good afternoon thanks for joining us this afternoon my name is Mike Benner I'm the new public information manager for the Portland Police Bureau first of all I want to thank the mayor and his staff for hosting this afternoon's event I want to just pass along a reminder to silence your phone so we can hear the speakers we'll be starting with Portland Police Chief Chuck Lavelle followed by mayor Ted wheeler and then Bob day will also be speaking we will do some q a uh following uh the event and also we ask that you stay on topic and the mayor has agreed to stick around for any follow-ups on other topics after uh with that said uh Chief the podium is yours thank you Mike good afternoon everyone thank you for coming and today I wanted to make an announcement I will be stepping down as chief of police for the city of Portland effective October 11th I want to thank the mayor for having faith in me and appointing me to this role I was appointed at a very turbulent time for our city and our Bureau I'm proud of the accomplishments of the police Bureau over the past three years we've started to rebuild and we've navigated some really tough times I also want to thank the members of the Portland Police Bureau for the hard work that they do every day on behalf of our city and I want to thank the community members that have supported me throughout the last three years and throughout my career for that matter I will remain at the police Bureau and I will remain doing community engagement work which my heart's always been in and it's the work I'll continue to do and have always done throughout my career personally for me it's just a time for transition and I think it's the right change for the police Bureau and the City and now open it for the mayor chief I want to start by saying thank you to Chief Lavelle Chuck has my absolute respect and gratitude for a variety of reasons not the least of which is he stepped forward to lead the Portland Police Bureau during one of the most difficult times in our City's history he inherited a global pandemic unprecedented social unrest the major Charter reform to complete a overhaul of the city's form of government amongst other issues and he's led the bureau through all of this with a steady in reliable hand Chuck and his family have more than earned a respite from one of the toughest jobs in the city he's been the longest serving Chief during my tenure as mayor I believe three and a half years we've spoken many times over the last few months about what the next chapter might look like when Chuck was ready I'm pleased to have him step into his new role leading the bureau's community engagement efforts Chuck's knowledge compassion and innate talent for developing relationships will serve the community in the bureau very well he has nothing but my support my admiration and my gratitude for his service as I noted last week we stand on the precipice of a complete overhaul of our City's government and I take very seriously my responsibility to deliver a functional City to the new mayor and the new city council with a little over a year left before that handoff takes place I've decided the best best path forward is to appoint an interim Chief to take the reins and preserve the incoming mayor's right to recruit in a point a long-term police chief in 2025. to be done correctly experience shows us that a full recruitment would take the better part of a year and it should be aligned with the new mayor's priorities and the communities and with the community's involvement fortunately I can confidently say that I've selected an interim chief who's an experienced leader who knows the bureau inside and out having worked in a wide variety of roles at the Portland Police Borough over a number of years someone who understands the importance of our work with the Department of Justice as well as the need to collaborate with our community to guide an effective police Bureau and somebody who is well versed regarding not only our City's history but also its current reality amidst gun violence homelessness and behavioral health issues Bob day is uniquely qualified to step into this role on day one like Chuck Bob is stepping forward at a very critical and difficult time in history I've known Bob for many years and I have no doubt that he can see the bureau through this pivotal stage in our history Bob I want to thank you for your service and for your commitment not only to the Portland Police Bureau but to the city as well and with that I'd like to now welcome Bob to say a few words for being here thanks mayor thanks Chuck good afternoon thank you mayor thank you for your service thank you for your confidence in me thank you for your sacrifice when my wife Lauren and I were talking about why I would want to come out of retirement take on this challenge working closely with the mayor and his commitment to the next 16 months or so transition was one of those pivotal reasons I believe in his desire to see the city be successful and I think there's true opportunity to see that happen another thing that excites me is this decision by Chuck to step aside allows for Chuck and I to continue to work together we've been friends going back many years as he came on the organization after I'd been on for a long time Chuck was instrumental in a real pivotal change in my understanding around Community engagement particularly around race and African-American police relations in fact this morning I was reminded in the early 2000s Chuck gave me this book courageous conversations about race at the time he was an SRO at Jefferson High School I was a command officer but I would come to him and ask for some insight and some understanding and some of