association's concerned

917
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:56,600
Speaker 1: for youngsters was demonstrated in a gesture of grief and

918
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 1: sympathy after the death of Nathan Thomas. A few weeks

919
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:02,000
Speaker 1: after the boy's death, Union contributed two d fifty dollars

920
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:05,360
Speaker 1: to the American Cancer Society Nathan had received treatment for

921
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 1: Hodgkins disease and was in remission at the time of

922
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:09,759
Speaker 1: his death, and two hundred and fifty dollars to the

923
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:12,880
Speaker 1: Nathan Thomas Soccer Scholarship Fund. Nathan was the member of

924
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:18,480
Speaker 1: a soccer team, so that's good. Yeah. I always say,

925
00:50:18,520 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 1: if you just kill a twelve year old kid for

926
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:23,320
Speaker 1: no reason, just donate two hundred fifty dollars to a

927
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: soccer team and it's all fine. That's yeah. Now, they,

928
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:31,720
Speaker 1: I will say they. The family of Nathan also reached

929
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 1: out to the police later because they were working to

930
00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 1: raise money to build a soccer field in Nathan's memory

931
00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:39,200
Speaker 1: at Laurel Hurst Park, which is near where he lived.

932
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 1: UM and the p PA did contribute five thousand dollars

933
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:46,879
Speaker 1: to the soccer field, so that's more money. Yeah. They

934
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 1: love to sponsor soccer. Yeah, they're big soccer fans. Do

935
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:55,000
Speaker 1: you think we can get them to defund PPB if

936
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:57,160
Speaker 1: we tell them that we just need to raise more

937
00:50:57,160 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 1: money for soccer. A lot of soccer fields that might

938
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:04,520
Speaker 1: do the trick to so that I would want to

939
00:51:04,560 --> 00:51:08,400
Speaker 1: defund p p B. I'm an objective journaliective skin in

940
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: this game. Any go ahead. Yeah, as a journalist, opinions

941
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:15,440
Speaker 1: are obviously forbidden. Now, there are a number of important

942
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:17,360
Speaker 1: things I didn't cover in this series, like how p

943
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:19,879
Speaker 1: p A president Stan Peters hated the idea of woman

944
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:22,680
Speaker 1: cops and non white cops and deliberately made the union

945
00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 1: unwelcoming to them. I felt like focusing on the travails

946
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 1: of police officers, even like obviously I it's weird because

947
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: like I don't think we should have cops if we're

948
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:35,840
Speaker 1: going to have them, Yeah, everyone should have the equal

949
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:38,759
Speaker 1: opportunity to be a cop, I guess, but I didn't

950
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:41,320
Speaker 1: want to focus on that in this episode as opposed

951
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:44,839
Speaker 1: to all of the horrible things that the police did. Um. Yeah,

952
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: but Stan Peters super racist, and there was a whole

953
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:49,839
Speaker 1: fight within the union to make it less racist. That's

954
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 1: a thing that happened. Um So, you know, in the

955
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: sake of fairness, I wanted to denote that. Um yeah.

956
00:51:56,680 --> 00:51:59,319
Speaker 1: I do want to close though, by talking some more

957
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:03,920
Speaker 1: about the p eb's infamous Red Squad. In nineteen seventy four,

958
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: the mayor of Portland assured the city's liberal population that

959
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,600
Speaker 1: the Red Squad had been disbanded. This was a lie,

960
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:11,359
Speaker 1: and they later learned that year that it had just

961
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:14,680
Speaker 1: been renamed the Intelligence Division and was actively keeping tabs

962
00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 1: on suspicious characters at the Oregon a c l U. Um,

963
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 1: gotta keep an eye on them a c l U folks.

