Public comment: Why isn’t EPD helping people?

Presenter: Public comments at the Eugene City Council Sept. 28 criticized the Eugene Police Department, and called for residents to speak out when the community safety payroll tax comes up for renewal. 

Shaz Rydstedt: My name is Shaz Rydstedt. I reside in Eugene. I am the subject of the mac-and-cheese traffic stop, if you haven’t seen it, on LackLuster. 

Presenter: LackLuster is a YouTube channel that posted this clip with Shaz on April 15, 2026. Here is LackLuster host Dale Hiller:

Dale Hiller (LackLuster host): In March of 2026, Officer Anderson of the Eugene Police Department initiated a traffic stop on a man named Shaz, who began recording as the officer approached his window.

EPD Officer Anderson: My body cam’s going. The reason for the stop is, the paper that you have on the back of your car obstructs your view. Do you have your license?

Shaz Rydstedt: Actually, actually, my mirrors provide the side view and I’m not required to be able to see. (I’m filming also.) I’m not required—there’s nothing in the vehicle motor code that specifies that you cannot have an opaque back window. Nothing at all.

EPD Officer Anderson: So all of your—you have no view through the rear of your vehicle?

Shaz Rydstedt: You know what? Nobody needs to see through the rear of my vehicle. I can see, I—and I drive full time, eight and a half hours a day.

EPD Officer Anderson: Do you have your license and registration?

Shaz Rydstedt: Oh, I absolutely do. I absolutely do, although I just I really believe that what this is, is a pretextual stop for you to be able to discern information about me and run me through the NCIC database, and that your articulable suspicion of probable cause right now is actually not legitimate. And you have no actual—

EPD Officer Anderson: Would you like me to call my supervisor out here?

Shaz Rydstedt: Absolutely. I think you have no articulable suspicion of probable cause to detain me on the side of the road parking. And you were wishing that I didn’t use my turn signal and you had something more than my window. 

I just got a macaroni and cheese, which is getting cold right now. And that bothers me, so—and I’m sorry. Oh, and by the way, okay. My name is Shaz.

EPD Officer Anderson: Nice to meet you. What was it? Shaz?

Shaz Rydstedt: S-h-a-z, Shaz.

EPD Officer Anderson: Okay. Yeah.

Shaz Rydstedt: And I am cop-sensitive, and I apologize for that.

EPD Officer Anderson: I definitely understand that.

Shaz Rydstedt: I’m a Saturday Market member. I’m a permit holder, the city is fully aware of who I am and what I do. I’ve been around here for decades. I am on the Oregon Country Fair recycling crew. I’m involved with the Makerspace. There’s my driver’s license. Here is my insurance.

Presenter: Shaz told the officer that he successfully brought a misconduct claim that overruled the police chief.

Shaz Rydstedt: As a unanimously sustained recipient of police misconduct as determined by a citizens’ police review board, reversing the position of the chief on inquiry and leading to a lawsuit in which I was pro per plaintiff for assault, battery, false imprisonment, negligent hiring, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, I take it very personally that you’re stopping me with a pretextual reason when my driving was perfect.

You pull people over all the time for no reason. I’m sorry, I’m a hard case. I’m sorry. I don’t have a criminal record. Check my s—. Give me a Code 4. Write me for the f—ing window so I can defend it. Or f—ing just leave me alone.

And I’m sorry. I’m a f—ing adult. But it drives me crazy. I’ve had years involved in this, and you guys are both coming up here with guns, threatening me. Go run the f—ing information and get me out of here. 

I’m sorry. You got drunk drivers all over here. You got f—ing meth fiends and f—ing corners full of f—ing criminals, and you’re f—ing with me. You came to me with guns and badges and told me what to do and demanded, under color of law, a violation of my rights on a pretextual stop.

And I’m not happy about it. And I don’t have to be quiet about it. I want it over so I can eat my damn macaroni and cheese.

EPD Officer Anderson: Okay, so you’re receiving a citation today. It’s for, like I said, ORS 815.220, obstructed windows. 

You have an optional court date for 8/20/2026 at 8:30 a.m. at 1102 Lincoln Street. Yeah, there’s also options to take care of it on the back if you (Yeah) so choose to do so.

