Salem Political Snark

Killing of mentally ill man shows Salem police are incompetent

Angry. Pissed-off. Furious.

That's how I feel after reading stories about how a grand jury found Salem Police were justified in shooting and killing Richard Meyers, a mentally ill homeless man whose "crime" was failing to pull out of a parking lot without stopping.

In Salem, as elsewhere in the country, that will be a death sentence if you have the bad luck of encountering incompetent police officers who are clueless or uncaring about deescalating a situation, choosing instead to shoot first and think afterward.

Maybe you think "incompetent" is too strong a word. Actually, it isn't.

If a grandmother carrying a piece of pie knocked on the window of Meyers' car and said, "Looks like you're having a bad day, honey. Come on out and enjoy this pie," she would have kept Richard Meyer alive, but four Salem police officers couldn't.

Meyers was shot and killed because Salem Police mistook a pellet gun for a real gun. They were never in danger.

But since they ran up to Meyers' car, which was harmlessly stuck in Northgate Park where he'd been living in his vehicle, and where he drove after the attempted traffic stop, wrongly believing they saw a shotgun or rifle, these officers chose to escalate things and kill a man for no good reason.

Officer Chad Treichler
Officer Griffin McDowell 
Officer Jonathan McNichols 
Officer David Baker

Dashcam video taken by the Oregon State Police after Salem Police arrived at the park first, shows officers yelling conflicting orders at Meyers. There's no attempt to calm him down. Even after he'd been shot with what turned out to be fatal wounds, they keep demanding he raise his hands while Meyers says he can't, because he's been shot.

His cries of not being able to breathe made me think of the George Floyd debacle. Instead of expressing concern for Meyers after he'd been shot and immediately calling for an ambulance, the Salem police officers persisted in yelling orders at Meyers. Cruel and heartless.

Zero empathy. Zero caring. Zero concern for the homeless mentally ill man. Just macho behavior from the four police officers above who should be fired or at least severely disciplined, but probably will get a medal from Chief Trevor Womack instead.

The title of today's Statesman Journal story, "Grand jury finds police justified in shooting homeless Salem man," shows how screwed-up our policing and criminal justice system is.

All it takes for a police shooting to be justified is that an officer, or in this case, officers, feel that they were at risk of death or serious bodily harm. The criterion isn't that there actually was such a risk, just that a police officer believed there was.

Not surprisingly, almost all police shootings are considered to be justified under this extremely loose standard. What's especially irksome is that while the Salem police officers who shot and killed Richard Meyers get to have their subjective feelings put front and center before a grand jury, the subjective feelings of Meyers gets little or no legal attention.

The Statesman Journal story says:

A grand jury has ruled three officers were justified in shooting Richard Allan Meyers after officers attempted to stop his car in northeast Salem last week.

Marion County District Attorney officials said Meyers was struck by five bullets police fired. Dashcam video of the shooting provided to the Statesman Journal shows multiple officers firing more than a dozen times at Meyers, who was in his vehicle.

Officers testified Meyers raised what looked like a firearm at officers following an attempted traffic stop and chase in the early hours of Feb. 7.  Police later reported the object Meyers raised was a pellet gun. 

There's so much that Salem Police did wrong here.

Meyers was in his car, hemmed in by police vehicles, in a park that he considered his home, since Meyers was living in his car at the park. There was no danger to other people. There was no danger to police officers if they'd shown even a bit of compassion and common sense.

The officers could have stayed back, speaking to Meyers through a loudspeaker. If they were incapable of talking respectfully and calmly to Meyers, they could have brought in someone more experienced who could do that.

If Meyers refused to get out of his car, they could have told him, "OK. We'll wait until you're ready." Until morning. Until the next night. For as long as it took. How long is too long to wait to save someone's life? How long is too long to wait to deescalate a problem with a mentally ill homeless man?

Answer for the Salem Police Department: any wait is too long.

They rushed toward Meyers' car right away, yelling orders. When an officer wrongly believed he saw a dangerous gun in the car, he fired immediately. Then two other officers joined in, hitting him five times and firing twelve shots.

All for no good reason. Richard Meyers would be alive today if the four Salem police officers hadn't rushed to an erroneous judgement that Meyers was armed and dangerous. Actually, he had a pellet gun and was suicidal. 

If Police Chief Womack doesn't use this tragedy to discipline the four officers and make it clear to the rest of his force that being homeless and mentally ill shouldn't be a death sentence, this will show that the Salem Police Department is just like so many other departments in our country: staffed and run by incompetent, cruel officers imbued with an outmoded "shoot first, think later" mentality.

Womack wants more officers added to his department. Citizens should utter a big loud "No way!" to that idea. At a minimum, the Salem Police Department needs to prove that its officers are competent in handling situations with mentally ill and homeless people. 

A Salem Reporter story adds some details to what reportedly happened, such as:

Dash camera footage from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office shows the scene following the shooting as police repeatedly order Meyers to get out of the car.

A man, presumably Meyers, responds, “I can’t” and at one point says, “I can’t breathe, I’m dying.”

“Meyers appeared injured and in pain, and sometimes even responded to the officers’ commands stating that he was unable to show his hands,” according to the statement. He later got out of his car and fell to the ground, where officers got him “safely in custody” and then began medical aid.

Preliminary toxicology results from Meyers autopsy showed he had methamphetamine in his system, the statement said.

Keep in mind that the Salem Police Department doesn't use officer cameras, so most or much of what the officers say can't be verified. Earlier in the stop Meyers' supposedly said: “(Expletive) you! You’re going to have to shoot me! Shoot me mother (expletive)! Shoot me! Shoot me!”

Well, that's what they did.

Combine incompetent, poorly trained police with a mentally ill homeless man who, according to the Statesman Journal story, had told people about wanting to commit suicide, saying that he wanted law enforcement to shoot him, and you've got a tragedy that will keep on recurring until we reform how policing is done in Salem.

Richard Meyers would still be alive in most of the world, especially advanced countries with much less militaristic approaches to policing.

