Officers, not victim, were protected, inquiry finds
DJ
A Portland police internal affairs report details how far authorities went to
help two colleagues who assaulted a man in 2002
11/16/03
MAXINE BERNSTEIN
On a winter night nearly two years ago, Officer Ryan Lee rolled up to a
downtown Portland nightclub to handle a noise complaint.
That turned out to be minor. But Lee quickly found himself in the middle of a
rookie cop's nightmare: Two off-duty officers at the club had beaten and
bloodied a man on the street outside.
Lee began to investigate by the book. He asked the officers to wait in his car,
tried to find witnesses and called for medical help.
Soon, higher-ranking officers came to the scene. One sergeant, concerned about
protecting the off-duty cops, called in help -- an off-duty lieutenant he
called "Dad."
Suddenly, the rookie cop's straight-forward investigation was overtaken. By
night's end, the two cops involved in the assault had conspired to lie about
what happened, another cop had destroyed evidence, and the lieutenant had
ordered everyone not to write reports.
An 11-month Portland Police Bureau internal investigation, obtained by The
Oregonian, provides the first detailed looked at how far some officers and
their supervisors went to protect their colleagues instead of investigating a
crime.
In the days that followed, a memo downplaying the Jan. 24, 2002, assault made
its way up the chain of command but no one contacted Internal Affairs or
detectives, as required by bureau policy.
The two officers -- Grant Bailey and Craig Hampton -- remained on duty until
another sergeant blew the whistle with an anonymous complaint. Hampton and
Bailey eventually were convicted, and the bureau launched an internal inquiry
into why police failed to take action immediately.
A Multnomah County grand jury denounced police actions as "a cover-up" and
demanded new safeguards be put in place.
To date, none have.
Bar barbs, street fight According to internal affairs reports, the events
unfolded as follows:
The invitation arrived in Officer Bailey's Central Precinct mailbox. It
advertised free beer, wine and hors d'oeuvres until 9 p.m. Jan. 24, 2002, at
Stephanos nightclub's VIP "Grand Opening" party.
Stephanos' owner Steve Marlton put Bailey on the VIP list. As a Central
Precinct officer, Bailey had taken care of several situations for Marlton at
his other business, the Boom Boom Room strip club on Southwest Barbur
Boulevard.
Bailey took Hampton, also a Central Precinct officer, as his guest.
They arrived at Stephanos about 8:30 p.m. They struck up conversations with two
women as they stood by a table in the nightclub's Shadow Room, named for the
silhouettes of nude women dancing behind screens.
Hampton stepped away at one point. Bailey and one woman were talking loudly
over background music and could be heard snickering about the suspenders
another man in the bar was wearing.
The 32-year-old man, wearing a business suit and suspenders, heard the two
laughing at him. He walked up and pushed Bailey, knocking him down against a
bench. Bailey alerted security, identifying himself as a police officer, and
the security guard escorted the man out.
When Hampton returned to the table and heard what happened, he suggested they
find the guy. Bailey followed him out.
They ran into Lee on their way out and told them what had occurred. Lee, on the
job 17 months, told the two to "hang tight," while he took care of the noise
complaint inside.
Bailey and Hampton ignored Lee. Instead, they found the man two blocks away on
Washington Street, called out to him and grabbed onto his overcoat. As the man
turned around, one of the off-duty officers punched him in the nose,
splattering blood all over his face.
Hampton punched him again and again, slamming the man's head against the glass
pane of the Hi-School Pharmacy. Bailey hit him several times in the ribs, then
kicked him from behind in the legs and groin. The man, later identified as
James Patrick Webb Ladd, said he was struck about 25 times and knocked to the
ground.
At one point, a red pickup drove by, slowed and Bailey heard someone yelling at
him. Bailey flashed his badge at the truck's occupants, telling them he was a
police officer and had the situation under control.
Ladd's face was covered with blood. His nose was broken. One of his eyes was
swollen shut.
"Just let us go" When Lee came out of the club about five minutes later and saw
Bailey and Hampton, he asked whether they had encountered the man who had
knocked Bailey down.
In a sarcastic tone, Hampton said they couldn't find him. But Hampton's
bloodied hand and sweater and Bailey's flushed face and rumpled clothing told a
different story.
At least three witnesses also alerted Lee that the two men had "jumped" another
man, knocked him to the ground and then identified themselves as police when
witnesses tried to intervene.
Lee began to investigate the assault, despite Bailey's pestering to "just let
us go. . . It's not a big deal." Lee had Bailey and Hampton sit in his patrol
car, and flagged down an officer who was driving by to sit with Ladd and wait
for medical care.
While seated in the back of the patrol car, Bailey and Hampton agreed that if
anyone asked, they'd claim that the bloodied victim threw the first punch.
