TIME IS RIPE FOR ERASING POLICE BIAS

Consultant John Campbell's report confirmed what some have known
anecdotally for decades.

The Portland Police Bureau, even when Mayor Tom Potter was at the helm
years ago, has had "an institutionalized culture" of apathy for the
concerns of certain residents.

The obvious disparity is there, in black and white: When confronting
drug dealers and users in downtown and North and Northeast Portland,
police have allowed their racial biases to influence meting out justice.

At the mayor's request, Campbell, who worked on Potter's campaign and
has years of experience teaching property owners how to clean up drug
and gang activity, did four months of analysis of those arrested in
the city's three drug- and prostitution-free zones.

"What we find more troubling than the disparity itself," states the
14-page report, released last week, "is an evident lack of
institutional curiosity at the (Police) Bureau for determining, early
and aggressively, if such a disparity existed."

Clearly, no one in charge cared enough to document whether there was
any truth to long-standing concerns that cops care more about chasing
crack, typically sold and used by blacks, than slowing the sale and
use of methamphetamine, heroin, marijuana and other illegal drugs,
which are used more by whites.

"I think one lesson city residents should take away is: Change does
not come easily," says David Rogers, executive director of Partnership
for Safety and Justice. "City Hall is not going to roll over just
because people identify a serious problem."

His Portland-based organization, formerly called the Western Prison
Project, along with Oregon Action, Portland Copwatch, Sisters of the
Road and the Community Campaign to End Police Racial Profiling, among
other citizen groups, take some well-deserved credit for helping
persuade Potter to let the zones expire.

Now that the research unmasks the sad truth, though, these grassroots
groups need to publicly support Chief Rosie Sizer's attempts to build
trust between cops and residents of color, Campbell suggests.

"The conversation about race in Portland will not move forward," he
writes, "if both 'sides' treat data as a mere tool to support their
already foregone conclusions."

That nudge for cool heads and open hearts comes before an expected
gathering in the Portland area of the Hammerskin Nation, a neo-Nazi
group linked to attacks on Jews and ethnic and sexual minorities.

It's disturbing to think that fascist beliefs might have fertile
ground here. But people of good conscience are paying attention, not
only to white supremacists. Potter, encouraged by City Commissioner
Randy Leonard, is further embracing a more ethnically ambiguous
crime-fighting tool: Paying for more drug treatment beds.

"It doesn't mean I'm soft on crime," Leonard says. "I just don't like
to do smoke and mirrors with the public."

He has some research of his own to make his point. Of the 2,717 people
arrested for livability crimes in the last year and headed for the
city's 57 reserved Multnomah County jail beds, 82 percent have not
been rearrested for prostitution or drug dealing and possession,
according to a Feb. 6 report on what's called Project 57.

"We look at them in the eye and say, 'There's a way out of here and
the first step is you go into treatment,' " Leonard says. "That's the
beginning of the change."

Campbell's report looks the Police Bureau in the eye and demands
reform, too. City Hall still has to decide whether to pay for what so
far has proven to work. And the community needs to remain alert to
make sure justice is served equally.

Positive change, if we all care enough to do our part, is possible.