The United States has so many police shootings/killings because we've been willing to allow police to behave like wanna-be combat soldiers who view their fellow citizens suspected of a crime as enemies deserving of harsh treatment rather than as fellow human beings who deserve the same "protect and serve" as everybody else.

The Salem Reporter had an excellent story about Richard Meyers, "Man who died after confrontation with Salem police was homeless, had lifelong mental illness, family says." It's so tragic that his life was cut short by such a needless killing at the hands of Salem police.

Shameful secrecy surrounds killing of man by Salem police

The more I learn about last Monday's killing of a man by three Salem police officers who fired their weapons after the man drove into Northgate Park following an attempted traffic stop, the angrier I get.

I'm angry that a homeless man with mental health problems is dead. I'm angry that the Salem Police Department won't say why the officers shot Richard Meyers or if he was armed. I'm angry that the Oregon State Police, which is investigating the killing, are using the grand jury system as an excuse to not provide any information about how and why Meyers died.

Let's look at my reasons for being angry.

Our local news sources, the Statesman Journal and Salem Reporter, are pretty much asleep at the journalistic wheel when it comes to the death of Richard Meyers. The Statesman had one story, basically a rehash of a Salem Police Department news release. Salem Reporter has been completely silent.

Fortunately, some Portland news outlets have been on the job.

KOIN News has reported that the Oregon State Police asked that a man who lives in the area delete a video from his surveillance camera that showed Meyers' car in the park, but not the shooting, after he gave a copy of the video to OSP. The story says about the man:

He didn’t say why they wanted him to delete the footage but guessed it was because OSP didn’t want it shared with anyone while they investigate.

Or, a less charitable view is that OSP doesn't want the public to see what happened.

Screenshot from Fox 12 video

Fox 12 News has reported that according to the sister of Richard Meyers, Rachel Coble, he was homeless and mentally ill, living in his car at Northgate Park. So when he drove into the park after failing to comply with a traffic stop, Meyers was going home. 

Further, Meyers was known to police.

A Salem woman said she believes her brother was having a mental health crisis when he was shot and killed by Salem Police early Monday morning in a park.

Rachel Coble said her brother, Richard Allen Meyers, struggled with mental illness and addiction for much of his life and was homeless at the time of the shooting.

...OSP said three Salem officers fired their guns, hitting Meyers and his dog that was inside his car.

Meyers died in the hospital and the dog was later euthanized.

Coble said her brother had been staying at the park and sleeping in his car in the parking lot.

The details surrounding the shooting are still unclear and investigators have not said why police attempted to pull Meyers over, or what exactly led up to the shooting.

OSP has not said whether Meyers had a weapon at the time of the shooting.

It’s also not clear if Meyers was inside the car when he was shot or outside on the grass.

Coble told FOX 12 that her brother was no stranger to law enforcement.

“Salem PD has had contact with my brother on multiple occasions and they knew he was in crisis, and they knew he was homeless,” Coble said.

"Investigators have not said... OSP has not said... It's also not clear." So much for the public transparency that the Salem Police Department vowed to achieve in a recently-released strategic plan. 

A news release issued by the Salem Police Department on the day of the shooting says, unhelpfully:

No further information will be released by Salem Police.  All future media releases will be provided by the Oregon State Police.  The next release is currently anticipated midday when additional information will be provided by the Oregon State Police. This timeline is subject to change based on the investigation. 

OK. So I signed up for Oregon State Police news releases, since that's where Salem Police said to look for more information about the killing of Richard Meyers.

An OSP news release, also on the day of the shooting, contained the names of the four Salem police officers involved in the killing, but otherwise no pertinent additional information about what happened. The OSP news release ends with:

Standard next steps in this type of investigation include: the Oregon State Medical Examiner to determine cause and manner of death, additional witness (if any) interviews, evidence being analyzed and tested, and a Marion County Grand Jury review of the incident.

No further information will be released prior to the Grand Jury’s consideration to protect their objective review of the incident. Any future media release will be provided by the Marion County District Attorney’s Office. Due to the Oregon Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys, which limits the type of information lawyers can release prior to anticipated judicial proceedings, additional information will only be released as appropriate after the conclusion of the Grand Jury proceeding.

So the Salem Police Department says to ask the Oregon State Police for information about the killing of Meyers. But the Oregon State Police says no further information will be released before a Grand Jury's consideration of the case, and maybe even not after the Grand Jury proceeding. 

Great job, law enforcement agencies. You're constructed an impenetrable Blue Wall of Silence around the killing of a homeless mentally ill man.

If this sort of thing doesn't sound familiar, you haven't been paying attention to the many instances of police killings around the country in recent years. Also, in not-so-recent years.

After George Floyd's murder, Black Lives Matter and similar efforts cast light on how unjustified police killings often are swept under the rug rather than investigated in a neutral fact-based fashion. In many cases, our screwy Grand Jury system is at fault.

A bit of Googling revealed lots of criticism of how Grand Juries are used to allow police officers to get away with unjustified killings. You can check out some of what I found here, here, here, here, here, and here. 

Basically, Grand Juries can be flawed when killings by police officers occur because unlike regular juries, only one side of a case is presented -- the prosecution's case. So a District Attorney can control what information a Grand Jury sees and what potential charges are considered. The proceedings usually are kept secret, so the public doesn't know if a reasonable decision was reached by a Grand Jury. 

Here's an excerpt from a New York Times story, "Grand Jury System, With Exceptions, Favors the Police in Fatalities."

The extraordinary steps taken in North Carolina — along with the recent grand jury decisions to bring no charges against white police officers who killed unarmed black men in New York and Missouri — illustrate how the justice system can favor the police, often shielding them from murder or serious manslaughter charges.

The balance tips toward the police from the start: In most felony cases, an arrest is made and a grand jury indictment follows within a prescribed period of time. But in police fatality cases, prosecutors generally use special grand juries sitting for lengthy periods to investigate and gather evidence before determining if an arrest and indictment are warranted.

