Public comment: Release the EPD tapes

Presenter: The honeymoon is over for Eugene’s new city manager, Jenny Haruyama, as speakers during public comment July 13 demand that she release more police tapes, and explain why she canceled a meeting on license plate readers.

Eugene staff: Our next speaker is Latiffe Amado.

Latiffe Amado: Chief Skinner has acknowledged that there are other tapes from that night. Other incidents involving the same pattern of behavior we’ve heard about, that he has personally reviewed and decided are not problematic, just dark humor.

These tapes are not released to this Council. They’re not shown to the public. And this quiet decision behind closed doors by the very department accused of misconduct in the first place. How is that accountability? That is the department that’s grading its own homework again, and we’ve already seen how that goes.

So here is the ask, plain and simple: Release the tapes to the public. All of them. Every officer who witnessed that behavior and said nothing, who stood next to it, who laughed, who worked alongside it, heard it and stayed silent, needs to be disciplined too.

Silence in the face of that conduct is not neutral. It’s participation. 

A department that only holds the person caught on camera accountable—while everyone who watched and said nothing keeps their badge—is telling us exactly what it actually tolerates. It’s showing us its culture.

Maybe seeing the tapes will tell you what the public already knows. Don’t look away, take accountability and action, and rebuild the trust. 

City Manager, this is your litmus test, too. Accepting ‘Trust us’ from a department that has already withheld evidence once is not oversight. It’s cover.

Please do your job or move aside for someone else to do so. Discipline every officer who stayed silent and fire Chief Skinner.  

Eugene staff: Jay Smith.

Jay Smith: I would like to address this first portion to the city manager, who is the only person who has the authority to remove Chief Skinner. 

City Manager Haruyama: If the pleas of this community to remove Chief Skinner from his position and for a genuine investigation into his culture have not swayed you, nor countless testimonials regarding misconduct, nor the understanding that Chief Skinner has lied to this community on multiple occasions, than I fear that this community has no reason to place trust in you.

It cannot be understated that the culture of the police department is rotten all the way up. Chief Skinner’s leadership is certainly to blame for allowing Martin Siller’s behavior, fostering an environment where racist, horrific remarks can be made in jest, no less. 

City Manager: Your community has implored you to recognize Chief Skinner’s role in fostering the racist culture of EPD, and we have given you plenty of time to show movement on this case.

It should be understood, then, that it is the recommendation of this community, City Councilors, that the city manager has failed to act in the best interest of the community.

In approximately six—possibly five—months (bear with me), you will have the opportunity to fire the city manager. It is our belief that you must do so.

The city manager has failed this community and we are asking, imploring, ‘Get rid of this manager and have one that actually investigates Chief Skinner’s behavior.’

Eugene staff: Our next speaker is Wyn Manselle.

Wyn Manselle: In the time that I’ve been coming to City Council meetings, I think, you know, we’ve all had a lot of pretty intense discussions. And a common theme I’ve seen and heard in a lot of them is the difficulties around transparency between city government and its populace.

Especially as we’re approaching a re-review of mass surveillance, other software, other things facing the city, I really want to double down on encouraging you guys to open up.

The city is here and willing to meet you. We’ve seen it with proud, powerful activists getting the fence removed from the Federal Building, fighting for our First Amendment rights. We’ve seen it as the queer community of Eugene policed their own march and held the Pride march when it was otherwise canceled. With ALPRs, we have Ky Fireside in the audience tonight who took incredible time out of their life to make sure strong legislation was written for all Oregonians.

Yeah, transparency is probably going to be the only way that this city starts to repair the broken trust with its populace. I’ve got an article just published today where even LAPD has acknowledged that they’re going to cancel their ALPR contracts because the lack of reliability in their hotlists is causing massive public trust issues, as 161 people have been pulled over incorrectly.

We’re all familiar with how our neighbors are being arrested all over the country, murdered all over the country, dealing with ICE and, yeah, transparency, transparency, transparency. 

Blair Hickok: Hello everyone, Blair Hickok, Pleasure to be here again before summer break. I want to talk about disability. It’s Disability Month. Yes. So let’s talk about disability for a minute. 

So something very interesting has been happening in Washington Jefferson Park. There is a Food for Lane County subsidiary that does no-barrier food service there, and they have been targeted by EPD. 

And so there’s video circulating on social media right now: EPD arrested a man in a wheelchair who was occupying the sidewalk. They didn’t ask him to move. They arrested him. They released him a week later. They gave him his wheelchair back. But I found out later that that’s not very common.

There’s actually a mobility graveyard somewhere in EPD possession. So that’s gross. 

Another thing is the city events that have been going on. Like, Mayor, I saw you at both Juneteenth events, Pride, I went to. They’re not accessible. Like, it’s really hard to exist in a world that doesn’t want to include you.

And that feels very true for disabled folks in this city. And so it all boils down to accessibility for everyone. Because if we live long enough as human beings, there’s a 100% chance we are going to become disabled. So why don’t we support folks? 

And that being said, I want to come back to EPD.  So, (former EPD Officer Martin) Siller is not a bad apple. And we have heard from multiple people here tonight. We are going to hear from more people tonight. And we have heard from multiple people on social media and in these meetings for the last few months.

EPD is corrupted. And why are we penalizing people experiencing homelessness instead of penalizing the cops who are targeting these folks?

The science has been done. There is no study that says policing and criminalizing homelessness further solves anything. You know what it does? It creates chronically homeless people. And so the thing of it is it’s a public health and safety issue, ultimately. And if we want to have a thriving community, we need to remove access to funds for policing, put them into social safety net programs.

