About Portland: Hales as "Scolder-in-Chief"

Standing before reporters to announce the retirement of Police Chief Larry O’Dea, Mayor Charlie Hales seemed to have other things on his mind.

That the mayor would announce the chief was leaving had already been all over the news for hours and in that time, it seemed the mayor’s mind had drifted to other things.

Before he got to what was supposed to be the point of the press conference, Hales seemed to have taken off his mayoral mantle and donned the garb of the city’s scolder-in-chief.

Reading from a note pad with the demeanor of a dad who has come home to find his teenager has put a couple of dents in the car, Hales made it clear that the city’s reporting corps had let him down.

“I’ve been very disappointed in the trial by media that has occurred in Chief O’Dea’s incident,” he said with the confidence of a man who knows he only has six months left in office. “I’ve asked for Portlanders to wait for the outcome of the official investigations. I’ll continue to wait on passing judgment until I have all the facts.

"I’m still waiting for the outcome of those investigations, which I expected to be confidential and swift and they've been neither.”

Now, for those who have had the luck to be out of touch for the past two months, a brief recap.

Toward the end of April, Chief O’Dea went hunting and camping in Harney County with several of his friends. One of those friends ended up getting shot.

When a deputy from the Harney County Sheriff’s Office showed up, O’Dea explained that his friend had accidentally shot himself. O’Dea said he had put his gun down and walked a few steps way to get a drink when he heard his friend groan in pain.

O’Dea said that he believed his friend had been trying to put his gun back in his shoulder holster when it accidentally went off.

That was April 21. There was no press release from either Harney County or the Portland Police Bureau or City of Portland.

Of course, Harney County would say, they had no reason to put out a release; hunting accidents happen. As for Larry O’Dea’s involvement? It didn’t set off any alarms as Larry O’Dea told deputies he was just Larry O’Dea. Not Portland Police Chief Larry O’Dea,

Fast forward to the end of May.

The accomplished reporters at Willamette Week had learned that something had happened in Harney County and started asking questions.

Within days, O’Dea was placed on leave. Hales said that O’Dea had told him almost immediately what had happened in Harney County.

Here’s a small list of people that O’Dea did not tell: the deputies investigating the shooting though that finally happened about three weeks after the shooting; the City of Portland’s Independent Police Review Division - they found out about the shooting from press accounts despite city policy that says they should have been told; many top officials in the police bureau; the people of Portland.

Reporters asked questions and Harney County Sheriff’s Office released the relevant reports.

It said that O’Dea had drawn a map showing where everyone had been, how he had stood up, placed his gun on a chair, and walked away. As it turns out, according to the deputy’s report, none of that was true. The report did say that O’Dea appeared to have bloodshot eyes and the smell of alcohol on his breath.

Reporters being reporters put these details from official reports in stories and published them.

According to the mayor this week, that was a mistake.

“I want to ask the media that if those investigation determine that some of what has been printed about Chief O’Dea’s conduct turns out to be not true I would ask you to be as energetic in clearing his name as you have been in smearing it,” he said.

Apparently. by “smearing” O’Dea’s name, Hales meant reporting what was in official reports.

The mayor would not elaborate on what exactly he meant by O’Dea having been smeared or what reporters had supposedly gotten wrong.

More than once he said that if people knew what he knew - they would know things were not as they seem.

The thing is that reporters go by the facts that they uncover.

Official reports are usually pretty good sources of facts.

The mayor is the city’s top elected official. He is not, however, the censor-in-chief.

If he has facts that are relevant, he should share them.

Claiming to want to wait until all the facts are in is a little disingenuous for a man who oversees a police bureau that regularly issues press releases detailing the arrest of people and what they supposedly had done - long before they appear before their case appears before a grand jury let alone a judge and jury.

Hales also oversees a police bureau that put officers on leave as they were investigated.

When asked why he didn’t notify the independent police review division, Hales said he was under the impression that it had been done. He did not discuss whether he had ever followed up.

It was only a case of his chief of police shooting a friend by accident while on a hunting trip.

It’s not clear when the mayor developed his feeling that information should be guarded but it’s not always been that way.

In 1996, he oversaw a task force looking at neighborhood involvement.

The first bullet point on developing a framework for citizen involvement was: “build trust.” There was also “be accountable.”

That wasn’t a one time thing.

On the mayor’s website, he has a section labeled: “Priorities: Good Government, Efficient and Accountable.”

Under that it states: “implicit in these efforts is transparent, accessible government.”

Last year, when introducing a new website that allows citizens to check on crime stats, Hales boasted that “Portland Police have been working with the community to increase transparency and accountability.”

It’s very simple.

The police chief accidentally shot his friend on a hunting trip and, according to an official report, was not truthful with investigators.

The city’s policy about notification to internal investigators was apparently not followed.

The mayor knew and decided it was not in the best interest of the people he represents to know.

Hales has said transparency and accountability should be the goal.

Seems to make sense.