Police auditor: Bodycam video does not support allegations of tent slashing

Presenter: Eugene’s police auditor said after reviewing body camera recordings, there’s no evidence that Eugene Police slashed tents of homeless campers in mid-January. Street aid workers filed the complaint after hearing about camp clearances during cold weather that they say led to a case of frostbite.

[00:00:18] In a phone interview Feb. 26, Eugene’s police auditor suggested the city would benefit from stronger public records laws. Mark Gissiner:

[00:00:28] Mark Gissiner (Eugene, independent police auditor): We monitor all the complaints, all the investigations; we read the reports, we talk to the IA (Internal Affairs) investigators if it’s an allegation. On allegations of misconduct, we also participate in the interviews. We get called out on critical incidents, shots fired incidents, anything that causes serious physical injury. It’s all in the paperwork under our ordinance.

[00:00:48] In this particular situation, I watched all the video and God bless them (street aid workers) for being out there and helping those folks. The incident that she is talking about, they obviously weren’t witnesses. It was over by Beltline and where they just recently put in new railroad tracks. This was a camp on private property, and there was just a lot of stuff there, a lot of debris. And they got a call. It’s very rare. On private property, they won’t go unless they get a complaint.

[00:01:24] They didn’t really have a tent. They had a compilation of tarps. And there was one tarp over like a sort of a flexible metal pole. So they moved that tarp and the metal pole out of the way so they could see in to make sure there were no more people in there.

[00:01:45] And they did that and they cited the man and I think they were just trying to get him in the system because he’s from North Dakota. He was born here, he went to North Dakota. When they ran his record, there were some fairly significant things, but because at times there is some confusion between national databases, federal registries and things like that, they erred on the side of letting him go, but keeping in contact.

[00:02:16] Presenter: They let him go with a citation, and he was referred to Community Court. Mark Gissiner:

[00:02:22] Mark Gissiner: With the woman, they were taking her to a shelter. They did have to handcuff her because they were taking her in a patrol car and they can’t put someone in the back of a patrol car that’s unhandcuffed. We’ve seen enough stuff happen where that doesn’t always turn out well. And she admitted she’s a hoarder and I would concur with her assessment. Beyond that, they got her her shoes.

[00:02:48] But the irony is, which people don’t understand, they walked past, probably, on their way to their patrol car—because their patrol car was pretty far away, I’d say probably a good quarter-mile away—they walked past like eight tents, never said a word to anybody, never—because, I mean, they kept it tidy. The officers didn’t disturb it or anything because they didn’t get a complaint about that particular issue anyway, and it was on private property.

[00:03:18] Now, there have been occasions where, for example, if they come up upon a tent, for example, on private property, that if Public Works then has to clean up the property and there’s needles and a bunch of things, broken glass and stuff in the front of the tent, they will go to the back of the tent, cut a little slit to see inside to make sure that there’s no dead people or any dangerous animals or things like that. But they don’t slice the whole tent to destroy it.

[00:03:50] I’ve never seen it on film and we watch body cameras of everything they do now. They come on automatically. They can mute them and sometimes, they’re saying they’re muting them for tactical purposes. And I suppose that at times it’s a subjective thing. But there was nothing that occurred out here that was out of the ordinary.

[00:04:11] In fact, I think it was compassionate. Because of the confusion with the registry system, they decided to err on the side of caution with the gentleman. And again, with the woman, she volunteered to go into a shelter and so they took her to the shelter.

[00:04:29] There was another one (incident) where three people who got arrested, because I think she might be referring to that one too. And the three people who got arrested, they were arrested because they all had warrants, all had out-of-state warrants for serious offenses. And that’s why they got arrested.

Because what the officers typically try to do is, because we only get 11 beds at this county jail, you can’t arrest trespassers unless there’s violence involved, is, like with this (North Dakota) guy, they gave him a citation so that when he goes to court, he goes to Community Court where all these social service agencies are to provide services.

[00:05:16] Presenter: The auditor’s first step in processing the complaint is to classify the type of complaint. Mark Gissiner:

[00:05:23] Mark Gissiner: With the case that we’re talking about, we ended up classifying it as a policy complaint because her real issue was the fact that police are going and arresting or citing trespassers and making them move in bad weather. But again, she probably doesn’t differentiate between public property and private property.

[00:05:45] Presenter: The city does not follow hazardous weather protocols when responding to a complaint on private property. While the event and complaint occurred in mid-January, the investigation results are only being reported now. Suggesting that Eugene would benefit from greater transparency, Police Auditor Mark Gissiner:

[00:06:05] Mark Gissiner: I can guarantee you in Ohio or Florida, you would have got the video the next day of this whole thing and that would have shut everything down.

[00:06:13] And we learned our lesson in Cincinnati years and years and years ago when a person was mistakenly killed by an officer and because Cincinnati Police Department wanted to do a criminal investigation on it, they did not want to release any information. And we had our civil unrest as a result of that. We ended up with a consent decree but, (Cincinnati Police) Chief (Tom) Streicher learned, people are going to see the video the next day, no matter what. We’re going to see it.

[00:06:44] Because I think that’s what makes people more upset than anything, it’s just not having the information. So I would have loved for the next day (after the complaint), on Jan. 16, for this video to come down. But again, you know, because of Oregon public records laws, it is not going to happen. 

[00:07:01] And I get the pushback from the public employees that, you know, ‘It’s embarrassing for us. It’s a small enough community.’ I get all that stuff. But that should be part of when you sign that paper to take the job that you need to understand. There’s an awful lot of oversight that occurs here.

[00:07:20] Presenter: That’s Eugene’s police auditor discussing complaints against two officers while clearing encampments in winter. The city said its extreme weather protocols do not apply when police are responding to trespassing complaints on private property.

[00:07:50] After reviewing the bodycam video, Mark Gissiner said there is no evidence that tents were sliced, adding that the city would benefit from better public records laws, which would let the city share that video as quickly as possible.