Portland city council on “police reform”: Tear gas is a “chemical weapon” and cops need to wear “soft clothes”
Posted by: Gregory Hoyt
Portland city council on “police reform”: Tear gas is a “chemical weapon” and cops need to wear “soft clothes”
Posted by: Gregory Hoyt Lawenforcement Today
Earlier in September, the Portland City Council voted to accept a police reform report that equated the use of tear gas by police during unruly protests and riots as employing the use of “chemical weapons”.
The same report also called for police officers to wear “soft clothes” during protests instead of being fitted with protective gear – claiming the optics conveys “a preparedness for violence”.
On September 22nd, the Portland City Council accepted a report crafted by the Citizen Review Committee’s Crowd Control and Use of Force work group, which within the report called for Portland Police to ban the use of tear gas and other “chemical weapons” often employed to address unruly crowds during riots and protests:
“Make permanent the existing ban on the use of CS gas by PPB, and extend it to other chemical weapons used for crowd management.”
Within the report’s “De-Escalation Recommendations” section, it was suggested that Portland Police officers no longer wear protective/riot gear when responding to protests:
“Adopt ‘soft clothes’ for protest response. Opt for ordinary patrol uniforms or clothing that does not suggest the expectation of violence or combat when attending or responding to events where violence has not occurred.”
According to the Citizen Review Committee’s Crowd Control and Use of Force work group’s report, not having Portland Police officer adorning protective gear is one of the handful of suggestions that the group believes “will lead to less violence than we saw in 2020” during both protests and riots.
Commissioner Mingus Mapps found this notion confusing, according to a report from news outlet KOIN 6, asking if the group responsible for the report took the time to review data on how many Portland Police officers were injured during protests and riots:
“I am curious if you looked at the number of police officers who were injured during these protests. I don’t have that data in front of me for city police, but the feds claim 144 federal officers who were in riot gear were injured. So one of the things I’m trying to figure out is what situations do we have them in protective clothing?”
The group claimed that it was a nuanced subject, but understands the needs for officers to be protected when responding to such demonstrations – yet the recommendation for “soft clothes” for police during protests is still in black-and-white in the report.
Another aspect mentioned within the report was the allegation of an existing “bias in favor of right-wing groups” when Portland Police are responding to protests. The report mentioned the following on that matter:
“Some community members asserted that Portland Police gives favorable treatment to right-wing groups. Individuals cited incidents where they observed Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer demonstrators having friendly, peaceful interactions with Portland Police.
Specifically, individuals discussed PPB’s willingness to allow Proud Boys to march uninterrupted, or a lack of action by police when racial justice protesters were attacked by right-wing counter-protesters.”
Coming from a purely logical perspective – police officers are going to be more likely to be amicable toward an individual or group of individuals that aren’t acting hostile toward them during a demonstration.
It’s perhaps far less likely to be a “bias in favor of right-wing groups” and may have more to do with Portland Police officers at these protests not having these groups scream at them and launch attacks against them.
However, the report also noted that some community members proclaimed that Portland Police afforded BLM and Antifa protesters “too much leeway”, saying that police were “allowing property damage and violence to occur for political reasons.”
While the Portland City Council voted to accept the report, they claimed that their vote to accept it does not mean that all suggestions outlined within the report will manifest into changes within the Portland Police.
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