What to do about the fatal failures of the Portland Police Bureau?

When addressing this question let's acknowledge something I believe all Portlanders can agree with, Portland is much different than any city in America. Different than anywhere I've ever been, or lived.

I was in Minneapolis for 3 months last year and nobody ever bumb a cigarette from me. I opened a fresh pack at the bus stop full of people, and nobody asked for one. What's the chance of that in Portland?

Seriously, Portland is a policing challenge no matter how you look at it.

I lived in Las Vegas for 20 years before I moved here, and saw far more crime, and violent crime there than here.

I lived in San Diego for about a year before moving here in '99 and saw a whole lot more violence than here, and at par with Las Vegas.

I never have seen in my lifetime as many Police encounters that resulted in fatalities that seemed completely unnessary. Not in Las Vegas, not in San Diego, not in Phoenix. I read the news every day, and have for most of my life, 40 years atleast, and I can't remember so many strange Police shootings.

I was in North Las Vegas during the Rodney King riots, and there was a whole lot of shooting going there. I would hardly blame the police for their response then.

The question is what is going on here?

I think the police should be like the fire department, they should have extended shifts in which they are called upon to live half of the time in the neighborhoods they police. If that does not show any results, then fire all of the command officers, and start over.

"I lived in San Diego for about a year before moving here in '99 and saw a whole lot more violence than here, and at par with Las Vegas." Maybe the cops are doing a good job.

Meg: 'Maybe the cops are doing a good job.'

So, no problem then? Problem solved? Which?

As a progressive I guess I am obliged to support the right of all public employees - including police officers - to have a union. But at some level - which I cannot entirely explain or identify - it bothers me that an elite group of people who are authorized to carry guns and use deadly force with very few restraints - are also represented by one of the most aggressive public employee unions in the state. At some level, which I am not qualified to identify, protecting members of the general public from negligent or intentional acts of police employees even where no crime was committed should be put ahead of the interests of the police union.

Glad this stuff is not my decision.

"And exactly how would civilian oversight enforce those rules?"

Not very well if it should prove to be as corrupt and incompetent as the SEC when it came to keeping tabs on Wall Street and Bernie Madoff.

Probably the only things that will get the attention of the police are sending messages through their budget and a citizenry that demands reform. That begs the question, "Do the people care enough to stand up to the police union and the rogue cops?"

I agree that the Portland Police have a serious problem. Would more civilian oversite help? Probably not. at this point a professional mediator needs to get in there with the heads of the divisions, the union, the Captains, Chief and Saltzman.

More lawsuits only punish the good police and the citizens of Portland. The status quo can not be acceptable for anyone.

Ummm...anyone can carry a firearm with little oversight on its use. The police don't have any "special rights" to use deadly force. The problem with these reform ideas is that they give the police less right to use deadly force than than a civilian, which is unconstitutional. The answer is training, not changing the rules. Civilian oversight is fine and good, and should be strong, but you can't solve the attitude of the individual police officer with civilian oversight. It has to be a proactive policy, not a reactive punishment when a police officer makes a mistake.

"More lawsuits only punish the good police and the citizens of Portland."

Unfortunately, the "good" police, of whom we can presume there are many, are also part of the problem in that they remain mute in the presence of the alpha dogs on the force. As I mentioned on the Jssse Jackson thread, I recalled reading an article some time ago about good police couldn't take going along with the bullies in their departments and quit.

Having been involved with a half dozen unions during my career, I can understand the pressures they are under to "go along" and sympathize with them, but there will never be any improvements until they are motivated to rise to the occasion (admittedly, a heroic challenge) and do their share to bring about necessary reform.

Several years ago there was a chief of police in San Jose, California. If I recall correctly, his name was McInerny. He was one of the good guys and tried to clean up the police department's act and did a good job, but he left for an academic position after a while. We need more upper-level management in police forces like that.

Correction: The San Jose police chief I had in mind was Joseph McNamara. Google "chief joseph mcnamara san jose police" for more information.

See also San Jose Copwatch

The problem with these reform ideas is that they give the police less right to use deadly force than than a civilian, which is unconstitutional.

Does a civilian have the right to shoot an unarmed man in the back from 20'-30' away with a high powered rifle?

