Written by Don DuPay, edited by Theresa Griffin Kennedy, 2015–2019
17,526 words.
Published to public media October 16, 2019
The Black and Blue Retort Report: Police-Community Relations in Portland’s Albina District: 1961–1967 from the Perspective of a Working PPB Police Officer and Active Participant, with Commentary on Events that Occurred in the 1980s.
I and the public know what all school children learn,
Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return — W.H. Auden
After reading the 2013 essay “Black and Blue; Police-Community Relations in Portland’s Albina District, 1964–1985,” published in the Oregon Historical Society Quarterly Magazine, and written by Leanne C. Serbulo and Karen J. Gibson, (both instructors at Portland State University) I came to discover several oversimplifications in their report.
This response essay is personal and reflective in nature. It will address several collective generalizations, over-simplifications and inaccuracies regarding police training, police procedure and police relations with Albina residents during the 1960s and 1970s.
These types of weaknesses exist because research methods used for data collection, narrative and the overlooked importance of oral history, inherent in all balanced history writing, were not given sufficient inclusion. It is my belief Serbulo and Gibson’s agenda and bias against Caucasian Portland police officers would not allow for a more complete analysis of the complex subject matter encompassing much of police science and community/police relations during the times mentioned in their essay.
I am able to offer pertinent details that Serbulo and Gibson would not have been privy to regarding police training and procedure as they were not working as police officers in the Albina district, and not living in the state of Oregon.
Stitching together a report based on extant historical documents with no regard for primary accounts leads to unreliable results, no matter the authors’ credentials or reputation.
As a veteran police officer with the Portland Police Bureau (1961–1978) I believe I can offer a more nuanced view of the social dynamics that the Serbulo and Gibson report detail. Additionally, because of my history with PPB, I am compelled to defend the personal integrity of some of the officers mentioned, either by name or lumped together as nameless, voiceless aggregates. Some of these men I worked with, observed professionally and knew personally.
I worked the entire North End districts as a Portland Police Officer from April of 1961 to 1967 at which time I was promoted to detective November 9 1967.
I have lived in the state of Oregon for over 70 years, where I continue to reside. Therefore, I feel my perspective is historically significant, as I was there, working as a district police officer in real time. Furthermore, I will comment on the social trends, patterns, and dynamics that the Black and Blue report accurately records, for the purposes of scholastic accuracy and to provide further clarification.
I will number my concerns as follows:
One) In the 1968 City Club report, as mentioned in the Black and Blue report, titled Report on Law Enforcement in the City of Portland, it is stated: “In the Albina neighborhood, citizen harassment and social control were higher Police Bureau priorities than public safety.” (Serbulo, and Gibson, Pg 8). I think this statement is partially true. Public safety was always important to the majority of the individual officers, in terms of protecting the working class black residents from crime and the criminal predators who resided in Albina, most of whom were primarily also black.
This was a concern many of the officers had because we were idealistic young men and were part of what was called “the New Breed” of police officer. The New Breed were men who were able to demonstrate their effectiveness by using their intelligence and ability to communicate, as opposed to using physical force alone. The other truth is that many of the older officers, (who came up through the ranks in the 1930s and 1940s) did not demonstrate much concern for black residents and whether or not they were safe from predators in their communities. There were several of these “old timers” that I knew of, but chose not to work with, and they were indeed absolute racists in every way.
The value of promoting public safety was not solely held by young hard-chargers like myself and my partners. There were many older officers who felt the way we did. They were dedicated to the idea of keeping Portlanders of all colors safe. But there was the feeling among many officers that the North End was not an area that could be helped much (no matter how hard we tried). Despite this, many officers felt we had an obligation to keep the troublemakers in line to protect the regular working black citizens from the black predators who lived right next door. The working class black residents made up the largest population of black folks residing in Albina. But we were also expected to protect the white Portlanders who lived outside Albina who were sometimes the victims of black criminals if they ventured into the North End.
I recall, from my six years on the streets, that the Vice Squad routinely used harassment as a tool to combat houses of prostitution and the “Johns” who were their customers. Vice also dealt with black drug dealers brazenly selling heroin and pills in the local taverns, bars, and on street corners, sometimes in broad daylight. Uniformed officers were generally kept too busy answering radio calls to be involved in any form of “harassment” activities. Harassment was left to Vice Squad officers, and their superiors. (DuPay, 2015).
The Black and Blue report goes on to quote Rev. Eugene Boyd: “We knew that our part of the city had been designated as where all this stuff [crime, drugs, prostitution] should go on.” (Serbulo, Pg 8). This statement is true. The city leaders did allow a “red light district” to operate as long as it was allowed to exist in the North End. Partly, the lack of police presence was the result of the mayor’s attitude about crime in Albina and how that lack of concern was communicated down to the working rank and file. We were always informed of the importance of protecting the white community from the black criminals in Albina because of how dangerous black criminals could be in a drug deal, or any number of other criminal situations.
The other issue during this time is that numerous graveyard police officers did not work their entire shifts and slept in the back seats of their patrol cars. They were referred to as the “sleeping beauties.” This pattern of behavior is elaborated upon in great detail in my 2015 published police memoir, entitled Behind the Badge in River City: A Portland Police Memoir. My book delves into the social realities of Albina all through the 1960s when I worked that district, and the social challenges black residents faced along with the challenges white police officers faced trying to police that area. (DuPay, 2015).
The North End was where most of the crime of drug dealing and prostitution took place, organized and performed almost exclusively by black persons. The reality is that the North End was the most crime ridden part of Portland, with more violent crime occurring there than in any other portion of the city. This was as I remember it, and I believe most officers I worked with at that time would agree with that assessment. There is much discussion as to why this took place — Lack of adequate employment, little job training, rampant redlining by banks, lack of educational programs and/or social services were the primary causes, with institutionalized racism being the foundation of that. (DuPay, 2015).
The Boyd quote continues: “Boyd and a small contingency of pastors and neighbors met with a deputy police chief who referred to Albina as “the Tombstone territory,” indicating that the “law of the streets,” would have to prevail because the police would offer no additional help.” (Serbulo, Pg 8). This quote suggests that Portland officers did nothing to help the working class, employed black residents of the North End in their struggles with other black persons who broke the law, harassed or preyed upon them. What the passage actually references, in my opinion and from what I recall from that time, is that PPB would not assign additional officers to work the Albina district than were already assigned there, due to a lack of interest from the mayor. Despite this limitation, there were many officers, myself included, who were morally and emotionally invested in helping the hardworking black residents who lived in the North End — those who were not out breaking the law, but rather working and raising their families as best they could.
We got to know those residents and we did all we could to protect them from the local black offenders who preyed on the community. The black offenders who were the most trouble often tried to get their own neighbors teen-aged male children addicted to heroin so they could recruit them as drug dealers. Furthermore, these criminals regularly attempted to lure in their neighbor’s daughters to work as prostitutes for local stables, getting those girls addicted to heroin to ensure their dependency and ultimately their slavery to dealers and pimps.
The Black and Blue report goes on to claim: “…Boyd said Mayor Schrunk calmly asserted that because illicit drug use was relatively confined to black neighborhoods it was not really a large enough concern to warrant an additional police presence.” (Serbulo and Gibson, Pg. 8).
Having worked the entire city at one time or another as a uniformed police officer, and later as a detective I know the drug trade was exclusively operated out of the Albina district all during the 1960s. Heroin, pills and marijuana dealers such as Henry Johnson, Sherman Jackson, LeRoy Clark, Buck Owens, Jaynolen Moody, Herman “Candy” Canyon and many others were exclusive to North Portland, conducting their business transactions and street dealing in that district.
The Boyd quote does not mean that we did not do our best as police officers to arrest those drug dealers we knew were active. I arrested all of the aforementioned drug dealers’ multiple times, only to have them released on bail and back out dealing hard drugs within a matter of days, while actively trying to get more of their black neighbor’s children hooked on heroin and/or turning tricks as prostitutes. (DuPay, 2015).
Two) The radical and dated Robert Staples 1975 report on race and crime, entitled “White Racism, Black Crime, and American Justice: An Application of the Colonial Model to Explain Crime and Race,” as quoted in the Black and Blue report, states that “police acted as agents to enforce the status quo.” (Serbulo, Pg. 9). The report goes on to claim, “The police role in the black community was not to provide for public safety…” but only to protect the “colonizers” who lived outside those communities (white people) and to prevent any black persons from escaping. (Serbulo and Gibson pg. 9). Those claims are untrue and did not apply to Portland officers during this time.
While it is true that the black residents in Albina were not encouraged or helped to live in areas outside of Albina, and while they were not encouraged to buy homes, due to red-lining and other forms of housing discrimination and racism, they were also not left alone to randomly commit violent acts against other residents, or other citizens, which included Native Americans, Asians, and/or Caucasian persons. Those citizens who were offenders and predators, who committed violent acts against black and white Portlanders were arrested and incarcerated regularly. (DuPay, 2015).
I worked the Albina district for six years alongside my white male colleagues who often demonstrated how much they cared by what they were willing to do for low-income black families. When we came to a black family’s home, perhaps due to a “family beef” or a domestic violence call and we could ascertain the family was contending with hardship, poverty and didn’t have much food, (as was often the case) we would drive out to The Sunshine Division and bring back a large food box for the black family. This was something we were trained to do and were expected to do for all families living in our districts who dealt with poverty. Delivering food boxes was “part of the job,” as I was told by Captain Eugene Ferguson, during my academy training in the Portland Police Bureau in 1962. It was something my partners and I did at least every other shift and on a regular basis.
The Sunshine Division has been in Operation in Portland since 1923, and is organized and run exclusively by Portland Police officers. Its purpose is to help those in need in the Portland community of all racial backgrounds who may be experiencing hardship and need food and clothing assistance, among other things.
Sometimes this process of food collection might take over an hour to accomplish. If the call we were responding to occurred late at night, past midnight for example, and The Sunshine Division was closed, North Precinct had a stash of food collected in a large closet in one of the back offices. These food stores were donated by officers’ families and sometimes local merchants to help citizens in need. If we couldn’t get to The Sunshine Division, my partner and I would drive back to North, and pick up a box of food to bring back to the at-risk family from the makeshift food closet. I did this routinely and all the other officers I knew and worked with did as well.
