PORTLAND, Ore. — As the election season nears, Portland police officers are gearing up for the potential of violent political protests and community unrest. They have a newly reformed team to respond to these types of events, and they start training together this week.
The scenes from the 2020 protests in Portland are hard to forget. The destruction and violence caught the nation’s attention, changing downtown to this day. During this time, the Portland Police Bureau was hit with lawsuits over their excessive use of force. One officer who was part of the bureau’s Rapid Response team, which worked during the protests faced a fourth-degree assault charge for hitting a photographer in the head with a baton. That charge was ultimately dismissed and he publicly apologized, but it prompted the entire Rapid Response team’s resignation.
A city audit later found shortcomings in the bureau’s response to protests. There were 12 recommendations that came out of the report, including creating a new crowd control unit. That unit — still called Rapid Response — starts team training this week.
Some of the new members spoke at a Thursday morning press conference inside Central Precinct headquarters.
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“They do represent the best of the best of what we have,” said Sgt. Andrew Kofoed of the new Rapid Response team. There are 42 existing officers and 8 sergeants on the team, and 35 responded to the 2020 protests.
“My belief and my hope are that this time around as an organization, we will do a better job supporting them in the challenge that we are asking them to take on as well as the community,” said Portland Police Chief Bob Day.
Juan Chavez — a civil rights attorney at the Oregon Justice Center who represented some of the 2020 protestors allegedly injured from police use of force — is cautious of the return of the Rapid Response team and sent KGW the following statement:
"The city has offered nothing to demonstrate that it has learned anything or will change anything after its failure to constitutionally police protests in 2020. We’re going to be repeating past mistakes, and people will be hurt because of it," Chavez warned.
“We really believe in the importance and maintaining public safety and peace and order at these events. I think that’s our overall motivation and goal in returning to this team,” said Sgt. Kofoed.
Each member of the Rapid Response team will wear body cameras and get a pay raise costing the bureau an additional $380,000 a year. They’re required to go through 96 hours of yearly training focused on de-escalation techniques and use of force, among other things.
“Our expectations are high. We expect officers to embody their training and engage with the community with integrity, as well as with resolve,” said Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler.
This all comes at a time when political protests are making a slow return to Portland streets and as the community braces for the upcoming election season and the potential for more violence.
“Freedom of expression is embodied in the core of our city’s character, and we all value the sanctity of those rights, but these rights are not without limits; they are not a free pass to cause destruction,” Wheeler said.
Portland city officials are calling on the community to do their part, saying this is not just a PPB issue, with Wheeler asking people to demonstrate passionately but peacefully.