November 30, 2004
A Somewhat Curious Definition Of 'Routine'
Hiding The Importance Of An Excessive Force Settlement
Relative quickie here, because something struck us as odd in today's Oregonian story on the City settling a lawsuit brought by people who experienced the use of excessive force by Portland police officers during local protests.
The city of Portland is poised to pay a $300,000 settlement to 12 people who claimed police used excessive force against them during the protest of President Bush's visit to Portland in August 2002 or two anti-war marches in March 2003.
...
In the two lawsuits, the plaintiffs argued that the city, Mayor Vera Katz, then-police Chief Mark Kroeker and several officers violated their rights to free speech and free assembly by dousing them with pepper spray at close range and firing rubber stingballs into a crowd. Those who brought the suits used videotaped footage to support the claims.
...
"Our settlements historically have been few and far between in this range," said Mark Stairiker, a claims analyst in the city's Risk Management Division. "It's a big case, but when you divide it by 12, it's fairly routine."
Now, granted, if you break it down evenly the settlement works out to about $25,000 per person. But somehow it strikes us as a little distatseful to refer to twelve people forcing a settlement in a case involving excessive police force stemming from the same three events as anything close to "routine".
Now, if they meant routine in the sense that for a rather consistent period of time the Portland police had a habit of using the wrong tactics or the wrong amount of force against protesters, then that might be in some fashion correct. But that's not what they're trying to communicate by use of the word routine.
Instead, they are trying, by focusing purely and narrowly on the monetary mount, to imply that there's no big deal here -- nothing to look at, move along. In other words, they are trying to perform a sleight-of-hand distraction.
There is a big deal here, which is that the City had to settle a collective twelve claims of excessive police force used against people protesting either the President of the United States and/or his policies. And the City's trotting out of someone from its Risk Management Division to pitch this as "routine" is something for which no one should fall.
Update
Quick addendum here. For context's sake, remember that the City has an interesting track record, what with other excessive force settlements, and constantly having its laws (and/or enabling regulations) regarding things such as parks exclusions and obstructions-as-nuisances struck down by the courts.
Comments (1)
myrln on 30 Nov 2004
In another respect, it's also a way of minimizing the importance of dissent and protest in a democracy, which considering the official source doesn't surprise me.