One of the interesting, if sad, developments within the labor movement over than last many decades has been the diminution of trade unions almost exclusively to the task bargaining over wages and benefits and enforcing work place rules. Whether in private or public sector workplaces, other than "grieving" perceived slights to seniority or displays of favoritism, unions generally no longer have the strength to negotiate much in how the workplace is administered, long the sole prerogative of management. The one glaring exception to this rule are police unions as they relate to police departments and their administrations. Imagine the teachers union or the auto workers having the ability to enforce work-place rules like the police union does. But in this particular case the police unions function more like the "Gangs of New York" than a labor organization. It can be a tough distinction to make, but I think it needs to be said that, yes, employees generally need to have much more say about work-place rules and, yes, the police and their union are out of control and public, through their elected leaders, needs to make certain police rules conform to the best interests of the society at large and not just the narrow interests of their "gang".

A fundamental problem with the police bureau, and in fact the entire political structure of the City of Portland, is that the elected officials are dependent upon union support to get elected. As a result, union interests dominate the politics. Do you really think that the need for support of the police union is not a major factor in how the police bureau is being managed?

There are numerous examples of this dynamic in Portland. I am always amused to hear the accusation that developers control the politics of this city. It's only true to the extent that their interests intersect with union interests. Absent that, unions trump developers.

One can say this is good or bad. It doesn't matter. It just explains things that are otherwise inexplicable.

This is just as damaging a problem for D's as the dominance of corporate support is for R's. It's just the opposite side of the same coin.

OK, let it rip.... (please don't waste your time calling me a troll or an R, as I am neither.)

Read the grand jury transcripts for yourselves. What would you do in that situation? Do you really think the police should be the only ones responding in this situation? Do you think we should put more money into incarcerating those with mental illness than helping people in crisis? It’s easy to vilify someone - the police - it’s harder to be engaged, to find solutions, to go beyond sound bites. It’s complicated – will you help be part of the solution or will you monday-morning quarterback from the sidelines?

Who is protecting individual officers from scrutiny when their actions create a public outrage?

Furthermore, with the recent rash of incidents in the past 4 or so years beginning with Chasse, why has no single police officer bit the bullet, been fired, and faced a criminal and/or civil suit from the victim or the victim's relatives?

Seriously,

You are deflecting blame. The question here is not what else could have been done before the cop pulled the trigger, but how to reform the system so that if the cop pulls the trigger, then there will be real consequences for that individual police officer and the system that shields him so as to make the system legitimate to the greater public.

Right now, there have been at least 3 incidents since 2006 where unarmed civilians have been injured and/or killed by Portland Police Officers.

Have any of those police officers felt the real consequences for their actions? No.

I would suggest a reform that allows individual police officers, the City of Portland, and the Portland Police Association to be held financially liable for the injury or death of a civilian by a civil jury with a punitive damage cap set at $10 million.

I consider this reform more fair compared to James P. Chasse's and Aaron Campbell's current condition of death.

Let me add a few facts to the stew. It's incorrect to say that there have not been civil lawsuits resulting from the officer-involved shootings described in this thread. One prominently went to trial, the lawsuit filed by the family of Kendra James. A federal court jury deliberated for only a couple of hours before deciding that the officer had done nothing wrong.

Also, Kari's challenge at the outset of this thread remains unanswered. What would you do to change the system? Right now, officer-involved shootings are subject to a criminal homicide investigation, and then presented to a grand jury to consider indictment of the officer. The shootings are review internally by the Police Bureau's Training Division, and then independently by a Force Review Board with high-ranking police and at least one civilian. The police chief then conducts another review, and the police commissioner -- an elected official -- makes the ultimate decision as to whether the officer engaged in misconduct. In most cases, Portland's civilian review board also gets involved one way or the other. And, in all cases, there's the seemingly inevitable civil lawsuit that follows. What in this system would you change and how?

Finally, the portrayals of Portland's police force as out of control need to be tempered. In fact, not only has the use of force and deadly force substantially declined in Portland over the last 10 years, but Portland's rate of force is far, far below that of other big cities. Ask a friend who lives in one of these cities how many officer-involved shootings there were last year in Oakland, or San Francisco, or Sacramento, or Las Vegas last year. I'll bet the number will be much greater than the number in Portland, which was one.

I would like to see substantiated the claim that the Charter is an essential element for police reform. The contract and administrative rules, absolutely. The other essential element is changing the culture within the bureau, a multi-year effort from the top. I am not a big Guiliani fan, but he did make some positive changes in police behavior in his term.