Food boxes could not address the larger social and economic issues the folks of this area struggled with, but on a human level the food assistance provided the temporary relief and simple nourishment that the residents needed and most importantly fed many thousands of hungry black children.
Another area of my job that I gave special effort to was the investigation of domestic violence calls impacting the black women living in Albina. This included the small number of white women married to or living with black men in Albina. I always took the time to counsel these women who were victims of their husbands, boyfriends or pimps’ brutal violence. These efforts were continually frustrating for me and other officers, because during this time in Portland (1961–1967) we were powerless to arrest the offenders if the victim did not also sign a complaint, and they rarely ever did.
The women were invariably terrified of their abusers and would refuse to press charges. After we arrived at the home and separated the couple, I would sit down with the woman, generally in her living room, and try to comfort and counsel her after my partner either spoke to the husband or we arrested him. I would encourage the women to defend themselves. I cannot count how many hundreds of times I did this and how much effort I put into it.
It was like spitting against the wind.
There were however, police officers during my time who blamed women for the abuse they experienced and tried to suggest they had “provoked” or “egged on” their abusers. That kind of misogyny was very common and I knew of it. I was never that kind of officer and neither were my partners. To me, it seemed clear what had happened when I arrived to investigate most domestic violence calls: a drunken man and a frightened woman with small children she was trying to care for and protect.
After I sat down with a woman, I would say: “Wait till he’s asleep and then smack him on the back of his head with a baseball bat! Do you have a baseball bat around here, anywhere?” They would listen politely. They would nod their heads, wipe their eyes with a handkerchief and agree. The problem with my suggestions was that I was a man telling a woman, (generally not inclined to violence) to use an aggressive and not necessarily realistic method of defense that was violent and masculine in approach.
In almost all the cases, the woman would say “I can’t do that!” or “I couldn’t do that, he’d kill me!” In my youth, I didn’t understand that my approach, though well-meaning was also naïve.
Domestic violence calls were the most dangerous of all calls for a police officer to respond to, and I vividly recall how frustrated I felt having to go to “family beef” calls knowing that nothing would be resolved for the better. We got to know the repeat “wife beaters” in our districts and were called to resolve conflicts again and again, with little to no improvement. Occasionally, women would die because of domestic violence attacks involving knives and shotguns, and then the detectives would be called out, and the coroner. Because these calls involved so many terrified and bewildered children, they were always extremely upsetting and discouraging to officers.
When the authors of the Black and Blue report suggest that white male officers with PPB didn’t care about “public safety” or the conditions of poor black families in the Albina District, lumping all officers who worked that district into that limited polemic assertion, they are mistaken and in error.
Their biased and incorrect assertion is offensive to any police officer who worked that district and cared about the black people he got to know. The authors are mistaken to suggest something they have no experience with, particularly when they have not attempted to uncover additional historical references by interviewing surviving PPB officers of my generation who worked Albina in the 1960s. Serbulo and Gibson ought to have attempted to locate older officers who could offer a more accurate recollection of those times and how we personally policed the Albina area. It is not only naïve to lump the characters of many men into one shallow description, but it demonstrates a complete lack of concern for the endeavor of achieving nuanced historical accuracy. In what should have been a report that left no stone unturned with regard to research methods, oral history and realistic human portrayals of the known characters involved, the Black and Blue report demonstrates serious bias against a large group of mostly deceased, voiceless men who cannot defend themselves or offer a more accurate and nuanced historical perspective.
The Black and Blue report decries the lack of black representation in the Portland Police Bureau, using a radical and dated 1975 article by sociologist Robert Staples: “According to the Colonial model, the lack of black representation in law enforcement and the prejudiced attitudes of whites were to be expected, because the police were agents of the colonizer, who used the rule of law to control the dependent ghetto colony.” (Serbulo and Gibson Pg. 9). The issue regarding the lack of black police officers hired to work with PPB is repeated in the Black and Blue report and appears to lay the blame solely on the shoulders of white male administrators, as if it was an intentional and repeated act not to include black men in the hiring process.
This was simply not the case.
What I recall my sergeants saying, and indeed complaining about on numerous occasions was the complex dilemma that black men simply did not express an interest in applying for employment with PPB.
In spite of the best efforts of the Portland Police Bureau to recruit black men as officers, very few ever applied and the numbers of employed black officers reflected that pattern. This was partly because there was such a small number of black residents residing within the city of Portland and many of those men had disqualifying criminal records. The high schools with large black populations, like Jefferson and Roosevelt, even at that time had disappointingly low test scores, low rates for graduation and low rates for general literacy overall. Then there was the powerful social dynamic that blacks during this time were very anti-establishment and would likely receive negative feedback from their families, peers and friends for applying with PPB and joining up with “the man” who they felt was any white male in a position of authority.
It was for this reason that PPB went out of state on more than one occasion, looking for possible recruits of color, because they simply could not find them in Portland. One of these young recruits was Charles Moose, who moved from the south to the state of Oregon in the middle 1970s and later advanced through the ranks eventually becoming the chief of police. For the aforementioned reasons, the low number of black officers hired within the ranks of PPB cannot be attributed solely to white administrators who supposedly wanted to keep blacks out, but to a whole plethora of other social and educational factors beyond white administrators control or influence.
Three) In another noteworthy section of the Black and Blue report, the authors claim that Portland Police officers submitted to a 1966 survey, but I have absolutely no recollection of ever completing a survey, nor do I recall my partners or other officers I knew of ever talking about a survey being done in 1966, when I was working as a street cop. Serbulo and Gibson claim that the results of the survey indicate that “86 percent of officers” with PPB were essentially against the civil rights movement.
“Most rank-and-file officers, however, were not advocates of racial equality. According to a 1966 survey of Portland police, 86 percent of officers believed that the civil rights movement was “moving too fast,” and more than half believed racial equality was happening “much too fast.” (Serbulo and Gibson, pg 12, 2013).
The above quote is another claim I do not agree with, nor do I recall of any survey’s being given to police. Furthermore, New Breed officers had an entirely different perspective toward people of color, and their challenges and struggles.
I was never given a “survey” to complete at any time during my six years working the streets, and I do not recall any other officers completing any surveys either. I question the sourcing of this claim and its accuracy or origins.
In the Black and Blue report, Serbulo and Gibson suggest that the qualifying tests to be accepted by PPB were slanted against minorities. “By 1980, minority recruitment efforts had been a dismal failure; the bureau was still 97 percent white and had only 12 black officers (1.7 percent). One reason cited for the lack of minority recruitment was the implicit bias contained in the testing material.” (Serbulo, Pg. 20). The tests given to any and all applicants were standard and remained unchanged for all applicants. For example, there was not a test for white persons and a test for black persons, or Native American persons, or Asian persons. The tests that were handed out were identical in all ways, and I know this because I was there.
When I took the police exam in 1960 in a large auditorium in downtown Portland, there was one single test, handed out to all interested parties present. There were over one hundred men in the room and they weren’t all white men. The tests were stacked on tables near the black board and were handed out to all the men present. Of the men in that room, only three passed the test and later became police officers. I was one of them. Minorities who took the police test at later times and were literate enough to pass with high enough scores were appointed, as the bureau saw the use and importance of having officers of color employed within the ranks and did all they could to promote that. However, because of the dynamics mentioned already, there were never a high percentage of black men who applied.
The Duke Brothers, Larry Strauder, Dick Bogle, Joe Bowman, Anthony Newman, Roy Jernigan, Earl Johnson, (all black officers) and Robert “Bobby” Ferron, and Bill Taylor, (both dark skinned Native Americans) all passed the tests easily because they were literate enough to pass. There were other officers of color employed as well during the time I was a street cop and police detective, though the numbers were minuscule as correctly reported by Serbulo and Gibson. Bill Taylor ended up rising to the rank of captain and was a very professional cool under fire leader who many white officers, including myself, looked up to and admired. We didn’t care that Bill was dark skinned, or Native American, he was just a great cop.
Before I joined the Portland Police Bureau in 1961, I didn’t know Portland had any black officers employed. After I joined PPB, I found these officers primarily worked nights and there were several who were employed, though clearly not as many as would have benefited the city and the Albina district during that time. I remember wondering why the bureau had them work only at night. It perplexed me and I felt it was wrong. (DuPay, 2015). Clearly, what the bureau did wrong was to hide these black officers by having them work graveyard shifts or work at the jail or on radio and ultimately out of the sight of white citizens. Although the Duke brothers who worked the Sellwood district, (a primarily white area) were out and arresting people of all colors and doing good police work. (DuPay, 2015).
Four) In the excellent scholarly article entitled, “Bleeding Albina: A History of Community Disinvestment, 1940–2000,” which is quoted in the Black and Blue report, the author Karen J. Gibson states that by 1960 four-fifths of the city’s 15,000 African Americans were crowded into a two-and-a-half-square-mile area. It is stated in that article that Boise, Eliot, Humboldt, and King elementary schools listed more than ninety percent of the student body to be black students. This assertion is as I remember it, and I believe this to be accurate. Although we officers were told by our sergeants and captains that there were actually “19,000 black citizens” living in Albina, as opposed to only 15,000 during our time working that district. I think it’s possible that the numbers listed in “Bleeding Albina” are not correct when only 15,000 black people are listed as having lived in Albina. The police did their own statistics at that time and we were always told by our sergeants and captains that the actual number was 19,000 black persons living in Albina.
Census reports taken during that time may also be suspect because many black people in Albina were not listed as official residents within homes, or even as residents of the state of Oregon, but were listed as “visiting” family members from other states such as Texas and elsewhere, but living long-term in Portland, nonetheless.
Another quote from the City Club’s racial justice report, as included in the Black and Blue report, goes on to suggest that city leaders allowed crime to fester and grow. “…local governments permitted vice to prosper in black districts and had the areas patrolled by non-resident white police.” (Serbulo and Gibson, Pg. 10). I would agree with part of this statement. Albina was patrolled by white police officers who did not live in the area, but crime was not allowed to freely “fester and grow.”