Shaz Rydstedt: And you, you have a karmic obligation you are taking as you hand that to me, and as you restrain my freedom and my personal rights, you will experience in your own life and in your own psyche this experience. You will think back to these things that I’ve expressed, and you will wonder if you had had the life experience that I had, how you would react?  (We’re trying to—) I don’t care what you’re trying to do.

EPD Officer Anderson: Do you have any other questions about this?

Shaz Rydstedt: How fast can you get the f— out of here so I can eat my macaroni and cheese m—f—?

EPD Officer Anderson: Right now. Have a good evening.

Presenter: That was Shaz Rydstedt appearing on the YouTube channel LackLuster. At public comment before the City Council Monday night, Shaz Rydstedt:

Shaz Rydstedt: Here’s the deal. It’s an Oregon EPD stop with almost a quarter million views right now. And as a result of that public outcry, the officer had to file a motion—pretty rare that this happens—to have the case dismissed, because the elements that he was alleging did not line up with the statute.

Now, the statute I’m referring to is 815.220 which is obscured windows. In Subsection (2), which takes approximately 20 seconds to get to for a plain English reading, it says that it only applies to the following windows: the windshield, the side wing windows, and the side passenger/driver-adjacent windows.

When the officer came to my door, I said to him, ‘My side mirrors provide rear visibility, and there’s nothing in traffic code that precludes an opaque rear window,’ which remains true now as much as it was at that point.

Clearly, the officer’s memo shows that I’ve recently filed an Oregon tort claim notice, which has been denied, and I’ve been told that this is within immunity, that it’s a reasonable mistake to think that because it says obscured windows, it’s okay to be going to the second subsection and just ignoring that it says “only” these windows.

So he had no probable cause. And in Oregon that is required for a traffic stop, they must match there. And it’s already proven case law. There is no situation in which it’s okay.

So EPD screwed up here. Clearly it’s in the public. And I got thousands and thousands and thousands, tens, hundreds of thousands of people on LackLuster (and here’s the deal) waiting for updates in the situation.

Dropping the ball and ignoring this as if it had never happened, and having no statement about it is not going to solve this problem.

What’s going to solve the problem is you folks looking at what happened, realizing we’ve got traffic stops occurring without probable cause, taking action, re-educating the police about 815.220, because I believe it’s been used as a fishing hole for over 12 years, and that you may have to go back and unwind all these cases.

So I’m looking for some competency. I showed up, I did the court thing, but they didn’t even have a date for me. When the officer dismissed the ticket, he filed a motion on the 16th of April. By April 20, it was dismissed. But you know what? They didn’t even bother telling me. The ultimate in disrespect.

Jennifer Blaser: I’m Jennifer Blaser. I do not have a ward right now because technically I’m homeless. I have a friend that’s helping me out, letting me stay at his home.

That’s because a few years ago, I was, unfortunately, roofied and assaulted, and then the next year assaulted again by a roommate. And guess who didn’t help? That would be EPD, under—I don’t even want to call him chief, we’ll just call him Skinner. He’s just going to go by Skinner.

And I just want to know: Why isn’t EPD stepping up and helping people?

I actually had to leave town for a couple of years to heal from my assaults. I’ve just recently moved back, and I’m hoping to start again. And it does seem that after I came back that things are better.

But what I think we need to focus on is EPD and making sure that they are helping the community, the roofieing is insane down on campus. 

I was actually roofied at Autzen Stadium and I was with prominent people in the community, with EPD, and nothing happened. Nobody helped me. I have texts, I sent in all of my pictures. It was humiliating. No help.

I am devastated beyond belief. But I’m also a very strong person and I don’t give up easily. And I know that, you know, Eugene is my home, I was born and raised, and I know that Eugene is an amazing city. We are inclusive, we love people. That’s what we should stand on, not hate or ignoring people or assaulting people and roofieing people.

We need a new chief too. So thanks.

Presenter: Amanda Wolberg:

Amanda Wolberg: You guys all come here. You pretend everything is normal in this town. You don’t talk about what’s really happening.

I can’t make you guys publicly address this. I can’t make you guys stand up to anyone. Maybe you’re part of it. I can’t make you guys talk about it. But what I can do is I can rip away this lie we’re living that everything’s okay here. Because it’s not.

