Excessive Force

Portland cops are up in arms over a new "use of force rule." (Read it here.)

The policy is for supervisors to meet with those officers who have used force more frequently than most to determine if there are "... training gaps...issues... or other concerns..."

The policy hit police officers "like a ton of bricks," and caused them to be "upset, distraught and discouraged, to say the least."

Are we sure we want to put such delicate sensibilities on the street, carrying guns?

Aside from standard union posturing, ratcheting up rhetoric and portraying cops as victims, there is little news here, and little will happen.

Here's a study we would like to see: Every cop on the city's payroll should take a blood test once a year on a random basis for steroids. Any "use of force incident" should result in a blood test. If steroids are present, or any psychoactive drug, the cop looks for another job. Period. Zero tolerance. No disability pay, either.

Steroid use is well known in the macho culture of weight rooms, and "Roid rage" is well documented. Many reported "use of force" incidents by cops in Portland simply beg for a blood test for steroids.

It won't happen, of course. The unions are too powerful, the citizens too weak. They have the guns and poorly worded laws on their side, we have a free press and damn little else. We have made a trade-off, whether we like it or not.

Don't waste money on state police

Democrats in Oregon want to waste hundreds of millions of dollars on the Oregon State Police. And they want make the funding an entitlement, so if money needs to be saved in the future, OSP will not have to share.

The budget is scheduled for a work session on Monday, May 14 at 3:00 pm at the Oregon State Capitol.

Folks, the OSP gets hundreds of millions of dollars a year. How many more highway patrols to you want? What about schools? What about roads? What about investment? What in the hell are you getting for your money?

Will someone please give us some facts here?

Let's talk first about response times and support for other police: Response times have been improved by the increase in the number of cell phones far more than the number of troopers.

Then we need to ask, what is the cost per officer of an OSP Trooper versus a Clackamas County Sheriff if each is a five-year veteran? What is the "efficiency" of those officers, that is, what is the "Total cost per trooper" versus the "total cost per deputy?" or better yet, "total cost per trooper per mile on the road" versus "total cost per deputy per mile on the road?"

Is it possible we might get three deputies for the cost of two troopers? What does that mean for response times?

Let's move on to support for other agencies: do OSP and Clackamas County work as well together as Clackamas and Multnomah Counties on a true mutual aid call? Ask a couple of deputies, and promise them absolute anonymity. Ask them how they like working with the other sheriff's office, and ask them about working with OSP. There are culture differences between all of them: Bernie's agency may be hard to work with, etc. But it's a good question to put out there.

It has been said that a proposed 139 additional troopers alone will cost $17.6 million of new money initially, growing larger every two years, at least $80 million of new money in the next decade for just the increase. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO GET FOR THAT MONEY? You will not get $80 million of lives saved, or $80 million of meth busts, or $80 million of anything that has a positive impact on the lives of Oregonians.

The emphasis so far has been on 24 hour patrols, and more cops on the road. On that subject, see if you can find any statistics, anywhere, that shows that issuing tickets causes a population to drive more slowly, or saves any lives.

OSP sells budget increases with a misuse of numbers: In an accident, force at impact increases by the square of speed increase, (true) therefore, issuing tickets saves lives (false). Invalid because (1) Few accidents are caused by speed in a way that more troopers would prevent; (2) We don't really want traffic to move more slowly, we want it to move more safely, and they are not the same; (3) Things that are true in the singular (one driver) often fail in the aggregate (traffic safety).

Over the same period the number of troopers has been going down, the number of fatal accidents per mile driven has been going down. Ask again: What are we getting for our $17.6 million of new money that will directly benefit Oregonians?

We could put that money into schools, teaching boys and girls how to pound nails, how to weld, how to earn a living; We could create a state service program for all 18 years olds; We could put that money into a bypass around Sisters, Oregon; We could put that money into investments in alternative energy, growing soybeans for diesel fuel, turning logging slash or underbrush clearing into ethanol; We could attract a business with jobs to Newport or Coos Bay; We could improve a bridge. Widen a road. Reform K-8 education by teaching parents how to parent.

There is so much to do with that money, my god don’t throw it away on the OSP.

Time is short. Write your legislator. Find the address on the right side of this article.