If the City was smart, the Commissioners would start a program of weekly informal lunches with 5-10 officers each, each group at the same command level. I think there are roughly 500 officers, so 5 commissioners could cover that in 10-20 weeks. It would give the Commissioners a view of where we are now and be valuable in the contract negotiations.

The problem with these reform ideas is that they give the police less right to use deadly force than than a civilian, which is unconstitutional.

Who among us has the right to use deadly force against an unarmed person? Particularly when the unarmed person isn't attacking or even threatening anyone?

I'm in favor of a form of strict liability here. If a cop uses lethal force, he or she should be fired UNLESS a review shows by clear and convincing evidence that lethal force was actually justified. "Feeling threatened" wouldn't cut it; there would need to be an actual threat to the cop or someone else before a shooting should ever be considered justified.

The rogues are not confined to Portland. Rogues Gone Wild Welcome to Amerika.

"... Who among us has the right to use deadly force against an unarmed person? Particularly when the unarmed person isn't attacking or even threatening anyone?

I'm in favor of a form of strict liability here. If a cop uses lethal force, he or she should be fired UNLESS a review shows by clear and convincing evidence that lethal force was actually justified. "Feeling threatened" wouldn't cut it; there would need to be an actual threat to the cop or someone else before a shooting should ever be considered justified." douglas K

Officer Frashour, the cop that shot Aaron Campbell, did not know for certain that Campbell didn't have a gun. Frashour's training instructs him to act on the presumption that his subject may have a gun or other lethal weapon and as a result, poses a lethal threat to himself or other members of the public. Frashour did his job according to the book. He deserves little blame here.

'Strict Liability'. I won't claim to understand very well what that means other than the brief description provided in Doug K's comment. Sounds to me though, that 'strict liability' would critically impair an officers readiness to act spontaneously on valid presumptions that a subject is dangerous and has intent to hurt someone.

With 'strict liability', cops may wind up waiting too long to shoot. Shooting unarmed people isn't good, but waiting too long to shoot someone that turns out to have had and uses a lethal weapon isn't good either. There must be a procedure between those extremes that's more respectful of human life.

JoAnn got it right here. The police union is obstructionist. Policies need to change. This was supposed to be a team-- yet no communication equals no team work. Quackenbush did good job and was pretty well ready to go home. Frashour was out of loop -- yet he was designated shooter. Personally would like to see change in: Policy to shoot to kill. Having shooters present without clear communication lines Policy to shoot without seeing weapon (If it is good enough for troops in Afghanistan people.) Fear of giving aid to dying man. That was just inhuman.

In general also: Using attack dogs, tasers and beanbags for any noncompliance even if person unarmed. Let them go unless present clear danger. It's not a pissing match. Police shouldn't have need to control attitude. Stop sending police for welfare checks. Fund a trained crisis team. Also would like to note that hate talk comes out every time racism mentioned here and other Portland blogs. That's part of the problem.

The police are out of control.

The Campbell incident is just the latest. Who is running the department? A civilian official like Saltzman (certainly not Adams who abicated that responsibility) or the union?

After every incident we hear "Better training" and "he feared for his safety".

Until the Chief and Police Commissioner have the ability to discipline and fire renegade cops, they will continue to kill.

Respect and trust in the Portland Police Bureau is at an all-time low. Citizens are fed up with disengaged police management, an impotent police review board, and cavalier cops.

Voters are dissatisfied and city hall is unresponsive.

A dozen specters of unfinished business loom over the Bureau. There have been repairs over the years, mostly patchwork, but transformation is not yet conceivable, much less on the table for discussion.

So what constitutes reform for the Portland Police Bureau?

1. The four tasks of the police commissioner are straight-forward and simple. The police commissioner directly supervises the chief of police, and provides them with resources and information. The commissioner oversees contract negotiations between unions and the Bureau. The commissioner speaks to the city about the relationship between the Bureau and City Hall. The commissioner speaks to officers at every level about the concerns of citizens. We need a police commissioner who understands their job and does these four tasks everyday.

