Staff shares peoples’ concerns around transparency, engagement and police training.
The city of Lake Oswego is one step closer to creating a list of recommendations as part of its examination of community policing.
At a Lake Oswego City Council study session Monday, June 22, staff presented findings and conclusions based on data collected from focus groups and surveys over the last few months. The council then directed City Manager Martha Bennett and Lake Oswego Police Chief Dale Jorgensen to develop a draft action plan to address the findings.
“This has really been an educational experience for me and our department,” Jorgensen said. “We are looking forward to the recommendations and action plans that come from this report in front of you.”
Earlier this year the city established the goal of completing a community engagement process to examine policing in the aftermath of widespread condemnation of police killings of Black people.
To begin the process, there was a community kickoff meeting last March and the second phase, which recently wrapped up, dealt with discussions on topics ranging from police hiring practices to officer training. Meanwhile, the city conducted focus groups with community members and police officers and collected data from surveys.
Looking into the number narrative
The city broke down the demographic information of people who participated in the focus groups and surveys and, not surprisingly, white people dominated the majority of participants with 71.1% of people participating, while 14.2% declined to answer. There were 4.7% who identified as two or more races, 4.4% who were Asian, 2.7% Hispanic or Latinx, 2.1% Black or African American, .6% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander and .3% who identified as American Indian or Alaska Native.
In the outreach survey, 98% of respondents reported feeling safe in Lake Oswego, 80% of people reported positive experiences with LOPD — though 85% of survey respondents reported having an interaction with LOPD — and 73% had a favorable perception of the local police.
Mayor Joe Buck said it was important to keep in mind the percentage of people who never had interactions with LOPD but still didn’t feel safe.
“There’s just not a lot of people around that look like them,” Buck said. “Lake Oswego has had a reputation that we are working on changing.”
Two sets of data points — which dealt with the trustworthiness of LOPD and whether people felt comfortable calling the police — were separated between white people and those who identified as Black, Indigenous and people of color. Those who didn’t report their ethnicity were excluded from this comparison. People either answered with “strongly agree,” “agree,” “neutral,” “disagree” or “strongly disagreed.”
While 48% and 25% of white people strongly agreed and agreed, respectively, that LOPD was trustworthy, the percentages for people who identified as Black, Indigenous and people of color were 30% and 32%, respectively.
In terms of feeling comfortable to call the police when needed, 66% of white people strongly agreed and 20% agreed, while 48% of Black, Indigenous and people of color strongly agreed and 22% agreed.
Staff review data and identify patterns
Following the survey and focus group process, the staff identified several points of emphasis including “Communication and Reporting,” “Opportunities for engagement between community members and police department,” “LOPD Training and Development” and “Community Engagement and Community Bias.” Within each of those categories were various findings.
“It’s been a very interesting process and I think we got some really great information,” said Bill de la Cruz, one of the facilitators who worked with community members throughout this process.
Under the first category, de la Cruz said findings from surveys and focus groups revealed a “disconnect” between the communities’ perception of what LOPD does and how LOPD actually conducts its work on a daily basis.
He also said questions came up about use of force and why officers need to wear their guns and vests to community events. The “no call too small” police motto that has been popularized in Lake Oswego over the years also brought forth concerns with efficiency.
“There were strong opinions on this issue — it is an excellent community practice and should be continued vs. some calls are too small and should not use limited policing resources,” the staff report read. “From the perspective of police officers and dispatchers, there were concerns that ‘no call too small’ prompted community members to make calls that proved to be biased and discriminatory against people of color who they felt ‘did not belong in their neighborhood.'”
Findings for the second category around engagement between the community and police department included a desire for getting to know police as humans and members of the community, as well as questions about how to engage youth in these conversations.
“I would like to see overt interactions with our youth: minorities, disabled, all economic backgrounds. Post invitations to games, club meetings, self-defense classes, Buddy Programs, Service-Learning Projects with schools,” read a community member comment in the staff report.
Findings under the category of training and development included a lack of females in command positions and reports of women being perceived as less than their male colleagues. Other concerns surrounded the lack of visibility around what training Lake Oswego police were required to participate in and how it differed from other police departments. Some officers shared they hadn’t received follow-up training, or training on how to respond to biased statements, though they received initial implicit bias training.
“Many people in the police focus groups stated that the bias trainings were relevant and interesting, however they did not necessarily lead to changes in practices or policies, as officers reported already interacting with the community in a manner that does not perpetuate bias,” the staff report read.
Another finding under community bias was that many calls and experiences related to racial profiling could be traced to Lake Oswego community members, not officers, which was a surprising finding, according to staff.
“We need to educate the community that it’s not appropriate to call the police on someone because of their skin,” City Councilor Aaron Rapf said.
Councilor Massene Mboup said when reading the findings and data, the quantitative data was “weak” in terms of representation.
Charity Taylor, the city’s management analyst, said the demographic breakdown of those who participated in the surveys and focus groups showed a gap in the number of people of color who participated versus the total amount of people of color reported in the city’s census.
“I don’t think it represents Lake Oswego,” Mboup said about the lack of representation from people of color. “This is (a) fact: that white folks have a better interaction with police than their other counterparts.”
Mboup added that the city needs to take a holistic approach to this work and pay attention to how children are treated in schools as well, because the discussion goes deeper than just the police.
Councilor John Wendland said it was good to hear that 98% of residents felt safe and that a majority of people both trusted and felt comfortable calling the police. He asked how Lake Oswego’s data compared to other municipalities.
While staff did not have data from other cities, Council President Daniel Nguyen cautioned that the outreach results do not show the full picture.
“Distrust among the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) community of the police, it’s a very real thing. I know that as Chief Jorgensen just said, it’s just a first step here,” said Nguyen, adding that the community is watching to see if the city is being genuine with this work and if recommendations are the only results of this work, it won’t be enough.
He said as the process unfolds, more people will realize it’s a safe space to share their experiences.
“It’s not a complete picture, it’s only the first step in breaking down some of these barriers,” Nguyen said. “As council, we have to show the community we’re serious about this.”
Buck asked Jorgensen what stands in the way of police becoming even more involved in the community and how they balance calls that may actually be too small.
Jorgensen said the pandemic has hindered their ability to do ride-alongs and attend community events.
Pre-COVID, Jorgensen said police were involved in about 100 different community events.
“There are calls that are too small that we won’t go on,” Jorgensen said, adding that the department wants to maintain the mentality around that motto, but they train dispatchers to go deeper into those calls to determine the type of response that’s warranted. “We want to maintain that service level because that’s what the community has asked us to do up to this point.”
Jorgensen said they don’t have a lot of staff and it’s important to have a balance between staff attending community events and also participating in the fundamental responsibilities of a police officer to ensure public safety.
“I think we can do it,” he said.
Councilor Rachel Verdick said she noticed parallels between citizens and the police with regards to wanting more transparency and getting to know each other better.
“I think those are really positive things we can take action on,” Verdick said, adding that it’s important to increase data results among people of color to “strongly” agree.
She asked if there was something that wasn’t captured in the data.
Taylor said it would be great to have more engagement from communities of color, but acknowledged that it can take time with groups of people who may have had a traumatizing past with law enforcement.
Jorgensen said he didn’t want to focus on what they may have missed in the data because he wasn’t sure they knew yet.
“This has by far been a watershed moment,” he said. “This isn’t a one-and-done process. This has got to continue and that’s when we’ll start to find the things that were missing.”
Next steps include drafting recommendations over the summer to bring before the council. A formal adoption of the recommendations would take place after a community wrap-up event, which would likely take place in September. The formal adoption would likely take place in October.
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