Yesterday I had a 40-minute one-on-one phone call with Robert King, former PPA president and current senior policy advisor to Mayor Ted Wheeler.

I’m just a database developer. This is not how I thought I’d be spending my afternoon when I woke up.

(THREAD)

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So a couple of days ago, @Mikepkes shared this great quick website he built to share text message histories he received via a FOIA request. There’s a ton of interesting stuff here, and @jakedockter’s TL has some great highlights.
http://txtifier.com/conversation/eea050ccced5956294bf50f4cf4e6018

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At the very end of one of the conversations, an unidentified number sends a Twitter link to a number of folks on Wheeler’s team, including the Mayor himself with no further comment. This link is the following tweet from Andy Ngo, where Ngo makes some claims regarding antifa.

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I googled the number and found it was one of Mayor Wheeler’s former staffers. Later, @Mikepkes updated the webpage to say it belonged to Robert King (city phone). In a thread I said I would email King and ask him to confirm a) Was this his number? and b) Why did he send it?

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I did not expect a reply. But about an hour later, King emailed back asking if he could call me directly.

I said sure and gave him my number.

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At this point, I should state that I’m not a journalist. I’m just a regular Portland citizen who can’t attend the protests due to health concerns, but I am doing what I can to be an ally to #BlackLivesMatter and the #PDXProtests.

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I believe that we should #AbolishThePolice and re-imagine the entire scope and purpose of law enforcement and public safety. I don’t want to center myself, other than to say, “Hey, I’m just a guy who had one-on-one time with City Hall today and so can you.”

On to the call...

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So King called me right away, and to his credit, I’m impressed he took the time to talk to me. He was professional and courteous and answered my questions relatively directly. I felt he was engaged and concerned.

But he’s definitely an ex-cop with cop opinions.

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King confirmed the number was his (he called me from the same number), and he did in fact send the link to the tweet. He did not, however, recall exactly why other than to say it’s not uncommon for staff to share links to social media reactions from multiple sources.

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I’m of course suspicious of that being the entire truth, but if he shared a link from a protest account, I wouldn’t immediately assume he was antifa. I don’t know if there’s much more to say without further context. We talked further...

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Again, a reminder that I’m not a journalist, so I’m going to be plenty subjective. But I’ll share my honest recollection of the conversation and impressions. I primarily asked about the frightening levels of brutality and violence committee by the PPB in the past 80+ days.

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King explained the general crowd control mindset of PPB: If PPB believes that they or public property is in danger, they will declare a riot or unlawful assembly (he said that was indeed a legal definition, I’m not a lawyer, so we moved on), and they will disperse a crowd.

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The arguments were pretty boilerplate, but here are some general impressions:

PPB regards dispersing an entire crowd as very necessary if crimes have been committed (e.g. throwing a rock or launching a firework at cops), or if they *believe* a crime will be committed...

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For example, King stayed quite calm and professional during our call, but showed a hint of emotion regarding protestors recently marching to PPA (or a precinct?) chanting “Burn it down!” PPB earnestly regards and treats this as a mob with the intent to committ arson.

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I asked about some specific techniques. First, assaulting journalists. King agreed that journalists should not be assaulted, but he claimed that after the TRO, the number of people wearing PRESS at protests tripled (*possibly said doubled).

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I countered that our legitimate Press doesn’t want bogus press either, and I didn’t find the possibility of bogus press justification for assault of journalists. (Lots of agree to disagree moments.)

I then asked about tire slashing. Snack Van, Timber Army Van, random cars.

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Basically, if a cop thinks a vehicle might be used to hurt a person or property, cops are justified to disable it by slashing tires. I expressed healthy skepticism at some of the recent decisions. King agreed there were incidents worthy of investigation.

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This led to discussing disciplining of cops. King explained the full process of complaints, investigation, oversight, proponderance of evidence, then a recommendation to the Chief, who makes the final call on disciplinary action.

This was too broken to even get into.

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I did ask about the use of force report showing a decline in incidents for the last two months. This genuinely seemed to catch King’s attention, and he agreed there were clearly more incidents than reported. He said he would look into it.

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I finally made a purely emotional appeal: I, as a citizen of Portland, have zero trust in my police department. The displays of incredible violence and brutality are horrifying, and I do not think I would feel safe to call the police, even in a serious emergency.

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I think King has a sincere belief that PPB is doing their job well and he earnestly wants citizens to feel safe and secure with the police. I also think like most cops he’s utterly disconnected from why the system is incapable delivering this.

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Finally, I offered one more opinion: Where has the mayor been? Why isn’t he communicating with the people more during this historically critical time?

Now I might be projecting here, but I sincerely think I heard the slightest hint of a sigh.

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King said that the mayor is recognizing this and will be communicating with the public more often (e.g. the recent Race Relations discussion). But I got a hint that this wasn’t a hill King was going to defend vigorously.

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So nothing earth shaking, but I wanted to share this long story to encourage others to consider direct engagement. This isn’t the state or federal government. This is our city. And our city leaders and their team will often directly respond.

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Using official email addresses (all available on http://portland.gov ) can get your voice heard on the record. And sometimes phone calls. And that’s not everything, but it’s something.

Make your voices heard and go make some good trouble.

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Addendum: King also stated there were two things that were absolute priorities for the PPB to prevent at all costs: autonomous zones and arson. There was a very strong “fire bad” vibe to a lot of our conversation.