Police commissioners praise EPD actions at Jan. 30 riot

Presenter: Eugene Police Commissioners praised EPD for stepping between protesters and armed federal agents Jan. 30. Commissioner John Bradley:

John Bradley (Human Rights Commission, liaison): I’m not authorized to speak on behalf of my employer or anything like that, but I spent the last six years at the epicenter of where there’s protest activity in Eugene, up until two weeks ago when we had to abandon that location as a safety for our consumers and as safety for our staff.

And the Eugene Police Department has been very helpful and kind to us, also our federal law enforcement partners in the Federal Protection Service, the physical security officers have spent significant amounts of time and effort trying to keep everyone safe.

And also my observation of the protests are that the protests not the problem. There’s some incredible people who are organizing, working those protests, including folks like Veterans for Peace and the Raging Grannies and all these other groups.

There is a group of about, at any point in time, my observation, my counts when I walk by and or have to go out and try to engage and try to mitigate problems, is that there was between a dozen to maybe at peak times two dozen people who moved past their First Amendment rights and into violations of law that were the problem.

And so it’s a very, very small number, I believe, of our neighbors who are actually causing the majority of the problems.

Presenter: Police Commissioner Jack Radey:

Jack Radey (Eugene Police Commission): I just want to say from my perspective, as someone who has been in many demonstrations and more than a riot or two, the actions of the Eugene Police Department were the most exemplary, professional, and oriented towards safety for everyone involved that I have ever seen or heard about anywhere.

And I’m going to indulge myself, okay. I know we’re supposed to be advising on policy and naught else, but I just want to make a public statement very briefly, if I may, that I wish the folks who are expressing perfectly righteous anger at the actions of the regime in Washington will find a way to do so that is more effective in reaching our community and not expressing their anger by shouting at a building or at our officers who have shown the greatest courage and professionalism in trying to keep them safe.

And from the bottom of my heart, I want to congratulate this department, the chief who made the decisions, and the people who are out there on the line for what they did in keeping people safe. I know it’s not widely appreciated on either side of the spectrum, but from my perspective, I could not imagine better. 

Presenter: Police Commissioner Martha Espinoza-Blank:

Martha Espinoza-Blank (Eugene Police Commission): It was very, very troubling about how things had gotten out of hand. But in agreement with you, Jack, I thought that Chief Skinner, I read a lot about what you had to say in the Register-Guard and I appreciated your comments and your action.

One of the things I think that with the young people and my generation, that there’s a little bit that we have to teach them. And I could understand where they’re coming from, is that their actions of protest is a right that they have.

And at this point they’re feeling so frustrated and so angry at what’s happening with the administration that they’re getting out and they’re exercising their right.

So that being said, in the past, the people that you are protesting against were not some sort of law enforcement. This is the first time that they’ve come across that, and so we’re seeing that the federal government is coming up and showing up and their initial way that they’re working is lawless.

And they’ve killed people. They’ve shot their canisters directly at people. They’ve shot into areas where there’s children, doing things that we have always said, ‘That’s crossing the line, you don’t do that,’ but they’re doing it.

So the frustration is, we’re showing up and we’re protesting, but the protestors then are being looked at as, you’re doing something unlawful, when they’re showing up to protest.

I also understand that there are people who unfortunately are being paid to come in and rouse up the rabble-rousers and do things that are illegal so that that gives even more ammunition to the ICE officers to say, ‘Well, now you’ve crossed the line and this is what we’re going to do.’

So it’s kind of a real, it’s a sticky line and it’s very frustrating and it’s very unfair and I share in all of that and it’s really made me heavy-hearted for the last three weeks, seeing what’s going on.

That being said, I also, I am very, very proud of this city, that people have shown up to protect people in our community that don’t look like them, that they don’t necessarily hang with, but that they understand that there’s an injustice happening. I really love that about our town.

Presenter: Councilor Randy Groves:

Councilor Randy Groves: I want to add my voice to expressing my appreciation for Chief Skinner and the EPD for the work they’ve been doing. We’re asking you to step into harm’s way in a very volatile situation, and I think you, your officers have done a fabulous job and I don’t think they get the level of recognition I think they deserve.