Robert Brock: I’m Robert Brock. The Eugene Police Department got over $180 million dollars in the last budget. With such a massive expenditure, it shouldn’t be a big ask that there be oversight and accountability to see if all that money is actually helping to make Eugene safer. 

But the Eugene Police Department doesn’t have that accountability.

What we have instead is a police chief willing to turn a blind eye to racism and brutality from his officers, and a civilian oversight system that doesn’t even have the power to act when it finds patterns of abuse. 

This, again, for a $186 million department purporting to protect and serve the people of Eugene. Without accountability to the people of Eugene, we’re spending money not for community safety, but for officers like Martin Siller, Bill Solesbee, and Sam Tykol to brutalize and terrorize us. 

Accountability is the first step. We need Skinner out, and we need a civilian oversight system that can keep abusive officers out of power. With the level of cost associated with EPD, it’s also worth considering whether police are an appropriate solution for the problems Eugene faces.

We have a homelessness problem driven by low wages and high costs of living, a lack of affordable housing, and low access to health care, addiction services, and mental health support. These are problems that police cannot solve, and using cops to treat the symptoms of Eugene’s homelessness problem is ineffective, inefficient, and more often than not, inhumane.

Arresting the unhoused for trivial violations, bulldozing campsites, and destroying their personal possessions won’t make Eugene safer or improve outcomes for the unhoused. Pushing them around from campsite to campsite won’t make them disappear.

When we pay police to sweep an encampment, we’re spending money to make our community less safe, spending money to put some of our most vulnerable community members into an even more unstable position.

The CAHOOTS program, on the other hand, was a massive success, providing services like medical aid, deescalation, and transportation, intervening in crises before they became even more severe and costly, and connecting people with the services they needed to prevent future problems.

Programs like CAHOOTS and Willamette Valley Crisis Care do more to make a safe community at a fraction of the cost. As a city makes long-term plans for addressing housing and public safety, and with limited funding, it must consider the many ways in which the police cannot be trusted to protect public safety.

Those millions of dollars would serve us better if they were put towards social services, alternative crisis response.

Ken Willis: Ken Willis, up here with maximum cynicism. So a theme has already emerged—amongst what, I’m the 11th speaker?—bad communication. 

Last year, when the Flock nightmare started going down, it took me three phone calls to get ahold of (Eugene City Councilor) Mike Clark. You finally got ahold of me after I threatened to just hound you until I drove you nuts.

I gave five emails and four phone calls to the former city manager regarding Flock. Didn’t hear anything. I had to scream across the room at Chris Skinner because he didn’t have the guts or class to come up here and face honest criticism.

And now it’s your turn in the barrel, City Manager.

So I set up an appointment with your office two months ago to have a talk about SB 1516 and policies about surveillance you guys wanted done in six months. Ky Fireside, who wrote the bill, was going to come in with me. We had a plan for you to go, ‘If you want it done in six months, here it is.’

I called on Monday to confirm it. Tuesday, your office called and canceled for no reason and gave me no opportunity to reschedule.

So if you wanted to build trust, you failed. If you wanted to build good communication, you failed. I’m literally bringing the lady who wrote SB 1516 into your office and you canceled.

So, if you won’t communicate, our information isn’t good enough, nothing’s good enough, then we’re at a standstill here. I mean, this has become an incalcitrant body. You’re not doing anything. I don’t know what else to do with you guys. You won’t take meetings now. 

(I’m sorry if it was a little rough sitting through me getting Chris Skinner, but the brother deserved it.)

I’d really like to know why you cancelled. We’re coming in with specific information that helps you. I wanted to see you win, but you’ve already lost my trust and respect. I’d like a new city manager.

My other issue is (City Councilor) Randy (Groves). You made a comment at a city meeting of something regarding secret Flock fans in town that were too afraid to show up to the meetings or to voice their concerns.

I don’t believe that and if you actually have people that support mass surveillance in town, feel free to have them come down here and discuss it, because that was a crazy comment to make. You made something to the effect of you were aware of a bunch of people in town that were pro-surveillance and pro-Flock. I talked to about 2,000 people over a year’s time. I didn’t run into one.

Ky Fireside: My name is Ky Fireside. I’m here because in May, a colleague of mine scheduled a meeting with the new city manager. At the time, she was so incredibly busy that the meeting needed to be scheduled a full two months out. She had not a single half-hour free for eight plus weeks, because she is horrifically overworked or speaking with us was an incredibly low priority.

I have had an easier time getting meetings with senators, and that’s a shame because we had several urgent matters to discuss, one of which was this new legislation that went into effect, which was highly technical in nature. 

Nevertheless, we waited our two months patiently and two days before our scheduled meeting, her office cancelled. We requested a reschedule. It was denied. 

This meeting was for us to help you. In interviews, the city manager said that Flock was a good tool. She’s perhaps open to contracts with other companies. SB 1516 went into effect recently. It affects automated license plate readers like Flock.

I cannot imagine a single good reason to avoid talking with me, of all people, about ALPR legislation because I helped write it. In fact, I wrote entire sections of it because I was the most qualified person in the entire state. (Section 6 is entirely mine.) 

So imagine my surprise when your city manager cancels a meeting with me to talk about this issue.

You, the Council, have say over a single employee. You have one employee to watch over very closely to ensure that she doesn’t make the same mistakes as the last one. And we are watching her too. I hope that Eugene is not the city where we test the consequences of violating this new law.

Presenter: Public comments call on Police Chief Chris Skinner to release the tapes, and for City Manager Jenny Haruyama to meet with experts on license plate readers. 

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