It’s one of the most common ways to try and get someone to relax and talk: You schmooze with them. Journalists do this all the time with people – especially persons who might be hostile.
Even one of America’s most famous journalists – Mike Wallace of CBS News’ “60 Minutes” – was caught joking once that blacks and Hispanics were “probably too busy eating watermelon and tacos” to properly read home mortgage documents.
Wallace said he made the remark in an effort to elicit any possible “latent racist” views from a bank executive he was interviewing.
The bank executive had wisely made a tape of his own during the interview and could prove the journalist’s banter.
When Wallace’s excuse didn’t fly, his boss Don Hewitt weighed in.
“Like almost everyone else in America, Mike sometimes indulges himself in ethnic humor. It has been my experience that the people with the least bias sometimes tend to do that. He is not a man who is ethnically biased… . It is ironic that there should be any suggestion of racism concerning a man who was doing a story aimed at helping minorities.”
A story aimed at helping minorities? Sounds more like advocacy than journalism.
In Portland, Ore., two alternative newspapers aimed their journalism at a particular target – the Portland Police Bureau and its text messages with the leader of a right-wing group the papers have blamed for street protests.
This particular type of journalism consists of using the public records law to demand all communications from a public agency. When the public agency turns over the communications, journalists sift through it to find what supports their premise. If they find it, they’ve got a story.
Willamette Week and Portland Mercury wanted evidence that the police were playing favorites, that cops were being chummy and sympathetic to right-wing protesters. The newspapers seized on text messages between Lt. Jeff Niiya and Joey Gibson, leader of Patriot Prayer, which showed the officer “had a friendly rapport with Gibson, frequently discussing Gibson’s plans to demonstrate in Portland and even joking at times.”
Portland is a city where left-wing protesters expect to rule. They wear masks, call themselves antifas (anti-fascists), and take to the streets periodically – especially since Donald Trump was elected president. They won’t tolerate opponents. The right-wing Patriot Prayer considers that an invitation and doesn’t hesitate to hold rallies of its own.
Police develop rapport with all kinds of people – just like journalists. It’s how they get information.
At one point, Niiya advised Gibson that one of his allies had an outstanding misdemeanor warrant and needed to get it taken care of and shouldn’t do anything to attract police attention.
Willamette Week responded with surprising naivete at this discovery: “(S)ome of Niiya’s texts raise questions about whether Portland Police help Patriot Prayer supporters to evade arrest during events.”
The police – not just in Portland but across the state and nation – routinely help all kinds of offenders avoid arrest. It’s called pre-arrest diversion.
While the Willamette Week and Portland Mercury stories were gathering speed, and other media were climbing on board, in Salem there was a three-day Justice Reinvestment Summit. This biennial event is devoted to changing the criminal justice system so there will be fewer arrests and less prosecution. According to this concept, the money saved can be reinvested in providing opportunities for people who break laws.
Gov. Kate Brown addressed the summit on its second day and announced she intended to punish District Attorneys who haven’t lowered the number of people being convicted and sent to prison. This event received minimal media coverage.
Meanwhile in Portland, Mayor Ted Wheeler released a statement that he found the text messages between Niiya and right-wing protesters disturbing. He and City Commissioners Chloe Eudaly and Jo Ann Hardesty demanded an investigation. (Eudaly also demanded that police uphold Portland’s progressive values.)
Police Chief Danielle Outlaw, only on the job for a year, did a very progressive thing that likely pleased the mayor. She called for a “listening session.”
Oregon in general, and Portland in particular, are devoted to listening sessions where those who are especially passionate about an issue can vent. The officials attending these events can show their concern.
The listening session this week was a revealing disaster. It was held at Maranatha Church in Northeast Portland’s historic black neighborhood. Perhaps city officials thought left-wing protesters and their right-wing counterparts would behave themselves in such a sanctified environment. They did not.
“Please respect this house,” Kory Murphy, a black Multnomah County equity official who acted as facilitator, told the crowd of approximately 300.
The church’s senior pastor, Dr. T. Allen Bethel, and Dr. LeRoy Haynes Jr. of the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition, sat in the front row. These are men who, in their lifetimes, have endured far more than being told they can’t block the streets and throw things at police.