Other officers heard Lee radio in that he was at an assault involving off-duty
officers. Sgt. Dirk Anderson was the first to assist as Lee interviewed
witnesses, and fire paramedics cared for the victim. Anderson radioed Lt. Steve
Hollingsworth, who was having coffee with Sgts. Lawrence Baird and Ken Whattam
at the time.
Out of curiosity, Baird and Whattam went, too.
Hollingsworth suggested that the two off-duty officers and the victim be
detained and taken to Central Precinct. That didn't sit well with the two
sergeants who came along.
Frustrated, Whattam turned to Baird and said, "I'm gonna go call Dad."
Whattam paged off-duty Lt. Gabe Kalmanek. Whattam told him Bailey and Hampton
were in an off-duty beef, things were spinning out of control, officers were
driving around to see who was involved, and Hollingsworth was there but not
taking control.
Kalmanek said he'd meet them at Central Precinct to sort it out.
Meanwhile, Anderson and Lee continued to investigate the assault. They asked
Ladd multiple times whether he wanted to initiate a police report about the
assault, and Ladd said no. He did not know who hit him and just wanted to go
home. Lee took photos of Ladd's injuries, and another officer drove him home.
Knowing Kalmanek was headed to Central Precinct from home, Baird instructed the
rookie officer, Lee, that Bailey and Hampton were to be driven back to the
precinct separately, in a "low key" manner. Hampton was placed in the front
seat of Lee's car, and Bailey rode in the front of Baird's vehicle.
"I consider this resolved" Back at the precinct, Hampton washed blood off his
hands with a sanitary wipe.
He told another officer, Matt Stimmel, to throw away his bloodied gray
turtleneck. Stimmel tossed the sweater into a garbage can in the men's locker
room, and gave Hampton a clean T-shirt.
When later asked by investigators whether it occurred to him he was getting rid
of evidence, Hampton said, "We were told that nothing was gonna happen."
Bailey and Hampton were left together in the precinct's roll call room, and a
union representative, Daryl Turner, arrived a short time later to talk to them.
Sgts. Whattam and Baird, and Lt. Hollingsworth huddled in Kalmanek's office.
For some reason, Anderson, the primary sergeant at the scene, was not included.
Then Kalmanek called in Lee to discuss the case. Kalmanek asked the
probationary officer what he would do if this case didn't involve two off-duty
officers. Lee said that he'd probably jot the information in his notebook in
case either party wanted to pursue charges in the future.
"Well, that's what we'll do," Kalmanek decided, instructing officers not to
write reports but keep their notes.
Baird instructed Lee to interview Bailey and Hampton. When Lee entered the roll
call room, the officers were seated together beside two union representatives.
Bailey told Lee he was unwilling to discuss the extent of the altercation, and
Hampton wouldn't say a word.
No other officer, supervising sergeant or lieutenant attempted to speak to
Bailey or Hampton to find out more.
An officer drove Hampton and Bailey home. Photos of the man they assaulted were
placed in the property evidence room.
The next morning, Kalmanek phoned the Central Precinct commander, Rosie Sizer,
to brief her about the incident. Kalmanek said Sizer asked him to write a short
memo on it, not "War and Peace."
The memo described the man assaulted, Ladd, as "clearly intoxicated and
belligerent," downplayed his injuries to a bloody nose and characterized the
officers involved as "understandably concerned and distraught."
He noted that neither Ladd nor the two off-duty officers wished to press
charges.
"Absent any information to the contrary" Kalmanek's memo said, "there appears
to be no misconduct."
Four days after the assault, Sizer sent the two-page confidential memo to
then-Assistant Chief Greg Clark with a note scribbled on top: "I consider this
resolved. Do you agree?"
No one notified detectives, or Internal Affairs, as required by bureau policy
whenever there is alleged criminal misconduct by police.
Clark responded to Sizer with a brief handwritten note.
"Rosie -- How did Lee document incident? How did the encounter occur outside
the bar? Did Ladd wait for officers? I don't want to make more of this but also
don't want Ladd to come back and accuse PPB of covering up or not taking
action. Let me know -- Greg."
Sizer never answered those questions or went back to her lieutenants and
sergeants to learn more. Sizer later said she did not sense an urgency to
respond to Clark's note because it came back about two weeks later, and she
thought many of his questions had already been answered by her lieutenant's
memo. Clark's note was not dated.
Days after the assault, the beating was the subject of jokes in Central
Precinct. Sgt. Whattam walked past Bailey in the men's locker room, raised his
fists in front of his face, and joked, "What's up, Sugar Ray?"
By then, Central Precinct Sgt. Anderson -- the first sergeant to arrive at
Stephanos -- was disturbed that Bailey and Hampton were still working and no
inquiry had begun. He typed an anonymous one-page letter to the Independent
Police Review Division about the officers' "unmerciful, one-sided, a-whipping."