Because the Albina area was so rife with crime, social discord and rundown property, it was not a desirable or safe area to raise children of any color. This desire to live outside of the Albina area was observed by the majority of black officers who worked the district, with the exception of a man named Officer Larry Strouder, who for his own reasons chose to live in NE Portland. To suggest that white officers chose not to live in Albina because they were racist is presumptuous and inaccurate. The officers chose not to reside in Albina because the area was crime ridden and exceptionally run-down, with houses that were hazardous and close to uninhabitable. The black officers who worked with us also chose not to live in Albina for the same reasons, and were able to find housing elsewhere. There was the one black officer, Larry Strouder, who did live in the Albina district. But he was a jailer, who didn’t have to deal with the people on the streets as a patrolman would have. Strouder chose to live near NE 12th Avenue and Prescott Street.
Overall, the Albina area vice activities were permitted to prosper and city leaders could have done more to eliminate vice crime had they wished, but the mayor at that time, Terry Schrunk, exerted all power on police funding and how many officers patrolled a given area. Mayor Schrunk did not see the point in allowing for or funding for a stronger police presence. Schrunk did encourage general public safety in Albina, and we were expected to arrest criminals for committing violent crimes against the local black residents such as rape, burglary, assault, robbery, child molestation and murder, which we did, but minor crimes were often ignored.
All during the 1960s, the entire North End including the Albina district and St. Johns was commanded by one Jim Purcell Junior, nicknamed “Diamond Jim.” Purcell was himself the former chief of police who had been terminated for corruption in 1957 and was the acting commander at North Precinct. After his disgrace and termination, he was demoted to captain. However despite his demotion, he was still afforded a great deal of power, and he used that power to his financial advantage. In the North End, Purcell’s real vocation was that of a full-time, off-duty pimp. Purcell provided illegal protection for houses of prostitution in the Albina area, which employed prostitutes of color. And he was compensated handsomely for his protection of those known houses of prostitution, and never challenged for his criminal activity. (DuPay, 2015).
I worked for Jim Purcell and worked in both the Albina and St. Johns districts and I vividly recall the scuttlebutt I heard from other officers regarding Purcell operating houses of prostitution. I got into trouble with Purcell for reporting on the activities of various houses of prostitution when I witnessed illegal activity occurring. Purcell informed me, in several uncomfortable face-to-face meetings, and by sending me several Memos that I needed to “cease all surveillance” of those houses of prostitution and stop writing and submitting written reports about their activities and/or the identity of any visitors.
Purcell never provided a logical explanation as to why he wanted me to stop surveillance, only the orders to leave the houses of prostitution alone and any of the women of color who were working there. At the time I was a street cop, my partners and I despised the black pimps, (and the pimps wearing badges like Purcell) who created and maintained stables. We despised them because we well knew how they destroyed the lives of innocent young black women. They got the girls addicted to heroin and made them sex slaves, living off of them like the parasites they were. Many of those young women died of drug overdoses, suicide or were murdered. (DuPay, 2015).
Five) The Interstate Highway Project necessarily reconfigured neighborhoods, and in Portland this began with the Minnesota freeway in about 1963. Interstate 5, replaced the entire length of North Minnesota Avenue for several miles, and obliterated hundreds of houses on both sides of the avenue in Albina. The highways that came later, such as I-405 in downtown Portland and I-205 in East Multnomah county obliterated homes that were owned mainly by white and Gypsy citizens of Portland.
The Lloyd Center is described as an urban renewal project in the Black and Blue report; however, that statement is inaccurate. In 1953, when I was sixteen, and first learning to drive a car, I practiced driving and parking on city blocks where the Lloyd Center exists currently. The entire area was vacant then and since the area had been the Lloyd Golf Course, there were very few houses that were removed. A nearby restaurant at one time called Sweet Tibby Dunbar, across the street from Benson High School on the north side was the “club house” for the golf course that existed on the site that later became the Lloyd Center mall. Rather than being an urban renewal project, as the Black and Blue report states, the Lloyd Center was one of the first mall style retail shopping center developments of its time predating both Washington Square and Mall 205. To suggest that the Lloyd Center area was populated with thousands of homes that were sacrificed to the effort of promoting urban renewal is incorrect. The entire Lloyd Center area was nothing other than a collection of square vacant lots during the year my father taught me how to drive in 1953. Only a native Portlander would generally know this detail of Portland history.
Six) In 1964, Cleotis Rhodes, a north Portland black man was shot in the back and killed after he tried to escape custody from a police officer I worked with named Edwin Freeman, whom we all called Ed. Freeman pulled over Cleotis Rhodes for driving “recklessly” and “erratically” after which Rhodes fled the scene. Freeman then drove to Rhodes home, where he found him. After a scuffle on the front porch, in which Rhodes resisted arrest, Freeman’s gun “fell out” of the holster and was retrieved by Cleotis Rhodes wife. Significantly, this woman picked up the gun and handed it back to Officer Ed Freeman.
Cleotis Rhodes is mentioned at 13:24 in the YouTube video included here. (Serbulo and Gibson, 2014, video). You can listen to the video here at this active link…
What I know as a veteran street cop, and from what I heard from those in the department is that Rhodes was intoxicated, combative and would not comply. In my time as a police officer, it was not common that our guns would just “fall out” of our holsters for the simple reason that our holsters had a leather snap-down top and were rarely open and were always extremely secure. Guns didn’t just fall out. The snap-down top would have to be unsnapped, lifted up and the gun withdrawn by hand to gain access.
Years later, in the 1970s, the holsters were completely redesigned to make it easier for officers to retrieve their weapons. But if a resisting suspect attempted to go for an officer’s gun — if there was a struggle for a gun — then it might end up on the ground. Rhodes may have attempted to gain access to Freeman’s gun and it may have fallen to the porch in the tumult after being partially pulled out of the holster. And as something I experienced myself, it certainly would not be the first time a combative and intoxicated suspect fought to gain control of an officer’s gun in an attempt to hurt, shoot or kill the officer with it.
In 1964, the training at the Portland Police Bureau was such that it was acceptable and within policy to shoot a fleeing felon in the back. This included a dangerous criminal in possession of a weapon if they were attempting to do additional harm. This might include…
* Attempting to assault another person or innocent bystander with a deadly weapon
* Attempting to assault the arresting officer with a deadly weapon
* Attempting to commit another crime by using a deadly weapon
Many officers during that time, including myself, could have used deadly force when facing off with a violent offender but we chose not to for our own moral or religious reasons. Today, we look back and shake our heads at the way things were done then, and we marvel at how different it was and how those policies negatively impacted people of color, women and other minorities.
It is documented that Officer Ed Freeman was attempting to take Cleotis Rhodes to the city jail when Rhodes fled and Freeman shot him in the back. After Rhodes was shot, Freeman then drove Rhodes to a hospital across town in southeast Portland. In the Black and Blue report, the authors Serbulo and Gibson seem confounded as to why Freeman would have driven Rhodes to the Portland Sanitarium Hospital when Emanuel Hospital was only a few blocks away from their location.
If Serbulo and Gibson had attempted to interview retired or former Portland police officers of my generation, or even ambulance drivers of my generation, they might have been able to uncover why this mysterious situation occurred and how it pertained to police procedure at that time.
I will explain why Ed Freeman drove to Portland Sanitarium Hospital, as opposed to the closer Emanuel Hospital: When I was a street cop in the Albina districts during 1961–1967 all city hospitals rotated responsibility for “intakes” by police. We had “rotating hospitals” for accepting in-patients who needed medical attention. Officers were told to observe this rule without exception. The procedure required that we first put in a call to dispatch on our car radios and request an ambulance. The ambulance drivers all knew what the city “hospital of the day” would be, as they were informed of this rotation every working day. What “hospital of the day” means is that each day we had a different hospital to take people to if they were injured. Violating this rule could result in disciplinary action by a Sergeant or other superior to any patrolman who did not observe this aspect of police protocol.
Police of my generation, including Ed Freeman were not allowed to transport either criminals or injured civilians in their patrol vehicles. We could only transport people if “Paddy Wagon number 99” was not available or would be long in arriving. The reason we were not allowed to transport anyone in our vehicles had to do with the city not wanting to be legally liable for any form of insurance if the suspect were injured in a car accident while in transit in one of the police patrol cars to a hospital. But occasionally there were exceptions to this rule. To be able to transport a suspect or injured person in our vehicle we had to radio in to our district Sergeant and ask for “Permission to transport.” The Sergeant either said yes or no, but we were not allowed to transport unless we got that specific permission. However, in nearly all cases we had to wait for Paddy Wagon number 99, (which for a long while serviced the entire city and was the only Paddy Wagon PPB had to transport prisoners). Or we had to wait for an ambulance to arrive to provide hospital transportation for the injured person if the situation were dire enough.(DuPay, 2015). Police in Portland did not begin transporting criminals in their patrol cars until many years later, and certainly not during my time as a street cop, or Ed Freeman’s time during 1964.
If we got permission from our sergeant, we would call dispatch on the car radio and ask “What’s the city hospital of the day?” and dispatch would tell us the name of the rotating “hospital of the day.” For example, some days it was Emanuel Hospital, some days it was St. Vincent’s Hospital, some days it was Providence Hospital on NE Glisan Street, and some days it was the Portland Sanitarium Hospital, located on sixtieth and Belmont Street, later renamed Portland Adventist Hospital.
If we had injured criminals, or anyone else we might come across who needed emergency medical assistance, such as a civilian who had been robbed and assaulted, they were taken to the designated “hospital of the day.” If there had not been this policy, then all people in the Albina district would have gone straight to Emanuel Hospital each day and the hospital would have become quickly over loaded, as the Albina district had the most number of violent crime calls, with injuries. The Albina district also had the largest numbers of shootings and stabbings of any other portion of the city. Having the rotating “hospital of the day” was designed to make sure that Emanuel Hospital did not become overloaded, which would have placed greater risk for the nurses and doctors working there, and the patients.
