Facing mounting pressure from a citizens panel, Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer has reversed her stand in a citizen complaint case involving Officer Ronald Frashour's 2006 use of a Taser against a man who was videotaping police.
The chief, in an April 27 letter to the Independent Police Review Division, agreed to sustain the finding of excessive force against Frashour for his use of a stun gun November 2006 against Frank Waterhouse.
Frashour is the officer who fatally shot Aaron M. Campbell, 25, on Jan. 29 as Campbell came out of an apartment walking backward toward police. The shooting of the unarmed man in the back set off a series of angry community protests. A Multnomah County grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing but issued a sharp rebuke of the police bureau's poor communication and lack of command at the scene.
Sizer's reversal in the Waterhouse case shows the power that the citizens review panel can wield and will bring still-undetermined discipline to Frashour. That may or may not affect Frashour when the bureau completes its internal review of the Campbell shooting. Since discipline from the Waterhouse case hadn't been issued until after the Campbell shooting, the police union likely would argue that it couldn't be the basis for any progressive discipline if the bureau found Frashour's shooting of Campbell violated police policy.
In the Waterhouse case, the chief initially had recommended "command counseling" for Frashour for failing to issue a warning before he fired the Taser at Waterhouse.
The Citizen Review Committee disagreed with the chief, contending that stun gun use was "unnecessary physical force." The committee voted 6-2 to recommend the chief change the bureau's finding.
Assistant Chief Brian Martinek, who addressed the citizens panel on April 14 and even stepped out to make a quick call to the chief that night, told the committee that the bureau stood by its initial conclusion that Frashour's use of the Taser was "more likely than not" within policy. He explained that the officer thought Waterhouse was "intending to take off, trying to avoid arrest."
The citizens panel didn't accept that and then voted 5-0 to challenge the bureau's stance to the City Council, an action that has happened only once before, about seven years ago.
Thursday, Sizer explained why she changed the finding.
"The matter around the use of force, Waterhouse case, as it related to Frashour, was rather a close call, and I decided not to prolong the acrimony around this case by having it heard before City Council," she said.
Michael Bigham, Citizen Review Committee chairman, said he was pleased the chief changed her mind. "I think the CRC was very concerned about this case, and it's a good step forward for us, but not only us, but for the bureau to realize there was an error in this case," Bigham said.
The council last month approved strengthening the powers of the Independent Police Review Division, the intake center for complaints against police.
Waterhouse was videotaping seven officers searching a Northeast Portland auto body yard for a jaywalking suspect. An officer accused him of being the jaywalker.
He denied it, and the officer ordered him to put the camera down. Then, according to court documents, Frashour shot Waterhouse with the Taser and another officer fired beanbags. Neither issued a warning.
Waterhouse was arrested on accusations of disorderly conduct and criminal trespass but was acquitted.
Last fall, Waterhouse won a $55,000 federal jury verdict. Frashour is under police investigation for the Campbell shooting and faces a state and federal lawsuit for his pepper-spraying of a woman during a domestic call in 2007.
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