Human Rights Commission discusses Siller recording, EPD response

Presenter: With his father’s health declining, Dr. Silky Booker announced at the May 19 meeting he would be stepping away from the Human Rights Commission. It was a meeting to remember as the HRC discussed the bodycam recording of casual racism by a seven-year veteran of the Eugene Police Department. HRC Chair Dr. Silky Booker:

Dr. Silky Booker (Human Rights Commission, chair): One of the things that I noticed in a statement that Chief Skinner made, and I’m not unfamiliar to his speeches, he is an excellent writer. He uses words like ‘unacceptable’ and ‘express solidarity.’

And I’ve heard these words used before when you had a female officer named Kirsten Cardwell, who used to work there, and she reported sexism and sexual harassment. He used words like unacceptable before, and there would be changes within the EPD.

And obviously, what officer wouldn’t want to work for EPD when you know that there’s nobody reviewing bodycam? Anybody who has any kind of ill intent, unprofessional bias would love to work for EPD when you know that there’s no oversight for the things that you say and do on bodycam. Because why? There’s nobody reviewing it. So that in itself is a problem.

It’s the culture there. After you have an officer who was a Medal of Valor recipient in Kirsten Cardwell, she also was Police Officer of the Year in Kirsten Cardwell, and yet leadership felt no zero tolerance policy should be put in place when it comes to sexual harassment, sexism, and now racism.

I have yet to hear EPD say anything about zero tolerance, which is a problem for the Black community. Because words like unacceptable is smoke and mirrors. Yes, we know it’s unacceptable.

Yes, we know what unprofessional behavior and attitude is. But when you have the top of the pyramid using words like ‘unacceptable,’ ‘express solidarity,’ and there’s no change, there’s no speaking of actionable consequences—
and then you let them slip through your fingers by letting him resign.

And then after he resigned, Chief Skinner still chose to protect this man. He didn’t want to release any information. When he talked about hiring this man from Utah, he said there were some questionable things that he saw in his record, but nothing of concern.

Well, let us know what those questionable things that you felt was of no concern to you, but might be of concern to the public. Now that we know that we got a racist in a police station that none of EPD reviews any of the bodycam. I think leadership should take a very direct role in condemning it with a zero policy, zero-tolerance thing.

Until racism in Eugene is looked at the same way you look at rape and murder, it’s going to keep going on and on. And that’s where you have the bare minimum being done when things like this being done and you have smoke-and-mirror speeches about unacceptable and solidarity when there’s no change.

And then you have no representation of the people that were offended speak out. No Black people were at any of the press conferences. I didn’t see NAACP say one thing. You’ve got Black Culture Initiative, who’s also in the community.
I didn’t see them involved in anything. So you have Black leadership and institutions within Eugene who weren’t even spoken to. And that’s a problem in itself.

And this ongoing protection of white men is just sickening from what we see going on with the Epstein c— to what we see going on in EPD. This protection of the white male is sickening and it’s ongoing and you can deny it all you want, but it’s evident in the history and the pattern.

And if there’s a pattern, there’s a problem. And so if we know there’s a problem, why is it not being addressed? Why do we keep getting these smoke-and-mirror speeches about what’s ‘unacceptable’ with no actionable response?

It baffles me that the police auditor found out May 9 at 11:32 (a.m.), the police auditor said he found out, and at 2:24 (p.m.) this dude was allowed to resign. So how did he beat leadership? Who informed this officer on what he should do? Because leadership didn’t even get a chance to have a crack at this dude.

Then they were embarrassed by the fact that a civilian had to do their job and due diligence and making sure that their officers are conducting themselves the way they should be on duty. So it’s a lot of failure that went on with this.

And I’m not surprised that this racist rhetoric is happening. It’s been happening. And officers are confident enough to do it on duty, talking on the phone like they sit in their living room. That’s comfort. That is a level of comfort within the culture.

So that’s not one that you can look at, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s just him.’ No, it’s not. It’s the culture within EPD that has been allowed.

Because, like I pointed out with Kirsten Cardwell, when Chief Skinner said it was unacceptable, things would have changed. The attitude would have changed. The unprofessional behavior would have changed. There wouldn’t be this level of comfortability within police culture, to talk and conduct themselves on duty if it wasn’t comfortable for them—if it wasn’t a regular cultural occurrence.

