A long-awaited court-ordered policy for Portland police body cameras hinges on one question: Should officers be able to watch recordings before they write reports about incidents that involved force? A state arbitrator is set to provide a final answer, after a hearing later this year.
The police union, Portland Police Association (PPA), wants officers to be able to watch the recordings before writing any report or giving any testimony about an incident. The City of Portland wants to limit review for any case involving use of force.
The city wants officers to describe uses of non-deadly force to a supervisor before reviewing the video. In cases where someone dies, the officer would not have access to the footage unless authorized by the chief or designee.
The city’s proposal aligns with recommendations from the U.S. Department of Justice after U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon ordered the Portland Police Bureau to equip its officers with body cameras to improve police accountability. That order stems from the settlement of a 2012 Justice Department lawsuit against the city for a pattern of use of force by police against people with mental illness.
But PPA President Aaron Schmautz says the city’s proposed bodycam rules are more stringent than policies for most other major law enforcement agencies — including the DOJ’s own branches.
“All agencies (in the country) except for three allow for pre-review in most forms, up to deadly force,” Schmautz said.
The police union’s biggest sticking point is the pre-review conditions. Schmautz said requiring an officer to make statements before watching the video and writing a report in cases involving minor force will bog down the administrative process and sow unnecessary distrust between citizens and police in a city with an already tense relationship.
Years of memory research shows that stress affects recollection, so an officer’s memory of an event might differ slightly from camera footage. Schmautz said letting officers watch the videos would prevent innocuous discrepancies in verbal accounts or supplementary reports that could be mistaken for misconduct.
“Our desire is just to make sure that the process of review doesn’t turn into a pop quiz, where you are disciplining people for truthfulness when they sincerely don’t remember something,” he said.
The city and PPA outlined their stances in Feb. 17 proposals submitted to the state Employment Relations Board. PPA and the city agree on every other piece of the policy, including who will wear the cameras, when they will record, and how that video is stored and shared.
The two sides may adjust their proposals up until two weeks before arbitration starts, which Schmautz estimates will be in September. The arbitrator must pick one side or the other’s final proposal, which becomes a binding part of the union contract. PPA and the City of Portland ratified a new union contract in February that runs through June 30, 2025, and left the bodycam policy to be added later.
Portland is the last major U.S. city without one.