It is for this reason that Officer Edwin Freeman drove Mr. Cleotis Rhodes to the Portland Sanitarium Hospital across town rather than drive to Emanuel Hospital which was only a few short blocks away or wait for an ambulance.
Ed Freeman was not an evil man. He did not deny Cleotis Rhodes medical care because he wanted him to bleed to death in the back of his patrol car. He was simply taking him to the “hospital of the day” and in his own vehicle which was not standard and highly unusual. This tells me that Freeman was worried enough for Rhodes, being that he’d just shot him, to drive him in his own police vehicle and that he had called in a request for “permission to transport.” If Freeman had waited five minutes for an ambulance, Rhodes would surely have died and the ambulance would have taken Rhodes to the “hospital of the day” anyway. So, to save time and get Rhodes to the hospital as soon as he could, Freeman took him there himself. This may seem like an unreasonable example of police procedure and bureaucratic red tape, but it was police procedure that the common patrolman, like Ed Freeman and myself had absolutely no control over. People often forget that patrolmen do not create the rules; they are only tasked with making certain those rules and or policies are upheld and observed.
In the hierarchy of the command structure, patrolmen are always on the bottom of the food chain, as they always have been, and always will be. Whenever city commissioner’s talk about budget cuts, they never discuss getting rid of the highly paid commanders or command staff, they always talk about getting rid of patrolman first. (DuPay, 2015).
The reality is, none of us were there to observe Cleotis Rhodes violently resisting arrest on the front porch of his home, after eluding and driving “erratically” while putting other Portlanders at risk. None of us were there to observe the significant action of Rhodes wife retrieving and then returning Freeman’s service revolver to him after it “fell out” of his holster.
I think we can all agree that Ed Freeman did not make the best or wisest decision by shooting Rhodes. He already knew where Rhodes lived; he had his address and could have simply issued a warrant for his arrest, or gone back to his home to wait for him to arrive later. But none of us were there that night. None of us know the exact circumstances of what happened, or why Freeman decided to do what he did.
I do believe that Donald McNamara, the new police chief, following the 1964 death of Rhodes, was wise in revising the bureaus Manuel of Procedures on the use of weapons, as detailed in the Black and Blue report. That change was a positive step in the right direction. To make it clear that a gun should only be used “as a last resort” was a very good change to make for the entire community in Portland. It was a good change for offenders who resist and put themselves in danger by resisting, and for police officers who are daily placed in harm’s way when fighting violent offenders who make it clear they want to do them harm, or worse yet kill them. More police departments today should focus on using lethal weapons only “as a last resort.”
Technology — Call Boxes: When I was signed on as a recruit in 1961 there were still remnants at PPB of a bygone era with regard to technology and police communications. This impacted how officers communicated with the precinct and submitted reports to the secretarial pool. For example, I was issued the very last PPB “call box” key while on probation after being accepted as a recruit in 1961. I know I was issued the last call box key because my sergeant told me.
When I was sworn in, in April of 1961, I hadn’t yet attended academy training. In the academy, I would be shown how to fight, which included some Karate and Judo moves. I would learn how to use a sap, how to safely use and handle my weapon, and I would learn about law, policy and acceptable use of force, as opposed to the criminal assault of a suspect. After I was hired, I spent almost eight months receiving good old fashioned On the Job Training, (OJT). I was instructed on the finer points of being a police officer and got to see up-close and personal how police officers operated and reacted to dangerous situations.
No agency today would ever hire a police officer who hadn’t gone through a complete academy training first, but that’s how it was done in the old days of 1961.
Call boxes were used all during the early part of the century, in New York, Chicago, California and most other major cities, including of course, Portland’s small community. They were used all through the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, which includes when I worked as a street cop in Albina. All recruits were issued a handbook that listed all the call box locations, hospital locations and street numbers. These were listed in the “100 block” descriptions, so we could learn and know our way around town. Call boxes were originally used to contact the police precinct, and later on became a useful tool in the dictation of reports. As soon as I lifted up the receiver of the call box, an operator would answer, “Central Precinct?” I would then say, “This is Officer DuPay, number 354, I have an arrest report to dictate.” Then the operator, generally a man, would respond by saying, “Okay, go ahead when you hear the beep.” I would wait for the sound of an electronic beep and then I would begin dictating the report, as it was being audio taped for later dictation by the secretarial pool. Prior to this, all reports were written long hand by the officer, which took far too much time. Creating this method improved efficiency and overall productivity. This method of police report dictation is another example of how the Portland Police Bureau sought to make report writing more effective and efficient by consistently upgrading existing police procedure to something newer and better.
When my sergeant gave me the last call box key, about three weeks into April of 1961, after I had also gotten my uniform, sap and gun-belt, he told me that eventually we wouldn’t need call boxes anymore because we would be adopting “a new system” in a few short months. He explained that very soon we would be able to use “any public phone booth” as we had used the call boxes in the past. He seemed excited about this new method and said it was “about time they figured out a better way to submit reports and contact the precincts” without having to “hunt down a call box.” All we would have to do, he told me, is simply dial a special number at any phone booth and we could contact the precinct to dictate our reports or speak with a commander. It seemed a cutting edge upgrade to both of us at the time.
Several months later right before the new system would come into effect, I ran into the same sergeant working “second night,” which is the graveyard shift. We chatted for a few minutes on a street corner near the Lotus Hotel on SW Third Street. I mentioned I’d had to use the call box directly across the street only a few minutes before to dictate an arrest report. We started chatting about the new system that was soon to be adopted. That’s when he laughed and said, “You know you got the last call box key! Did you know that, DuPay?” I chuckled and said, “Is that right?” He nodded his head saying, “Yep, you sure did. Keep it as a souvenir, maybe one day it’ll be valuable.” I still have my bronze colored call box key, the last to be issued to any PPB officer.
The “Quick-Call” Alert System: In the early 1960s, we didn’t have Pac Set radios to contact the precinct. That technology was not available until about the late 1960s. However, in one of the bureaus many efforts to improve efficiency, and productivity, PPB administrators, in connection with communications specialists, created a way to contact police officers if they were away from their cars and could not hear the car radio crackling. They called this alert system the “Quick-Call.” The Quick-Call was created to improve the way crime was dealt with and much like the “hospital of the day” procedure that existed during this time, the Quick-Call was developed as a way to facilitate communications, making officers more readily available for the next call, quicker to respond, and more productive, responding to citizens calls for help faster.
When I was first signed on as a police officer in 1961, we had to walk or run out to our cars and use the in-car radio exclusively to communicate with the precinct. It limited our mobility and in some cases, it limited our efficiency, not to mention our response times and our personal safety. If we were in a residence or having coffee or the rare meal break, we might not be able to hear the distinctive crackling sound of the car radio as dispatch called asking for assistance with a new call, or asking for our location. So, the administrators developed the Quick-Call as a form of cutting edge technology that assisted in getting the police officer out of the residence or restaurant to let him know he was needed on an emergency call. The Quick-Call was inventive and actually worked well for its intended purpose.
It worked like this: Each police car had a Quick-Call electronic device, which was a radio receiver installed next to the radio microphone on the dashboard. Each Quick-Call device was programmed with a specific number for each individual car and in many respects it was the earliest form of a pager. When leaving the car, we would advise radio, saying, for instance, “Car 43 will be on “quick” 22 at the Sun Sang Cafe.” Later, if we were needed for an emergency, radio dispatchers would push a button at the station and we would be alerted. The button they pushed would send a radio signal to the device in the car, and the car horn would then sound, honking loudly, notifying us that dispatch was calling. The horn would continue sounding until we ran outside and answered the radio call, at which time the horn would stop sounding automatically. The Quick-Call alert system was used for several years prior to the purchase of individual Pac Set radios for all PPB officers. With the advent of that newer and more efficient form of two-way communication, the Quick-Call alert system was discontinued and made obsolete in the middle 1960s.
Though this form of police communication may seem prehistoric to some, at the time it was a clever use of simple radio frequencies. Its intended purpose was to improve communication between officers and dispatch, all in order that we could be better at fighting crime and keeping the citizens safe, and it worked.
The quick-call demonstrates that to improve public safety, PPB was continually looking for newer, more modern methods of improving police efficiency, via modernizing communication methods between the individual officers and dispatch. These aspects of police science and police procedure demonstrate that public safety was valued not only by the officers I worked with all during the 1960s, but also by PPB administrators. In many respects Portland was a leader in making these innovative improvements in police procedure nationwide.
During the early 1960s I worked Albina both as a district patrol officer and for a short year, as a member of the Vice Squad. I was able to closely observe the activities of many of the businesses in those areas. (DuPay, 2015).
Seven)There is a photo in the Black and Blue report that shows North Williams Avenue in 1967 and is captioned, “local newspapers referred to the area as crime-ridden, despite its thriving businesses and active neighborhood associations.” (Serbulo, Pg. 11). A November 2, 1967 newspaper clipping attached to the photo reads: “By day, even Portland’s old town streets look innocent enough; but at night, SW 1st to 3rd and ‘the avenue’ at North Williams come to life with activity city vice squad members do not consider healthy.” (Serbulo and Gibson, Pg. 11). During the early 1960’s I worked Albina both as a district patrol officer and for a short year, as a member of the Vice Squad. I was able to closely observe the activities of many of the businesses in those areas. (DuPay, 2015).
The Cotton Club on North Williams and Paul’s Paradise on North Russell and Williams were both operated by Mr. Paul Knauls. Though a good-looking, smooth talking and well-liked businessman, Knauls allowed a 15-year-old teenager (Ron Steen) to play drums in his establishment. To have an underage teen boy play drums at The Cotton Club was not only illegal but also immoral. (Belasco, 2015). (https://vimeo.com/127320728).
Additionally, Knauls allowed underage drinking to occur in both establishments as well as prostitution. Miss Pam Owens, age 19, and a heroin-addicted prostitute was allowed to prostitute herself and drink alcohol at the Cotton Club on a regular basis, despite being underage. I know this because I witnessed this activity on several occasions personally on nights I visited the Cotton Club, working undercover for vice. (DuPay, 2015).
