PPB showing improvement in public-order policing since 2020 riots, firm says

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — More than a year after a consulting firm gave the City of Portland a list of recommendations to theoretically help the city and its police force learn from its costly and questionable response to the racial justice protests and ensuing riots of 2020, the firm gave the Portland City Council an assessment of PPB's progress since the summer of 2023.

Independent Monitor LLC Attorney Nicholas Mitchell presented the firm’s assessment to the Portland City Council on Nov. 21. According to the report, the City of Portland and the Portland Police Bureau made some progress in following the firm’s recommendations for improvement.

“We are pleased to report that in the last year, the City and the Portland Police Bureau have taken meaningful — but in some cases preliminary — steps to implement the Recommendations,” Mitchell stated in the report.

Some of the recommendations made to the city in 2020 included a dramatic reduction of PPB’s reliance on crowd dispersals like tear gas, the rebuilding of a mutual-aid network between local police agencies and clarifying its public order and use-of-force procedures.

Although PPB addressed some issues related to crowd-control techniques used in 2020 with added training, PPB has not yet documented any changes in its own policies, Mitchell said.

“We again emphasized in the phase two report, that we believe that the changes in approach related to those issues should be formalized in PPB policy, which has not yet been completed,” Mitchell told city commissioners.”

Other improvements made since the recommendations, Mitchell said, include the implementation of officer-worn body cameras and an updated philosophy that reduces the use of crowd-control munitions. In May of 2024, BBP destroyed its surplus of 9,624 expiring crowd-control munitions, which were ordered during the 2020 protests. PPB replaced the expired munitions with a smaller order.

“A lack of available video and embedded plain-clothes officers, among other things, led PPB to rely too heavily on crowd dispersals instead of targeted crowd interventions in 2020,” he said.

Mayor Ted Wheeler said at the Nov. 21 meeting that PPB’s recent improvements are setting an example for police departments across the country.

“I think we are not only rebuilding from 2020, I think we’re now setting the standard for other police bureaus around the nation,” Wheeler said. “... As we go forward, obviously we’ll continue to experience challenges. This is as much an art as it is a science. It’s through learned experience, and some of that experience is learned the hard way … and we will continue to refine our efforts.”

The city council unanimously accepted the latest report provided by Independent Monitor LLC and Wheeler thanked the firm for its assessment.

“Sometimes I disagree with your assessments, but I do believe that these reports have given us tangible issues to discuss concrete ways of talking about what is and is not working and how we can improve things,” Wheeler said.