2. The death of James Chasse spurred the City to find funds to provide additional mental health crisis training for police officers. Understanding how to manage persons who have acute mental illness or who are using alcohol or drugs, needs to be integrated within ongoing police training. This integration of mental health crisis training must be a top priority of the Bureau. Many police officers joined up to catch bad guys – not deal with people who are drunk, on drugs, or who are mentally ill. But the vast majority of person-to-person crimes and property crimes are committed by people who are impaired. Working with and around persons who are impaired is police work. Skills managing people who are drunk, loaded and mentally ill are paramount importance. Officers who develop those skills should be cherished.

3. Use of force by police officers is fairly rare, as are car and weapons accidents, but too often there are lingering questions about the behavior and capacity of the officers involved. These concerns can be answered with comprehensive urinalysis and blood alcohol testing by an independent agent before the end of shift.

4. The oversight and process for a police officer to claim an injury or disability is antiquated and redundant to a better system almost all other civil servants in the state use – Oregon Workers’ Compensation. Discussion should begin immediately to move the Bureau disability claims process to a more dependable, predictable, and transparent platform. If this transition is delayed, a performance audit of the police disability fund is needed to determine at minimum the status of all persons listed as disabled. For workers who are ready for light-duty the city should be ready to employ them in both the bureau and other divisions.

5. We know police officers are vulnerable to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and ignoring PTSD is both dangerous and a legal liability. One out of five soldiers returning from current wars have a PTSD diagnosis. How do cops lose their money, jobs, homes, kids, wives, lives? PTSD. Officers and commanders need to embrace the facts – mental illness is real, treatable and survivable.

6. Recruitment must improve. Portland needs police officers willing to learn, listen and co-exist within our community, not stand outside and bark orders. We need to reach out and recruit in successful police forces in other more diverse communities. Then we need to be welcoming and ready for the difference they bring with them.

7. Police use profiling tools. The police commissioner must be capable of assuring the community that recruitment of diverse officers is ongoing and sincere, that officers from diverse groups are represented at all levels of the Bureau, that oppression is not the business of the Portland Police Bureau, and intolerance will not be tolerated.

8. Abundant and predicable police overtime creates a strong disincentive for officers to help in recruitment or training. The Bureau needs to bring overtime numbers down by charging full cost for event security and by meeting recruitment goals.

9. The Portland Police Bureau is too complex for one person to provide comprehensive civilian oversight. Council should shift from a single commissioner to a five-member commission lead by the mayor.

10. Right now, the most effective way to cause change at the Bureau is through litigation. This will remain true until there is an independent police review process with 1) the power to compel testimony and, 2) the power to remove an officer from duty. Cops are human and humans make mistakes. The future Portland Police Bureau needs the capacity to make the amends warranted by the mistakes individuals make; quickly, sincerely, and with the goal of resolving mistakes and preventing future mistakes. These amends will not replace legal representation, but will reduce the risk of lawsuits. Sometimes the best thing to do is apologize.

11. We the People give the police a great power – force. The use of force is a privilege – never a right, never to be taken for granted, never to be violated. Revoking the power to use force is a decision made by an elected, civilian administrator. That decision must be respected, and officers, paid employees, should not stall or quibble.

The IPR should be given these tools:

1.) Subpoena power; 2.) Contempt power - anyone who refuses to answer or appear can be held in contempt by a judge. 3.) Power to issue any punishment from a verbal reprimand to firing, with appeal to a court.

Police should be subject to random drug tests for both recreational drugs and steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.

A designated "stress leave" for police involved in incidents where someone has been killed or seriously injured, but capped at a certain number of days. If the officer needs more time, use other officers' vacation or sick leave, just like in Pittsburgh. See the last paragraph of this article. No more cops going for months or years on disability leave.

As Jo Ann Bowman mentioned, the police contract is up for renewal at the end of June. Pressure must be put on the city to negotiate in a tough but fair manner, perhaps by enlisting the services of an employer-centered law firm to assist in the negotiations.

The next-to-last paragraph of the linked article. My error.

Police in the past have killed citizens in questionable circumstances. The common rationale in defense of their actions is that they feared for their lives and shot in self defense. Usually, they get a sympathetic ear from people who are not the victims or related to them.

Now let's reverse this. An African-American or member of another minority that has been on the receiving end of police shootings sees an officer approaching him and he recognizes the officer as having already shot and killed a fellow African-American (or other group member) in a questionable circumstance. It would be perfectly understandable if he (not the officer) felt his life was in danger. If he acted in what he considered to be self-defense and shot the officer, how many people would accept his claim of fearing for his life as justifiable?