Both establishments allowed or ignored blatant heroin dealing and prostitution by well-known local pimps, such as Buck Owens, LeRoy Clarke, Jaynolen Moody, and Sherman Jackson. Jackson drove a blue Rolls Royce around Albina, and the equally flamboyant Henry Johnson, (who dressed like a television cliché of a pimp) and painted his Beaverton house bright purple with the sole intention of upsetting his more conservative neighbors, drove around town in a pink Cadillac. Neither man had any compunction about addicting their family member’s children to heroin, or introducing the daughters of family and friends to a life of addiction and prostitution. Another of Jaynolen Moody’s prostitutes who was a frequent visitor to the Cotton Club was a young heroin addict named Thelma Zena Moody. She was a young woman I arrested several times, along with Buck Owens and her pimp Jaynolen Moody for various vice offenses. (DuPay, 2015).
Van’s Olympic Room at North Vancouver and Fremont was operated by Mr. Elwin Van Riper and his manager LeRoy Clarke. I learned years later that both men allowed the same activity at Van’s Olympic Room as occurred at The Cotton Club and Paul’s Paradise. LeRoy Clarke was an active heroin dealer, and pimp who came to a sad end. He was shot and killed in the club by the PPB SERT team in 1977. During this shootout a police sergeant named Hill was also shot and severely injured. (Oregonian, 1977).
Convicted prostitute Thelma Moody ended up shot there in 1974 on the dance floor during an argument over a cheap ten-dollar wig with another woman, dying later at Emanuel hospital. (DuPay, 2015).
King’s Tavern on North Williams near Skidmore Street, a black owned tavern, similarly operated without regard for any rules or regulations of any kind, and allowed blatant heroin dealing to go on unchecked. I personally arrested Benny Villarreal while at “King’s” dealing heroin wrapped in small rubber balloons in the middle 1960s for which he received a long prison sentence. Many altercations occurred there, resulting in stabbings and shootings both inside King’s and on the street in front of King’s. King’s Tavern was at times shut down by both the health department and the OLCC for liquor and health violations and was a constant source of vice problems for the Portland Police. (DuPay, 2015).
The Red Sands night club operated on Northeast Skidmore and Union Avenue and was the location of many drunken fights and stabbings that usually spilled out onto the street, occasionally blocking traffic. After a number of liquor and nuisance violations and arrests of patrons for disorderly conduct by me and other officers, the Red Sands was permanently closed by the OLCC in the late 1960s due to their constant criminal and vice activity. (DuPay, 2015).
The Paragon Club on North Killingsworth and Albina also operated without regard for rule or law. In the middle 1960s I was assaulted by a man with a knife who had become intoxicated in the Paragon. This man stabbed another patron, seriously injuring him before he tried to stab me with the knife. I disarmed him without killing him by striking him with my nightstick on his forearm. He was then carted off to jail to begin a lengthy sentence for assaulting a police officer. The Paragon Club was also closed down several times by the OLCC for liquor violations all during the 1960s. (DuPay, 2015).
These nightclubs and bars were hardly wholesome, law abiding businesses with respect for or concern for observing the laws of the land. The men who frequented many of these businesses engaged in drug distribution, sexual trafficking, and various forms of sexual and physical assault that occurred against young black women on a regular basis. I witnessed this pattern of chronic crime and vice personally while I worked the district more times than I can possibly recall. (DuPay, 2015.)
Of course there were some good businesses in Albina, notably Senn’s Dairy located at North Williams and Fremont, along with a very large local bakery situated on Fremont Street which employed a large number of black men and women. The bakery took up an entire city block and provided the area with wholesome bread and pastries. The other businesses that were “thriving” and which the police had no issues with were the several Ma and Pop grocery stores that dotted Williams Avenue, which were primarily black-owned, along with Lew’s Men Shop.
Another business in the area was Carl Opperman’s Grocery Store at North Mississippi and Skidmore — it is now a Thai food restaurant. Opperman’s was one of the last white owned Ma and Pop corner stores in the area, before it was forced out of business. The Opperman’s were shot in a robbery at the store by two black male repeat offenders in their early twenties in late 1967. Mr. Opperman, 75-years-old, died instantly, shot in the chest and face, and Mrs. Alice Opperman survived a through-and-through torso wound. As she was in her late sixties and her husband had been murdered, she was unable to continue running the store and it was closed down. (DuPay, 2015).
Eight) Mention is made, in the Black and Blue report, of the Portland Police Bureau’s Intelligence Division. Historically, Portland city government has always had some version of its own secret police at one time or another, whether they were called The Red Squad or the Intelligence Division. While not personally involved in intelligence activities during my time with PPB, I knew the officers working that detail. To me they seemed to have a superiority complex, as if they knew something other detectives didn’t know, or were in on some big secret. The common attitude of police competitiveness, which is inherent in most specialized police units and in police culture was alive and well in the Intelligence Division.
I am sure that this unit, as described in the Black and Blue report did use, “… information they gathered to spread rumors about their targets, foster dissension within and among activist organizations, and accuse targeted individuals of illegal subversive activity regardless of whether the information supported their charges,” and is correct. I would agree with that assertion. (Serbulo, Pg. 12). In retrospect, the above quotation and all that it suggests rings true. I well knew that the activities and methods used by the Intelligence Division during this time were not only counterproductive but also illegal. If people break the law, it is the job of police to arrest them, but not to harass them, spread falsehoods, or foster dissension based on political, social or religious beliefs, which many in the Intelligence Division did all too regularly.
Nine) I worked the 1967 riot that began in Irving Park. I was stationed at Northeast Union and Fremont, and it was a miserably hot summer day. With the frustration of the black “vocal minority” Albina residents thick in the air, regarding widespread accusations of harassment by police, I dodged countless rocks and bottles thrown at me and other officers by the irate black protesters. The protesters represented less than half the entire Albina population and seemed to consist of the younger population. Despite the urge to go after those people throwing things at us, we were instructed instead to ignore the assaults and ignore any possible injury we might sustain as a result of any airborne objects. During the tumult, we did what we could to stop the looting and smashing of windows and assisted the Fire Bureau in putting out fires started by rioters and looters. (DuPay, 2015).
We had been prepared for riot duty by practicing tactics at Kelly Butte range. In perhaps what was the first bureau funded training effort at “less than lethal tactics” we learned how to fire 12 gauge. 00 buck shot at a crowd by “skip bouncing” the rounds so the slugs would ricochet at the crowd knee-high level instead of the more lethal chest high level. During training, we became proficient at bouncing slugs off the asphalt by firing at the pavement about thirty feet in front of a simulated crowd. However, absolutely no officer I worked with at that time wanted to fire a shotgun directly into a crowd of people and we talked about it among ourselves. (DuPay, 2015).
I know the Portland police exercised great restraint that day, and under extremely difficult circumstances. We didn’t kill anyone, and only one rioter was shot by police. That rioter was shot as he was setting fire to a furniture store and refusing to obey commands. For myself, I prayed I could go home that day without injuring anyone or being injured myself. I had a wife and young son at home waiting for me and depending on me to return in one piece.
Not one of us officers wanted to kill a rioter. Not one of us would have enjoyed the idea of killing or taking another human life.
Ten) In 1969 during the time of the Albina riots, Robert Probasco and “thirteen other complainants filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of more than twenty thousand black Portlanders in U.S. District Court against Mayor Schrunk, the entire city council, Chief McNamara and thirty-eight Portland police officers.” The suit claimed police harassment caused “an atmosphere of fear and persecution,” and that it had a “chilling effect upon the exercise of their federally protected rights.” The Probasco case was settled in 1971 by a consent decree in which the city admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to cease specific activities.” (Serbulo and Gibson, Pg. 17). Specifically forbidden by police was the continued use of “lead weighted saps and sap-gloves.” The decree also stated that “all officers needed to have a search warrant before entering an Albina resident’s home.” Officers have under most circumstances always needed a warrant before entering a resident’s home. In my time working Albina, inappropriate warrant-less searches by patrolman were virtually unknown.
Allegations that illegal searches of homes in Albina were done without proper warrants by patrolman does not coincide with either my personal experiences or memories of what other officers did at that time. I worked with many men from (1961–1967) when I worked the streets of Albina, and myself and the patrolmen I worked with were never in a position to write up illegal search warrants. Patrolman had to obtain a search warrant from a detective. At no time during my time on the streets do I recall the patrolman I worked with illegally entering the homes of Albina residents, and I never personally did either. Though it may have occurred by other officers with less integrity, to suggest that there were rampant warrant-less searches of Albina residents by patrolmen is inaccurate revisionist history making. (DuPay, 2015).
The loss of the use of saps and sap gloves was of no particular consequence to most police officers I knew as they were rarely used. I kept my sap gloves in my back right hand pocket. They were uncomfortable to run with and bounced hard against my buttock. They were as annoying as having a large rock in your pocket that you wished you could get rid of, but couldn’t. I hardly ever used them. When I was a young officer, we were taught to be “hands-on” in our dealings with resisters. This meant putting your hands on the suspect and using certain manual control tactics in order to get a suspect to comply and submit to arrest. During my six years as a street cop I only used my leather covered sap on two occasions. The first occasion was to protect an older sergeant who was being viciously attacked by a white burglar late at night, outside a darkened service station. The second occasion the sap was used to break into a window as we searched for an assailant during the investigation of a “trick call” assault and robbery by prostitute Thelma Moody. (DuPay, 2015).
Eleven) As part of the Probasco Decree, the Portland Police Bureau was directed to adopt “an affirmative action policy to increase the number of minority officers.” As part of this hiring push, Sgt. Norm Simmons visited ten colleges in the south. Criticized for traveling to the south to recruit employees, bureau recruiter Marilyn Snowden observed that “for some reason minorities are not attracted to police work in their own communities.” (Serbulo, Pg. 17). Ms. Snowden was correct in the belief that people of color, in Portland, did not want to work in the communities in which they’d been raised. This is as I remember it and this was the core issue with hiring people of color in Portland, Oregon. They simply did not apply. Apparently, this was not only a trend in Portland but also nationwide. I recall many stories of officers of color leaving their native communities to apply for work outside the communities they had been raised in. They did this in an effort to pursue a career in law enforcement, which they wanted, and also to avoid the demonization and stigma that would accompany policing the communities in which they had been raised.