964
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:26,560
Speaker 1: In November six, local press published rumors that the Red

965
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:29,280
Speaker 1: Squad had been secretly re established as a new entity

966
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:32,759
Speaker 1: under the name Criminal Intelligence Division, presumably as part of

967
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:35,960
Speaker 1: a renewed red scare of the Reagan years. The police

968
00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 1: denied this, admitting that the Criminal Intelligence Division existed, but

969
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 1: claiming that it does not monitor peaceful or public activities

970
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 1: and does not target groups or individuals. But that's true, right,

971
00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 1: mm hmmm. I'm gonna quote next from a write up

972
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:54,919
Speaker 1: by Michael monk in officers Sewart officially detailed to spy

973
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 1: on radicals and subversives, attended and submitted a confidential report

974
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:00,719
Speaker 1: on a meeting by a coalition of peace, labor, and

975
00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:04,319
Speaker 1: environmental groups to discuss the Civilian Police Review Board. One

976
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:06,880
Speaker 1: of the victims of that surveillance sued Portland for violation

977
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:08,719
Speaker 1: if his civil rights four years later, and one a

978
00:53:08,760 --> 00:53:11,720
Speaker 1: two thousand dollar award in court. Although the court decision

979
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:14,160
Speaker 1: was not reported by The Oregonian, it led to public

980
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:17,000
Speaker 1: hearings on the Red Squad in nineteen by the Metropolitan

981
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:20,120
Speaker 1: Commission on Human Rights. Although denied press coverage even by

982
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:23,440
Speaker 1: the Willamette Week, the Commission grilled Red Squad commander Lieutenant

983
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:26,759
Speaker 1: Larry Findling and Sergeant Norman Sharp. They admitted they used

984
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 1: paid agents, volunteer informers, and other techniques to monitor dissenters,

985
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:33,880
Speaker 1: and agreed that even the reasonable suspicion of something as

986
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:38,200
Speaker 1: trivial as trespass triggers their response. The mc HR proposed

987
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:40,760
Speaker 1: a series of controls on the Red Squad to Mayor Cats.

988
00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:43,880
Speaker 1: Not only did the mayor reject the proposals, she dismantled

989
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:48,400
Speaker 1: the mc HR yeah Portland's got a long tradition to

990
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:54,759
Speaker 1: good Mayor's nothing but quality in Portland Mayor's I was

991
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:57,760
Speaker 1: trying to make a joke earlier about very cats being good,

992
00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad it didn't work out. Nope, it

993
00:54:02,719 --> 00:54:07,680
Speaker 1: turns out leaders are bad. So the Red Squad spent

994
00:54:07,800 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 1: the end of the nineteen nineties violatingly civil rights of dissidents.

995
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: In October of nine, it sent an undercover agent to

996
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:17,400
Speaker 1: spy on protesters opposing Bill Clinton's air war on Iraq.

997
00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 1: In two thousand, on May Day, the Red Squad's black

998
00:54:20,680 --> 00:54:24,160
Speaker 1: van videotaped the faces of demonstrators who hadn't actually broken

999
00:54:24,200 --> 00:54:29,840
Speaker 1: any laws, which is again a crime that's criming. The

1000
00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:32,359
Speaker 1: Red Squad's behavior was egregious enough that they piste off

1001
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:35,840
Speaker 1: Circuit Court Judge Michael Marcus, who ordered the Oregon Police

1002
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 1: to stop tracking citizens who aren't breaking the law. Two

1003
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:41,719
Speaker 1: years later, information surface that they were still doing that.

1004
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 1: It is currently against Oregon law for them to survey

1005
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:46,440
Speaker 1: the lawful demonstrators, But we can only assume the Red

1006
00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:48,520
Speaker 1: Squad is still doing what it always did, what every

1007
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 1: name it operates under now. Anyway, that's the story of

1008
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:57,400
Speaker 1: the Portland Police and the Portland Police Association. Yeah, I

1009
00:54:57,800 --> 00:55:01,040
Speaker 1: will rest easy knowing that I'm definitely not being surveilled

1010
00:55:01,080 --> 00:55:04,000
Speaker 1: by the Red Squad because it doesn't exist anymore and

1011
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:12,560
Speaker 1: they're stopped it. They're just chilling. Cool now. Thanks. I

1012
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:16,200
Speaker 1: appreciate knowing this context that not only are things bad now,

1013
00:55:16,400 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 1: but they always always have been bad, and there was

1014
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:22,959
Speaker 1: plenty of time to fix it and we just didn't. Yeah,