A couple of times, the mostly white protesters seemed on the verge of rioting, while these black elders – one of them with a walker – sat quietly and glanced over their shoulders at the noise.
I know what I would’ve thought: These white people are crazy.
Protesters from the same anti-police side fought with each other.
Charles Johnson, who appears occasionally at police watchdog meetings and once threw a glass of water at a member of the Citizen Review Committee with whom he disagreed, barged into the third pew and forced several persons on the antifa side to make room for him. There was a tussle.
When Johnson was allowed two minutes at the microphone to speak, the people in the third pew booed him and complained that he had been rewarded for rude behavior.
“Don’t boo him,” said Dr. Bethel as if he were lecturing rowdy children. “Just look at him and hold him accountable.”
When one of the speakers denouncing the police went beyond the two-minute limit, Haley Adams, a scrawny young woman with long, bleached hair charged out of the audience and ran towards the front of the church.
The antifa faction went wild with fury screaming at her, “Nazi scum!”
Murphy and another man intercepted Adams before she could reach the dais where the police chief, the mayor, the deputy chief and three assistant chiefs sat.
“You’re cops! Do something!” a man in the audience yelled at them.
In the ruckus, everyone on the dais except Chief Outlaw got up to leave. Mayor Wheeler put on his coat and looked ready to call it a night.
“She’s leaving. We’re not leaving,” announced the chief as Adams was led out of the church.
The evening was like a microcosm of the protests that have shut down streets in Portland in 2017 and 2018. The antifas booed, hissed and stomped their feet when someone said something in support of the police. If someone spoke against the police, the antifas cheered.
Some of the comments were virulent. One man alluded to Chief Outlaw, who is black, as being a race traitor. A black woman fumed that cops can take off their blue uniforms, but black and brown people cannot shed their skin color.
“Blue lives don’t matter because they don’t exist,” she said.
Outlaw kept asking the audience for solutions. This was not the venue for ideas. Signs tacked throughout the neighborhood urged residents to attend the listening session about “Portland Police Bureau collusion with violent Alt-Right agitators …. Be aware of dangerous Alt-rightists on the prowl.”
What exactly did the police chief want to solve – how the police do their jobs? She’s the chief. She shouldn’t need permission from the rabble.
The best suggestion came from a man who received some of the loudest jeers. James Buchal represented a distinct minority in Portland – the 14 percent who are registered Republicans.
“We don’t feel too safe in Portland, either,” he said.
He added that groups who try to promote patriotism and prayer are demonized by leftists wearing masks and threatening violence.
“We stand for law and order. … When we looked at those (text messages), we saw a cop doing his job,” Buchal said.
His solution: “Get rid of politics and enforce the law.”
That will be almost impossible with Portland’s progressive leadership. They are wedded to their politics. The mayor and two of the city commissioners immediately embraced the media stories about the text messages without considering context, or whether Lt. Niiya had made similar efforts to establish rapport with antifas (he had). Lt. Niiya was immediately removed from his position as liaison to protest groups.
The mayor and city commissioners should stop falling for every electronic information dump by the media as if it were the equivalent of the truth.
The media should also show some skepticism, but that will not happen. It’s easy journalism. Not unlike the national media frenzy over the “hate crime” perpetrated against black, gay TV actor Jussie Smollett.
For roughly two decades now the city of Portland has catered to a small anti-police faction. The media nurture them.
Too bad we can’t do a public records request on the media’s motives.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
Related:
As Portland goes, so goes the state of Oregon. You’re destroying law enforcement. Ted Wheeler was a competent state treasurer. He’s a disaster as mayor. I didn’t hear anything about that Salem meeting you mention. Like you said, no media.
The Portland Tribune offered this op-ed by former Clatsop County DA Josh Marquis, who attended the Justice Reinvestment Summit:
https://portlandtribune.com/pt/10-opinion/420894-324667-my-view-salem-dems-too-lenient-on-property-crime
Warrants don’t mean much in county like Multnomah where people are released without bail as a rule. Cops know this and use the threat of arrest (which is almost always worse than the reality) to gain compliance. It seems like Niiya’s efforts were done with this in mind to avoid a flash point in a protest that could lead to real violence.