the history and the challenges and he sought out this book that was being used as part of the curriculum in the school at the time got an extra copy brought it to me I still have the note on the front addressing me by my proper title encouraging me to take a look at it sincerely Chuck that's the friendship and the relationship that we have going back almost 20 years I value him respect him and the opportunity for us to step into this space together is really exciting to me so thank you Chuck for your service and sacrifice this time as well in the early 90s I was part of the amount of Patrol unit it was a great job a crazy Endeavor to put a horse in downtown Portland but a great job and at the time there was a sergeant who'd been in the unit for many years by the name of Dave Poole and you might remember that the amount of Patrol unit used to be located at Northwest 9th and Lovejoy on the north end of town which of course looks incredibly different today but back in those days we'd get on our horse and we would ride South into the city now I was a young patrol officer and my mind was simply around enforcement and the challenge of trying to catch people doing things illegally from horseback really was just too tempting to resist how could you not see the red-headed fully dressed uniform on a thousand pound Brown Animal clippity-clopping down the sidewalk and not get away but I was focused and determined to make sure that I was an effective police officer in the area of enforcement and so I would ride into Old Town a natural transition point and I would focus on making drug arrests and I had some success Dave Poole had been the unit for many years as an officer he was my sergeant and Dave used to come farther into downtown and he would go to O'Brien Square he would go to Pioneer Square and he would sit on his horse and for hours talk to the young people it was a common hangout Place back then and many of the kids who were seeking Services downtown would hang out either Pioneer Square or O'Brien Square I was in my 20s I had no patience or tolerance for those conversations I'd had a duty to sworn to protect and serve and I was going to make arrests and that's what I was doing but Dave used to say to me Bob there's a whole city south of Bernstein there's a whole city south of Burnside so over time as I began to realize I need to step out a little bit I would come south of Burnside and inevitably a week or two weeks would go by and I'd be riding down the sidewalk and somebody stopped me usually a young adult may be in their 20s they'd say hey is Sergeant pool working and I think well no he's on his day off or maybe he's at Pioneer Square so when you tell him you tell him he changed my life okay you know so I'd go a little farther maybe a month or two go by and somebody stop me they'd say let's pull around and they'd say no I'm you know I don't know maybe he's his day off will you tell him I'm clean and sober you tell him I'm clean and sober and he changed my life and this happened repeatedly throughout my time on the department as I walked around downtown now if you look back on my success in Old Town today I don't think that I probably achieved the goal despite my hard work and despite the importance of enforcement which I believe is a component of what we do in policing but what I learned in that time period with Sergeant Poole was about Humanity was about context was about environment being able to see past just the behavior and that's something that I've tried to embody throughout my career and clearly has become a priority for me since I retired four years ago as I've stepped into multiple places now the obvious question that you're probably all asking and the reason that my phone is blowing up in my pocket right now is why in the world I would do this my golf game is finally under 90. I have been traveling I've developed a successful speaking and presenting business where I'm opportunity to be in working with c-suite Executives around the country and other police leaders but at my heart I'm passionate for the city I'm passionate for the police Bureau and I absolutely am hopeful that Portland can once again become a city and a place a destination for families business tourism community service Grassroots initiatives the things that we all are so familiar with and remember and long for I'm hopeful that might seem like a Pollyanna statement I want to just clarify what that means to me and really everything that I've learned about Hope I've learned from my beautiful wife Lorna where I wouldn't be standing here today if it wasn't for her in 2009 excuse me in 2010 our son was diagnosed with ewing sarcoma of rare bone cancer he fought for six years he passed away in August 27 2016. but during that time we made a commitment to be hopeful not naive not pollyanish we knew the difficulty that we faced Sam knew it we knew it our daughter Natalie knew it but we choose to be hopeful what does that look like it means being active hope is a behavior you see we don't hope for things that we know will happen nobody in this room hopes tomorrow's Thursday we hope for things that feel out of our control and to manage that we need to be able to take action actions demonstrate our behaviors our behaviors demonstrate our beliefs and I am hopeful for this city I see the challenges I am not naive particularly in the area of Public Safety whether they be internal or external Jerome Gutman in his book the anatomy of Hope says hope is that elevating feeling we experience when we see in the Mind's Eye a path to a better future hope acknowledges the significant obstacles and the Deep pitfalls along that path true Hope Has No Room for delusion I don't