So to come out in smoke-and-mirror speeches and, ‘Yeah, this is unacceptable and we won’t tolerate this,’ where is your zero-tolerance action?

I think it’s a disgrace. I think that people in these positions have no cultural connection to the people that are offended, which is why you give the smoke-and-mirror speech, because you expect it to go away. Why? Because they don’t look like you. That’s what it is.

And we are in a commission that’s about confrontation, but yet we have people that are afraid to confront. How are you going to be in a position where you’re supposed to be confrontational and go against and fight against injustice, but you’re afraid to confront people? Why? Because you want kumbaya. You want everybody to get along. ‘There’s no racism in Eugene.’

And we know it’s BS. And it shouldn’t take me being the only one to speak out against it. And the way that you speak out against it is demanding actionable change, not asking for it.

Presenter: From the Eugene Police Department, Lt. Jeremy Williams:

Lt. Jeremy Williams: I think I’d like to address a couple of points Dr. Booker made so the Commission has some clarity about how EPD operates and maybe law enforcement more broadly.

For one, Officer Siller (I should say Martin Siller, he’s not an officer anymore, certainly not at EPD) didn’t know he was being recorded. So our bodycams will turn on automatically from time to time. If you pass by another officer that has their bodycam activated, your own body camera will activate.

I would suggest his rapid departure from the police department was when he was discovered, and he knew he was discovered. And as much as it might be someone’s preference that he somehow be detained in employment and sanctioned in some fashion, it’s his right to leave employment at EPD.

As far as our ability to review body camera: Our independent police auditor has a number of complaints he took in,
he’s taken in each year. He’s made a report about that. It’s in the hundreds. Each of those gets reviewed and assigned. So if we get—

We have a lot of oversight at Eugene. And so those things, a good deal of them are internal, entail a review of body camera if it exists, and it usually does, and so as far as our ability to review all body cam for every officer, for every shift, 24 hours a day, I’m not sure how that could even be accomplished. It’s certainly not the norm around the nation. If you’re aware, or anyone that’s aware of a way that that can be done—

Dr. Silky Booker: A way that it can be done—I have a suggestion: Software that you can put in your cameras that catches or flags this type of talking. So that when an officer says something racist or says something unprofessional, the camera automatically flags it and it’s sent to EPD to know that you have an officer talking unprofessionally while on duty.

Because I know they have software now that can identify all kinds of stuff like that. I know the military has it. And so how difficult would it be for EPD to have this voice software that, like for instance, on Instagram, you can put all kinds of words that you don’t want people to say in your comments. And if anything is said like that, Instagram automatically flags it. So how do we get EPD to take on this new era of zero tolerance by having some software that interacts with their camera. So then when your officers speak this way, it’s flagged.

Lt. Jeremy Williams: That’s an interesting suggestion.

Dr. Silky Booker: That to me is a step torward accountability.

I just think that there are all kinds of ways, and like I said, I look for what can we do the most of, not the least. And a statement regarding unacceptable behavior and disrespectful remarks while ignoring the community that’s been affected to me is mind-boggling to me. It’s above me.

But I would like to see EPD have a relationship outside of the NAACP and Black people that they feel comfortable with in talking to them about this situation, asking them, ‘What can we do?’ Because you haven’t asked, to me, EPD hasn’t asked anybody in the Black community, ‘What can we do? What should we do?’ All we’ve seen is smoke-and-mirror statements.

I’ve seen the mayor put out a statement, which—I’m glad she did. I don’t know if City Council put out a statement, which they should have, but all I see is statements, no action.

So I’m waiting to see a city leader in a position of power actually come out and say: This is the action we’re taking. These are the people in the community that we are going to speak to regarding this behavior. This is the action we’re going to take with an EPD to address the behavior.

An officer will not slip through our fingers again when they conduct themselves with unprofessional behavior and think that, ‘Hey, I can do whatever I want as long as I resign before I’m fired,’ because that’s the message that you guys just sent. ‘Hey, do whatever you want. Do whatever you want.’

