Dear Chair Harrington and Commissioners Schouten, Treece, Rogers, and Willey:

Black Lives Matter. If we were to look at the policies and funding practices of Washington County, we would not see things that reflect that statement. For example, we would see a budget that has prioritized funding for law enforcement over the needs of the communities of color that call Washington County home. We know that this place was never built for us, but we will fight for a county that is far more inclusive than it has been historically. In the wake of Black Lives Matter protests happening globally, and ongoing allegations of misconduct against the Washington County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) and the Washington County District Attorney's Office, we urge the county to consider how it will approach this situation. The time has come to defund law enforcement and reinvest in marginalized communities. Should the county fail to do this, it will undoubtedly set communities of color back for generations to come.

A budget is a moral document, and the morals of Washington County seem to indicate that they favor a “law enforcement solves all” approach, rather than reckoning with the very social conditions that are used to justify law enforcement presence. For example, while Washington County boasts a 1:1000 officer-to-person ratio, it also sadly boasts an almost 1:3000 ratio for counselors/therapist-to-person. This has often meant that communities of color have sought out mental health solutions from outside of Washington County and even into the state of Washington to obtain culturally appropriate and affirming care.

Mental health care is not the only place where communities of color feel unheard in Washington County. The Sheriff’s office, to the chagrin of many people of color, employed Amazon facial recognition technology, and only recently ended it when Amazon said they would suspend the program for a year. The Sheriff’s Office utilized it without ever consulting with any communities of color, including those who have been damaged by false-positives from facial recognition technology before.

We oppose allocating further funding to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the Washington County District Attorney’s Office until two steps are taken. First, an outside investigator must be hired to investigate the misconduct that happened to Albert Molina, a man of Mexican descent who was assaulted by a Washington County Sheriff’s Deputy while posing for a booking photo. That case highlights what many would deem systemic failure because so many different entities failed. The deputies in the video did not rush to stop the assault. The Chief did not fire the deputy, nor publicly disclose the video. The outside investigating entities did not request Mr. Molina’s medical record. Finally, the Washington County District Attorney’s office did not originally prosecute the deputy. They waited for a racist email to emerge two years later and then decided it was time to take action. Anyone who has seen the video can plainly see that an assault was committed.

Beyond an independent investigation that can give the county solid recommendations on how to improve their accountability mechanisms, the county should also develop a Civil Rights Committee composed of communities of color that will report back directly to the commission. The committee should report back monthly on how the county can reinvest in our communities of color, and what county policies need to be adjusted for the betterment of all (including the Sheriff’s office). Having worked on this on a state level with Oregon’s new hate crime laws, and on a city level in Portland for the last several years, many organizations would be happy to assist the county in this endeavor. This valuable work can get started while the independent investigator also begins, and the group can expedite a review of the body cameras issue with all the facts being laid down on the table.

Namely, the Civil Rights Committee should consider:

Body Worn Cameras (BWCs) have seen wide support among the public which have elevated their status as a politically expedient solution to police accountability. By 2016, with the help of federal grants and incentives offered by vendors themselves, almost 95% of departments in major cities had launched BWC pilots, or had plans to do so in the future.

That being said, BWCs have had no proven impact on police misconduct. Last year, the most comprehensive academic study on BWCs, conducted by researchers from the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy at George Mason University, found that while BWCs are widely stipulated as a means of changing officer behavior for the better, the cameras have not had a consistent or significant effect on officer behavior or citizen opinion of the police.

In fact, by 2019, several departments announced they are moving away from body cameras—not just because of the lack of effectiveness, but also because of the costs needed to maintain the backend infrastructure. The federal grants and vendor incentives make acquiring cameras effortless for most departments, but the cost of data storage becomes extraordinary. For BWCs to be useful, for either investigatory or public accountability purposes, departments have to store, maintain, and catalog raw footage—which means, in a short amount of time, the data infrastructure costs skyrocket.  

Most policymakers who advocate for BWCs understand the importance of transparency and accountability—but this is the problem with easy technological fixes that fail to address the root causes of departmental misconduct. Departments have proven to be noncompliant time and again when the public has sought to leverage BWC footage for accountability Further, law enforcement has manipulated footage before releasing it to the public—further eroding public trust.

That trust is further compromised when we consider the long history of police surveillance that BIPOC communities have been exposed to. Often applauded for their investigatory potential, BWCs are first and foremost a surveillance tool. This means they offer little to no benefit and must be measured against the trauma and harm that persistent surveillance systems cause communities already victimized by police misconduct.

We understand that there are many stakeholders who have differing views on BWCs, we know that footage was crucial in holding the officers accountable for killing Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. We also know that BWCs did not stop his killers from killing him. We know of many instances where there was video footage, but officers were never charged with anything (as was the case for two years in the Molina case). Similar to Portland, we think that the Civil Rights Committee can best sort out the funding, policies, and potential practices of using BWCs in addition to other items.  

Washington County and Oregon were never built for us. That realization should be helpful in understanding the level of privilege that many have been able to walk around with while communities of color have faced systematic marginalization and the legacy of the pain and hardship these communities have carried with them. We want to be clear: communities of color deserve the ability to thrive. We will not stop fighting until they can do so. In the spirit of our faith, we will stand out firmly for justice. Insha’Allah, we will win.

Thank you,

Zakir Khan, Board Chair - CAIR Oregon

Adriana Miranda, Executive Director - Causa Oregon

Imani Dorsey - Washington County Ignite

Jairaj Singh, Community Outreach Manager - APANO

Alaide Ibarra, Executive Director - IMIrJ

Jann Carson, Interim Executive Director - ACLU Oregon

April Yates, Washington County Justice Initiative