"Footage taken by pole cameras, for example, is reviewed by Portland police investigators who determine what is or isn’t relevant to their case. They discard the rest." An independent party should be reviewing footage, not the party intent on punishing people who protest the police. #corruption - ThreadSky

sometimespdx.bsky.social • 2 days ago

"Footage taken by pole cameras, for example, is reviewed by Portland police investigators who determine what is or isn’t relevant to their case. They discard the rest."

An independent party should be reviewing footage, not the party intent on punishing people who protest the police. #corruption

Reposted from Ryan Haas

DA Nathan Vasquez has been vocal about wanting to see a tougher stance on protesters charged with crimes.

@troywb.bsky.social found that bungled communication between the DA's office and city of Portland led to at least six PSU protest cases being dismissed -- including a felony charge.

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sometimespdx.bsky.social•2 days ago

I'm not a lawyer, but isn't police surveillance and recordings of lawful political activity illegal in Oregon? Here's a practice of the police and city retaining those unlawful recordings, presumably to protect their financial interests in case they're sued. This loophole needs to be dealt with.

sometimespdx.bsky.social•2 days ago

I'd also like an investigation into how often these unlawfully retained recordings are accessed by City attorneys and law enforcement for investigative purposes. Are they acting like they're above the law?

sometimespdx.bsky.social•2 days ago

Oregon Revised Statute 181A.250 says law enforcement can't even collect, much less maintain recordings, of video of people if they don't have "reasonable grounds to suspect the subject is or may be involved in criminal conduct."
Yet here we are with the police doing just that with the City's help.

sometimespdx.bsky.social•2 days ago

The law doesn't say, "law enforcement is authorized to collect, maintain, edit, and pass-on information to outside entities when there isn't reasonable grounds of criminal conduct." In fact, it says the opposite of the current practice of the Portland police.

sometimespdx.bsky.social•2 days ago

In the case of the protestors at PSU, the police and city absolutely allege criminal conduct was taking place but the police reviewing their own footage judged it necessary to misclassify the footage and pretended to delete it so defendants didn't have access to it? Those cops need to be fired.

sometimespdx.bsky.social•2 days ago

I'm partially concerned about this because law enforcement has a long, long history of using State violence and intimidation to harass and harm Black, Brown, and Indigenous people, leftists, religious minorities, LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants. The current administration will use the police.

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