1015
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:25,719
Speaker 1: but you know this inspires me to kick the can

1016
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:27,880
Speaker 1: right down the road to the next generation to people

1017
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:35,160
Speaker 1: I can't even go to the burger barn. That story

1018
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 1: made me just want to go to the burger barn

1019
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:41,600
Speaker 1: and support the burger barn. It doesn't even exist anymore. Yeah,

1020
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:47,960
Speaker 1: that's the real strategy. Tragedy tragedy trategy. I don't know,

1021
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:49,839
Speaker 1: my brain stopped when you said willam It Week. I

1022
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:52,520
Speaker 1: was like what, and I'm yeah, I think that was

1023
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:56,279
Speaker 1: either they changed their name or that was the name

1024
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 1: they used to operate under. I don't know. It's will

1025
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,960
Speaker 1: lam It weak, but oh it is. That was weekly. No,

1026
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:05,160
Speaker 1: it's lambit week. But it was like Williamite Week versus

1027
00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:07,799
Speaker 1: well lamb It Week. It's like a very non Portland pronunciation.

1028
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:10,879
Speaker 1: And I'm like, Robert, where are you from here? Get

1029
00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:15,560
Speaker 1: out of here? Yeah, I'm like the Portland police, I'm

1030
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:20,359
Speaker 1: not a Portland that he came. No, Yeah, but that

1031
00:56:20,600 --> 00:56:23,399
Speaker 1: came up in my head when we were talking about

1032
00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:25,080
Speaker 1: the police the whole time, is like, at what point

1033
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:27,680
Speaker 1: did they stop living in Portland? You know? Yeah, And

1034
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:30,640
Speaker 1: I don't have good information on that, but yeah, it

1035
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:33,839
Speaker 1: is people should know that about to Portland police live

1036
00:56:33,880 --> 00:56:38,920
Speaker 1: outside the city, many of them in another state, Washington. Um,

1037
00:56:38,960 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 1: it's cool stuff. It's cool and good. Yeah, cool and good.

1038
00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:48,960
Speaker 1: So Tuck, you got anything to plug? Yep. Uh. Still,

1039
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:52,360
Speaker 1: much like in the last episode, I still make a

1040
00:56:52,400 --> 00:56:55,439
Speaker 1: podcast about gender. The new season is dropping right around

1041
00:56:55,480 --> 00:57:01,400
Speaker 1: when this episode drops, and we have programs to uh

1042
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 1: provide money for housing, medication, food, really basic things for

1043
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 1: trans people, particularly black, Indigenous trans people and trans people

1044
00:57:09,520 --> 00:57:12,239
Speaker 1: of color. So if anyone wants to contribute to any

1045
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 1: of that, they can go to patreon dot com slash gender.

1046
00:57:17,080 --> 00:57:21,439
Speaker 1: That's patreon dot com slash gender Awesome, patreon dot com

1047
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:24,040
Speaker 1: slash gender. And also we have if you're if you're

1048
00:57:24,440 --> 00:57:27,240
Speaker 1: listen to this and we're like, boy, Portland is and

1049
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:29,520
Speaker 1: it's problem with Cops is more interesting than I thought

1050
00:57:29,520 --> 00:57:32,400
Speaker 1: it was. We have a podcast about that called Uprising,

1051
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 1: and it's about everything that happened in Portland this summer. Um,

1052
00:57:36,200 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 1: please check that out again. Uprising it's a podcast that's

1053
00:57:41,320 --> 00:57:46,400
Speaker 1: more things about Portland that will frustrate you, but there's

1054
00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:49,880
Speaker 1: never enough. Yeah, never enough. A lot of great audio

1055
00:57:49,920 --> 00:57:53,040
Speaker 1: of things exploding though. So if you were like, my

1056
00:57:53,120 --> 00:57:56,000
Speaker 1: headphones haven't triggered me yet, that's what I'm gonna say.

1057
00:57:56,040 --> 00:57:57,760
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that sounds cool to listen to. No,

1058
00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:06,920
Speaker 1: I have PTSD trigger warning the podcast yeah uh podcast

1059
00:58:08,480 --> 00:58:08,520
Speaker 1: m