Chief Bob Day - Does Portland have enough police officers?

 Portland's police staffing has been a growing concern for years, but just how short-handed is the city today? Chief Bob Day joins the show to discuss officer shortages, emergency response times, and whether changes within the bureau—or at City Hall—are needed to improve public safety. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the Lars Larson Show. It's a pleasure to be with you. We're going to change things up a little bit today. I've got the opportunity to talk to Portland's police chief, and that's Bob Day. Chief Day, welcome to the program.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Thanks, Lars. Good to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hey, a couple of weeks ago, one of the things we talked about a lot was a young lady, a seven-year-old girl, who was attacked by a man in Waterfront Park. And these days, sadly, the Portland police have, even on 911 lights and siren type calls, uh you have about a 20-minute response time. Is that adequate?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

No, it's definitely falling short of our expectations and certainly Portlanders' expectations. And that's um something that definitely concerns me.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Is there anything that's likely to change that in the foreseeable future, say the next year or two?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

A couple of initiatives we're trying. One is, I mean, we are uh increasing our hiring. I'm proud to say we hit our hiring goal this last year. We started July with 20 more cops than we had last year. That's not very many, but it's 20 more. Um it really comes down to getting those butts and seats to be able to try and meet that demand. We're also looking at um, you know, constantly evaluating our staffing model and where we use the limited resources we have, and then um really trying to focus on those priority calls, uh the high-level, most dangerous calls, um, to see if we can be at least intentional of those, recognizing that others then may have to wait longer. So there there are a couple strategies in place, but um the reason the limited amount of resources certainly makes it difficult.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Now I understand that when you've got 800 uh sworn and and they're on the streets and you've got to spread them out over seven days and twenty-four hours a day, you're short of staff. But that day in Waterfront Park, was there any reason that the Bureau couldn't free up an officer or two officers so a family didn't have to literally fight for the life and the safety of a seven-year-old girl with her own hands and fists?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah, a couple things. Um, first, you know, we have we have eight hundred and eight sworn positions filled, but that doesn't is not equate to officers. I mean, that's from my position to the person we hired last week. From an officer standpoint, we have around 500 or so, I am and um about a hundred of those are in training, et cetera. Um but to answer your question, you know, we did um take this from a citywide approach. So in other words, the officers who came to that aid were coming from uh North Precinct, which is a little bit farther away, but I was appreciative of the supervisors on scene working with dispatch and saying, hey, this is a priority, doesn't matter where the cops come from, let's get cops down there to deal with it. Um the other central officers who would typically have been closer were tied up on a very serious domestic violence case that had our tactical team involved, which is always uh a huge lift. So um we did, you know, prioritize and get officers down there uh from other precincts, which is a bureau-wide, citywide goal of mine. But once again, um we continue to fall short. And I was disappointed and briefed on that, and we're looking at our protocols um going forward.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

So let me ask you about this. Uh I noticed you have an officer in charge of the Sunshine Division. Nice to have when you're fat for staff. Is that the kind of position that a p a police bureau like Portland should be maintaining when it's this critically short that response time to 911 urgent calls is 20 minutes? Does it make sense to leave people in those other positions?

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate that question, Lars, because that's really the tension that I live with every day. Um we have about a hundred to one hundred and thirty, roughly, officers that are assigned to non-patrol related functions across the bureau. Some are in the training division, one is in the sunshine division, um, some are in you know our traffic division, and um they're not uh available to respond to those 911 calls. And so I'm constantly evaluating the cost-benefit and the resource allocation, as any CEO would do in any company. There is a long history and a lot of things that are included in the work with the Sunshine Division that I believe go towards preventing crime so that we don't have to do response times, that we can actually, you know, interdict uh community behavior earlier and work as a liaison and develop resources to offset some of those uh tragic impacts on our community. But at the same time, all that is on the table for me. Um I'm I'm constantly looking at it, and we may get to a place where that's a change that we have to make. It's certainly something that I think about.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

I'm talking to Portland Police Chief Bob Day. So let me belabor that just a bit more. You've got one full-time civilian employee, I think it's about a $90,000 position, in charge of DEI. How do you tell citizens we've got to have somebody in charge of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and you couldn't better spend that money on another badge?

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah, once again, I mean, our professional staff comprises about 250 or so uh of the organization, and they play a vital role in a variety of different uh ways for us. And whether it be in that program or numerous other programs, we have to once again evaluate what that best bang for our buck. And certainly our primary responsibility is the preservation of life, it is uh responding to calls for service, it is um protecting um and investigating those violent crimes. Um, but at the same time, if we neglect many of the support roles and many of the pieces that sort of surround this, um the analogy I would use, it's like you know, you have an eggshell and you hollow out the inside of the egg and you've still got the eggshell, but it doesn't have the strength and the support. So it's very complicated. And I appreciate your your comments.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Chief, because we're short for time, but when you tell people under DEI that's about hiring people based on their sex, based on their gender, based on their pronoun, based on their skin color, you really can say that's more important, it's important to maintain that instead of another badge on the street?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Well, we utilize our equity team for a lot of different aspects of this, not um simply around the ideas around hiring. We we emphasize so many other aspects of it. I mean, they've been leaders in proponents of us hiring more officers because of our work in equity. So um it is a it is a part of, it's an important part, but it's a small part in terms of the overall goal and impact it has.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Okay. Thank you. Last quick question. I know they're your boss, but when you stand in front of those twelve city council members and you know that each and every one of them has one point five million dollars each to spend on staff, are you ever tempted to say to the city council, why don't each one of you give up a million dollars worth of staff? You can keep a half a million worth of staff, that seems to be plenty, and put the 12 million into police.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Well, Lars, uh, there's a lot of things I've been tempted to say uh at City Council, um, but I uh regularly um understand our various roles and responsibilities. I do believe that the mayor and the city administrator are trying to take us in a direction of uh of strength and renewal, so I'm committed to continuing to do that. In regards to city council and their decision making on their budgets, that's a little bit outside my lane.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

I mean, you you wouldn't just say, hey, you folks are all sitting here protected by men and women with guns, and you could give up some of your excess staff, your entourage, and put more people out there saving lives.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Yeah. I mean the city budgeting process as a whole, I know is something that um, you know, the city administrator is definitely uh looking at because uh we definitely are in lean times and we have to be able to be more responsible with those resources.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Chief, uh thanks for the generosity of your time. I know you've got another commitment to make. Uh I appreciate you coming on.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

I appreciate you, Lars. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Thanks very much. That's Portland Police Chief Bob Day. Back in just a moment. We'll get to your phone calls and emails at 866A Lars. And you're listening to the Lars Larson Show and the Radio Northwest Network.