Portland CopWatch Urges D.A. Shrunk in Chasse Case
author: For Immediate Release
NEWS ITEM
For immediate release
October 2, 2006
POLICE OVERSIGHT GROUP URGES DA IN UPCOMING CHASSE GRAND JURY
On Monday, October 2, Portland Copwatch, a grassroots organization
promoting police accountability through citizen action, sent a letter
to Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk urging an
"aggressive and thorough" presentation of the in-police-custody death of James
Chasse Jr. to the grand jury.
The jury, which meets tomorrow, will be deciding
whether the officers involved in the case should be indicted on
criminal charges in Chasse's death.
Portland Copwatch points out that the
reports published to date imply that the officers could at least be charged
with criminally negligent homicide.
The full text of the letter is below.
Portland Copwatch has been monitoring police actions in Portland,
including shootings and deaths in custody, since 1992. For a full list
of incidents see:
( http://www.portlandcopwatch.org/listofshootings.html).
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006
From: Portland Copwatch < copwatch@portlandcopwatch.org>
To: District Attorney Michael Schrunk < da@mcda.us>
Subject: Urging an aggressive and thorough presentation of the Chasse
case
Portland Copwatch
(a project of Peace and Justice Works)
PO Box 42456
Portland, OR 97242
(503) 236-3065 (office)
(503) 321-5120 (incident report line)
copwatch@portlandcopwatch.org
http://www.portlandcopwatch.org
Michael D. Schrunk,
District Attorney
Multnomah County Courthouse
1021 S.W. Fourth Avenue, Room 600
Portland, OR 97204
October 2, 2006
District Attorney Schrunk:
We are writing to you today to urge you to present an aggressive and
thorough case before the grand jury convening tomorrow in the case of
the police in-custody death of James Chasse Jr.
By the accounts we have read of this case, Mr. Chasse:
--was unarmed
--was not posing a threat of serious bodily injury or death to police
or the public
--suffered from mental illness
--died as a result of his inability to breathe caused in part by blunt
force trauma to the chest during the struggle with police
Those same accounts indicate that the police officers involved:
--kicked Mr. Chasse in the head (as noted in the Portland Police directive on deadly force, the use of
body parts can constitute the use of deadly force)
--Tasered Mr. Chasse repeatedly (an October, 2005 training memorandum warned against multiple uses of the Taser in part because "Repeated, prolonged and/or continuous
exposure on the subject to the TASER electrical discharge may cause
strong muscle contractions. These muscle contractions, especially if
probes are placed across the chest and diaphragm, may impede
breathing and respiration.")
--lay Mr. Chasse on his chest and "hog-tied" him despite his difficulty
in breathing
--made the determination to take Mr. Chasse to jail rather than the
hospital.
All of the above indicates that even if the officers did not intend to
kill Mr. Chasse, they should have known that their actions could cause
his death. It seems reasonable that a jury could indict the officers for
criminally negligent homicide.
Your office has come under great scrutiny over the past few years in
other cases which involved unarmed civilians dying at the hands of the
police.
To our knowledge there has never been an indictment of an on-duty
officer for excessive use of force in Portland. In the last high-profile case,
of James Jahar Perez, your office accepted paid testimony from a biased
"expert" on police shootings to speak of "action-reaction" theories,
which probably swayed the outcome of that case.
Attorney General Hardy Myers, when looking at the issue of deaths in
police custody in 2005, recommended that transcripts of grand juries in
these cases be released publicly. The Oregon Senate passed a bill to
allow that transparency to happen, but the bill never made it to the house
floor.
We would like to thank you for apparently agreeing with the Police
Assessment Resource Center, which has been studying shootings and
deaths in custody by the Portland Police, who recommended that deaths in
custody be treated with the same procedures as police shootings. We hope it is
never a question whether a death in custody should be presented to a
grand jury.
Many members of the public are aware that the District Attorney's
office has a very close relationship with the police and is thus reluctant to
bring charges. It seems to us that an aggressive and thorough
presentationof the facts in this case might lead to an indictment and the end of
speculation that your office has a serious conflict of interest when
considering police shootings and deaths in custody.
Sincerely,
Dan Handelman
Portland Copwatch
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503-630-3681 x 22
This man's rib cage didn't just break by itself. And, the way they had him hogtied after kicking him in the head and torso was torturous.
And, just what crime was Mr. Chasse accused of? Public urination? That may or may not have been what he was doing, but even if it was, it doesn't rise to the level of violence that was inflicted on him.
These arresting cops are a menace to public safety and if allowed to get away with this crime, will no doubt go forward to kill and maim more defenseless citizens.