There’s people that are suffering every day. There’s kids that are dying every day. There’s kids that are being trafficked every day.

Ember: My name is Ember. Two weeks ago this room was full in a way I have never seen, where I found myself sitting out there on the floor, listening to such impassioned testimony over the whisper of a potential data center proposal, and I am so glad people came out for that.

I just wish I saw the same urgency for threats that are already on our doorstep. Our immigrant neighbors are still being taken by Ice. Our unhoused neighbors are still being swept and displaced. Police Chief Skinner still has a job. People showed up and people show up for these things, too. But nothing compares to the turnout for a hypothetical server farm, and City Council remains complicit.

You say you oppose ICE, but I watch ICE vehicles carry detainees through the county lot pretty regularly. You shut down Flock surveillance, and we are still waiting for accountability over our data.

Concern sometimes feels like one of Eugene’s most renewable resources. And this Council knows. I don’t come here to talk to them. I am talking to everyone listening.

You proved Eugene can pack this room when something feels threatening enough. And I want us to remember that when it’s ICE, when it’s another sweep through Washington Jefferson Park, or when it’s another police budget. 

Because maybe that’s what the data center meeting actually taught us, that Eugene does know how to create urgency, and maybe we should start putting a data center next to everything. 

Want a new homeless shelter? Tell people the alternative is a data center. 

Want real funding for a crisis response data center? Want harm reduction services that people have spent years developing? Put a data center on the other side of that proposal.

And I am not diminishing the importance of fighting these hyperscale data centers, nor do I actually expect this council to follow through, because the question is not whether Eugene knows how to show up. 

The question is what else might change if we showed up like that every time? 

Presenter: Sarah Kirby: 

Sarah Kirby: Hi, my name is Sarah. I last spoke to you 140 days ago. There’s a church in my neighborhood, Fairfield Baptist Church, and I saw cops there near constantly until I came and spoke to you. And then literally the day after, the cops disappeared from that parking lot.

And at the time I was like, ‘This is weird.’

And then that Friday, Tim (Lewis) released the rest of the video detailing everything about the rest stops. And I think it’s important that you guys have just ignored it, that you haven’t dug deeper into how much time was spent patrolling different religious institutions parking lots.

This isn’t a religious institution. You have no business allowing them to police only religious institutions, especially when we have people that need help. Do your jobs.

Jacob Trewe: My name is Jacob Trewe and I’m here to talk about public safety. I watched the work session, the CSPT (Community Safety Payroll Tax) work session that you just had earlier today. And I noticed that there wasn’t a lot in there about community alternative response.

Well, there are three reasons for that. First one is that CAHOOTS-like service, has been absent in our community since April of 2025.

Second reason is there’s more to come. There will be a work session on 10/14 that will be discussing the effects of the community safety payroll tax. So there hopefully is more information to happen.

But also three in City Code 3.728, which was the bit of the City Code that was passed in the ordinance enacting the Community Safety Payroll Tax. It restricts funding for Police, Fire, EMS, municipal court and prosecution, prevention and homeless services, and the administration of the payroll tax.

I suggest that if the City Council sees alternative response as a priority, to modify the Eugene Code to include community alternative response. That sends a clear message to city staff and our community that community safety takes many forms.

Let’s talk about a few more things related to the work session. One thing that jumped out to me is that large number of vacant police positions. How much funding is occupied by those vacant police positions? We should consider using those in other areas.

Police Chief Skinner has testified that high-acuity calls for service were covered, were well covered, but gaps exist for low- and mid-acuity calls for service. Those gaps were covered in large extent by the former CAHOOTS service and we’d be well served to cover those again.

This ties into the recent U of O study that you may have seen reports of, that CAHOOTS, when they were extant in Eugene, covered even more than they were given credit for.

I suggest that we go ahead and encourage the community alternative response back here in Eugene again. It’s a good use of money. It was effective and efficient, and it’s the best way for us to go forward.

Presenter: The Eugene City Council hears public comments about the Eugene Police Department, and a reminder that the community safety payroll tax is coming up for renewal, with a work session scheduled for Oct. 14.