Forum, shmorum - I know two of the cops, and two people from the hood who were eyewitnesses...
Public forums - especially in a community as full of [paid] professional agitators as Portland is - are worthless or nearly so.
You simply have an axe to grind - either with police in general, or the PDX police in particular - and seem unwilling to own up to your bias and the skewed, nearly baseless conclusions which are an outgrowth of it.
Calling something a fact and wishing (out of spite or whatever) that it were so - just doesn’t cut it. You ought to know that any human being’s story of an event that occurred quickly and under duress will naturally have variances which may not seem consistent with physical evidence.
Eyewitnesses have “seen” things they were 100% certain of, (and passed polygraph tests to back up their truthfulness of what they believed)that physical evidence showed to be absolutely impossible - this has been shown repeatedly in police investigations of all sorts in innumerable departments. I know from whence I speak.
A.A.C.
I am as pro-police as anyone possibly could be. I have to say after living in SE Portland, and a crime committed against me personally, I’m not a fan of the Portland Police. (And it has been several years now - but the ick factor remains.)
I realize their hands are tied a lot of times, and the Oregonian does everything possible to put them in a bad light. But after dealing with probably 20 different police officers, there was one detective who was stand up and at least walked me through the process. Justice wasn’t ever done - but it was miserable even in trying to get help from them.
I’m glad that you know good ones and that your dad was among those, I will say that in my circle of friends, (at this point we are for the most part middle age moms, with fairly solid careers) that’s the exception to dealing with that particular city’s police department.
I also know the former wives of three Portland police officers. Dated one for about six months. Helped her clean out her garage one Saturday and found over 150 driver’s licenses tossed in a box. Now exactly why would a cop do that?
All three told some very disturbing stories about the PPD.