Another hurdle is the law itself. Most states give officers wide discretion to use whatever force they reasonably believe is necessary to make an arrest or to protect themselves, a standard that hinges on the officer’s perceptions of danger during the encounter, legal scholars and criminologists say.

“The whole process is really reluctant to criminalize police behavior,” said Eugene O’Donnell, a former prosecutor who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. “The grand jurors are, the jurors are, the judges are, the appellate courts are.”

The sad thing in the screwy way police killings are handled is that there's a large gray zone between the extremes of Killing Richard Meyers was totally justified; couldn't have been handled any better, and Police officers were guilty of negligent homicide or manslaughter in the killing of Richard Meyers.

When all the information about Meyers' killing isn't shared with the public in a timely manner, there's no opportunity for a community discussion about how the Salem Police Department handled the Meyers incident, or a broader discussion of how police respond to homeless people with mental health problems.

Salem police not being transparent about recent killing by officers

Early Monday morning, officers with the Salem Police Department shot and killed a man who drove into Northgate Park after police attempted a traffic stop. 

I'm bothered that the Salem Police Department isn't saying what led to the shooting, or if the man was armed. An OPB story describes what happened. It's unclear what caused the death of the man's dog.

Salem police officers fatally shot a man Monday during what officers called a “confrontation.”

The shooting happened at Northgate Park, and began as a traffic stop. A dog that was with the man was injured in the shooting, and later euthanized.

According to Oregon State Police, which is the agency investigating the shooting, Salem Police officer Griffin McDowell attempted a traffic stop on a gold Mercedes in northeast Salem around 12:37 a.m. Instead of pulling over, police said, the driver of the car fled from the officer in the vehicle.

The person driving, identified as 40-year-old Richard Allan Meyers, ultimately drove into the park on Northgate Avenue. Meyers entered the northeast parking lot and then drove onto the northern field of the park.

Additional Salem officers responded, and they stopped the Mercedes in the field. Police did not describe the shooting in detail, but said a confrontation ensued. It was at that point, according to Oregon State Police, that three Salem officers fired their department-issued firearms.

Police did not say if Meyers was armed, or what had led to the shooting.

Emergency medical staff transported Meyers to Salem Hospital where he later died.

A pitbull that was in Meyers’ vehicle was injured and transported to a veterinary clinic, but Meyers’ family decided to put the dog down.

Four officers — Chad Treichler, Griffin McDowell, Jonathan McNichols and David Baker — were placed on administrative leave for either firing their weapon or being on scene during the shooting.

It shouldn't take long for Salem police to issue a statement about central facts such as why the man was being pulled over, whether he was armed, and what led to the killing of the man. So why the delay?

Also, KOIN News is reporting that a person who lives nearby said that investigators asked him to delete a recording made by his security camera that showed the car, but not the shooting. Maybe there is a good explanation for why this was done, but it adds to the suspicion of a coverup.

Carl, a homeowner in the area who only wanted his first name used, told KOIN 6 News his surveillance camera captured video of the car but not the shooting.

“You can see the car coming in from that side and then spinning around and all these cops just swarmed on in, and that’s probalby about when the gunshots were heard,” Carl said. “My cameras don’t have mics on them so you don’t even hear the gunshots.”

Carl also said he gave a copy of the surveillance video to the Oregon State Police. Investigators “told me to” delete that surveillance footage. He didn’t say why they wanted him to delete the footage but guessed it was because OSP didn’t want it shared with anyone while they investigate.

KOIN 6 News asked both Salem PD and OSP why someone would be told to delete footage after it’s shared with investigators and if that is standard protocol. Neither agency has yet responded with a comment.

Yesterday I downloaded a copy of the recently-completed Strategic Plan for the Salem Police Department. Scrolling through it, I'd noticed several references to transparency. Here's one of them, from page 11 of the PDF file.
Download Salem-police-2022-2024-strategic-plan

Words are cheap.

I'll believe the Salem Police Department really cares about transparency, information-sharing, and communication when the department truly shows a commitment to "timely and accurate sharing of information." 

Whenever police officers kill someone, especially after a traffic stop, people in the community want answers to basic questions. How was the person killed? Was the killing necessary? Did the person present an imminent danger to the officers or others? Was the person armed with a gun?

Suspicions arise when it takes a long time to get answers to simple questions. It sure seems that when a person killed was armed, that information is released much more quickly by police departments than when the person wasn't armed.

There's also a problem when officers involved with a killing have an opportunity to get their story straight by communicating with each other. Hopefully the Salem Police Department isn't allowing this to happen.

Each of the involved officers should have zero contact with each other until the investigation into the killing by the Oregon State Police is completed. 

Salem Police Department involved with controversial PowerPoint slide

Recently a highly controversial slide was found at the end of a PowerPoint presentation used to train police officers in crowd control methods.

A January 14 Willamette Week story, "Portland Police Included 'Prayer of the Alt Knight' Meme in Protest Training Presentation," contains an image of the slide, along with what it said, since the image is kind of hard to read.

“And the Lord said...
Woe be unto you, dirty hippy;
For thou stinketh of patchouli and BO;
For thou talk of Marx, yet know him not;
For thous hast bills, yet have not paid;
For thou hast dreadlocks and white skin.
And so I shall send among you,
My humble servants with hat, and with bat;
That they may christen your heads with hickory,
And anoint your faces with pepper spray.
And once thou hast been cuffed and stuffed;
Once thou has been stitched and bandaged;
Perhaps thou shall learn,
I’m tired of your shit.
Amen.”

Nasty stuff. This meme is connected with the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights (FOAK), a group described in some detail by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Excerpt:

Formed as the “tactical defense arm” of the Proud Boys, the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights (FOAK) has become an accelerant for violence at right-wing rallies.

