Portland's Reckoning

Is the city destroying its Police Bureau?

When Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt was growing up, he would occasionally fight with his sister as siblings do. The punishment he hated the most was when his parents ordered him to hug his sister.

Schmidt recounted this story when he was running for DA on a progressive agenda calling for less prosecution and more “restorative justice.”

He probably thought he had something to brag about when he recently extracted a forced apology from a Portland police officer accused of assaulting a protester in the 2020 riots.

Schmidt declined to file charges against most of the 1,000 rioters who were arrested during the 100-plus nights of rebellion, which caused an estimated $23 million worth of damages on behalf of social justice. But he did file charges of fourth-degree misdemeanor assault against Officer Corey Budworth.

The officer was accused of hitting and shoving protester Teri Jacobs with his baton when she and others failed to disperse during a brawl near county government offices where some rioters lit fires and broke windows.

Schmidt used the case to promote restorative justice. His bible on the subject is “Until We Reckon” by Danielle Sered, who directs Common Justice in Brooklyn, N.Y.  Schmidt has talked about this book glowingly.

If you want to understand what motivates Schmidt, read Sered. She insists that restorative justice can be used as an alternative to incarceration for violent felons, even killers.

Officer Budworth, charged with a misdemeanor, was just practice for Schmidt.

His office arranged for Jacobs and Budworth to meet with a facilitator to talk about what had transpired at the riot. If the officer would make a public video apology to Jacobs, the misdemeanor charge would be dropped.

In the run-up to the public releasing of the video, Schmidt’s office issued a “media availability” to announce two new task forces to address organized retail and auto thefts. While his office prepared a separate press release about his restorative justice success story, it was not mentioned in the media availability — perhaps because Schmidt couldn’t get any Portland police officers to stand behind him for a photo op.

Instead, there was a one-paragraph statement attributed to Schmidt regarding Officer Budworth and Jacobs.

“This case represents a turning point. This resolution, through a restorative justice process, is a brave example of what healing can and should look like, and is reflective of the type of healing that is not always achievable solely through a traditional criminal justice response. If a police officer and a protester can come together in dialogue, understanding, and healing, I believe our city can as well.”

Schmidt didn’t mention that Jacobs had sued the city and received $50,000, and her attorney was awarded $11,000.

Schmidt didn’t need to file charges against Budworth to help Jacobs feel “whole,” particularly given the mitigating circumstances of the officer’s alleged “crime” — he was defending himself against violent, out-of-control, cop-hating protesters.

Should he have struck a rioter who had hit the ground? Probably not. It is unrealistic to expect police to behave in a saintly fashion, particularly night after night on a riot line. The rioters knew this. They deliberately taunted and provoked. The victim in this case was not a passive participant.

Jacobs insisted she was a “member of the press” trying to help a friend. Who was this “friend?” Another rioter? Antifa? Anybody — including Antifa rioters — can don a vest or shirt with the word “Press” or “Media” printed on it, or tape the word “Press” on a helmet.

That Jacobs relied on her identity as a “journalist” suggests how weak this case was. It should have made no difference what her presumed occupation was. (If this woman were a news pro, she would have known that covering a riot — or any violent event — is risky. If she thinks her “Press” costume imbued her with legal invincibility, she should visit the D-Day photos of Robert Capa, who didn’t wave his press pass when he hit the beaches of Normandy.)

Anyway, Jacobs got what she wanted. Besides the money, here was Budworth on video:

“During my reflection of the evening, the force used against Ms. Jacobs could have been avoided and I’m sorry, Ms. Jacobs, for unnecessarily hitting you in the head with my baton. … I understand the harm that was caused was not limited to Ms. Jacobs and was felt by others in the community when there was a great distrust of law enforcement.”

After the video apology was released, Jacobs indicated in a interview with Huffington Post that she didn’t really care if Budworth was sincere.

“I guess I just have a lot of anger towards not just him, but all the police…,” she said. “I’m happy with the video. I feel like it was probably not easy for him to make that video.”

