New Lawsuit Threatened Against Chasse Cop

From the Portland Mercury, January 29 2008

Bad Apple Reputation – New Lawsuit Threatened Against Chasse Cop

The Portland Police Bureau officer involved in the death of James Chasse Jr. is facing the threat of another lawsuit—this time relating to his use of force against a woman claiming to suffer from mental health issues.

Chasse, a 42-year-old man with schizophrenia, died in police custody in 2006. It is now hotly rumored that Officer Christopher Humphreys’ alleged assault of Lisa Ann Coppock occurred just a few days after he completed Crisis Intervention Training (CIT), the police bureau’s education in how to diffuse confrontations with people in mental health crisis (the exact date of Humphreys’ training is not known). The training was expanded to include all the bureau’s officers in November 2006, in direct response to controversy created by the Chasse incident.

Attorney J. Ashlee Albies filed a tort claim with the city on October 21, 2008, giving notice of Coppock’s intention to sue.

“The circumstances that gave rise to Ms. Coppock’s claims arose on or about April 22, 2008, when Portland Police Officers Christopher Humphreys and Rod Nusum assaulted, falsely arrested, and discriminated against Ms. Coppock at the Gresham City Hall transit stop,” alleged Albies in the claim letter, a copy of which was obtained from the city’s Office of Risk Management through a public records request.

Albies works for Steenson, Schuman, Tewksbury, Creighton, and Rose, the same law firm handling the Chasse case ["The Chasse Files," Feature, November 15, 2007], but has declined further comment on the tort claim for the time being.

Further details of the incident are unclear, since it is against police bureau policy to release use-of-force documentation to the media while a case is pending criminal trial, or to comment on cases where litigation is pending. But Coppock was charged with theft of services in the amount of $50, resisting arrest, and interfering with a police officer, and is scheduled to stand trial for her alleged offenses at Multnomah County Circuit Court on February 23.

Coppock’s criminal defense attorney, Maite Uranga with Metropolitan Public Defender Services, has also declined comment on the case, but issued a subpoena to Officer Humphreys on January 6 requiring him to appear at the trial next month, according to records on the Oregon Judicial Information Network. She also filed Coppock’s notice of intent to rely on a defense of mental disease or defect, diminished responsibility, or extreme emotional disturbance on January 7.

Police Chief Rosie Sizer has yet to make a recommendation on discipline for Humphreys related to an internal affairs investigation into Chasse’s death, the outcome of which is still unclear.

Humphreys, who has been protected by the city attorney’s office from having to comment publicly on the Chasse lawsuit, will now be required to testify in court at Coppock’s trial about his use of force against a person claiming to suffer from mental health issues. Coppock declined comment through her attorneys.

Meanwhile, Portland Police Association President Scott Westerman has been an outspoken defender of Humphreys since he took office last November, when he told the Mercury, “There’s nothing in the Chasse incident that CIT training would have helped.”

Regarding the Coppock case, Westerman says, “I don’t want anybody to assume that Officer Humphreys is automatically guilty of anything, and the fact that he is named in the suit, to me, is not surprising.” He continues, “The fact is, his name has been dragged through the media for three years on a case that should have been resolved two years ago. I strongly disagree that he is developing a bad apple reputation. He is one of the hardest working cops that the Portland Police Bureau has, and just because somebody has a tort claim filed against them does not assume that the officer has done something wrong.

“Perhaps this woman or her attorney saw the arresting officer’s name and decided to try to capitalize on it,” Westerman continues. “Down the road, I am confident he is going to get honorably cleared.”

Westerman says he has also heard from police bureau sources that the Use of Force Review Board has recommended no discipline for Humphreys regarding the Chasse case, although that information has yet to be released by the city, which Westerman describes as “frustrating.”

“We don’t know a lot about the incident yet, but it certainly seems like Officer Humphreys has had his share of lawsuits filed against him,” says [Portland] Copwatch activist Dan Handelman. “Hopefully since the bureau is now tracking lawsuits against its officers through its employee information system, this will now lead to some corrective action.”

Help produce a cool Oregon documentary film

From the Oregonian editorial section, January 22 2009

Oregonians should take advantage of a unique opportunity to help finance production of a commercial-quality documentary film on a fascinating subject: the Oregon State Hospital in Salem.

