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NEIGHBORHOOD
WATCH Roger Magaña is now in jail serving a 94-year sentence for using his power as a Eugene police officer to rape, sexually abuse, assault and harass a dozen women over six years. Prisoners behind bars can't easily campaign for ballot measures, but supporters of an external police review measure (20-106) now before voters say Magaña is the best reason to vote for police reform. The Magaña case shows that the internal police review "process that's in place right now doesn't work," said Ron Chase, a member of the local group Citizens United for Better Policing (CUBP). Had measure 20-106 passed years ago, "we probably would have prevented some victims." MAGAñA'S LESSON Magaña's trial last year demonstrated the failings of Eugene police in policing themselves. Many of the women that officer Magaña victimized repeatedly complained to police over the years. At least a half dozen different officers heard the complaints and others observed questionable behavior, but the fellow cops did nothing to stop it. While cop co-workers looked the other way, Magaña was well known on the street as "Officer Blow Job," according to testimony.
After a co-worker told Magaña about one woman's complaint of forced sex, Magaña retaliated against the victim, according to testimony. He ripped off her pants, put his police pistol to the woman's genitals and said, "If you tell anyone anything about me, I'll blow you up from the inside out," said the woman, who choked on her tears in court testimony. "Why the hell didn't they listen to me?" The crimes Magaña was convicted of started in 1997 and continued until 2003. The officer was convicted last year of one rape, 10 charges of sexual abuse, five charges of forced sodomy, four kidnappings, seven charges of coercion, three harassment charges, one burglary and 10 charges of official misconduct. About a dozen other women also alleged abuse by Magaña, but the district attorney did not pursue charges. Another officer, Juan Lara, was trained by Magaña, convicted of a lesser sex crime spree and sent to jail for five years. The city has so far paid out $1.06 million to settle six civil lawsuits by Magaña's and Lara's victims. Another six cases are still pending, with the women asking for about $32 million in actual and punitive damages. Multiple women complained about Magaña, but the department failed to investigate. One woman complained that Magaña scared and sexually harassed her during a 2001 traffic stop, but her complaint was dismissed. In 1997 a 17-year-old woman testified that Magaña forced himself on her, rubbing his crotch against her when she was working as a police cadet. She said she complained to another officer, but the department took no action. The woman said Magaña retaliated with more harassment, forcing her to leave the program. While Magaña was using his position to sexually abuse women, his supposed supervisor praised him as a "role model for young officers." "This stuff has been happening for years and people have been telling people about it for years," Bob Lane, the prosecutor in the Magaña case, told the jury. When Magaña's final victim called 911, her complaint was dismissed by a police supervisor who investigated only by talking briefly with Magaña, who denied the allegation. Lane said the police only investigated after the woman called back, providing evidence that Magaña was lying when he said he didn't know her. If not for her persistence, "it could so easily have gone the other way and none of this would have come out," Lane said. One 28-year-old victim reacted with disbelief when Magaña demanded oral sex in his police cruiser. How could he expect to get away with it? She testified that Magaña replied, "Oh, you would be amazed at what I can do, and I can get away with." At one point, Magaña coerced a letter of commendation from a woman he had repeatedly forced oral sex from by threatening to have her children taken away, she testified. Police Captain Becky Hanson wrote to Magaña that the letter was a "tremendous testimonial to your work and efforts with this young woman. What a positive impact you made. You are a credit to all police officers." Police officials claim that they will do better at supervising and investigating themselves in the future, but they've balked at serious reforms. After the Magaña verdict, Police Chief Robert Lehner promised at a press conference that he would conduct a thorough internal investigation of the department's failings in hiring, supervising and disciplining the convicted officers. The investigation would include whether any other officers were involved in the crimes or needed to be disciplined for negligence and the results would be released to the public, Lehner said. No such investigation has been reported and no other officers besides the two in jail have been punished. An outside review by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) found that faulty hiring procedures, discipline, supervision and leadership "created an environment where Magaña and Lara could thrive and go undetected." PERF/ICMA reported that it was "hard to imagine" that Magaña and Lara "were able to engage in such serious misconduct for so long and go undetected." The consultants recommended that EPD conduct a thorough internal investigation of how it failed with Magaña/Lara, adequately staff disciplinary investigations and increase supervision of officers, but the EPD refused to follow these key recommendations. REFORM MEASURE After the Magaña/Lara scandal, the Eugene Police Commission (a policy advisory group) spent a year studying how to use a new police complaint review process to restore trust and confidence in the police department. The commission, composed largely of staunch supporters of tax increases for police, came back with a recommendation that the City Council voted to put on the ballot as Measure 20-106 with ballots due by Nov. 8. The charter amendment would allow the council to hire an independent, external auditor and appoint a citizen board to review complaints against police. The board and auditor would give advice on appropriate discipline. With more than 230 people signing on as supporters, Measure 20-106 is backed by a broad spectrum of the community. Supporters include minority, women's, religious, neighborhood and civil liberties groups and also include many political moderates, police boosters and conservatives. The former president of the Eugene police union endorsed the measure, as did the editorial page of The Register-Guard. Opponents of the measure include the current executive board of the police union and a small group concerned that it would undermine the power of the city manager. Ken Tollenaar, a retiree and former north Eugene councilor, agrees that the police need an auditor and review board but argues that the auditor shouldn't be external but controlled by the city manager. "It does undermine the council-manager form of government," Tollenaar said. That view is shared by City Council conservative Gary Papé, who argues the city may have trouble finding new city managers if they don't control the auditor. "I'm wondering who's going to step up and apply," he said, "when we chip away at the system they are so comfortable with." But measure supporters dismiss those arguments. First, the review board and auditor wouldn't have any power and would be advisory only to the city manager and police chief. The manager and chief could