stand before you stand before you with any delusion about the challenge that we're going to be facing in this time of transition but I do stand before you hopeful so where do we start to me it's simple we start with the mission of the Portland Police Bureau the Portland Police Bureau mission statement says the mission of Portland Police Bureau is to reduce crime in the fear of crime working with all citizens to preserve life maintain human rights protect property and promote individual responsibility and Community commitment reducing crime in the fear of crime doing that in a collaborative holistic approach with all of us coming together because the desire to be safe is innate it's in every one of us it doesn't matter if you live in a house or if you live on the street it doesn't matter if you're black or you're white or you're gay or you're straight or you're male or you're female however it is it is innate we intrinsically want to and need to protect our brain does that for us it's a great book called the body keeps the score by Dr Vander Cole talks about trauma talks about the role of the brain to protect us we naturally want to be safe so this is an issue that's internal to all of us and it's an issue that actually binds us all together certainly there's discussion to be had about what that looks like and how it all works and I'm not naive to that but in my hopeful desire for success for the city and for the police Bureau is that we can pull from that innate belief that we want to be safe and this is the Wheelhouse or the Portland Police Bureau whether it's significant serious crimes such as homicide and gun violence and traffic accidents or whether it's disorder vandalism minor thefts it runs the gamut but I'm going to be challenges to not only deal with the practicality of what we're facing but also consider the context none of us do it alone an often used phrase as police of the community in the community are the police I intend to leverage all the resources of ppb along with City bureaus County State Regional Partners Federal Partners Community activists business associations neighborhood associations this city is not short on people being interested in leaning in and one of the things that's motivated me and exciting me is the fact that there are many people who have been on the sidelines for a long time that are now leaning in and saying Hey I want to be a part of this solution we see that Portland is on the precipice as the mayor mentioned and we want to be part of the solution I'm excited to join with them inside and outside the organization I'm going to finish with two quotes and as we spend time together over the coming months you'll find that I like to use quotes they encourage me and there are so many great people who have gone before me that I just need to rely upon one is from the Civil Rights leader James Baldwin one of my favorite authors he said not everything we face can be changed but nothing can be fake nothing can be changed until it is faced not everything we face can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced my commitment to you is a willingness to face the things that need to be changed I don't know if we're going to be able to change them that's not the promise I can give you at this moment but I do have a commitment to be willing to face those changes those things that need to be changed and the reason I can share that is because in the times particularly since I left the organization as I've stepped into the racial justice social justice conversation around Behavioral Health other intersections with law enforcement I can take the rest of this time sharing stories that have changed my life in relationship with people from all spectrums that many many times over the years have thought I would never be in a room with this person now I am and I'm learning I'm better for it the other commitment I have for you and the other quote is one that if those who worked in the Training Division will be familiar with in 2010 when I ran across this from former Green Bay backer Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi when he said that we will chase perfection we will chase it relentlessly knowing all the while we can never attain it but along the way we shall catch excellence my desire my passion is that we will chase perfection and along the way we will catch Excellence I'm asking you in this role to be hopeful I'm asking you to be curious be willing to face the things that need to be changed when I'm asking you to join me in being safe thank you if you guys have any questions just raise your hand and we'll call on you I don't think we have a mic like last week so we'll just do it according to get something uh no I plan to stay here at the police Bureau work in the chief's office Bob and I will continue to work closely together and I'll do work around Community engagement for the police Borough like I've done throughout my whole career but I'll be in that role going forward after the 11. incredible okay do you have any specific goals for what that Community is um well prior to my taking the the chief's role I was in charge of our community services division and I think there's a need and has always been a desire to really build that build that capacity out and I think it'll be work around that but I'll work closely with the mayor and chief day and we'll we'll kind of figure out kind of what the best path going forward around Community engagement is all right Blair yeah why now I mean it's a depressing time in the city there's an impending legal overhaul what was your deciding factor yeah for me you know I I took this job essentially overnight in June of 2020. and I always knew that I