Koben Henriksen was the fifth person in a mental health crisis killed by officers of the Portland Police Bureau in 2019.
Prior to Henriksen, Portland officers killed Andre Gladen, Jeb Brock, David Downs and Lane Martin. In the surrounding area, David Engebretson was killed after being surrounded and shot by deputies of the Clackamas County Sheriff, Dante Halling was shot and wounded by deputies of the Washington County sheriff, and Jason Livengood was shot and killed by a Hillsboro police officer. In February, cops in Vancouver, Wash., killed three people – Carlos Hunter, Michael Pierce and 16-year-old Clayton Joseph. Another 10 or so people were killed by police around Oregon in 2019, and around 20 more in Washington state.
This has been going on forever. People have been killed or wounded by police for as long as anyone can remember. In 2018, PPB engagement led to the deaths of five people – John Elifritz, Chris Cannard, Patrick Kimmons, Samuel Rice and Richard Barry. In 2017, two; in 2016 one; in 2015, three; 2012, 2013, 2014 had two each; in 2011 one; in 2010 five; in 2009 – none; in 2008, one, in 2007, there were two; and in 2006, they killed three, including James Chasse. That’s 34 people over a dozen or so years, and – this is important – every one of them were in a mental illness crisis of some form.
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In 2014, city and legal leaders concluded the solution to reducing use of force against people with mental illness would be training and oversight for the cops. A pretext – a federal lawsuit called U.S. DOJ vs. City of Portland – outlined 187 things the city could do to reduce the use of force against people with mental illness. Now at the end of 2019, city and legal leaders say those things all been accomplished.
Except lethal force by police to people with mental illness hasn’t been eliminated or even reduced. There’s been a reduction of the use of force against people who don’t have mental illness, but that’s a different thing. Further, because city and legal leaders said they were going to fix the problem and failed, people with mental illness and substance abuse disorders trust Portland cops less. That means when a cop says to stop, a kid might consider running. That means when an adult psychotic son threatens his mom, she might not call 911 for help. It means when a well-trained cop says let us help you get to the hospital, or down from that ledge, a person might say no.
So it turns out additional training and oversight wasn’t the solution and the settlement of the federal lawsuit is a failure. Talent and considerable treasure were misspent on U.S. DOJ vs. City of Portland, and the five-year delay further endangered people with mental illness and addiction. Now Portland cops have the best training in the nation, but training wasn’t what was needed. Something else is needed.
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Oregon laws don’t match community values – so police who misuse force aren’t held accountable. District attorneys don’t have guidance or laws to prosecute police who misuse force, which results in impunity. Impunity is a poison that kills governments; as conscious concerned citizens, we can taste the poison. Antifa tastes the poison; everyone of color tastes the poison; people with an interest in justice taste the poison. It’s making us all sick.
Worse, our state’s system for treating mental illness and addiction is both damaged and mismanaged. We currently spend upwards of $250 million on mental illness and substance abuse disorders – and that’s probably half of what we need to spend to be effective. Our state health administrators haven’t a clue how to treat illness more effectively without more resources, much less get the 50%-plus people who aren’t even getting treatment in the doors. We’ve got plans of what to do – but those plans say we need to spend money, which the Legislature – mostly Democrats voted in by people like you – don’t fund. So the cost of not following a plan – in money, time and lives – will continue to increase.
The system is designed to not be manageable. The medical and ancillary service response to mental illness and substance abuse disorders is in too many pieces. Those pieces include the city of Portland; Clark, Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties; their elected officials and career staffers; the Joint Office of Homeless Services; and literally dozens of uncoordinated governmental and nonprofit housing and sheltering organizations; the CCO Health Share and its insurer, CareOregon; dozens of church groups; private insurers and hospitals; the Oregon Health Authority; the state mental health division and state hospitals; the 18 or so police and sheriff’s departments and four jail systems each with their own health service; four uncoordinated court systems with four elected district attorneys and dozens of elected judges; four systems of parole offices, aging services, protective services, private and public guardianship services; thousands of private therapists, counselors, physicians, social workers, pharmacists, psychologists and nurses; federal and state prisons, professional associations of licensed clinicians; school counselors from the 197 school districts in Oregon; the overwhelmed foster care system and juvenile justice system; dozens of ongoing committees and independent advocates, experts and cranks. Literally tens of thousands of people busily working, often at cross-purpose, without knowledge of each other or coordination, makes management impossible.
Further, Portland is missing several large pieces of an adequate service system that no single entity can provide alone. A short list of what’s missing includes:
• A single point of information, navigation and accountability, as has been developed in Denver and Boston.
• Effective barrier-free medical treatment on demand, from detox to aftercare.
• Sufficient and attractive respite and shelter for people with nowhere to go.
• Alcohol- and drug-free transitional housing for people in early recovery.
• Aggressive investment in citywide 24/7 medical and mobile outreach from a third-party vendor – the proposed Portland Street Response is far too small to have sufficient impact.
PORTLAND STREET RESPONSE: How to address the crises on our streets in a compassionate, responsive way
• An equal alternative to Unity Center – the strongest lesson from both the Crisis Triage Center and Unity is we need at least twice as many inpatient psychiatric beds.
A ballpark cost for these missing components just for Portland? If the powers that be create a single point of accountability: $200 million, if not two or three times that amount. Maybe more. And why should we pay that? Look at Los Angeles and San Francisco. Years ago, they decided not to provide services, then gave up and instituted authoritarian laws and rules which now make those cities inhuman. Seattle is the painful process giving up now – fueled by real estate prospectors and the public relations firm Strategies360. Portland is following those cities, and our community leaders are on the verge of giving up. And frankly many have given up. When they give up, Portland becomes inhumane, and we lose our spirit and our community. And on the way, we lose people like Koben Henriksen.
Jason Renaud is the co-founder of the Mental Health Association of Portland, a nonprofit advocacy organization for people experiencing mental health or substance abuse issues.
This commentary was also published on the Mental Health Association of Portland’s website.