The letter arrived at the review division Feb. 6, 2002, and ended with three
words in bold type: "DO YOUR JOB."
The fallout The anonymous letter sparked a criminal investigation, which led to
the arrests, resignations and convictions of the two officers, Bailey and
Hampton, last year.
Central Precinct officers said they considered the off-duty assault a typical
"mutual combat" bar fight they rarely document. But prosecutors in the
Multnomah County district attorney's office countered that the case was much
different, involving two assailants against one, serious injury to the victim
and an officer abusing his badge to keep witnesses from interfering.
In a scathing letter, a Multnomah County grand jury concluded that, "The
actions and inactions of the police clearly resulted in a cover-up. . . . It
appears that many of the officers put their heads in the sand and did not want
to know what happened. "
The grand jury called for "clear rules" to ensure it didn't happen again.
Former Chief Mark Kroeker said the internal review would likely lead to
organizational changes.
After the internal review was completed, discipline was handed out this spring.
But the bureau hasn't altered or strengthened policy or procedures.
Chief Derrick Foxworth says sufficient policies already exist; they just
weren't followed.
"Policies and procedures were already in place. It's a matter of following
through on them. There was a failure," Foxworth said. "Discipline itself sends
a message that we failed, and it reinforces that the policies need to be
adhered to."
Ladd, the man assaulted by police, told criminal investigators that although he
couldn't identify his two attackers, that did not mean he wasn't interested in
pursuing charges if other witnesses could identify them. Ladd, now 33, has
obtained a lawyer and is working to recoup his medical expenses from the city.
Bailey, now 28, and Hampton, now 26, were sentenced in January after they
pleaded guilty to third-degree assault, a felony. Bailey was sentenced to 18
months in prison; Hampton, 21 months. Both entered prison Jan. 3, served about
eight months, completed a military-style boot camp program in North Bend, and
were released in August.
This spring, Kroeker disciplined a precinct commander, two lieutenants, three
sergeants and an officer for failing to investigate the off-duty officers'
assault.
Cmdr. Sizer was given a written reprimand for failure to conduct or direct a
criminal investigation of the officers, ascertain sufficient information to
determine appropriate action or follow-up on an assistant chief's questions on
the assault.
Lts. Kalmanek and Hollingsworth were demoted to sergeant.
Kalmanek was demoted for undermining the on-scene command, not notifying his
commander the night of the assault, and not taking appropriate action. He also
was disciplined for inappropriately providing police reports to Bailey and his
union representative once a criminal investigation had begun.
Hollingsworth was disciplined for failure to take command control, failure to
take appropriate action and failure to notify his commander.
Kalmanek went off duty on disability leave the day after he testified before a
grand jury. Hollingsworth was transferred to school police division as a
sergeant, but the commanding officers' union has a grievance challenging the
discipline.
Sgt. Whattam was to be demoted under Kroeker's proposed discipline but after a
mitigation hearing before the chief, he avoided demotion and has been
reassigned to work as a detective in the investigations division, a role of
equal rank and pay. Instead, he was given a 30-day suspension without pay.
The internal inquiry said Whattam circumvented the chain-of-command by calling
in an off-duty lieutenant, failed to relay pertinent details about the assault
to the off-duty lieutenant, acted unprofessional in joking to Bailey in the
locker room, and did not fully answer the questions of Portland criminal and
internal affairs investigators.
Sgt. Baird was given a 10-day suspension for circumventing the
chain-of-command, failing to relay pertinent details about the assault to the
off-duty lieutenant called in, and failing to separate the suspects and protect
evidence. A union grievance is pending.
Officer Stimmel received a written reprimand for destroying potential evidence
of a crime by throwing out Hampton's bloodied sweater.
Sgt. Anderson eventually admitted that he wrote the anonymous complaint letter.
He was given a five-day suspension for failing to report his concerns to his
supervisors. A union grievance is pending.
Officer Lee was not disciplined. He now works at East Precinct.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/106890
146950091.xml
"The gravest abuse of power - and the gravest threats to personal liberty and
security - are those in which the very individuals to whom we look for the
preservation of law and order turn out to be the predators."
geb
by fellow officers that this was no big deal and was just another incident
really shows how common these types of coverups are.
"DJ" <inthed...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20031117085650...@mb-m04.aol.com...
DJ
>by fellow officers that this was no big deal and was just another incident
>really shows how common these types of coverups are.
>
The reaction of fellow officers was frightening. Yet, so many will say that,
the blue code, doesn't exist. The article reminded me of organized crime,
instead of law enforcement.
<Article snipped, but here's the link.>
geb
"DJ" <inthed...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20031118090015...@mb-m15.aol.com...
DJ
>
I wish it wasn't. <lol>