The group’s founder, repeat-felon Kyle Chapman, organized FOAK after a melee with counter-protestors in Berkeley, California, to “protect and defend our right-wing brethren” through “street activism, preparation, defense and confrontation.” The Proud Boys argue that FOAK is the next “logical step” in the growth of their “pro-Western” movement.

At first it was believed the PowerPoint presentation that included the slide was just part of Portland Police Bureau training.

But yesterday a follow-up Willamette Week story came out, "Controversial Protest PowerPoint May Have Been Presented During Training by Four Oregon Law Enforcement Agencies." 

A recent deposition of a commander of the Portland Police Bureau’s now-dissolved Rapid Response Team suggests that the controversial PowerPoint presentation released by city officials last week may have been presented during training jointly taught by four Oregon law enforcement agencies: PPB, the Oregon State Police, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and the Salem Police Department.

...The additional law enforcement agencies’ potential involvement or access to the training presentation is significant in part because Oregon State Police and Multnomah County Sheriff’s deputies assisted PPB during several protests in the summer of 2020.

OSP, MCSO and SPD could not be reached immediately for comment.

Well, the Salem Police Department definitely needs to comment on whether anyone from the department was involved in training presentations that included the disgusting slide. 

If they were, the next question should be, "What, if anything, did that person, or people, do after viewing the slide?" Did they make an effort to have it removed? Or did they think it was just fine, being a reflection of the hard-nosed attitude police officers should have toward dirty hippies and other protesters?

Those sorts of questions need to be asked and answered, because an Oregonian story is titled "Feds furious that Portland police, city kept them in dark about training slide advocating violence against protesters." 

Lawyers from the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday told Portland’s police chief and city attorney to hand over all “original, unredacted” training materials for the Rapid Response Team, furious that the city didn’t make them aware months ago of a team training presentation that included a derogatory slide advocating violence against protesters.

The letter comes just days after the city released a PowerPoint training slide showing a “Prayer of the Alt Knight” -- a meme that uses biblical terms to urge the beating and pepper-spraying of demonstrators derided as “dirty” hippies, and advocates leaving them “cuffed and stuffed” and “stitched and bandaged” to teach them a lesson.

The attorneys wrote that the city of Portland should have reported the crowd-control team’s training presentation to the Justice Department when it was developed, as required by the city’s eight-year-old use-of-force settlement with the federal agency.

Justice Department attorneys Jared D. Hager and R. Jonas Geissler said they were told of the inappropriate material for the first time Thursday night and that the city shared the slideshow with them only hours before the mayor’s office released it to the media Friday afternoon.

They described the training slides -- not just the offensive slide that was inserted at the end -- as having “varying degrees of offensive content, incorrect guidance and false or misleading information.”

So this is a bigger deal than just the single offensive slide.

It appears likely that the Salem Police Department has been involved in crowd control training that, in the words of the Justice Department attorneys, gave incorrect guidance and contained false or misleading information. 

At least, that's how it looks given what is known now. Hopefully Salem Police Chief Trevor Womack will be issuing a statement soon about whether any of his officers used the flawed PowerPoint presentation in training. 

If they did, why didn't those training officers recognize that the presentation didn't represent best practices for crowd control at protests?

Councilor Nordyke makes progress on mobile crisis unit

Thanks to Councilor Vanessa Nordyke, last night the Salem City Council approved a motion to have city staff prepare a report about a mobile crisis unit pilot project.

She was happy in a Facebook post. And humble, because the staff report that was approved was written by her.

Here's Nordyke's approved proposal.

The pilot project would be a civilian-led mobile crisis unit similar to CAHOOTS in Eugene to respond to calls for service involving persons experiencing homelessness or behavioral health crisis and would likely be for one year.

Staff is directed to consult with CAHOOTS of Eugene regarding what this pilot project could look like in our city.

Specifics to include in the staff report:

•  Identify potential community partners (such as local non-profits, medical service providers, behavior health providers, local governmental entities)

•  Identify potential funding sources (such as the $10.5 million grant we recently received from the state of Oregon)

•  Identify estimated cost of pilot project (depending type of staff chosen and other factors)

•  Identify potential service providers

•   Identify who could hire and train mobile crisis unit personnel (The city? A local nonprofit? Someone else?)

•   Identify potential types of staff (Peer support specialist, social worker, EMT, QMHP, etc.

•   Identify how a civilian-led mobile crisis unit would fit alongside existing public safety programs (such as SPD BHU, Marion County LEAD, etc)

In making this motion, I am specifically directing staff to consult with CAHOOTS of Eugene what this pilot project could look like in our city.

I understand that depending on the type of staff hired, the cost of the pilot project may vary considerably. So in creating the staff report, my expectation is that staff will propose multiple scenarios with their own price tag.  For example, I would expect having peer support specialist would be a lot cheaper than having an EMT or a registered nurse on the team.

The United Way submitted a proposal for a pilot project in the budget committee meetings earlier this year. That document estimated the pilot project costing $540,000. The United Way’s proposal may be an appropriate starting point for this proposal.

As I noted in a previous post about the mobile crisis unit pilot project, so far a stumbling block has been the decidedly lukewarm (bordering on cold) response of Police Chief Trevor Womack to this idea, which probably explains why even though the project is part of the City of Salem budget, no progress has made on it until now.

Jim Scheppke spoke about this in a public comment he submitted on Nordyke's motion.

Dear Mayor and City Council

I support the motion for a staff report on a mobile crisis unit pilot project because this will hopefully get this issue off the back burner and back on to the front burner.

I thought when the Budget Committee and the Council voted last year to budget funds in the 2021-22 budget for a mobile crisis unit that the policy was set to pursue this. Since that time nothing has happened. Grant funds that could have been added to City funds have been left on the table. Our police chief has spoken openly in the Salem Statesman Journal about his opposition to mobile response units so I can only take from that that the policy that was adopted by the appropriate policy-makers is being subverted by City staff. That’s not right.