I’m out in the community all the time and I hear a lot of support for our police department and our police officers and you.

You know, sometimes we get certain people that show up repeatedly at Council meetings and, you know, they have a different opinion. I respect everyone’s opinion, but you have to put that in perspective. That’s 40-some-odd people out of 180,000.

Anyway, I just think there’s been some real wisdom in what you’ve chosen to engage in and what you stayed out of. And I agree with the comments I heard down the line here, that I especially appreciate ‘Job 1’ of protecting people, regardless of who they are. And, you know, it’s one of the biggest responsibilities that we as a city have.

I appreciate that and would like a better way to thank your officers so that they know that people do support them. Thank you.

Presenter: Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner:

Chief Chris Skinner: I appreciate the comments, and I do think that as with everything when I speak to in public (which I do quite often), I would suggest to you that as much as I appreciate in this venue hearing the support, make sure that when you’re out in the community, that when you find an officer or find somebody that doesn’t have brass on their collar and thank them, ’cause they’re the ones doing the tough work.

It’s relatively easy for me to sit here in the command post with drones up and to make decisions, policy-level decisions. But it’s another thing that those folks are the ones that have to deliver on that, on those policy decisions in that field. And they have to do a lot of really good decision-making, and have a lot of restraint in the field.

It’s easy to have restraints sitting in the comfort of this room, making those decisions. It’s a different thing being on the line, knowing that you’re there to try and make sure that you avoid a violent confrontation between our public and federal officials and to have stuff thrown at you and be told to resign your position.

And all of the things that they hear is another thing to have the restraint on that line. And what you saw that night was the men and women of that particular team showing great restraint and standing with strong resolve as they took that abuse, when they were there for the right reasons.

So thank you for that, but just make sure that we funnel and focus that appreciation to the right place, as we think about this. 

Couple other thoughts on that:  I think you can expect to see, in the not-so-distant future, some fencing that will go up downtown. I’m helping to facilitate now—understand, Federal Protection Services, FPS is the lion’s share of the staff that’s down there. FPS is not, they’re not ICE agents. They are federal agents under DHS, Department of Homeland Security, but there are Federal Protection Services, FPS, and their whole mission is just to protect federal property.

They are law enforcement officials. They do have federal arrest authority, but they’re designed to protect federal property. They don’t engage in enforcement action outside of things that are involved in, in the protection of the property.

But we are facilitating the arrival of some fencing that will go up there. And part of that was as a result of our interaction with them, and helping to better articulate kind of the spaces where the protesting can and should occur.

And what is that line that if you cross, you know that you’re likely going to be met with a fairly resistant outcome. And so if you choose to do that, that’s personal choice, but it really is in that courtyard area of that federal building. It really is kind of a moving target, so to speak.

And so what this will do is will clearly out outline where people can be to peacefully protest. And likely 99% of the people that are going to be down there will understand where they can be and then the few that choose to press the issue, that will be real obvious who those folks are.

And then there’ll be likely some outcomes, as a result of that. But I think that will be healthy for us to see where that should be. So that’s going to be showing up pretty soon and we’re helping in the sense of they’re going to need to close down a couple of streets to deliver the fencing.

And so we’re helping with that. And I say we, the city, by issuing permits, we often close streets down for a variety of different things to help facilitate that. And so we’ll likely be doing that in the coming week or weeks to be able to do that. 

I know that we have a number of federal agents down there as a result of the Jan. 30 incident, on a, if I remember correctly, on a 20-day-ish tour of duty just to help do that.

What we’ve seen is we’ve seen a variety of protests that have been occurring down there that have been not only manageable, but equally peaceful. And so I think we’re in a, I feel like we’re in a good rhythm right now. Having said that, I’m not asking for people to challenge that, but it’s, we’re in a good rhythm.

Like many of you have seen over the years, is that this is not new to us. We as a police department feel like we have a pretty good approach to this and understand the nuances and make good decisions around peaceful protests and how to help facilitate that, and keep people safe at that time. And so we’ll continue to do that as we move forward.