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As alluded to in my earlier comment, there are two lines of thought running before the decision to pull the trigger:

1. What alternatives were exhausted PRIOR

2. What consequences will be expected AFTER

As several commentators have pointed out already, the Portland Police Bureau needs more officer training in how to handle individuals under intense mental duress and those who are mentally ill. I would place Aaron Campbell in the former category.

Second, I agree that more non-lethal forms of take down should be used. The very fact that we had a police officer using an assault rifle regularly employed for hostage situations speaks volumes about the current culture in the Portland Police Bureau. It does not make sense to bring armament used to counteract a highly volatile, paramilitary situation if you are dealing with a lone individual under extreme mental duress.

Finally, I am in favor of consequences and blow back so drastic to the system and the individual officer involved, in order to make the Portland Police Bureau exhaust every imaginable alternative whether it be internal resources or coordinating with other local and state agencies such as mental health.

I have to agree with Professor Bogdanski on the inherent conflict of interest in allowing the County DA to do the investigation and appear before the grand jury.

County DA is a political position which one is elected to. What County DA in their right mind will choose to prosecute cops and run the risk of giving a campaign opponent a convenient campaign slogan?

At the very least, make the Multnomah County DA an appointed position by a vote of the Multnomah County Commission.

Responding to ws: I should not have used the term "strict liability" since it's a legal term of art that doesn't exactly fit what I'm describing. As you noted, however:

Sounds to me though, that 'strict liability' would critically impair an officers readiness to act spontaneously on valid presumptions that a subject is dangerous and has intent to hurt someone.

With 'strict liability', cops may wind up waiting too long to shoot.

That's basically what I have in mind. Maybe "zero tolerance" would be a better word. What it means is, you shoot an unarmed person, you're out. Period. Doesn't matter whether you were scared, or got bad info, or whatever else. Someone else yells "gun" and you don't see the gun, you better think twice about shooting. You make a good faith mistake that costs someone's life, you need, at very least, to find another line of work.

I want every cop out there to have in the back of his mind whenever he draws his gun: you better be ready to end your career. "Shoot an unarmed person, the very least you will lose is your job. Guaranteed."

I think the risk of "waiting too long to shoot" is minimal. If the person doesn't have a weapon in hand, the cop has no reason to shoot anyway. As heldoll pointed out, if "wait until you see a weapon" is good enough for American troops in a war zone, it's good enough for the police.

Doug K...I don't think you can hold police officers to a condition like that..."zero tolerance"...and expect them to perform. After one of their fellow officers gets drawn and quartered for shooting someone that was believed to have had and was reaching for a weapon, but turns out not to have had one, cops may feel compelled not to shoot until, inevitably in some situations, it'll be too late, allowing genuine criminals to pop off some shots of their own and kill innocent persons.

It's very sketchy critiquing crime scenes and police shooting incidents from the armchair quarterback position I imagine most of us are commenting from. We have to do it....have some input, even though it may not be the most ideal, because as members of the public, the cops work for us, and as a result, we're responsible for what they do.

I want to believe officers can be trained to be better co-ordinated in communication than they demonstrated they were in the Aaron Campbell shooting. And that they can be trained to have a more sophisticated sense of judgment about when it's absolutely necessary to shoot.

Just based on reading the Oregonian story, I don't understand why Frashour failed to make a connection between Campbell reaching for his back and the bean bags that Campbel had just been shot with? Could Frashour not have seen the bean bags fly, or the sound of the gun?

The quotes from Frashour in the paper suggest to me that he was most likely methodically going through the contingency that police training procedure probably proscribes. If that's true, he didn't have much choice but to shoot. Change the contingency procedure to allow more subtle use of judgment, and officers in some situations would be able to assume more risk and hold off on firing the first shot.

Assume for the moment that Campbell did have a gun and Frashour did not shoot until the gun was actually visible. There's potentially a lot of room there for the cop to respond before the subject actually aims at someone and fires a shot of their own. And then again, maybe not. Who might the subject hit before the cop is able to fire their shot? Additional risk. Is the public prepared to assume it, either upon themselves, or upon the officers they hire?