Civilian mobile crisis units are the proven solution to serving people in crisis. They are less expensive and more effective. People in crisis don’t need to be confronted by officers with tasers and guns. We need to learn from the death of Natzeryt Viertel just last year at the hands of the police. How might that have ended differently with trained mental health specialists responding to the call about a suicidal young man? Mr. Viertel might be alive today.

Thanks to Councilor Nordyke for her leadership on this issue and for her persistence in attempting to do the right thing for Salem.

Jim Scheppke, Ward 2

Yes, this is indeed the right thing to do. I looked through some of the other public comments, which all seemed to be in support of the Nordyke motion. They can be read via attachments to the staff report. These caught my eye.

I would like to comment to the Council that I want Salem to have a CAHOOTS-style program. Many times people call 911 because there's no other realistic option to get a rapid response to a crisis... but they don't necessarily want an aggressive man with a gun to come in and start yelling and threatening people with arrest. They can't necessarily afford an ambulance ride or feel like being locked in a psych ward will be beneficial. Given the option, they might have a strong preference between police, fire, ambulance and mental crisis response: they're the ones observing the situation, the dispatcher only has the caller's words to go on.

We have police because the Executive Branch needs a way to physically enforce laws -- usually felonies that are actually arrest-worthy, since traffic, parking, health, labor and other civil penalties are rarely worth a gun on your hip -- by detaining and referring people to prosecution. The idea that police are also dogcatchers and domestic abuse prevention and a force for serving and protecting is mostly PR, and distracts from the very real work of finding and detaining murderers and thieves, or responding to active shootings.

Just as we have firefighters for fire emergencies, ambulances for medical emergencies, and National Guard or FEMA for widespread environmental emergencies, we need mental/social crisis responders who can respond to psychological or small-scale environmental emergencies.

I once watched a crying young child forcibly chased down and ripped from his mother's arms by multiple armed men because Family Court decided that his absentee father was a better provider, despite allegations of abuse. Were guns and physical violence really the best way to accomplish that? It scarred me just seeing it happen, let alone if I were that child being ripped from my only loving parent by the armed government. It seems to me a better system is possible and necessary. The presence of a gun is in itself an escalation of a situation, even if police are supposedly trained in de-escalation.

Some emergencies need response in the form of water, others in the form of morphine, or Humvees, or sometimes even guns. The giant missing gap in our system is emergencies that need response in the form of a sympathetic ear and a safe place to stay. It used to be that the town pastor would fill such roles, but with large populations a more formal, coordinated system is needed. Police can try to fill this gap, but it's not actually their core mission, and many police chiefs nationwide have said that their departments are overworked, filling in too many roles outside their training. We wouldn't dream of using the National Guard as long- term hospital staff, so why are we as a society so eager to use police as social workers? A separate, independent, care-oriented department should be on 911 speed dial so that the right response is possible, separate from the Police Chief's responsibility to enforcing laws and prosecuting crim

Will Bradley, District 1

------------------------------------------------------------

I am writing in support of the motion for a staff report on a mobile crisis unit pilot project. I hope that the outcome of the staff report will result in the creation of a mobile crisis unit support team, similar to Cahoots in Eugene, Oregon.

I lived in Eugene for over 30 years, and saw the good that the Cahoots team accomplished, time and time again. Their teams of medical and behavioral professionals were able to attend to the needs of clients in the community, freeing the Eugene Police Department to deal with other more critical and violent issues. The Cahoots teams had a solid reputation in Eugene, and city officials, as well as law enforcement officials, were gratified that the Cahoots team was on call when needed, year in and year out. Money was saved as were lives.

I don't think you will be disappointed in exploring this issue further. Thank you for considering this agenda item.

Claudia Carmichael

Councilor Nordyke pushing hard for mobile crisis unit

I'm tempted to call this a cage fight between Vanessa Nordyke, Salem City Councilor, and Trevor Womack, Salem Police Chief, over the establishment of a civilian-run mobile crisis unit.

Oops. Looks like I gave in to that temptation. Nordyke looks sweet and gentle. But my advice to Womack is to throw in the towel now before you get thrashed by her.

A few days ago Nordyke announced in a Facebook post that she wants City of Salem staff to prepare a report on the feasibility of a mobile crisis unit.

Note the language: "civilian-led mobile crisis unit." Those are fighting words for Womack, who largely dismissed that notion in a December 27 Statesman Journal story about Womack's first year as police chief.

How do you see the Police Department approaching calls about community members in mental health crisis and individuals who are homeless?

I do think there is room on this continuum for a non-law enforcement response. I don't think it can come at the expense of law enforcement because there's also room for a national best practice, which already exists here: our Mobile Crisis Response Team, where we have a law enforcement officer partnered with a qualified mental health professional. We handle hundreds of calls this way successfully. 

When we talk about removing law enforcement from the situation, that removes a critical component for safety. You never want to insert a non-sworn professional staff, like a mental health provider or a medic, into a situation where there may be somebody who is a physical threat.

Across all of that, also making sure that everybody is trained with the right skills and equipment abilities to do those roles effectively. So, crisis intervention training is one thing I'm proud of, too. We've been committed to providing additional CIT training to all of our officers.

What I am concerned about is, are there other gaps in the system? So let's say that the team existed right now and it consisted of a paramedic or a medic and a social worker. There wouldn't be a lot of calls that they would relieve from police because we already screen calls; we don't necessarily go to calls where that model would respond to because we don't have time to go to those calls, anyway.  

Let's say they go and there's a person right out here that's obviously in crisis that needs some help. What are the resources I could connect them with? There are gaps in the system. Let's not create the cart before the horse. Let's make sure that if there is a team like that, that there are actually resources that they can use to improve the situation.

My answers to these questions are going to change over time as the gaps are filled. But what's optimistic is we did open some more hotel bed space. We have a navigation center the city is going to open. So we're starting to invest and fill in these gaps that are out there. And then maybe at that point, a non-law enforcement response makes more sense.

Jim Scheppke wrote a Facebook comment about what Womack said which points out that Womack is choosing to ignore a clear City Council priority -- which Nordyke is now calling him out on.