As elaborated upon in the Black and Blue report, Portland police officer Tony Newman recounted his experiences as one of the few blacks on the force: “I got the feeling after being on the bureau for a few months that I was being watched.” (Serbulo, Pg. 20). As a probationary officer, Newman certainly was being watched and evaluated as we all were while probationary officers, including myself. This would not have been unusual in any respect.
During that period when you were on probation, you could be fired for any reason, for any kind of mistake, error in judgment or failure to perform police procedure correctly — or simply because you didn’t have the right “attitude.” PPB did not discriminate in this regard based upon color if an officer did not take the job seriously enough. To illustrate this point, when I was a seasoned patrolman and working as a coach in 1966, there was a young probationary cop who had just been sworn in. He was white, blond and good-looking, but he was also arrogant and didn’t take police work seriously. When he was having coffee with me at a drive-in on Interstate he wanted to flirt with the car hop more than talk with me about police work, training and procedure. When he said to one of the young car hops, “Hey honey! How’d ya like to fall into the arms of the law?” I knew he would not make it and I wrote a poor evaluation on him for that shift. He was consequently not retained with PPB.
The supervisors made sure you understood that you had to have the right attitude. This was not something that did not occur with white officers, while impacting only black officers. All recruits were subject to the same scrutiny and I too can vividly recall the feeling of “being watched” for the simple reason that I was in fact being watched, as all probationary recruits were.
“Every black officer has to listen to “nigger jokes” and doesn’t feel he can object,” Newman also stated. (Serbulo, Pg. 20). I suspect Newman’s statement here is true although I never personally heard any white officers calling other black officers the N word in all seventeen years I was employed with PPB. But I did hear from other officers that Newman got hassled by some of the white “old timers” after he signed on in 1968 when I was working as a detective. The “old timers” would be the ones who had signed on with the bureau during the 1940s and 1950s. Most of them were conservative WW II veterans, and clearly not a part of the New Breed of police officer as I and my cohorts were. It would be easy to see some of those guys making racist comments to black officers, and to their face, as many of those white officers were simply not educated or enlightened men.
The reality is that there were numerous social cliques in the bureau when I worked for PPB. These were generally small groups of like-minded men who associated and socialized together. Some of those officers held certain values and beliefs that I did not share. I only socialized with the men I’d been assigned to as partners, and with a select few I had gotten to know who I knew had integrity and took the job seriously. I did hear about other officers not only being racist but also behaving in sexist and woman hating ways to the residents of Albina, as well. I steered clear of those officers at all times during my early career and later when I was a veteran detective because I didn’t respect them.
Later on in my career, I worked with Tony Newman in the burglary detail after he was promoted to detective in the 1970s and I got to know and like him. He was an exemplary police officer and detective who always got excellent marks on his twice yearly evaluation forms. Newman was an active, friendly and popular community volunteer and regularly received appreciation letters from citizens and community leaders thanking him for his volunteer hours. Newman was extremely well-liked and respected by all who knew him. (Portland City Archives).
Newman, aged 48, was subsequently fired from the police bureau in 1991 for stalking and then stabbing and nearly killing his girlfriend, Teresa Renee Sproul, aged 32 in 1990. After Newman stabbed Sproul four times with a four-inch butcher knife, December 16, 1990, he then tried to elude police and was later arrested for attempted murder. None of these gruesome details are mentioned in the Black and Blue report. Newman’s main purpose being mentioned in the report is to promote Serbulo and Gibson’s bias against the Portland Police Bureau, incorrectly suggesting that during the decades mentioned, all white officers were racists and killer thugs and all black officers were victims of oppression by upper command staff and constantly harassed.(Portland City Archives).
An individual not familiar with Portland history might presume Tony Newman was some sort of hero, during all the time he served with the Portland Police Bureau, when the fact is, he experienced a sudden turnaround in his personality. This resulted in him nearly killing a young woman who was a mother to two small children, whereby he single handedly destroyed his own long and once distinguished career. (Portland City Archives).
Newman had been recorded as officially stalking his former girlfriend for over three months, (and probably longer than that). He had been threatening to kill Sproul repeatedly and on October 21, 1990, while threatening to kill her, he pointed a gun at her. He had already assaulted her several times previously, and even forced “unwanted sexual contact with her.” What is commonly not known is that November 11, 1990, Newman forcibly cut off several locks of hair from her head, once more against her will and as she feared for her life. This criminal action called into question his mental health and is indicative of obsessive behavior. (Portland City Archives).
What most people outside of law enforcement didn’t know is that several months before Newman stabbed Sproul, he was rumored to have begun using steroids. This was something many officers did during that time in an effort to bulk up and gain musculature. Newman was a well-known body builder and reputed to be competitive with his adult son, an athlete of whom he was extremely proud. If Newman had begun abusing steroids it might explain the sudden shift in his personality, from the calm, intelligent and professional man we all knew, trusted, and liked, to a man who stalked and then stabbed a former lover, and young mother. (Anonymous, 2015).
Twelve) The Black and Blue report mentions the rise of the police union in Portland and how it abused its power. I would agree with that. The Portland Police Association, (PPA) became a powerful political force and has had mixed reactions by citizens over the decades. I was a detective in 1970 when wage negotiations with the city “stalled.” As a result, the PPA solicited the support of the Longshoreman’s Unions by organizing an information picket of the ports along the Willamette River effectively shutting down the ports as unionized dockworkers refused to cross picket lines. (Serbulo, pg. 20). I believed the aforementioned action to be no more than strong-arm tactics and not something our police union should have done. Officer’s efforts at getting better pay and benefits should have revolved around solely their merits and not involved work stoppage and loss of income for others. What they engaged in, in my opinion represented “conduct unbecoming a police officer” by using strong-arm tactics which I consider to be unprofessional, bullying behavior, and demeaning to the Portland Police Bureau and its reputation.
Thirteen) In 1976, Stan Peters was elected president of the PPA and involved the union more politically. “In response to the complaint, Peters went to the press proclaiming in the papers and on the KATU News Town Hall television program that the police were not racist. Black people just committed more crimes per capita, he explained, using statistics about rape — historically, a racially charged crime — to support his claim.” (Serbulo and Gibson, Pg. 21). In retrospect, Stan Peter’s statements did nothing to improve racial relations in Portland, though he was correct when he brought up various statistics on crimes committed by black, as opposed to white persons. The fact is that all during the 1960s and 1970s black persons in the Albina district were responsible for most of the city’s violent crime, which included stabbings, shootings, robberies, burglaries and of course, rape and murder. I was there arresting these criminals, and this is how I remember it.
Fourteen) One of the more outrageous claims the Black and Blue report makes is the claim that in 1985 black Portlander Lloyd “Tony” Stevenson was killed “at the hands of the Police.” (Serbulo and Gibson, Pg 9).
In April of 1985, Stevenson, a black man aged thirty one attempted to prevent a shop lifter from leaving a 7-Eleven store located on NE Weidler where Stevenson had gone to play video games. An altercation began after the man was accused of shoplifting and Stevenson attempted to help. The clerks began to confront the shoplifter and Stevenson with the aid of the clerks chased the man into the parking lot. Stevenson was then approached by a man named Greg Cavic who began arguing with him. The argument became so heated that when the police arrived, Officer Bruce Pantley stepped in between Stevenson and Cavic. Perhaps Cavic accused Stevenson of being too aggressive in stopping the shoplifter? What happened next is still something of a mystery but some sources claim that Stevenson would not calm down, and continued to behave aggressively towards Cavic and Officer Pantley. At some point, Officer Barbour, placed Stevenson in a carotid hold for a short fifteen seconds and Stevenson collapsed and stopped breathing.(Dawdy, 2005).
Stevenson worked as a security guard for Fred Meyer and may have had aspirations of becoming a police officer. Stevenson would not be the first security guard who had tried and failed to become a police officer, or who assumed the authoritative role of “cop wanna be.” When a crowd gathered, and before the police arrived it was Stevenson who had “…tried to contain the melee.” Where the officers were at fault occurred when they did not assist with CPR or any manner of resuscitation efforts.
The Stevenson death was ultimately ruled a “homicide” by the medical examiner. I contend that the death was a clear example of accidental death and not a homicide. Neither Officer Pantley nor Officer Barbour intended to kill Stevenson and there was absolutely no premeditation involved in what happened. The two officers were wrong however in not attempting to perform CPR and resuscitate Stevenson. Their reluctance may have been because of the hysteria surrounding the spread of AIDS, which was still prevalent, and quite misunderstood at that time. The death, in my opinion and others working in law enforcement at the time was that it was a form of accidental death. Not murder. The altercation between Stevenson and Greg Cavic, leading up to the carotid hold speaks volumes to me and other retired or former law enforcement officers about Stevenson’s frame of mind and level of possible aggression. Is it possible that Stevenson was trying to assume the role of a cop? In my career as a Portland police officer, I encountered numerous security guards who were later arrested for assault. This occurred when they decided to go overboard and put hands on a person, or otherwise become combative when they had no legal cause or right to be. It was not unusual and happened many times during my career.
As to the Medical examiner and the apparent decision to rule Stevenson’s death a “homicide” I can only state that medical examiners have a long history of bending to political pressure in their rulings. Any veteran cop knows this. I know of specific medical examiners who would bend to pressure and make a determination about a particular cause of death that was not true to science. This is a practice that happens nationwide. And this was done more than once while I was working as a police detective for PPB. Just because the medical examiner ruled the Stevenson death a “homicide” does not mean it was a homicide. There is no doubt that the Stevenson death was tragic and preventable, but it was also not murder. (DuPay, 2015).
