Rationale: Currently, Washington County Sheriff Pat Garrett has a verbal agreement to allow BPD to utilize the Washington County Mental Health Response Team when they are not attending to calls within their jurisdiction.  Chief Groshong indicated early on in our discussions that approximately one-third of BPD calls involve people experiencing mental health crises. Chief Groshong said, “Our officers are not trained to deal with acute mental health crises.”  With 33% of calls involving people in mental health crises; it is in the best interest of the community to invest in a mental health response team.

Rationale: When employers focus on skills and abilities in job interviews, bias in hiring is reduced.  The hope is this would lead to the hiring of more racially diverse police officers.  

Rationale: The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing observed: “To build a police force capable of dealing with the complexity of the 21st century, it is imperative that agencies place value on both educational achievements and socialization skills when making hiring decisions. Hiring officers who reflect the community they serve is important not only to external relations, but also to increasing understanding within the agency.” Coupling BPD’s culture of innovation with the groundbreaking idea of community involvement in hiring will produce a result that creates a unique and community- informed hiring process.

Rationale: This presents the Beaverton Police Department with the opportunity to be the innovative institution it aspires to be by teaming with those leading research on de-escalation and mental health intervention. 

Rationale: Self-awareness is often cited as an important element of cultural competence.  Building self-awareness and institutional awareness will help support the development of cultural competence in individual police officers and the BPD.

Rationale: The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing observed “Hiring officers who reflect the community they serve is important not only to external relations, but also to increasing understanding within the agency.”  Racial diversity and other forms of diversity, when leveraged, can enhance the quality and effectiveness of policing in Beaverton.

Rationale: Measurement and evaluation of a goal helps to maintain the focus on it.

Rationale: The Beaverton School District serves students that reflect the Global Majority of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).   Having the officers that support student populations reflect similar racial and ethnically diverse identities would enhance officers ability to connect with the students they serve.

Rationale:  Our neighbor city, Portland, has been the site of significant, sustained protest against police violence. The “Escalated force model” suggests that if protests become unruly, police respond with increasing force until protest is suppressed. Studies found in practice this made civil disturbances much worse, which is in line with outcomes in Portland. 

Rationale: The changes and additions made to the Department website since May are an improvement in both look and content. Reports of community complaints can be long and are not typically written in easily digestible language. Ensuring that community members can access police data and summary reports enhances transparency and trust -- and officers are able to do their best work in an environment of community trust. 

Additional questions: 

Rationale: Measurement and ongoing evaluation of a goal maintains focus on the goal. Involving community members in establishing and evaluating goals builds trust and transparency.

Rationale: Michael German pointed out that when police bureaus participate in joint task forces they often do so under different standards and regulations than their own.   BPD needs to determine what oversight will be utilized if the department chooses to participate in collaborative operations with other entities.

Rationale: Portland Police Bureau have moved their communications to encrypted channels to avoid public scrutiny, undermining accountability and eroding public trust. 

Rationale: Similar to “Care Teams” in the medical (and educational) realms, and to how SROs are organized within the school district. This establishes a structure for building authentic connections between individual officers and community members to build trust and expertise. 

Rationale: The police can only meaningfully serve the needs of the community when they understand the needs of the community; actively seeking input outside of current feedback practices ensures that multiple perspectives are heard. Empathy interviews are open-ended, conversational interviews intended both to gather qualitative data and to build relationships, and often reveal insights not captured by traditional survey methods. Members of the public have expressed interest in opportunities to engage with officers directly, similar to ride-alongs or Coffee with a Cop programs. Using BPD’s website to gather and share stories humanizes officers and community members, and demonstrates a commitment to seeking input.  

Rationale: BPD needs to cultivate a variety of relationships with culturally relevant organizations and groups to connect with Beaverton’s BIPOC communities. Examples include APANO, UO, CAUSA, REAP and more. 

Rationale: Guest, Michael German shared findings from the “Countering Violent Extremism” program, where law enforcement initially engaged Muslim communities for the purpose of learning and building relationships, it morphed into a “intelligence collection” platform. As Michael German stated: “One way to destroy relationships between police and community is to use community outreach as a Trojan horse.” 

Rationale: BPD representatives and youth seem to see their interactions differently, based on the anecdotal stories members of HRAC have had with students. The cadet program and the student academy program are self-selecting. The student leaders in student government positions within schools (who are often those invited to offer feedback) are not representative of the board range of students.  

Rationale: Research supports the conclusion that placing restrictions on the use of force by police reduces police violence. Note: Consultant Ellen Wyoming DeLoy’s report prepared for the Mayor and Council specifically mentioned 8 Can’t Wait as a desired outcome by members of the public. 

Additional Notes: 8 Can’t Wait and related use of force reforms were the session topic of the October 2020 meeting, and Chief Groshong outlined BPD’s analysis of these reforms; some of these policies are already in place in Beaverton and BPD leadership perceives that additional 8 Can’t Wait reforms would endanger officers. Does HRAC want to make a recommendation to adopt 8 Can’t Wait? Some of it? Different use of force reforms? Additional research/analysis? No recommendation? 

Rationale: Currently, the Police Department accounts for 41.1% of the City’s General Fund expenditure. Reallocating funds to social services creates safer communities and has been generally shown to be more cost-effective at reducing crime than expanded policing and incarceration. Allocation of City funds was a recurring theme in both public commentary and statements by HRAC commissioners. 

Rationale: The inquiry process between HRAC and BPD has created an opportunity for meaningful dialogue between the City, the Police Department, and the community as a whole. That work should continue independently of HRAC. There are multiple possible models for citizen oversight. Hiring an outside expert to determine the structure and purpose of a citizen body avoids perpetuating entrenched power structures, and partnering intentionally with communities of color most impacted by police violence centers BIPOC voices and needs from inception.

Ensure a transparent review of the enormous amount of research and data that shows that SROs do not keep schools safer, but that SROs do harm Black, Brown, and Indigenous students and actively sustain the school to prison pipeline. This is not unique to large urban school districts but is true across the board, including suburban districts like BSD.