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February 12, 2007
Chasse Lawsuit
On Friday, the family of James Chasse filed a civil lawsuit against the City and county people who killed him either through violence or indifference. (Also named in the suit is AMR Northwest, the ambulance company that allowed the cops to take a hog-tied James into custody after he'd been brutally beaten).
Many have anticipated this lawsuit, but it hadn't occurred to me (probably because I'm ignorant) that a civil lawsuit could go so far beyond punitive fines.
Among the demands (I'm lifting from the Oregonian here, which isn't always prudent, but I think they've done pretty well on this story):
- Change the police bureau's use of deadly force policy.
- Create an independent citizen review commission to investigate deaths caused by police and in-custody deaths.
- Change police anti-discrimination policies to better protect people with mental illnesses and disabilities by requiring officers to treat them fairly.
- Create an early-warning system to identify police officers with high use-of-force rates and take appropriate action against them.
The complaint itself is available as a PDF at the Justice for James Chasse website.
The complaint contains some poignant details, such as the contents of James Chasse's backpack on the day he was killed ("several vintage books, comics, and a sandwich"). I also didn't realize that what Humphreys publicly identified as "cocaine", in fact, bread crumbs.
My sense is the Chasse family is pretty private. I imagine that continuing to be the public face of the issue of police brutality and accountability must be hard and painful work. I'm sure it would be a lot easier to focus on their personal grief and and healing than to work with attorneys and make statements to the press. So I'm grateful to them for their continued work for our city. Their proposals would make us all a little bit safer on the streets, and that would be a fitting legacy for James Chasse.
Posted by mary at February 12, 2007 8:22 AM
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