Another interesting wrinkle is that Trevor Womack has endorsed for re-election the incumbent Marion County District Attorney, Paige Clarkson, while Vanessa Nordyke applauded the effort of Spencer Todd, who is running against Clarkson, to form a mobile crisis unit.

Here's a link to the Statesman Journal opinion piece Nordyke referenced: "Look to CAHOOTS for inspiration for nonviolent emergencies."

My bet is that Nordyke will succeed with her motion at the January 10 City Council meeting, since a mobile crisis unit appears to have the support of a majority of councilors. Then it will be up to Chief Womack to decide whether to get on board the mobile crisis unit train.

I think he'd be wise to support that proposal, given that it seems to be gathering a full head of steam.

Unwise: Salem Mayor wants 60 more police officers

Of all the things that Salem needs, 60 more police officers should be way down on the priority list.

But I've been told that this is what Mayor Chuck Bennett is calling for, apparently during a recent City Council work session about the 2022 Policy Agenda.

Adding 60 officers to the force is a big deal that needs to be justified with extremely solid data and reasoning, not just because the Mayor or Chief Womack likes the idea. 

Here's a thoughtful analysis of this seemingly unwise notion that someone sent to me.

I would like to suggest that you snark on Mayor Bennett for his ridiculous support for hiring 60 more Salem Police Department officers when Salem already employs more police department employees than any other major city (over 100,000) in Oregon. Here is a spreadsheet with the latest data for 2020 from the FBI that was just released about a month ago:

Download 2020 FBI Data on Police Dept. Staffing

We do have fewer officers than other cities at 1.07 per 1,000, but that is really pretty close to the average of 1.17. If we hired 60 more that would shoot up to 1.42 which would put us at the top in that category, and far above the average.

We are not experiencing a “crime wave” in Salem (as the Mayor implied) as may be the case in other cities like Portland. We have had six murders so far this year which is about average. Here is a spreadsheet that shows some crime data through September, compared to the same period last year.

Download SPD Crime Offenses

“Crimes against persons” (mostly assaults — homeless people?) is up 30%, but property crimes are down 33% and “crimes against society” like drug offenses, DUI, and traffic violations are down 51% (thanks largely to Measure 110).

Overall, I would say the Salem Police Department workload is going down. Not up.

In Mayor Bennett’s remarks he compares the Salem Police Department to the police department in Dayton, Ohio for some strange reason. He says that they have 500 officers compared to our 200 and they are a smaller city.

I looked it up and in 2019 Dayton reported 363 officers to the FBI, not 500, so the Mayor is wrong. Their population in 2019 in the FBI data is 140,427, so the Mayor was right about that.

But I also see in 2020 FBI data that their violent crime rate is more than twice that of Salem! They reported 1,366 violent crime incidents to the FBI for 2020 vs. only 623 for Salem. So they need more cops.

This shows that crime does not correlate with population as people like to assume. Salem’s crime was significantly higher 20 years ago (true of nearly all cities) when our population was much lower. So the fact that our population is growing does not necessarily mean we need more police.

Finally, the Mayor stated that we need more police to achieve “Vision Zero” traffic fatalities which Councilor Stapleton had brought up before the Mayor’s remarks. That’s bogus.

Twentieth-century traffic enforcement with police cars staking out and chasing violators in cities has been thoroughly discredited. Some cities are starting to move away from this altogether:

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/cities-consider-taking-police-out-of-traffic-stops/600912/

Twenty-first-century traffic enforcement can be handled more cheaply and effectively with speed cameras and red light cameras. And Vision Zero is mostly about redesigning streets for lower speeds, not hiring more police. Portland has a long list of Vision Zero strategies that they are pursuing and none of them involve more police.

https://www.portland.gov/transportation/vision-zero/making-streets-safe?fbclid=IwAR2o17ygmPC_RyXp4gAEE8borH4Rx4fu8qf6bNDDR4PE4FDSp-5WWIUVq9A

Hiring 60 more officers would probably require adding at least a couple million more to the $52 million Salem Police Department budget, already about 1/3 of the entire General Fund.

The City Council needs to consider the “opportunity cost” of doing this — continued underfunding of our parks, library, city planning, code enforcement, etc. I have come to the conclusion that our new Police Chief may be a pretty brazen empire builder — much more so than his predecessor.

He already has a Cadillac police department and he wants more.

Crisis response team for Salem showing some life

Good news!

City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke sent me a message today about state grant money being available for a Salem mental health crisis response team similar to Eugene's highly successful CAHOOTS program. 

This comes after the crisis response effort Nordyke has been pushing for met with a setback in September, when the Marion County Board of Commissioners balked at allowing Salem to use state funds that went to counties for crisis stabilization services.

As you can read below, $10.5 million in state grant money is coming directly to Salem, so Nordyke hopes a chunk of that can be used for a crisis response team pilot project.

Hi Brian, hope you are doing well. We have a work session on the city's strategic priorities for next year on Monday. Wanted you to be aware of this.

 

It looks like the $10.5 million in state grant money that City Council just agreed to accept at our November 8 council meeting can be used for operating costs for “crisis response.”

 

Here's the fine print from the grant agreement:

 

"Recipient shall use the Grant for the purpose of a site acquisition, preparation, and temporary or permanent shelter purchase. The funds will also be used for operating costs for potential shelter sites, unsheltered site cleanup, sobering center, or crisis response." (Emphasis added.)

 

I brought up this provision in the grant agreement near the end of the last City Council meeting on November 8, after Council voted to accept the grant. The previous cost estimate we received from United Way for a mobile crisis unit was around $540,000, if memory serves.

 

The way I read this grant agreement provision is that the City can use a portion of the $10.5 million to fund a mobile crisis unit pilot project, and still have almost $10 million dollars to invest in other projects to reduce homelessness.