And so I like where we’re at. I don’t like where we’re at with staffing. You know, we continue to struggle with staffing, but we’re working on that. And specifically staffing on teams that have the experience and the training around crowd management is really important for us.

‘Cause that is a fairly unique nuance. You don’t just take your brand-new baby cops and put ’em online and say, ‘Figure it out.’ You want to be trained and measured in how you respond. And it takes a special person to be able to do that work. And so we’re working on how we staff those folks up so we have that.

We were really pleased that evening with our partnership with Springfield P.D. They sent some resources over and they worked underneath our supervision. And because we co-train with them, everybody speaks the same language when it comes to that. And so it was very seamless that on that line, it was not only Eugene P.D., but it was Springfield P.D. as well.

And they equally, were measured and tempered in their approach, and so I appreciate the partnership with Chief (Jami) Resch. And being able to help not only handle calls for service, but provide some bodies when it came to that.

So, on a different note, I will say that it’s not necessarily for prime time. I know we have media in the audience, so you have to wait until Monday for the full report, but 2025 crime numbers are out. Council has been afforded a sneak peek to that.

What I will tell you is that in several categories, we have between a four- and 10-year low in our crime numbers. And so I really like the trends that we’re going proactivity has gone up, calls for service have gone down.

We’ve made some significant improvement in some key areas and so without ruining the surprise, I just wanted to give you a heads up that you’ll be seeing that this next week.

And I think it’s a indicator, not the indicator, but a indicator of a sense of safety in this community when we were able to look what does crime look like in our community? And what are we seeing around that? 

And so, I’m very hopeful and we have both numbers that we’ll share—citywide numbers, and we have numbers that we’ll share specific to the downtown core. 

And so that’ll be coming out on Monday probably, and I’ll be hosting likely some Q&A stuff with our media partners around that, because we have for 2026 also set two crime reduction goals. One is a crime reduction goal, the other one is more of a educational goal. And I will tell you that one of those is going to be around traffic safety and enforcement. So more to come on that.

But I’m excited about the department and what they were able to accomplish after we set the crime reduction goal in 2025, probably not a shock to you that’s still our number one call for service citywide is criminal trespass by a wide margin, by a wide margin.

Other cities our size and other cities I’ve been a part of that call for service has always been theft. And every other jurisdiction I’ve been a part of, theft kind of wins the day. In our community, criminal trespass wins the day.

So don’t be surprised if there’s some emphasis around how we continue to empower our private property owners to get a little bit of remedy around some trespassing that is occurring in and around the city.  

Presenter: Chair of the Eugene Police Commission, Amelia Foulkes:

Amelia Foulkes (Eugene Police Commission): Thank you, Chief. I have a question. I watched your statement when stuff was going on and the riot was declared and I was hoping you could help define when it goes to riot status, like what is that marker?

Presenter: Police Chief Chris Skinner:

Chief Chris Skinner: All of the decisions that we make, whether it’s Police or Fire, quite honestly, are generally predicated on whatever intelligence we’re getting.

We have to hope that the intelligence that we’re getting is good intelligence. Now, there’s been instances where in hindsight, it’s not as good as we had hoped. Or it was shared differently. But that happens every single day in our world. Every call for service we get is all our response is predicated that we’re getting good information from people who are calling and or people that are observing what’s going on out in the community.

And most of the time they get it right. And every once in a while it is either embellished or downplayed or just flat wrong. And so in this particular case, Chair, one of the things, the, I think the biggest indicator for me, around moving a protest, even a loud and very assertive protest to that riotous status, would be when we start to see the infusion of criminal behavior.

And so that’s the big one for me. And so in that particular case, and we can debate the question of the breaking of the windows if we want to, but the minute we start seeing criminal behavior occurring, that’s when it becomes, in my mind, riotous behavior.

Amelia Foulkes (Eugene Police Commission): Thank you. I appreciate that. I was wondering if it was, if there’s like property damage, if that was a key point. So thank you for that explanation. That helps a lot. I appreciate it.

Presenter: Police commissioners praise actions by the Eugene Police Department, and the police chief asks community members to thank EPD officers when they see them on the streets.