City slates meetings to review protesters’ demands

PORTLAND — The city has scheduled several meetings this month to review the demands arising out of Black Lives Matter protests.

Protesters called on the city to make a wide range of policy changes at a demonstration Friday, the largest in the city to date when more than 1,000 people converged in Portland for eight hours, one hour for each minute a Minneapolis police officer knelt on George Floyd’s neck.

They want the city to defund the police department, remove police officers from schools, ban facial recognition technology, fire City Manager Jon Jennings and refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. They also said Portland schools should be using textbooks by black scholars and should pass budgets that help to attract minority teachers.

Beginning this week, councilors will look into the potential of policy changes stemming from protester demands.

On Tuesday, after the Forecaster’s deadline, the City Council’s Health & Human Services and Public Safety Committee was set to hear an update from the police department about the use of force, chokeholds, strangleholds, body cameras, crisis intervention, de-escalation and implicit bias and the role of the Police Citizen Review Subcommittee.

The Portland Police Department’s use of force policy, according to the Press Herald, indicates “a choke hold, carotid hold, vascular neck restraint or other techniques (that) involve the application of pressure on a person’s throat and/or restriction of the airway or blood circulation in the neck are prohibited, unless deadly force is justified.”

Tuesday’s meeting was also expected to include a discussion about policy recommendations from former President Barack Obama’s Task Force for 21st Century Policing and Campaign Zero’s “8 Can’t Wait” platform, and how those mesh with current department policies and practices.

The Police Citizen Review Subcommittee is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday via Zoom, when the public can comment on its role. The group was set up in 2001, in part to review how police investigate citizen complaints and make recommendations on how to improve the police investigation process, policies, training and increase public confidence in the complaint process.

On June 22, the City Council is scheduled to review the police department’s account of the protests in the city, which have occurred almost daily since the beginning of this month. Two of the protests, on June 1 and 2, began peacefully but ended with more than two dozen arrests, as well as burglaries, criminal mischief and vandalism at several downtown businesses.

The day after the June 5 protest, the City Council held an impromptu event on the steps of City Hall, during which councilors said they have heard the protesters concerns and demands. Councilors also said they support the city manager. Black Lives Matter supporters say Jennings has “repeatedly advocated for policies that hurt poor, predominately black and brown people.”

Councilor Jill Duson said it is the council, not Jennings, that sets the policies of the city.

“I don’t see myself as serving on a body where one employee of the city tells me what to do or what to think,” Duson said.

Councilor Pious Ali said the council is “doing everything we can to make the system work for everyone who lives in this city.”

Ali said if people don’t like the way city government is set up, they have the opportunity at the July 14 election to to vote for the formation of a charter commission, a group that will look at how the city operates and whether the existing charter needs changing.

“We stand with all people of color for whom violence is an everyday threat in our country,” Mayor Kate Snyder said. “Along with so many others, we call for quick legal process to ensure accountability and justice. Along with the council, I raise my voice against all acts of racial discrimination and vow to work together with our community, organizations and all levels of government to fight racism.”