freely ignore the auditor and review the board's advice on police discipline. The measure would give the auditor/board no power to micromanage the day-to-day operations of the department. Any expansion of the auditor/board's limited, advice-only power would require another public vote. Second, the measure wouldn't set a precedent. The city charter already allows the council to hire the city's municipal judge, a process that has run smoothly. Last, and most important, supporters say a board and auditor selected and controlled by the manager would be little different from the system now where the manager appoints the police chief to oversee department discipline. Such manager-controlled oversight wouldn't be external and independent but internal and dependent on the manager, they argue. Councilor Andrea Ortiz said keeping the auditor external is an important part of restoring citizen trust in the police. "It has to be external, just to give that credibility." Chuck Dalton, president emeritus of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said if it's left to the city manager's control, nothing will change. Dalton said he's seen three different city managers over the past two decades, and "all of them said they were going to clean this up, and they haven't." "You can't watchdog yourself and be honest about it," Henry Luvert, the local NAACP's current president, said. Tollenaar argued that the council could use its existing power in the charter to review police complaints in open session and fire a city manager if he fails to discipline police. But Councilor Bonny Bettman said that without an auditor gathering independent information "councils have been completely in the dark as to what is going on." She said firing a manager is a very time-consuming, expensive, disruptive move that has happened extremely rarely in the city's history. Ruth Duemler, an activist with the local League of Women Voters, said the elected City Council should have the power to hire a police auditor. "That's part of being in a democracy." Another argument supporters make for the measure is that it would allow for an independent, external intake point for complaints. Many citizens testified to the Police Commission that they, like many of Magaña's victims, feared retaliation if they filed a complaint directly with police. At a forum on the measure a woman stood up. "I'm a little square old lady," she said. "I have been afraid to make a complaint." It doesn't appear that the opponents' city-manager-system argument is getting much traction. At a forum debating the measure, citizens dismissed the argument as a petty technicality compared to the important civil rights issues involved and as a "red herring" brought up because of an inability to argue against the measure on its merits. "You're looking at this in a very narrow focus," said Guadalupe Quinn, CUBP member and Latino-rights advocate. "I don't care about the city structure. We've been waiting for a citizen review process that is external and independent for 20 years." Luvert dismissed the argument as "ticky-tacky," saying that citizens need accountability because "police officers have the ultimate power of life and death." He said, "the city government is not going to come to a screeching halt because we are going to have someone monitor the police department." COST OF SCANDAL The other major argument against 20-106 is cost. The police union has run ads in the R-G attacking the measure as too expensive. Eugene City Manager Dennis Taylor and his staff have provided an estimate that the board/auditor would cost about $400,000 a year. But measure supporters have questioned whether that estimate was inflated for political reasons. In May Taylor publicly opposed a council-appointed auditor and board, arguing instead for an internal police review system controlled by the city manager, himself. "When you don't want it to happen, you make that estimate high," said Ron Chase, CUBP member. "The real costs will be nowhere near that." The council, not the manager, will set the budget for the proposed external auditor/review board, but has not yet decided on the details. In 1998, the city estimated that a similar proposal (that failed very narrowly at the polls) would cost about $100,000 to $150,000 a year in salaries. This month, the city estimated that the total cost of adding three new positions to a stormwater program would be $230,000 a year. Supporters argue that the cost of the auditor/review board is another red herring since it would cost the same whether it's external and independent or internal and manager-controlled. The real reason behind the union's opposition is simple, Chase said. "They like it just the way it is, which is they're basically unaccountable." Whatever the cost, supporters argue, it's far less than the alternative. Although Taylor provided a detailed estimate of all the costs involved in the new auditor/review board, the city manager has refused to provide a similar detailed estimate of the total taxpayer costs of Magaña/Lara. The $1.06 million in settlements so far may be just the tip of the iceberg. Another $32 million in claims are still pending. Also undisclosed is how much the city has spent on legal bills defending the lawsuits. Add up all the attorney fees, settlements, consultants, staff time, overhead, wasted salaries, meetings, prosecution costs, court costs, etc., spent on the two convicted cops and the total so far could easily exceed $6 million. That doesn't include the cost of about 100 years of jail time (more than $10 million), nor the high but less tangible costs of the damage to the department's reputation, morale and citizen trust. "It's more expensive not to do it than to do it," Luvert said of the measure. Three ballot measures for a new police station have failed in recent years. Without police reform, "Who's going to vote for the police buildings?" asks Dr. Ed Coleman, a retired UO professor and leader in the black community. "Certainly not me." The reasons for voting yes on 20-106 go far beyond Magaña and Lara, leaders of the city's minority and civil rights communities say. Minorities have accused the Eugene police of racial profiling for years. A decade ago the city lost $20,000 in a lawsuit by two black teens who were stopped and held at gunpoint by police. Last year, Cortez Jordan, another young black man, said he planned to sue after police singled him out for a stop and frisk. A Saudi man sued the city this year for $5 million, alleging brain damage from the "Southtowne beat-down" he received from police. The city commissioned a study a couple years ago that showed that minorities are far more likely than whites to be stopped and searched by police. But the department hasn't taken significant steps to reform the problem, or even admitted that it actually has a problem. After Magaña, Lara and the racial profiling incidents, "the public doesn't have confidence in the Eugene police and shouldn't, really," said Dave Fidanque, director of the Oregon branch of the ACLU. That lack of trust costs more than money, he said. The distrust actually makes Eugene less safe, as community members "are less likely to report crimes, they are less likely to come forward as witnesses, and that compromises public safety." The truly independent, external police review offered by Measure 20-106, Fidanque said, is "the only hope of restoring confidence in the Eugene police." |
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