Why does the PD and the local advocates insist on making this problem and solution so political? We have all had jobs at some point in our lives, and we all understand that if the employee's performance is not up the the standards of the employer. the employee is gone. With political correctness aside for the sake of the point here, I must ask--what happened to the good old fashioned practice of employer firing employee? Why has the position of employer, (taxpaying citizen, the ones who created police originally and still to this day totally finance them) been swapped with the position of employee? Why don't we reclaim our rightful place and simply demand the removal of the employee we are not happy with? The PD is running us all in circles, and laughing at us at the same time. Getting fired shouldn't take so long. [email protected]

"After one of their fellow officers gets drawn and quartered.

Officer Frashour was not indicted by the Grand Jury, and he returned to work, with a different assignment. Hyperbole much?"

Dan, sorry...I may somehow have implied something different than I intended. With 'drawn and quartered', I was responding to Douglas K's suggestion that police officers be held to a "zero tolerance" condition for shooting an unarmed person(which currently, they obviously aren't). Under that condition, might there not be a serious possibility that a police officer could, acting on his or her best judgment, shoot someone they truly thought was armed, only to find later they weren't armed?

As far as I know from the news, it's certainly true that Frashour has not lost his job as a result of fatally shooting the unarmed Campbell.

There were good stories in the Oregonian today...Saturday, about concerns over expert witness testimony presented to the grand jury.

Police officers will, inevitably, cross the often very fine line between good police work and overreaching, and that must be accepted. Officers must deal routinely with situations that would appall most of us and make split-second decisions, and the correct response to that kind of overreaching is policy-making and/or training.

The real problem at PPB is a core culture that regularly attracts and nurtures a Chris Humphreys or a Scott Deppe (there's a name from the distant past), and reacts with sullen withdrawal or outright belligerence when the public is horrified by its handiwork.

What this culture abhors more than anything else, however, is the suggestion that it is beholden, or answerable, to anyone outside the culture. Curiously, it shares that quality, among many others, with the subculture that it is duty-bound, and in many cases personally committed, to oppose.

This is exactly the way an unusually rebellious adolescent behaves.

Civilian oversight of the police is necessary, because the populace is the ultimate sovereign. The public outrage at those responsible for the institution to which the public's coercive power is entrusted for the purpose of enforcing the law, who will themselves repeatedly and methodically ignore and countenance violations of the laws which apply to them and will use patently flimsy and hackneyed rationalizations to justify it, is completely legitimate.

What sort of example does that set for the rank and file?

It's long past the time that officials managing PPB, from the chief on down, prioritize their duties to the public over their at-all-costs, face-saving efforts, but that is just the beginning.

It is also long past time for an independent police review board, with subpoena power and the authority to involve a special prosecutor - independent of the Multnomah County District Attorney - with access to the grand jury in aggravated cases, such as when someone dies.

The police will oppose this at all costs, of course - it means that they must constrain themselves, or end up in that class of people they so loathe and detest. It means that they are not the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong and are answerable to the community at large for their actions.

We all saw how they react to even the mildest suggestion of that, of course - they print up T-shirts and take to the streets!

So it won't be easy.

Civilian oversight of the police is necessary, because the populace is the ultimate sovereign.

I think you have great ideas, but I am disturbed about the way that folks seem to think you can just roll right along and change things, without major constitutional reform. I picked that sentence because it makes the point so well. Yes, that is exactly how most think of it, and how it should be. The fact of the matter is that you cannot- forget the police- bring any criminal complaint before the courts! As long as you only get a criminal complaint into court when a peace officer makes it, and a DA decides it's in the state's interest to bring prosecution, you're not the sovereign of your own life, and certainly not over any personnel implementing the state's interest. The next time you shake your head about "justice not being done" where the DA makes a plea bargain, remember that it's not about justice. It's about the DA securing the conviction that he thinks is in the state's interest. Research the not terribly rare cases where a person has come out and fully confessed to a murder, even, after another was convicted. In the vast majority of the cases the DA doesn't care. Got the win. A new trial might not result in a win. Why retry it? The system gives you just enough of an appearance of justice to keep you working within the system.

Hold the police responsible? If your neighbor murders your kid, you can't hold him/her responsible unless a peace officer makes a complaint and the DA brings the case. As pointed out, the DA has a huge conflict of interest with the police. QED, as the system stands, this is what you are going to get. If you don't change it systemically, are you really saying that you think we'll be able to hold the police accountable in a way that you can't when you were on the scene and the crime was committed against you?