A recent state report analyzed traffic and pedestrian stops made by local law enforcement agencies to identify evidence of racial profiling .
Your Oregon News asked readers to share their experiences with Oregon law enforcement, and whether the interactions were neutral, positive or negative.
About 57% of readers responded that they have had a positive experience with Oregon law enforcement. About 34% said they have had a negative experience, and 11% said they’ve had a neutral experience. About 9% said they have had no experiences with law enforcement.
Readers recount experiences that vary from reasonable stops, to positive interactions at events, to scary accidents and worse.
About 62% of readers said they did not perceive a bias in their interaction with law enforcement. About 32% said they did perceive a bias. Meanwhile, 10% of readers answered that the interaction was neutral, and 4% had no opinion.
Here’s what Your Oregon News readers have to say on their experiences with Oregon law enforcement:
“I’ve had a neutral experience when I’ve been pulled over, but while I shouldn’t have it was reasonable. An officer didn’t like that I was faster than him in the corner on Hwy. 217/26 interchange.”
—Beaverton
“Each time I have been contacted or stopped by law enforcement it was because I had done something wrong. I was stopped because I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, I’ve been stopped for speeding, and I also was on my cell phone once. None of them had to do with bias, I was in the wrong. I received a ticket for speeding because I was 15 miles per hour over the posted speed limit. It had nothing to do with my ethnicity and simply because I was violating the law.”
—Madras
“Not me personally, but my bi-racial great-granddaughter and her bi-racial husband have been harassed constantly by the Washington County Police.”
—Washington County
“They walk away from real crime and say they can’t do anything. Businesses are on their own.”
—Aloha/Hillsboro/Beaverton
“I’ve experienced law enforcement from many agencies from local, county, state and federal agencies. Never had a bad experience with any of them.”
— Everywhere from La Grande to Newport, from Wheeler County to Clatsop
“My Son was having a mental breakdown. I called the police because he asked me to. He said someone was trying to kill him. He handed me a piece of paper with nothing on it, and said read this please. He showed the police’s the same paper. I begged them to take him to the hospital. I was told we have better things to do than babysit him. He left after that and we never saw him again. They found his body five months later in the Clackamas River.”
—Gladstone
“We have gotten pulled over due to skin color, and assume the worst.”
—Jefferson County
“It is one particular officer with too much power. Filing complaints have been dismissed and there has been retaliation.”
—Redmond
“We can teach law enforcement officers when to shoot but we don't train them when not to shoot. There are too many young officer training new officers. Its kids training kids, unfortunately.”
—Multnomah County
“I worked around them and they were always pleasant. I have never observed them singling out any kind of ethnic group. If someone broke the law, they dealt with it. Please stop blaming the police for the criminals breaking the law and they do their job.”
—Portland/Gresham
“Officers were extremely helpful and courteous during my contact with them.”
—Newberg
“Outstanding and very professional.”
—Portland/Gresham
“I've seen officers arrest a white female having a diabetic attack and they took her to jail for a DWI—and when she was in jail, refused to give her insulin in time.”
—Crook County
“A police car followed very close behind me with his lights almost blinding me on a country road. I was terrified not realizing it was a police car so when he finally pulled me over I was shaking from fear. I told him that and he ignored me and said I went through a stop sign. Which I absolutely had not done as I saw his lights at a distance and waited a bit before deciding I could go forward. He was rude and intimidating to me, a white female nurse in her scrubs. I wondered what would he have done to a black or Hispanic man. Police are usually fine unless you challenge them even in a polite way. They demand absolute submission or they get angry. They need way more training in anger control. And we need guns off the streets and out of cars so police are not so legitimately afraid.”
—Hillsboro
“I went to a program to celebrate and honor our police.”
—Gresham
“Oregon City Police are always courteous and professional.”
—Oregon City
“I was detained and searched for walking while black in the afternoon, alone on a city street.”
—West Linn/Clackamas County
“In West Linn any person pulled over by law enforcement while walking down the street are almost exclusively non-caucasian. There is a unspoken but far too heavily enforced "Don't look poor, don't look non-white" attitude that is consistently conveyed. The overwhelming percentage of pull-overs and harassment towards Asian, Hispanic, and Black citizens is visible and disproportionate.”
—West Linn
“I, a Hispanic male, was driving through the Rock Creek neighborhood in an older vehicle and was pulled over for 15-20 minutes. The claim by the officer was that my license plate frame obscured 1/3rd of the word ‘Oregon’ on my license plate.”
—Gresham
“Only the best experiences! These professionals give their lives to protecting and serving us and some die doing it. I am thankful for law enforcement and support them in their work.”
—Wilsonville
“City of Prineville Police continue the concept of 'old-boy's club' and selective harshness towards the citizens. There is inconsistency—as evidenced by cases brought by the District Attorney. Regularly, weak cases are brought and then an earnest effort is used to "load" more charges to make the case."
—Prineville
“Clackamas County Sheriff's Office has on multiple occasions used bias to make my family feel like criminals for just existing in Oregon. The first was when a white preschool teacher physically abused my 1.5 year old daughter in daycare. The second time and also the absolute worse experience in 2021, is when a known white supremacist tried to break into my home when my baby was 4 months old, my daughter 7, and my husband used his body as a shield to hold our door while the criminal kicked in our door yelling how he was going to torture us rat N-word and lots of other threats to kill us and other racial slurs. The responding officer stated on the phone after calling 911 and said he was 99.9% sure who the man was and for us to just tell him to go home. The CCSO arrived and apologized for our experience and but there was nothing they could do. They said if he came back, to just tell him to go home. All of my positive experiences have been with Milwaukie Police Department. I have been invited to implicit bias training with them as an active community member, and I have been invited to officer interviews, promotion ceremonies, a ride-along, and my children love going to the station to visit the Chief and other officers. I am heavily involved as a community member with the police department and as someone who has had traumatic experiences with the police, I have lasting friendships with officers there, because they believe me when I tell my experiences, they see me as a human first, and they believe in accountability, and community policing. When I have had issues, I've always felt safe to call them and I have made reports down at the station and so felt seen, heard, and cared for.”
—Unincorporated Clackamas County
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