Police Union Boss Rips Mayor Over Frashour Decision—Provokes Randy Leonard Into Supporting Court Appeal

Portland Mercury:

Portland Police Association President Daryl Turner held a news conference today (for some reason we weren't invited, though we know the union shop's address) where he lobbed personal attacks at Mayor Sam Adams over Adams' continued efforts to keep from reinstating the fired cop who killed Aaron Campbell.
Turner accused Adams of waging a "personal vendetta" against Ron Frashour, who shot the unarmed and distraught Campbell in 2010 but was cleared of misconduct by a state arbitrator this spring. Turner, according to video posted by the Oregonian, also made an unsubtle jab at Adams over the Beau Breedlove scandal and accused the mayor of showing "questionable integrity."The result of Turner's remarks? He got Adams one vote closer to the three votes he needs to challenge a recent Oregon Employment Relations Board (ERB) ruling that orders the mayor to abide by the arbitrator's decision. Randy Leonard, who was on the fence yesterday when I asked if he'd answer Adams' call yesterday that the city take the ERB to court, now says he'll support his political BFF, the mayor. In a statement issued this afternoon, Leonard said it doesn't matter if the city is likely to lose. No, I don’t think we have a great chance of winning…but we do have a chance. Consequently, I will support Mayor Adams’ request to appeal the Employment Relations Board decision to the Oregon Court of Appeals. And Leonard, a union president himself before his election to Salem and then the city council, said Turner was misguided in attacking Adams' integrity. Really, Mr. Turner? How do you characterize the integrity of your members’ actions that led to a complete breakdown of all the training the Portland Police Bureau provides officers to avoid tragedies such as the indefensible killing of Aaron Campbell? And I don’t mean just the lack of integrity by the officer that pulled the trigger that killed Mr. Campbell. I include the supervisors and negotiators on the scene that ignored the incident command system that led to a breakdown of the left hand not telling the right hand what it was doing. The result of this shockingly out-of-control incident was the killing of a man that should have had the police helping him—not shooting him as he ran for cover as a result of being hit with a barrage of shot gun bean bags as he was attempting to surrender. Read the whole thing after the jump. [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

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