Fifteen) After the death of Lloyd “Tony” Stevenson and the banning of the carotid hold by Penny Harrington, (the carotid hold that officers had used successfully for decades) there were some unintended consequences. Many officers became angry that the newly appointed chief of police, Penny Harrington, was not defending them and was willing to allow the press and media to demonize them unfairly. (Anonymous, 2015).
At the time before Stevenson’s death, Harrington was promoting the carotid hold in an effort to improve the image of police; she was also discouraging the use of another popular police control tactic. She felt that police officers seen using this other method to gain compliance was not a good way to promote community acceptance of police, particularly if that method appeared violent. The control tactic was called the “hair hold.” This method was used after I left the streets, to gain control of a resister but I know that it worked. (Anonymous, 2015).
The officer reached up behind the head of the resister and slide their hand up and into the hair, depending if there was enough hair to do so. At that point, the officer gripped a large quantity of hair, thereby securing the resister and gaining control. This method was used with much success and was a popular method because it ensured that the officer could gain control and there were rarely any injuries from this less than lethal control tactic. The trouble was Harrington didn’t like how it looked. She felt it appeared too violent, so at the expense of a good control tactic, she promoted the carotid hold, at the expense of the hair hold. (Anonymous, 2015).
One PPB officer, during a routine training in early 1985, in which the carotid hold was being pushed at the expense of the hair hold, mentioned to a police trainer that there had been a few deaths from the carotid hold in other states. This officer mentioned deaths that had occurred most commonly in the state of California with LAPD, whose officers were notorious for their unrivaled aggression towards civilians and offenders. The officer asked the trainer if there was “ever a death in Portland” would Harrington and the other command staff defend them and their training against a hostile media and an equally ambivalent public, or would they be on their own? Would the lowly patrolman be protected from the wrath of the biased press, public opinion and the slant of media demonization? The officer wanted to know if Harrington, would “have our backs” and protect them rather than throw them under the proverbial bus. (Anonymous, 2015).
When the officer asked the PPB training coach what might happen, in the event of a death, the trainer informed the patrolman that he had already spoken to Harrington about the possibility. The trainer informed the patrolman that Harrington and the other commanders would indeed protect and defend them, as only having done what they had been “trained” to do. They would indeed “have their backs” he promised him.(Anonymous, 2015). Unfortunately, when that unexpected death did occur in 1985 — when Stevenson died after a promoted carotid hold that Harrington had been pushing, apparently Harrington forgot she’d ever promised she would protect the individual officers involved in the event of a death. To save herself, Harrington “threw officer’s Pantley and Barber to the wolves.” She did not have their backs as she had promised and they were “Eaten alive by the press.” (Anonymous, 2015).
This is one of the many dangers patrolman face. They are trained to perform certain functions in order to protect citizens’ lives and in order to protect their own lives, which they do have a right to do. When they follow their training, and a resisting felon dies, as will sometimes happen, the patrolman is blamed entirely for the death, even when they did nothing out of policy. The command staff and others, who create and approved the training then slowly slink away into the corners of their offices and allow the press to demonize the officer, destroy his career, assassinate his character and annihilate his life, his livelihood and his families future.
Ron Still was eventually chosen as chief of police around the time that Chief Bruce Baker was retiring. Mayor Ivancie could not have made a worse choice for Chief of Police when he chose Lt. Ron Still. Had Ivancie properly vetted Lt. Still, by interviewing officers who knew him and had worked with him, and members of the public, he may have chosen a different and more emotionally balanced chief. (Carmon, 1981).
I worked with Officer Ron Still while a probationary officer on graveyard shift at East Precinct. We worked a “beat car,” which meant we parked the car and walked the neighborhood checking bars and rundown hotels, like The Royal Hotel for any criminal activity, most of which was located on the lower east side of Southeast Grand and Union Avenue.
This was called “walking a beat” and walking a beat was not uncommon for police officers during the 1960s in Portland. “Beat walks” were assigned to officers all over the city, particularly in problem areas like Albina and Old Town, in downtown. This form of police work was considered to be one of the most important examples of “community policing” available and occurred all during the 1960s.(DuPay, 2015).
According to Serbulo and Gibson, they claim community policing never occurred in Portland and that it is only since 1985 that “…the Portland Police Bureau has adopted Community Policing…” (Serbulo, pg 30). They are mistaken in that assertion. I was there, walking those beats. Walking a beat and getting to know the actual citizens of the city is the essence of what community policing is, and we were doing it then, long before 1985.
While walking a beat with Still, I found him to be a gruff, insensitive bully to those unable to answer his demands quickly and to his immediate satisfaction. As I was a probationary officer then and not entitled to an opinion, and Still had five years on the job, I did nothing to stop his violent mistreatment of the people we arrested. There was nothing I could do without risk of immediate termination. I had to get through my probationary period without any complaints about my conduct or attitude, and though it went against my sense if morality to do nothing in those kinds of situations, I had no choice if I wanted to be retained.
I next encountered Officer Ron Still while I was still on probation several months later and working as a jailer in the City jail at 209 SW Oak street in the old Headquarters building. I operated the jail elevator and had occasion one late afternoon to transport Officer Still and a handcuffed prisoner from the Oak street entrance to the fifth floor jail. The prisoner was a thin young white male dressed in scruffy clothing. He looked poor, depressed and slightly drunk.
After the elevator began its assent, Officer Still stopped the elevator between the third and fourth floors and for no apparent reason turned to the prisoner and began beating on him and cussing him out through gritted teeth. Officer Still repeatedly punched the prisoner in the ribs, kidneys and shoulders, slamming him hard against the metal walls of the jail elevator until the young man almost passed out. As I was a new cop, the experience was alarming. I felt angry, disgusted and disappointed in Still, but if I had gone against him, I would have been fired immediately. When Still was finished with this unprovoked assault of a helpless handcuffed prisoner, he restarted the elevator, ignoring me, and we all exited into the enclosed booking area. After the man had been softened up by Still, we both assisted him as he exited the elevator, as he could barely stand. I did not report the beating of this handcuffed prisoner as I was on probation and knew if I did, I’d be fired on the spot. I regret I did not stand up to Still but if I had, I would have been fired and as I’d already gotten into some minor trouble for talking back to a Sergeant a couple of months earlier, and reprimanded for it formally, I knew I was skating on thin ice, already.
After Ron Still was appointed Chief of Police by Mayor Ivancie “Black community leaders called Ivancie’s choice for a new chief “frightening.”” The black community members must have known what I knew, that Still was a cruel brute who enjoyed hurting people. The collective efforts of Union president Stan Peters and the appointment of Ron Still as Chief of Police seriously set back race relations once again in Portland during that time. (Serbulo and Gibson, pg. 24).
When Bud Clark became mayor in 1985, in an attempt to improve the image of the Portland Police Bureau, Clark replaced Ron Still with Penny Harrington, the first female police chief in the nation. Harrington, as it turned out would be police chief when Lloyd Stevenson died in police custody in April of 1985. (Serbulo and Gibson, pg 25).
In response to the Stevenson death Harrington banned the use, temporarily, of the long used and highly effective carotid “sleeper hold” that had been used safely for decades. After the ban was announced and on the very day of Lloyd Stevenson’s funeral, two officers, Richard Montee and Paul Wickersham began selling t-shirts, which read: “Don’t choke ’Em. Smoke ‘Em,” out of the parking lot of East Precinct. Although the officers claimed the t-shirts were a “harmless prank that was blown out of proportion by the media,” the black community was again outraged and insulted. The flippant “prank” conveys a terrible lack of concern for human life, but I’m not convinced it was directed at black people specifically but at the criminal element in general. It was not acceptable under any circumstances though for the officers to have done what they did. Bud Clark fired both officers, who were then reinstated by a federal arbitrator, but with a loss of six months’ pay. (Serbulo and Gibson, pg 26).
With less than two years on the job (and never a popular leader within the rank and file) Harrington became involved in a drug scandal with her husband, Officer Gary Harrington, also employed by PPB. In March of 1986, Harrington, after a lengthy meeting with Mayor Bud Clark decided to resign rather than be demoted and endure the shame of not being the chief anymore. Although the Harrington’s both denied any involvement in drug dealing or wrong doing, a three member panel concluded that Officer Gary Harrington had indeed “tipped off” a known drug dealer before a scheduled drug raid was to take place by the Portland Police. The panel decision was a clear indicator of corruption on Gary Harrington’s part as the panel’s conclusion was based on testimony and other solid evidence. The panel released a written report that “ripped” Harrington for many of her poor management decisions and abrasive demeanor, and her career with PPB was over. (Walth, 2014.)Once again, relations with the black community suffered a serious setback as they saw Chief Harrington involved in a drug scandal and other forms of inexcusable hypocrisy and blatant police corruption. (Turner, 1986).
A year after Harrington was forced to resign, in 1986, she was stripped of the nearly $4,000 per month she was getting for a so-called “…stress related disability pension” that she had been getting on the city’s dime. In retrospect, the community and race relations in Portland suffered a serious blow by the appointment of two consecutive police chiefs with leadership and morality issues, as Still and Harrington were both deplorable choices for such an important and complex leadership position.
Sixteen) Probably the most glaring aspect of spin, and bias, as disseminated by the Black and Blue report is the black and white photo prominently displayed on page seven of their report. This photo and the spin the caption attempts to provide is one of the most blatant examples of what it means to promote a biased agenda in a written academic report. The photo shows fifteen or more black youth, two of whom appear to be female, and three males who appear to be smiling or laughing, along with two Portland Police officers. (Serbulo and Gibson, Pg. 7).
The caption below the photo reads, “Portland police clash with young Albina residents on Union Avenue in 1969. By 1960, four fifths of the city’s black population lived in the Albina neighborhood — a result of racial segregation and isolation — while the vast majority of officers who policed the neighborhood were white.” (Serbulo and Gibson, Pg. 7).
