TESTING PORTLAND'S POLICE

In Yet Another Embarrassing Disclosure, We Learn That the Portland
Bureau Is Missing a Basic

It's been a terrible year for the Portland Police Bureau. A series of
disclosures, big and small, have made citizens seriously question how
well the agency is doing its job. Earlier this week, there was another
big one: The Oregonian showed how the failure to police secondhand
stores has, in effect, provided the perfect habitat to sustain the
meth epidemic. (Some stores kept odd hours, permitting meth addicts to
market their wares right after stealing them, then buy more meth.)

Now comes a smaller disclosure, but it's also difficult to believe. As
The Oregonian's Maxine Bernstein reported this week, the Portland
Police Bureau lacks a written policy requiring officers suspected of
using drugs to submit to drug testing. Thus, when suspicions arose
about one officer (since cited with possessing a small amount of
marijuana), Police Chief Derrick Foxworth didn't immediately order the
officer to take a drug test. Foxworth said he couldn't, because he
didn't think he had the legal authority.

For a police chief to be unable to police the ranks in such an
elemental way, on the basis of a reasonable suspicion, sounds
preposterous. But according to the city attorney's office, Foxworth is
right. He didn't have the authority. The bureau lacks something very
basic -- a written policy on drug testing.

How is this possible? In an agency that prides itself on leading other
law enforcement agencies, not following them, the absence of such a
safeguard is strange. In addition to surprising many citizens, it
surprised other police agencies in the area, which have such policies.
The news even took Portland police by surprise. Given a reasonable
suspicion of drug use by an individual, many Portland officers
assumed, of course, that the chief could order a drug test.

It's a safety issue. "We put loaded guns on our deputies and put them
in 3,000-pound vehicles and let them race around with lights and
sirens on," a Multnomah County sheriff's lieutenant told Bernstein.
"We hope that they're clearheaded, sane and sober." The sheriff's
office has had a drug-testing policy for many years.

It's also a trust and integrity issue, as Portland police should know.
Between 1987 and 1989, three sergeants and one lieutenant were fired
or forced out after cocaine-use allegations. The scandal, one of the
darkest chapters in the bureau's history, helped fuel suspicions of
corruption.

If Portland officers want the credibility to enforce the law, they
must police their own ranks. As Bernstein reported, police agencies in
New York, Los Angeles and Boston are worried enough about drug and
alcohol abuse that these agencies have random drug testing. Former
Police Chief Charles Moose talked about random testing, but the idea
went nowhere.

Whether testing is random or done on the basis of a reasonable
suspicion, the bureau must address this vacuum quickly.

It's scary to discover that the agency is missing something so basic.
What will we learn next? What else that we all take for granted is
missing?