Hell freezes over: Portland cop indicted
The weekend begins with some historic news. The Portland policeman who accidentally shot and seriously wounded a suspect with live rounds, thinking they were beanbag rounds, has been indicted by a Multnomah County grand jury. Officer Dane "Because I Said So" Reister was charged with third-degree assault, which is a felony, and fourth-degree assault.
It's about time the PoPo had to account for itself.
A few aspects of the highly unusual indictment are worth noting. First, the grand jury handed up its charges on a Friday night, which intentionally or not, allows media reporting of its action to get lost in the weekend. Second, the indictment comes in the middle of a rare election for county district attorney. Third, the legal action wraps up a bizarre grand jury session in which Reister's lawyer was allowed to intervene, contrary to normal procedure.
Most importantly, we wonder whether there would have been any indictment at all if the victim, William Kyle Monroe, had been killed rather than badly injured. The prospect of Multnomah County indicting an officer for a homicide is still unthinkable. If an officer wrongfully shoots someone, they seem to get more lenient punishment if the target dies.
| Posted at 9:15 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (5)
Good!
Now let's see if the DA can present a case strong enough to get a jury to convict.
Or will this be just a show trial?
Posted by Portland Native | November 19, 2011 9:19 AM
Negligent wounding charge is the DA's out. Indictment is huge news but a felony conviction is not in Reister's future I think.
Posted by reader | November 19, 2011 9:40 AM
Will all of those motions his lawyer was making to limit the grand jury actually mean something in a trial? I don't know, but you'd guess so. If so, this indictment seems more symbolic than anything.
The question then, is why bother with the symbolism? Because worst case scenario, the cop pays a fine (even if there is, somehow, a conviction), while the DA can finally pretend like it's been doing its job prosecuting bad and power-abusing cops? No jail time possible in this case, no implication that the cop might have been involved in some intentional homicide, etc. It seems like a pretty low cost gain for the DA's office, for the next time they really need to step up for the police union--and you know that will happen again soon enough.
Posted by observer | November 19, 2011 10:02 AM
This is an interesting decision from the Supremes in Washington State a few months ago about internal investigations of police employees, and the public’s right to know the details of investigations not sustained. The court ruled that the public has "legitimate interest in how a police department responds to and investigates" allegations against police officers, even if they are unsubstantiated.
http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-washington-supreme-court-determines-that-public-has-a-right-to-police-investigations-20110818,0,4626764.story
Posted by Gibby | November 19, 2011 10:09 AM
Reister does seem to have a pretty short fuse. I suspect that the interventions by his lawyer will come up in trial as "tainting" the grand jury's findings by rendering them more hostile to the occifer.
Posted by Max | November 19, 2011 10:41 AM