.png){kind=small}
Members of a specialized Portland, Oregon, police unit that deals with crowd control have resigned from the assignment en masse a day after a fellow officer was indicted on an assault charge stemming from alleged illegal use of force during a protest last year. The Portland Police Bureau's Rapid Response Team, which is primarily responsible for providing public safety at crowd events, consisted of approximately 50 officers, all of whom resigned Wednesday, the bureau announced.
The assignment is voluntary and the officers will remain on the force and continue their regular assignments, the bureau said.
We love to see it 😄
In a peculiar way, perhaps their leaving the crowd control unit, and the force as a whole is a positive. They knew what the laws were for treating protesters, in terms of their use of force, and made a collective decision that they weren’t willing to follow them, so they left. This could be a sign of stricter police training protocols being instituted to better make sure they follow the law when they’re out there overseeing protests.
A Lawyer here explained this to me, many times that prosecutors are in a bind when it comes to charging cops with crimes, especially crimes committed on duty. They need the cops in order to get convictions, and when a cop gets indicted his buddies often retaliate by sabotaging the efforts of prosecutors. They "forget" court dates. They botch arrest reports. They louse up their testimony. There are a hundred things cops can do to make a prosecutor's job more difficult. They always deny doing it.
These cops make no secret of the fact that they will not tolerate charges against their own for using excessive force against people they see as political adversaries. These bad boys should be fired for, if nothing else, conduct putting the department in a negative light.
Point worth making: This was a volunteer squad with no extra pay. They signed up because they enjoy doing battle.
it’s a volunteer position
so literally they are people who wanna beat on portland protestors and get paid overtime to brutalize while having qualified immunity from the state
You can resign from a work assignment? I’m in the wrong profession!
These cops stayed on the force, if you want to read something interesting Google the battle of athens and enjoy. Spoiler: it involves police brutality, abuse of power, and a whole fuck ton of pissed off ww2 vets.