The take home point in this debacle, though, is Chloe Eudaly’s demand that police adhere to progressive values. Even ignoring the lack of definition here (EVERY SINGLE member of the Portland city council calls themselves Progressive), the audacity of the declaration delivered in a written statement should shock the senses. Imagine the tumult if a city council member in Pendleton said that police officers must adhere to conservative values… even the Mercury would likely cover and mock it. Political litmus tests for public service should be anathema but apparently are not in Portland 2019.
Your comment reminded me of complaints I’ve heard at the Citizen Review Committee, one of Portland’s police watchdog groups. Citizens, usually protesters, complain that officers threaten to arrest them when they’re engaged activities that aren’t illegal. Specifically, they object to officers who say, “I could arrest you.”
To me, the word “could” offers a lot of leeway. Anybody could be arrested for anything. Yet, members of the CRC have been sympathetic to protesters who were told they could be arrested if, for example, they were in the street or photographing police. The latter is a particularly popular activity. While it is generally legal, it also can be illegal if it is interfering with officers doing their job or going about their private lives (as Chief Outlaw found out soon after she arrived).
So it’s interesting that the Mercury and Willamette Week got riled up about this warrant against one of Joey Gibson’s guys, as if there were an immediate need to have him arrested. You’re absolutely right about trying to avoid unnecessary violence at these protests. I’ve been to a couple of the bigger ones — on June 4, 2017 and Aug.4, 2018. Trying to make an arrest in the middle of a protest would only lead to more mayhem. And Portland Police Bureau is constantly being told by the various cop-watch groups to de-escalate.
As for Chloe Eudaly, she needs to reread the oath she took when she was sworn into office.
I am no Proud Boy or Joey Gibson fan. Moreover I am not a proponent of anyone who engages in street theater under the guise of political speech.
I have been to most of the larger protests in Portland over the last decade. Over that period I am unimpressed. Dancing and costumes and posturing are fun and all, but as mentioned above, it’s just street theater.
We clamor for political purity while ignoring that we compromise daily just to cross the street. We condemn those boorish fools who dare to govern and applaud those heroes who instead grandstand and exclude.
When we require purity tests to associate with each other what is left but conflict when those beggars fail to meet the standard?
It is hard to comment or reply to nearly all public issues in Portland. It is simply too juvenile, chaotic, and nihilistic to admit a rational response or assessment.
Where in the name of heaven do these people think this is going to take us? Where has it taken us?
The Portland Left created Gibson and so I cannot help but be sympathetic to the man and his minions. Locally, no one else was willing to become a physical counter-force in the street.
I am inclined to the viewpoint of Thomas Sowell and and that it is really too late and that in “the long run we [America] may not make it.
My prayer has long been of the very selfish Après nous le déluge sort. I see now that my prayer will go unanswered. The whole childish, selfish, poorly/hatefully educated thing is coming down before I get clear of the structure.
In passing I have long wondered how the righteous among us vault past the destructive afterlife of Rhodesia, the destructive present of Venezuela, the prolonged hell of Cuba, and etc.
There is no meaning for the leftist political class. Evidently, there is barely any for the right and center.
Larry:
So much eloquence from you and Matt. That is encouraging. We may be howling in the wilderness, but think of how many people are afraid to open their mouths.
Last week former Clatsop County DA Josh Marquis published an op-ed in The Portland Tribune. He had the audacity to call out state Sen. Sara Gelser on the meaning of “inappropriate touching”:
https://portlandtribune.com/pt/10-opinion/420894-324667-my-view-salem-dems-too-lenient-on-property-crime
As a result, Gelser importuned Multnomah County DA Rod Underhill to come to her defense in an op-ed to be published this week.
It is stunning how our culture has devolved. Think of what you have dealt with in your encounters with the drug zombies and the mentally ill. Poor Sara Gelser. Somebody hugged her too long, or looked down her exposed cleavage and made her feel uncomfortable. But she’s a tough leader who’s going to clean up Oregon’s foster care mess! (Right after she’s finished with the self-serving chaos she has helped create in our state capital.)
I follow the foreign media. They seem more concerned about America’s fate than our own media and our own politicians.
At the link there is a 60 minute documentary made in Seattle about Seattle.
https://hotair.com/archives/2019/03/18/komo-news-seattle-dying-special/