And, yes, fascinating is the right word. In a state known far and wide as a bastion of progressive values, the 126-year-old institution is a grotesque anomaly. Its original structure, built in 1883 as the Oregon Asylum for the Insane, is still there, and part of it is still in use. No new buildings have been erected on the hospital campus in more than a half a century.

The place is an overcrowded, inhumane dump — an environment so awful that Hollywood producers chose it as the setting for the movie classic “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” That was more than three decades ago. It’s even worse today.

In 2005, The Oregonian called it “a 19th century fright house” in an editorial series that called on lawmakers to replace it. Now the state is indeed about to begin tearing portions of it down in preparation for construction of a state-of-the-art new psychiatric hospital.

Cue the cameras: Before the wrecking ball strikes, however, the Mental Health Association of Portland, Oregon’s foremost independent advocate for persons with mental illness and addiction, wants to produce a high-quality documentary on the hospital. The group has lined up a terrific director, Portland’s own Brian Lindstrom, director of the acclaimed documentary “Finding Normal,” a heart-wrenching look at recovery from drug addiction by addicts in Portland.

Movies cost money, though, and here’s where everyone can help. Send your contributions directly to the Mental Health Association of Portland (a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, at P.O. Box 3641, Portland, OR 97208. You can learn more about this exciting project here.

Switch: A Community in Transition

What if your favorite co-worker told you she was going to become a man? What would your response be if a friend from church told you the same thing? Or, what if he was your brother-in-law or she was your aunt? Your best friend from school? Your spouse?

Switch: A Community in Transition is a new documentary that explores these responses from one community comprised of co-workers, congregants, friends and family.

On February 4, 2009 at 7:00 PM, Boxxo Productions, in association with Film Action Oregon, will present the first public screening of Switch: A Community in Transition at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Oregon.

Produced by local filmmaker and longtime activist Brooks Nelson, this documentary explores the impact of a gender transition not on the individual going through transition but on the surrounding community of family, friends, co-workers and others.

The primary focus of Switch: A Community in Transition is the experience of Nelson’s own gender transition and how through the process he became aware of how much the responsibility for change fell on the people around him.

Friends and family have to switch language, switch gender pronouns and examine their own attitudes and what it means to be male and female. The film also highlights different roles and responsibilities of each individual to reinforce their own and others’ gender, race, physical ability and the different identities that make us individuals. This film is by no means the sole definitive work on community responses to gender transition but it is entertaining, frank, and finely crafted.

Switch: A Community in Transition presents extensive information as well as heartfelt sharing about what it means to have a person in your life transition. We all know someone in this movie – the mom, the boss, the best friend and no matter our own relationship to gay or transgendered people most of us will leave the theater asking “What if…”.

Switch: A Community in Transition will screen 7 PM February 4, 2009 at the Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR 97212 (503.281.4215). Tickets: $8, available at the door, or in advance through the Hollywood Theatre website. For more information, contact Brooks Nelson boxxoproductions@msn.com or see also www.boxxo.org

Artists as Optimists

ArtNet columnist Charlie Finch blogged / flogged ALIEN BOY this week in one of the better read national art opinion columns.

READ – Artists as Optimists

Charlie got all the facts of the case of what happened to James Chasse wrong, but that’s entirely immaterial.  His point is to illustrate how artists are, as Robert Rauschenberg-quoted by Calvin Tompkins, the nation’s most under-utilized resource, and how artists and art-people from Ena Swansea to Agnes Gund have found activities other than art-making which keep the world wonderful.

Finch starts his writing with the example of Eva Lake, Portland artist extraordinaire, who is pulling double-duty coordinating house parties to raise funds to finish ALIEN BOY.  Eva is also the author of LoveLake, and host of KBOO’s morning arts show.

Finch is the co-author of Most Art Sucks: Five Years of Coagula (Smart Art Press).

READ – We’re Optimists, from Lovelake.org

READ – Artists as Optimists AND Activists, from Chez Namaste Nancy

If you have a elegant home and want to help ALIEN BOY get finished, give us a ring and host a house party.