wasn't going to do it for the seven years remaining I had in my career so I think it's always been a question of when is the right time and I think for me you know with the mayor's decision not to seek re-election it gives you a a point in time where it's probably wise to reflect and see kind of where you're at and for me I just felt like it was time and like you said there are a lot of important things going on in this city right now and I think when you start feeling that way then it probably is time progress you feel you were able to make for the last three years you know the last three years have been challenging I don't have to tell anyone in this room uh what the last three years have been like particularly the first two but there's a great many uh good things that have happened at the police Bureau and continue to happen today um you know to come through 2020 to start rebuilding and restaffing you know we're right now rolling out our pilot for body One camera which I think is going to be huge for the bureau and the community we instituted the able program which I think is going to be very helpful in just internal accountability for one another and we brought Community voice to a lot of really important roles in the police Bureau our communications director I was here today we have a training Dean Dr Yazzie and the fitcog we brought Community voice and partnership into our work around gun violence and I'm really proud of that and I think it's important and I think you know the good work continues and we'll continue to do it together as a team but I think we don't really get the opportunity to talk much about all the great things that have happened over the last three years and that's just a snippet of them I don't think so um I'll work very closely with with Chief day we've worked together extensively throughout my career we're at Northeast Precinct together we're on the crisis negotiation team together we're in the Chiefs office together and um I don't think it'll slow it down at all if anything I think his knowledge and experience and um really his connection to downtown and relationships all these things will really help enhance that um I mentioned that the willingness of these things that need to change I'm curious what are some severe things yeah so the question is what are some things that needed that I think could needs to be changed in addressing policing right now in the city of Portland so I think we're on a track already around the Staffing issue there's an extensive conversation about the need for more people and more police officers but I will tell you that there's never been a chief in the state in the United States who's ever said I got enough cops I'm good thanks so part of it is for me is changing the mindset we need to continue to recruit and continue to develop and I'm a huge advocate and I will certainly be happy to receive more support internally for the organization but I really want to bring a mindset of you know how do we manage and maximize the resources that we have in front of us and once again doing that in a way that is in conjunction with everyone else you know safety is interesting it's an interesting mindset my friend Ron Silver he worked in the U.S attorney's Office civil rights division for a number of years he said you know we've used the police for a number of years to suppress problems that we didn't want to fix and I really agree with that we oftentimes defer to law enforcement whereas safety is far bigger than the police we know that safety is connected to clean water to education to housing to employment to well-marked Safe Streets et cetera et cetera so I absolutely see and understand the importance and the role of policing in the public safety conversation but I see this as a system and I want us to be able to see this as a system versus trying to rely upon an individual or a single City bureau to address this well I'd like to think so but I stood in my 29 years in the police Bureau I worked for 12 to 13 different Chiefs every single one of them got up and said the same thing we're going to restore trust in the community I think if you look at the changeover in Chiefs in the last three years most of the new Chiefs say the same thing I believe trust is foundational to the success of our public safety system it has to be you know when those overhead lights come on and you pull over you should have a trust and a belief that this is going to be legitimate that this conversation is going to be safe it's going to be reasonable that if I deserve a ticket I get a ticket if I don't I don't but the whole the whole premise of Public Safety is based upon that thing of trust that idea of trust the difficulty is measuring that how do we measure that there are ways to measure it whether it's Community engagement maybe it's lack of internal affairs complaints whatever it is so my my 100 000 foot level is trust is essential it's also the Bedrock and the umbrella but I'm careful to say that you know I'm going to be able to build that because I'm not 100 sure if any of us know exactly what that looks like we have some ideas you have some I have some everybody does because we're individuals so I'm going to pursue that passionately and once again be hopeful that there might be some new ways to discover that right right expiration date that's all right I you know that's certainly a challenge let's once again let's face something the reality there could be members the organization that'll say well just wait them out you know we don't have you know we'll just wait them out there's a timeline here I would argue and given my experience of almost 30 years in law enforcement that there are members that