As a matter of fact, all the people you arrested before are still in jail. Where’s the review of those cases? Where to review —anybody that this officer touched or talked to as a person of color should be freed and their cases extinguished. Because this is a racist officer that was comfortable within EPD, which means—and one bad fruit spoils a bunch. So you had this fruit in there for a while. So how many other fruit are spoiled?

And there’s no way to find out, right? Because we don’t review bodycams.

So until they do something that requires an investigation, we just got a bunch of bad fruit, with no changed behavior, with a smoke-and-mirror statement.

That’s where I come from. Accountability. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for. But historically, white people in this country have never asked for anything. They’ve taken what they wanted. You don’t want immigrants? You change the policy. Get them out of here. You got people being kidnapped, constitutional rights being violated?

So from a white perspective, it’s easy to say, ‘Hold on, let’s just slow down here and let’s discuss this.’ When historically, white people have never discussed anything. They say what they want and they do it. And that’s the way that things happen. That’s the way it’s happening now.

So when I’m speaking in a public forum like this, I’m speaking from a historical perspective, from an experience perspective, from an inaction perspective, and watching and hearing people that don’t look like me tell me that I need to ‘be quiet’ and ‘let other people discuss this’ and ‘we need to pump our brakes.’

There’s no misunderstanding when it comes to zero tolerance. I don’t understand how that can be implemented. Racism is bad. OK, so there’s no we everybody can collectively agree to that. So trying to institute a zero policy when it comes to racism is not hard to do if the leadership holds themselves responsible for that zero-tolerance policy.

Lt. Jeremy Williams: If I may, Chair, you have mentioned a couple of times the desire for a zero tolerance policy at EPD. And I do want to point out the chief has repeatedly stated that this would have resulted in the termination of this fellow. And I think our independent auditor recognized that these statements would not have been tolerated. These are multiple violations of policy and there would have been no room within the agency.

So I just I also want to point out, I think there’s a lot of—I think we’re all pulling in the same direction in this room. I see some healthy debate going on. I also just want to acknowledge the damage that I understand that this has caused. And I am confident that the police department is not underestimating the breach in trust here.

And I’m certainly unhappy with the position we found ourselves in. And if there is a way we can prevent this from happening again or identify these people, I’m sure the chief and the rest of the employees would love to identify that. So I just want to point out, I don’t believe that there’s a lack of—or a willingness to tolerate this kind of behavior.

Presenter: At the close of the meeting, Dr. Silky Booker:

Dr. Silky Booker: Real quick, I need to say something before we get off (the virtual Zoom meeting). I’ve just got to read something. It’s been very difficult for me.

‘This has been a difficult decision, but made after deep reflection and with a heavy heart. I’m stepping down as chair of the Human Rights Commission effective today to attend urgent family needs and other responsibilities that require my full and immediate attention.

‘While the timing is hard, I believe it is the right choice to honor those obligations with the same care and integrity I have brought to this role. As I share this, my heart is full—full of gratitude for the work we have done together and for the bonds we have built in service of human dignity.

‘When I began this role, I hope we could strengthen trust, deliver timely justice, and bring voices to our communities to center our decisions. Together we have done exactly that. None of this happened by accident. It happened because of your integrity, diligence, and courage; because you showed up for one another and for the people who depend on this commission.

‘I am profoundly grateful to have served alongside like-minded professionals who brought not only expertise but also heart the relationships we formed here amongst commissioners, staff, advocates, and partners is invaluable. I will carry them with me with deep respect and gratitude.

‘I step down in confidence in the road ahead. Our strategic foundation is strong, data-driven, and community-centered, a clear vision for equity and accountability. You are all well-positioned to continue this momentum, to listen deeply, to act decisively, and to keep faith with those who look to this commission for protection and hope. The work is larger than any one person, and that is precisely why it endures.

‘Thank you for the privilege of serving as your chair. Thank you for the partnerships, the perseverance. and for your unwavering commitment to human rights and dignity. It has been an honor and I will never forget.’

Presenter: Dr. Silky Booker steps away from the Human Rights Commission after asking the Eugene Police to reach out and involve Black community organizations like the Black Cultural Initiative and the NAACP. You’re listening to KEPW-WholeCommunity.News.