Letter to Portland Mayor and Police Chief regarding police tactics, restrictions imposed at Cheney�s Republican fundraiser

January 21, 2004

Mayor Vera Katz
Chief Derrick Foxworth
City of Portland
1221 SW 4th Ave, Room 340
Portland, OR 97204
[email protected]
[email protected]

Dear Mayor Katz and Chief Foxworth,

We are writing you today to inform you of the unacceptable conditions imposed by the Portland Police Bureau on people exercising their Constitutionally-protected rights of assembly and free expression on Tuesday, January 13th, at the Embassy Suites Hotel at 7900 NE 82nd Avenue, the site of Vice President Dick Cheney�s Republican Fundraising visit.

If you watched the television news coverage of the Cheney visit, then you know that people who assembled peacefully to express their views were restricted to an area behind an eight-foot high chain-link fence that was topped with barbed wire. The area they were restricted to was a marsh-like patch of land with large areas of standing water, in some places six to eight inches deep.

The conditions imposed by the Portland Police Bureau amounted to a pre-emptive criminalization of the people peacefully assembled there. The result was a significant increase in tension between police and protesters, increased anger and frustration among those who had come to peacefully protest the Cheney visit, and far greater prospects for conflict. Rather than reducing tensions between police and those assembled to protest the Cheney visit, these conditions unnecessarily increased antagonisms between the peace and justice community and the Portland Police Bureau.

The following is a partial list of conduct and conditions imposed by the Portland Police Bureau to which we strenuously object, and which we believe were both unnecessary and counterproductive to the police bureau�s mission to serve and to protect.

1. Restricting the protesters to an area of uneven ground with standing water, snow, ice and slush, making this assembly completely inaccessible to people who were using wheelchairs or otherwise disabled.

2. Placing eight-foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire around the protesters, thereby representing the protesting community as detainees, as criminals being confined to a holding area, rather than allowing that community to be properly seen as engaging in Constitutionally-protected free assembly and expression. Typically a perimeter is set up around the area where the object of protest, Dick Cheney in this case, is staying. In this case, the perimeter was set up around the protesters. The result, whether intended or not, was to represent the protesters as detainees, and to present the image of protesters as prisoners, criminals, held within a concentration or internment camp.

3. Participants who arrived at the Embassy Suites site by MAX were forced by police to walk a long distance through a muddy and soggy field with ankle-deep standing water, in near-freezing weather, again restricting participation to only those able to sustain these physical obstacles.

4. Shortly after the beginning of the demonstration, the full contingency of police was deployed, creating an intensely intimidating atmosphere. Police were clothed in full riot gear, mounted police officers were deployed, as were officers on bicycles and officers on ATVs, as well as additional riot squads riding en mass on the backs of trucks. When protesters attempted to leave the protest area to approach police barricades on NE 82nd Avenue, they were herded back to the protest area, and additional fencing was placed around the protest area. No protesters resisted being herded back into the protest area, though many objected. When protesters shook the fence that had been used to confine them, they were threatened by the police with the deployment of chemical weapons.

5. Subsequent to the event, while many participants were walking back to the MAX station, several officers on ATVs met them along the way. In one disturbing incident, a police officer who was riding close to a group of young men turned his ATV very sharply, nearly hitting one of these young men. It was clear to those present that this was a deliberate effort to intimidate and to instill fear, and an expression of contempt for the rights of these citizens to take part in peaceful protest.

6. Upon arriving at the Mt. Hood MAX station after the demonstration, participants were confronted by ten officers, including at least one from the Sheriff's Department. When asked why there was such a heavy police presence, these officers said that they were there to ensure that all MAX riders paid the fare. One officer checked fares while the others maintained a presence on the train. The spectacle of uniformed Portland Police Bureau officers checking tickets on MAX was reminiscent of scenes from totalitarian police states of our not-too-distant past, viz. the enforcement of pass laws in South Africa. This behavior was a disturbing complement to the use of barbed wire to cage the protest area. This police presence was also maintained prior to the protest, the heavy MAX ticket policing being imposed on all those using this public transportation to get to the site of Cheney�s visit.

Finally, a concern that warrants special mention is the ability of those present to have their messages of dissent seen and heard, and adequately understood by the people who were the intended audience for this demonstration. Freedom of expression is an empty concept if the people engaged in these kinds of gatherings are effectively hidden from view. We must ask whether the distance that protesters were kept from the Embassy Suites Hotel could genuinely be justified by safety or security requirements.

Mayor Katz and Chief Foxworth, we in the Portland peace and justice community have had and continue to have significant objections to the policies of both the city and the Portland Police Bureau. These objections concern the use of deadly force, as in the cases of Kendra James and Jose Santos Victor Mejia Poot, and the misguided and excessive use of force and pain compliance weapons in circumstances that do not warrant their deployment. We object also to the shabby treatment of many of the homeless in our city and county, to what amounts to the criminalization of poverty and despair. We object to the lack of accountability for abuses by individual officers. For similar reasons, we must also take exception to the leadership within the Portland Police Bureau and the City in ordering individual officers to carry out policies, such as those implemented around the Cheney visit, that are fundamentally at odds with the Constitutionally-protected rights of the citizens of this city.

Although we have significant differences with both the City and the Portland Police Bureau, we have typically pursued dialogue, negotiation and open communication as a first and primary means of avoiding conflict and of reducing tensions with the Police Bureau and with individual officers. However, when we are confronted with conditions like those imposed at the Cheney event, we cannot in good conscience accept such blatant suppression of free speech and our rights as citizens of this country.

When we are confronted with such policies, we must question whether the City and the Police Bureau are engaging with our community in good faith. In such circumstances, we ask what is gained by our participating in dialogue, by our attempting to communicate with the City and with the Police Bureau in order to avoid conflict on such occasions. If the City and the Police Bureau are going to use such discussions merely to impose more and more onerous conditions upon the peaceful assembly of citizens, to implement greater restrictions on our freedom of expression, to create a more intense atmosphere of intimidation and repression, then we can only conclude that indeed you are not engaging with us in good faith, but merely to further erode the rights of the citizens of this city.

We appeal to the people of this city, and we appeal to you, Mayor Katz and Chief Foxworth, to move forcefully and decisively against these policies of repression in our city. We believe that our city can do better, and will do better. We would like to work with the City to move us away from these policies of intimidation and repression to policies that respect and enhance the rights of all citizens. We hope you will take immediate steps to address the concerns we have raised in this letter. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours truly,

Organizations signed onto this letter:

Portland Peaceful Response Coalition
War Resisters League of Portland American Friends Service Committee of Portland
Northwest Veterans for Peace
Women in Black
Portland Jobs with Justice
East Timor Action Network / Portland
Freedom Socialist Party
Radical Women
Jews for Global Justice
PSU Progressive Student Union
Portland Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Portland Labor for Peace and Justice
Love Makes a Family
Living Earth
Workers International League
Rose City CopWatch
Socialist Party of Multnomah County
Socialist Party of Clackamas County
Eastside Democratic Club

CC: Northern Precinct Commander Bret Smith
City Commissioner Eric Sten
City Commissioner Dan Saltzman
City Commissioner Randy Leonard
City Commissioner Jim Francesconi
City Auditor Gary Blackmer

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