do that for permanently appointed Chiefs so the fortunate thing that I have in my favor is I know this is a Sprint and I'm going to be looking for those that are willing to as I like to use the term often lean in and do the work so we're going to be highlighting and seeking those and elevating those and creating opportunity for those that want to do the work the problems will present themselves I won't have to go looking for problems I know that I won't have to go looking for challenges those will present themselves and that will take up a good portion of my time but I'm committed to extending that time to really focus on the things that are going well and my hope is and my belief is because I know so many of the men and women in the organization that they'll respond to that none of us step into this job and raise our hand and say yeah pick me I'll do this I hope it sucks you know we all step in if you ever go to a graduation down at dpsst it's amazing you should do it you should go down and just see the excitement of 40 recruits it'll be 60 soon with the new legislation change 60 recruits all except in the old for the first time I went every single time we had a Portland graduation that I was in town from 2010 until I retired because you see these young people stand up there raise their hand take an oath this is what I swear to do I like to take people with me to remind them and remind myself that's what we're about and that's what I'm going to be appealing to to our officers Max I know that mayor said that this would be an intimate position would you be interested in holding on to this job Beyond no short direct answer no Mrs day almost said it but I said it for her um but what I will say is that in uh you know 2025 my my job if I do my job well we will be positioned that this will be a sought after role that people will around the country say man that's that'd be a good job to have to be the chief of police of Portland we used to be in that context and in that conversation and so I want to be work collaboratively with the new city manager and the new mayor to be the biggest recruiter and the biggest promoter to find the best possible fit whether it's an internal candidate or an external candidate but I got too much invested in golf lessons to just leave it for the next five years or however long so thank you mayor's office will take charge of all the Euros could you be more specific I'm not I'm not sure I understand position right [Music] taking charge of all the bureaus are there other plans or are there other thoughts of that I I am not going to tell you today that we have specific plans around transitioning senior leadership in or out that's not on the table at this point this is a very specific circumstance related to the chief but I will tell you as we shift from the current commission form of government to the city administrator form of government there will probably be some Bureau directors and others who will decide it's a good time to transition out but I can tell you honestly at this moment I'm not aware of anybody who plans to transition out I'd just be surprised if nobody did no no no not at all yeah steps no this this is completely separate from the new form of government decision the only way that the transition from one form of government to another had an impact here was on my decision to not do a full search for a permanent replacement for Chuck Lavelle but to instead appoint an interim by the time we get to 2025 we'll know exactly how the new form of government operates we will be ready to do a turnkey with that form of government to the new mayor the new City commissioners and I believe frankly it'll be easier to recruit a full-time police chief and also just given the time commitment when I appointed uh Chief outlaw Danielle Outlaw to be police chief that was after an exhaustive National search and it took the better part of a year to conduct that search putting out the notification collecting the applications engaging with Community panels and others around the ultimate decision vetting the finalists to make sure that that there wasn't anything we needed to know about that hadn't been disclosed better part of a year and I think it would be very unfair for me to select a permanent chief for whoever the new mayor is I I think they need to pick their own Public Safety team thank you for the question it's a good question thank you yeah sure yeah I think for all of our senior level leadership positions in the city having the new form of government more clearly defined and having certainty for the bureau directors including the police chief in terms of how they uh how they work in that new form of government is going to be very important in in this day and age you want to make sure that people are as clear and certain about what the role is that they're getting into it'll just be easier for us to recruit knowing what that is and by the way that goes for all the bureau director positions it goes for the city administrator position it goes for the deputy City administrator positions and quite frankly it goes for the city council and the mayor as well understanding what the job is that they will actually be doing will help us to be more stable in terms of our recruitments thank you all right let's wrap it up there if there's more questions we gotta get set up for afternoon Council there's follow-up questions for Bob um Mike bunner here I can take those if you guys have any questions follow up to the Pio and obviously um yeah I'll stick around but I want to Chuck to be able to get back to work and Bob to get back to his golf swing yeah that's already gone down I might need that book uh back to the library here