While it is true that most of Portland’s black population did indeed live in the Albina district, and while it is true that most of the police officers were white, there are other aspects of the written caption that are misleading. As a veteran police officer, what I see in the photo are two young black youths engaged in a fistfight. The youth on the left has a ripped left pant leg. The tear begins at the knee and rises to the groin area. The youth on the left is facing and pressed into the black youth on the right. The youth on the right appears to have a handful of the other youth’s shirt. The two officers in the photo, (both of whom I recognized and worked with as a patrolman and later as a detective) are pulling them apart. Officer Phil Todd in the left of the photo has a cigarette in his mouth and Officer Don Kagy is on the right, as they both struggle to separate the two violent combatants.
The presence of the cigarette in Todd’s mouth is telling. I know this from personal experience. I smoked during my years as a street cop as a stress reliever, finally quitting when I turned twenty nine and realized it was bad for me. The significance of the cigarette in Todd’s mouth is that it likely means he and Officer Kagy came onto the scene of the two black youths fighting and jumped out of the car spontaneously to break up the fistfight. Had they responded to a call from dispatch, Phil would have had time to extinguish the cigarette. The cigarette in Phil’s mouth tells me they came upon the scene and jumped out of the car to break up a common street fight on the spur of the moment.
The car is parked in the street and obstructing south bound traffic, and the address, in the 3500 block, tells me that this incident occurred at Fremont and Union Avenue. Phil Todd and I along with other police officers of this time broke up fist fights involving young black kids out socializing, drinking and experimenting with heroin and other drugs on a regular basis. These conflicts often involved the affections of an attractive young woman in their midst. For the authors of the Black and Blue report, to suggest that this photo represents some sort of sinister “clash” between Portland police officers and victimized black youth is misleading and absurd. Two young black men were engaged in a violent fistfight and Officer Phil Todd and Officer Don Kagy broke up the conflict and order was hopefully restored.
Conclusion: I believe it is important to address some of the inaccuracies within the Black and Blue report as written by Serbulo and Gibson. These inaccuracies involve the integrity, veracity and character of Portland police officers of the 1960s that I worked with and knew personally.
Certain officers are included photographically and yet not identified in their report — as with Phil Todd and Don Kagy. And the entire department is lumped into a nameless aggregate who have neither an identity, nor a voice and as a result no way to defend themselves against accusations that are not completely accurate. These men are accused as a whole, of egregious and chronic wrong-doing and deformity of character, and that in itself shows the bias of the authors. To accuse an entire police force of well over seven hundred officers of being cruel racists, as Serbulo and Gibson do is not only careless scholarship, it is revisionist history making.
Due to political pressure from command staff, a liberal and biased media that is more than eager to demonize officers, and because of a desire to protect themselves, officers are taught, (and I can vouch for this) not to defend themselves when faced with legitimate or even ludicrous accusations of wrong doing. That lack of personal representation is part of the code of silence and it is pandemic in police culture nationwide. Because of the role of police, which is akin to a parental role, (making certain people obey laws for example and behave themselves while driving) police understand that they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. As a result they remain silent, even when they have engaged in no wrongdoing.
Predatory police officers do exist and are present in every department, but are generally less than once percent of the population. The code of silence can work in two ways — first it can protect a corrupt officer, and we see that too, but it also succeeds in condemning a good moral officer with a good track record who may have been involved in a situation of deadly force in which he did nothing wrong, either legally or morally. For those situations exist as well. Many fine police officers, in their obligation to protect their own lives, must kill a dangerous offender or mentally ill person who refuses to comply or is aggressive and intent on harming or killing them with a weapon or even only their hands.
The “Us vs Them” dynamic must also change, though I doubt it ever will. If citizens actually want to foster a more positive rapport between law enforcement and themselves, that involves changing their internalized perception of police officers. The only way that can occur is if the citizen makes the effort to get to know a police officer personally. Police officers also have to do their best to create relationships with those in the communities they protect. In this way they can become human beings and not the uniform clad machines that many people choose to dehumanize and objectify.
Thorough research when doing historical inquiry and academic writing is extremely important. When historical accuracy is not valued, the writing that results cannot become a whole historical representation of what may have occurred. For history to be accurately depicted and recorded, we need multiple versions of it, from multiple perspectives and not just a single version, with its own agenda and obvious bias.
Researchers should never attempt to callously demonize or vilify an entire group of people who are, for the most part unable to defend themselves. These men cannot defend their integrity, motivations, or reasons for becoming involved in police work. They have no voice and cannot “create space” for others to understand their lives, histories and personal intentions as to why they chose law enforcement as a career and how they treated people of color during their respective careers.
Others who may offer insight and opinions, such as residents, business owners, community activists, doctors, social workers, and even ambulance drivers should be interviewed but to avoid, (intentionally I am presuming) interviewing retired law enforcement officers represents an enormous failing in the Black and Blue report. This oversight in Serbulo and Gibson’s published report skews their message and many of their claims regarding racism, and the conduct of Portland police officers during the times mentioned in their essay.
While locating retired or former law enforcement officers may be a challenge, it is not impossible, as there are still quite a few of us still living who remember the 1960s in Albina in Portland, Oregon. We are all generally in our late seventies and early eighties but we are still alive and still reachable.
The reality is that PPB was a department manned by men, (and women in the Women’s Protective Division) who cared deeply for the citizens of Portland all during the violent and tumultuous 1960s. This included thousands of the good black citizens of the Albina district who made up the majority of the population of people of color residing there, working and raising families and obeying the law.
The many realities regarding racism, redlining, housing discrimination and racism in general by Mayor Schrunk, Jim Purcell Junior, and a small number of rogue Portland police officers, during the 1960s, as presented in the Black and Blue report, is factual. The segregation and social isolation and economic inequity that thousands of black persons living in Albina experienced is also acknowledged as truthful and valid as it is presented in the Black and Blue report.
I am not attempting to disregard the valid claims and testimony as presented in the Black and Blue report regarding institutionalized racism, racist police officers, redlining and housing discrimination. However, to lump all white officers together in one nameless aggregate, as racist, uncaring, murdering invaders is wrong. The men I worked with were not callously inhumane or completely unconcerned with “public safety.” That aspect of revisionist history goes against all my memories of the many years my partners and I worked hard to promote public safety and protect the residents of Albina who were primarily African American people of color.
I worked hard to promote public safety for the six years I worked the North End, because I cared. That included the countless black mothers I came across, who were often abused by the men in their lives and working hard to support children who were often as not, fatherless. I struggled to counsel and otherwise help those women in my capacity as a Portland police officer; as I sought to help other Portland citizens I came into contact with as well.
These were people I got to know and people I cared about. I was not the only Portland police officer who cared about the people in my district. For the most part, we all did.
The below article was taken from The Oregonian Newspaper, from an article published in July of 1961. It is recorded here in its entirety.
Portland Police Seek Educated Recruits — July 13, 1961
By Gerry Pratt
Business Editor, the Oregonian William Parker, the chief of police in los Angeles, has been quoted as saying of police work, “a person who is intelligent enough for the job is too intelligent to take it.”
Bardell Purcell, whom the city of Portland pays $700 a month to work as a captain of the police, doesn’t believe that is true, “and neither does Parker, really, he claims.”
Purcell has a masters degree in education, is president of the 500-member Oregon-Washington Lawmen’s Association and is proof that what Parker said to make a point doesn’t always hold.
Parker’s point was generally that you must pay more for better people to get more mileage from your police dollar and that too was what Purcell was saying, if in somewhat different terms.
The Portland captain is a career policeman. He was wooed into the force under a program pushed by the late Harry Niles, a chief, says Purcell, “who was 20 years ahead of his time.”
“Portland at that time had more college men in their department than any comparable city in the country. Niles was conscious of college trained policemen and went after them,” Purcell recalled.
The war and competition for good talent by private industry, an abundance of other jobs in the boon years, these things changed that.
“There’s three kinds of people applying for police work today,” said Purcell, whose study of this field has been used as the basis for legislation on police training and standards. “The man interested in the excitement, the interesting work; the one’s motivated by the civil service security advantages; and the very few who are dedicated to getting work they think will perform a service for human betterment.
References
Belasco, Christina. “Losing Albina.” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 19 May. 2015. Web. 10 July. 2015.
Carmon, Diane. “Ivancie Police Actions Insult to Black Community,” Oregon Journal, June 3, 1981; Linda Williams, “Jordon Sees Totally Different Bureau Under Ivancie,” Oregonian, June 2, 1981.; Williams, “Critics to Give Police Chief Chance,” Oregonian, June 3, 1981.
Dawdy, Phillip. “1985, Don’t Choke ’Em, Smoke ‘Em.” Willamette Week, published March 8, 2005, updated January 24, 2017. http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-4184-1985.htm
DuPay, Don. Behind the Badge in River City: A Portland Police Memoir. Second Edition. Oregon Greystone Press. 2015.
Excessive Use of Force by the Police against Black Americans. (2016). Retrieved from, https://rfkhumanrights.org/assets/documents/iachr_thematic_hearing_submission_-_excessive_use_of_force_by_police_against_black_americans.pdf
Falk, Susan, “Vote Indicates Displeasure,” The Rap Sheet, May 1981, 1.
Former Police Chief Penny Harrington has been stripped of…, (1987). Retrieved from, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/05/27/Former-police-chief-Penny-Harrington-has-been-stripped-of/4675549086400/.
Nelson, Pickett. “150 Rally to Protest Possum Incident,” Oregon Journal, March 26, 1981; Pickett, “Two Officers Deny Racial Harassment,” Oregon Journal, March 23,
Pratt, Jerry. “Portland Police Seek Educated Recruits.” July 13, 1961. Oregonian.
Serbulo, Leanne, & Gibson, Karen. “Black and Blue: Police-Community Relations in Portland’s Albina District, 1964–1985.” Oregon Historical Society. OHQ vol. 114, no.1. 2013.
Turner, Wallace. “Under Fire, Woman Quits As Portland Police Chief.” New York Times. June 3, 1986.
Walth, Brent. “April 20, 1985: Portland’s first female police chief falls from grace…” Willamette Week. Published Nov. 4, 2014. Updated June 2, 2017.
Updated October 20, 2019. 12:45 pm