Q&A: Oregon DOJ Investigates Accusations Against Multnomah Sheriff

By Kate Davidson (OPB)
Portland, Oregon Feb. 26, 2016 9:23 p.m.

The Oregon Department of Justice is investigating Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Staton to examine multiple allegations of wrongdoing.

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Staton is accused of profiling, making threats of retaliation and creating a hostile work environment, among other things.

Willamette Week’s Nigel Jaquiss joined OPB’s Kate Davidson on Friday to explain details of the probe. This interview has been edited for clarity.


Q&A With Willamette Week's Nigel Jaquiss

Kate Davidson: Let’s break this down piece by piece. First, the allegation of creating a hostile work environment — what do we know?

Nigel Jaquiss: That arose from a tort claim notice filed by the former highest ranking female in the office, Chief Deputy Linda Yankee. She filed a tort claim notice at the end of January. That's already been settled at a cost of about $300,000 to Sheriff Staton's agency.

KD: We should note that the Multnomah County Sheriff is an elected position; it’s not appointed and that’s actually important in the next allegation. Can you describe how that fits into the charge of profiling?

NJ: Certainly. There is a charter review committee meeting right now. One of the issues that the county Charter Review Committee is considering is whether the sheriff's position should be appointed or elected. It's currently elected. Sheriff Staton feels very strongly that it should continue to be an elected position and on Jan. 11, he held a meeting with a number of county union leaders in which he said that he had gathered certain personal information about the members of the Charter Review Committee.

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KD: How much information are we talking about here? Like a casual Google search or the use of a law enforcement database?

NJ: It's unclear. The information the county has turned over to Willamette Week shows that they did basic Google searches, but they also have access to numerous law enforcement databases. Sheriff Staton has said that they didn't use such databases, but we don't know.

KD: Why does that matter?

NJ: There's an Oregon law that prohibits law enforcement agencies from gathering personal or political information about people unless they have probable cause to believe that a crime was committed. This was the result of years of abuses by law enforcement agencies who would gather information about groups that they thought to be political threats or that they just didn't like.

KD: What does Sheriff Staton say about all of this?

NJ: Well, Sheriff Staton is embroiled in a number of controversies. There's another one that does get directly at how he runs his agency — that's a use-of-force audit that was produced last September. Three people involved in the production of that audit are no longer with his agency and one of them just today filed a tort claim notice alleging that the sheriff had retaliated against them. So there are some real issues of management of the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office that are sort of underlying these controversies.

KD: And this use of force audit showed a disproportionate use of force against black inmates in Multnomah County.

NJ: That's correct. They analyzed 3,700 use of force reports taken over a three-year period and found that black inmates are far more likely to have use of force used against them and particularly to have violent use of force such as Tasers or pepper spray used against them. Sheriff Staton has claimed that he didn't see that report until a couple weeks ago when I requested it. The people involved in it say that's not true.

KD: How does Sheriff Staton respond to the allegations of sexual harassment or profiling when it comes to the county commission?

NJ: Sheriff Staton has denied in every case that he's done anything wrong. Although settling the tort claim notice by his former chief deputy, he has denied that he treated her badly or acted improperly. He has given an explanation for why people were asked to leave his agency around the use-of-force audit. And he has said that he didn't profile members of the charter review committee, that he merely wanted to know more about them, in case he needed to communicate with them.

KD: What is the timeline for what happens next in terms of the DOJ investigation?

NJ: DOJ has begun talking to people at the county and I think they're probably going to look and see what databases or what search engines were used and for what purpose. I think it's probably going to take a couple months for that investigation to wrap up, so we may not know more for a while.


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