 

Council will consider its strategic priorities for the upcoming budgetary year FY 2022-2023 at the upcoming City Council work session on November 15. I will be urging the Council to keep a mobile crisis unit on the list of priorities for the coming year.

https://salem.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=9937966&GUID=ECB9A56F-0DD1-4B20-8BE7-E01D116DA9F4 

 

Vanessa Nordyke

Salem City Council, Ward 7

City phone: (971) 707-3732

 

Hopefully a non-police program like this is in Salem's future

We need to keep Salem from having Portland's problems

I used to have Portland envy.

Not so much that I wanted to move there -- I've had a Salem address since 1977 -- but Portland seemed like the cool kid to our north, while Salem was decidedly geeky.

Now, though, I'll happily take Salem, even if termed So-Lame, over Portland's increasing dysfunction. 

Every night my wife and I watch the Portland late night news on KGW. I used to fast forward through a couple of minutes of crime news, because I don't like the "If it bleeds, it leads" sort of journalism. 

Throughout 2021, and especially recently, shootings, vandalism, business break-ins, and such have been consuming much more of the 11 pm Portland news.

On September 23 the Oregonian reported seven shootings in one day, with 837 shootings through August. Today KATU says the Portland Police Bureau announced there have been 1,000 shootings in 2021.

Salem has occasional shootings, but nothing like Portland. As of October 10, an Oregonian story, "Under the Gun," spoke of the very high number of murders in Portland this year: 69.

The survival rules posted by gang outreach worker Lionel Irving Jr. on Facebook starkly spell out the danger for people most at risk of dying in Portland’s daunting surge of gun violence this year:

1. Don’t sit in cars kicking it. 2. Get EVERYTHING you need and get to your destination. 3. Keep your eyes and ears open! Watch your surroundings instead of running your mouth. 4. Know who you’re hanging with and what they’re up to. 5. Google numbers, order your food ahead of time, don’t sit in local spots.

Irving’s advice reflects a pervasive unease that has settled over Portland this year as the city continues on a pace to surpass the most violent year in its modern history when 70 people were killed in 1987. So far this year, 69 people have died.

The victims since January range from an infant who allegedly died at the hands of his father to a 77-year-old woman killed in a hit-and-run rampage.

But a stunning pattern of sudden, sometimes indiscriminate shootings sets this wave apart. Guns have accounted for three-quarters of the homicides, according to an analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Fatal shootings in almost all sections of the city have followed fistfights, social media disputes and drug deals gone bad. People sitting in cars, relaxing after work with friends in a bar, attending house parties or walking in a park have been shot dead.

Forensic analysis of spent bullet casings from crime scenes reveals connections between many of the shootings, pointing to gangs and retaliation as frequent drivers of the gun violence, investigators say.

The calls in Portland to "defund the police" after George Floyd's murder in 2020 now seem quaint, if not dangerously outmoded.

Certainly there's reason to question how wisely the Portland Police Bureau is being managed, but it sure seems like more officers are needed, not fewer, given the rise in violent crime and the inability of the bureau to stop vandalism of businesses both in downtown and elsewhere.

Then there's Portland's out-of-control homeless problem. Recently several people have told me about how shocking it is to see miles upon miles of homeless campers along the freeways in the Portland area. 

One person told me that freeway signs now have graffiti. They have a relative who lives in SE Portland. Businesses are regularly vandalized there. The relative is afraid to go to downtown Portland. 

A July 2021 opinion piece describes how bad the situation is. 

Portland’s housing crisis is now in its sixth year. If it was a child, it would be entering first grade this Fall. With kids, the first six years are marked by enormous growth and advancement. With homelessness, these last six year have seen enormous growth but in the wrong direction.

The growing crisis is getting on the nerves of local leaders. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler says the homelessness crisis has hurt the city’s “brand.” In a recent Metro Council meeting, Councilor Mary Nolan suggested the crisis is a “visibility problem.” In some ways they are correct. But, in others, they are way off base.

The crisis has become unavoidable for residents as well. Wheeler and local officials are correct that homeless camps, cars, and RVs are a blight that harms the region’s reputation. Nearly every neighborhood in Portland has a homeless camp. Most residents are within a five-minute walk of one. It’s more than just the camps and campers, there’s the garbage, the piles of bicycles, and the burnt out hulks of shopping carts. Paraphrasing Mayor Wheeler and Council Nolan, it’s ugly.

But, it’s way more than just ugly. It’s a crisis of public health and safety. And it ought to be treated as such

In 2019, the most recent year for which data is available, 113 people in Multnomah County had died homeless. Many of those deaths could have been prevented if our region didn’t have such a hands off approach. 

Multnomah County’s latest count of the homeless population found that two-thirds have some combination of substance use disorder or mental health issues. Unfortunately, these are the people who are most resistant to treatment. Drug users want to use drugs. Many of those with mental illness either can’t get the necessary treatment or don’t want it. Shoveling hundreds of millions of dollars toward so-called wraparound services will do nothing if the people who need them don’t use them.

So far Salem's crime and homeless problems aren't nearly as severe as Portland's. Hopefully we can learn from the mistakes Portland has made. 

There's plenty of room for discussing, or arguing, about what those mistakes are.

My view is that Portland has been hampered by an excessive liberal tolerance of destructive street protests. At first those protests garnered a lot of sympathy in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

But as the months wore on in the summer and fall of 2020, anarchists and other trouble-makers were allowed to engage in both property damage and attacks on police via fireworks, rocks, and other projectiles.

This contributed to a decline in police officer morale. I'm not saying that the Portland Police Bureau didn't deserve some criticism for how they handled the protests, just that the bureau found itself caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Don't use force with protesters, but protect us from all the shootings and property damage.

Likewise, Mayor Wheeler and other city officials have been unduly passive as homeless camps spread all around Portland. It's easy to imagine that as word got out that Portland was allowing the homeless to do pretty much whatever they wanted, this could have led to more homeless people coming to the area.

One acquaintance told me that he thought Oregon's decriminalization of drugs in November 2020 could have caused our state to be viewed as a welcoming place by homeless people with drug problems. That's just conjecture, of course.

