We've discussed on this blog the Eugene police. I am not a big fan. The police in this town make quick use of the TASER, shoot and kill mentally disturbed teenagers, conduct 4 am military raids of people's houses looking for weed (not there), pepper spray environmental protesters who have broken no law, harass the local Critical Mass bike riders, prevent people filming police actions, the arrogant and assholish police union, and then there were the rapes. Ah yes, the rapes while on the job while repeated complaints against the officers went uninvestigated because they came from, you know, women.
Thee years ago, the citizens of Eugene, sick and tired of it, sick and tired of the police covering up/ignoring their own crimes, and sick and tired of the local district attorney providing the police absolution in secret, passed an ordinance establishing a system of citizen review of all complaints against the police.
The auditor's office "conducts the preliminary investigation of all complaints lodged with the auditor's office or internal affairs to appropriately classify and route the complaint." Mind you, this was a law passed by the people of Eugene. Not the City Council, not imposed by the mayor or the city manager. Citizens of Eugene voted the law in two years ago. So, you can imagine why I'm stoked to see this headline in the today's paper:
Police chief accused of violating auditor lawNow, this being Eugene, it's possible that this is just some random crazy hurling accusations, right? Nope, the chief admits he broke the law. He just doesn't think the law is a good one.
From the R-G:
[Chief] Lehner said the ordinance should be rewritten to include language that sets out a process for dealing with complaints that contain information that could interfere with someone's safety if shared with others.
We don't know many details of the complaint, obviously, but the chief is alleging that he did not pass on a complaint against an officer because someone could have been put in jeopardy if the auditor saw and investigated the complaint. Who this "someone" is is very unstated.
But wait! It's not just the Chief of Police for the City of Eugene who thinks this is a bad law, therefore he can break it at will, the District Attorney apparently agrees with him. Even though the complaint was given double-super-secret status, the chief decided he could share with his buddy the District Attorney because it concerned "potential criminal conduct." You'll be relieved to know that according to the chief, the DA gave his thumbs up to the unlawful withholding of the complaint.
Maybe I'm being over-the-top here. Chief Lehner does assure us that the times he will be breaking this particular law will be rare, but he does, apparently, reserve to himself the right to break whichever laws he feels should be rewritten.
3 comments:
How does citizen review work? Do they publish it to the internet? Put it on a billboard? I'm just trying to get clear on the vector for the safety issue here...
DR, I honestly don't know how the review process works and how public it is. According to the R-G the auditor has been given a heavily redacted version of the complaint, but nothing that could be investigated.
As you can imagine, the part of the story that deals with the complaint and potential harm is very vague. The paper doesn't say the complaint would necessarily be made public, which I assume it would if that was the concern.
Info on the citizen review panel is here.
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