When Huffington Post asked her how restorative justice fits into the abolition or defunding of police, Jacobs sounds as if she is speaking from the Antifa playbook:  “Well, if we want to get rid of prisons, then we need other forms of justice.”

As for Budworth, given that Antifa has found a home in Portland, he probably made the right decision not to fight the charge and risk a jury trial. He has a family to support.

Add to all of this the context of police oversight in Portland. For more than two decades the city has had various police oversight groups. Now a new one is in the works that will be bigger than all of them — thanks to former City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty.

During the riotous summer of 2020, Hardesty urged the City Council to place a charter amendment on the ballot to create a new police accountability system. In the heat of the times, Portland’s progressive voters gladly approved it.

But this being Portland, where every community group gets to have a say and there are many meetings and many reports, it takes a special committee to create this new police oversight. For the past couple of years, the 20-member Police Accountability Commission has been designing this new system, which will create an as yet unnamed new police oversight board that will have the power to compel testimony from police and can fire and discipline officers.

Who are the people on the Police Accountability Commission who are designing this system? They sound a lot like Teri Jacobs. They don’t like cops. They don’t understand that law enforcement sometimes calls for FORCE. They want to end qualified immunity for police, so officers can never use force. (Telling a cop he can’t use force is like telling a surgeon he can operate, but he can’t spill blood.)

The new police oversight system will be its own bureaucracy with a budget equal to 5 percent of the Police Bureau’s. It will have its own offices and staff separate and apart from City Hall.

I’ve attended many meetings of the Police Accountability Commission in-person and via Zoom, plus I’ve attended many of its “community forums.” (See “Chaos Within, Chaos Without” about one forum in Northeast Portland.)

Last week, the same day Schmidt was touting Budworth’s forced apology, there was a community forum in Southeast Portland’s Sellwood neighborhood at the Smile Station. (A sign in the window: “No Smoking No Camping.” Somebody apparently believes in rules.)

The turnout in Sellwood was as small — about a dozen — as the one in working class St. John’s last month. And the participants just as suspicious of the police. In St. John’s one woman wanted to know how often, under the current system, complaints against police are substantiated.

A guy who had hugged one of the city staffers and apparently had inside information, answered “only about 3 percent.”

There were knowing nods of heads from the community members. The reaction seemed to suggest that the cops were getting away with stuff — not that maybe they were doing their job and that 3 percent was actually a good result. It was like they wanted the cops to be found not doing their jobs.

Then one woman asked a question I’ve not heard at any of the other meetings: Where is the money going to come from to pay for this new police oversight board and their staff? The budget has to equal 5 percent of the police budget — which last month came out to about $11 million.

The answer: from the city’s General Fund.

“Where is it going to come from?” she asked again, as if she were trying to figure out what would be sacrificed in the budget to pay for this new police oversight.

In Sellwood, I asked about a current and curious expenditure. The Police Accountability Commission is paying $200 per person to certain individuals for advice on what they want to see in police oversight.  The meetings where these special participants are receiving $200 are not public.

Among the groups whose opinions are worth more than others: Equity practitioners; people living with disabilities; people living with mental illness; Neighborhood Association and Community Board Organizations; people between 18 and 25; people who have had interactions with police in the past year; anyone who has witnessed/experienced police misconduct and didn’t report it.

“Your feedback will be treated with the utmost respect and transparency,” says the solicitation from the Police Accountability Commission. “Let’s engage in a constructive conversation that fosters understanding and strengthens our community.”

That is nothing short of a lie.

If you pay some people, and not others, you are buying certain results. The reason the Police Accountability Commission will pay $200 to hear from someone who has had “interactions with the police in the past year” is because criminals, in particular, tend to have interactions with police.

Maybe they’ll hear from Erik A. who responded to Budworth’s apology with a Tweet: “Unless the final step of this restorative justice is that he puts his service weapon in his mouth, nothing has been restored, and there is no justice.”

Note which group is not on the $200 list: crime victims. People who have been robbed, burgled, assaulted. People who have had their lives constricted and diminished by crime — and don’t understand why the cops are afraid to do their jobs.