The good news for us here in Salem is that the Police Department seems better equipped to deal with  our lesser crime problem, and the City Council is doing the right thing in setting up tiny home managed homeless camps in each of Salem's eight wards.

That won't be enough to do anything other than put a small dent in our homeless population, but it's a step in the right direction -- as was banning camping in city parks following a failed experiment that allowed this.

Salem Police Department survey has problems, like the department

The Salem Police Department wants people to take a survey about the strategic plan being developed to guide how the department operates in coming years.

I completed the survey today. And I could have completed it over and over, for as long as I wanted, because the survey allows people to respond more than once to it.

This alone makes the value of the survey dubious. 

Letting people fill out the survey multiple times makes it vulnerable to vote manipulation by vested interests -- either pro-police or anti-police -- who want to skew the results in their favored direction. 

The survey was designed using Microsoft Office. I'm a Mac user, but it was easy for me to Google "microsoft office survey multiple" and find instructions about either allowing or disallowing multiple responses.

So this is one major problem with the survey. Those responding already were going to be people especially interested in the police department. Letting them fill out the survey as many times as they want makes the results even more questionable.

Another problem is that the survey is decidedly bureaucratic. The questions don't relate to the lived experience most people have with Salem police. It's sole focus is on dry descriptions of goals and objectives, which isn't what most people care about. 

Here's a screenshot of one question, which includes my response to it.

I used to design questionnaires and surveys back in my days as a health services planner/researcher. I got to be pretty good at it. This police department survey strikes me as poorly designed. It uses management language of goals and objectives even though as noted above, this isn't how ordinary people think about policing.

Further, this particular question is way too broad to provide useful feedback.

I said this objective was very important to me because how unsheltered (homeless) people are treated by police is very important to me. Otherwise, I don't think police should be much involved in traffic safety, since red light cameras and other automated means of detecting violations are more cost-effective.

As you can see from my response to the question, I also think police shouldn't respond to calls involving a mental health crisis or any other issue that could be handled better by non-police personnel. 

Today the Statesman Journal had a story about the survey, "Salem police chief wants input to improve the department, community trust." Unfortunately, Police Chief Trevor Womack comes across as already knowing what he wants the survey to show -- a need for more police officers.

The plan is being developed based on anindependent audit conducted earlier this year, community and staff input and the chief's philosophy. Womack said he emphasizes making "data-driven decisions," balanced with "community trust-building."

The results of the audit, approved by the Salem City Council and released in March, recommended hiring more officers to adequately address homelessness and mental health calls, and to better engage with youth and diverse populations.

Womack, who was sworn in as police chief in December, said the survey results weren't surprising as many of the department's shortcomings in community policing are due to lack of staffing. 

Well, hopefully the Salem City Council will base police department staffing decisions on the sort of "data-driven" approach Chief Womack claims he wants to use.

Councilor Vanessa Nordyke spoke clearly in a recent Facebook post about the need for a crisis team to be staffed by non-police officers. This Cahoots-style program could markedly reduce the call volume handled by the police department based on data from Eugene.

Another problem is that the Statesman Journal story repeats a claim that the Salem Police Department is seriously understaffed compared to other similarly-sized cities in the Pacific Northwest. I'm assuming that the reporter got these numbers from the police department, which appear to be wrong.

The department currently has 190 sworn officers for a population of 169,580 — about 1.1 officers per 1,000 people. In 2018, the average ratio in a Pacific Northwest city similar in size to Salem was 1.6 officers per 1,000 people. 

Jim Scheppke, a retired state library director who knows how to research questions like this, sent me his response to the Statesman Journal reporter who wrote today's story about the police survey.

Ms. Barreda: I would like to request a correction to your article today about the Salem Police Department. This statement is inaccurate or at best misleading:

"In 2018, the average ratio in a Pacific Northwest city similar in size to Salem was 1.6 officers per 1,000 people.”

And the general impression given by your article that the Salem Police Department is understaffed is just not true when you consider the entire staff and not just the sworn officers.

Attached is a spreadsheet with some tables that were derived from the latest data for 2019 collected by the FBI. There is a URL at the bottom of each table where you can go to verify the data if you wish.

The first table shows staffing for all Oregon cities with populations greater than 30,000. It is sorted by total employees per 1,000. It shows that only one other Oregon city had more police department employees per 1,000 than Salem did! It is true that many of these cities had more officers per 1,000 than Salem did, but Salem’s number is comparable to similar cities like Eugene and Corvallis and it is not that far off the average.

Another table widens the scope to cities between 100,000 and 200,000 in the Pacific Northwest. Again Salem has the second highest number of total employees per 1,000. The average number of officers per 1,000 is only 1.21, not 1.6 as reported in your story, though I realize this is 2019 data and not 2018 data.

Another table widens the scope further to include cities up to 300,000 in the Pacific Northwest and again the average number of officers per 1,000 is only 1.28. Here Salem has the third highest number of total employees per 1,000.

The last table is from 2018, with cities in the Pacific Northwest between 100,000 and 300,000. It shows the average number of officers to be 1.29 per 1,000.

The number you reported in your article may have included other cities, but I don’t see how an average of 1.6 officers per 1,000 could be accurate. 

My spreadsheet also includes two smaller tables side by side that compare staffing at the SPD and that at our public library. While the SPD has the highest total staffing per 1,000 of these cities in Oregon, our library has by far the lowest! 

The reality is that the Salem Police Department, while having a slightly lower than average number of officers per 1,000 in the Pacific Northwest (1.1 compared to 1.2 or 1.3), it has among the highest number of total staff per 1,000. Your readers should know this and not be left with the false impression that the Salem Police Department is understaffed.

 

Best, Jim

If Chief Womack or one of his staff was the source for the seemingly erroneous figure of 1.6 officers per 1000 population in cities comparable in size to Salem, Womack needs to explain where he got that figure, since it doesn't match up with the statistics cited by Jim Scheppke.