An officer's oral reprimand is the sum total of police discipline imposed by Portland's Police Department for 2020, according to its Internal Affairs report.
The report said no officer was suspended, given a written reprimand, or subject to mandatory training last year. It also said only one allegation was sustained out of just six complaints, involving seven allegations - three of which were external complaints by the public (two for behavior to the public and one for personal behavior by an officer).
The report does not outline what the oral reprimand given to the officer was for, nor the nature of the upheld complaint. The department employs about 160 sworn officers.
In February, the city council announced it had hired a firm to examine the way Portland Police Department had handled Black Lives Matter protests that resulted in the arrest of 23 people, and damage to businesses, in June 2020.
In its annual report on use of force, the police department has reported that a disproportionate percentage of black people are subjected to arrest and use of force.
According to the census, the city is 85% white and 8% Black. The police department's report for 2020 said there were a total of 2,221 arrests in the city. Of those, 1826 or 82% were white and 355 or 16% were Black. Last year, It also reports that 48 people were subject to use of force, and four did not result in an arrest. For those 48 individuals, 35 (72.92%) was a white male, eight (16.67%) a black male, four (8.33%) a white female and one (2.08%) a Black female. Nineteen officers were injured.
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