Police complaint-reporting bill concerns Levy

By Terry Murry on Tuesday, April 6th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories

ECHO – The Oregon House Judiciary Committee held a work session Monday, and is holding sessions today (Tuesday) and Wednesday on House Bill 3145. One of several police reform proposals being introduced, the measure requires the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training to operate a publicly-available data base of complaints or claims filed against police officers. Rep. Bobby Levy (R-Echo) has a problem with that.

“It allows a person to submit a claim against a police officer and that claim would be made public in this data base without any background checks about whether that claim was truthful or not,” Levy said.

Levy believes that all public servants need to operate at a high level of personal accountability. She also believes there could be people that file false or misleading complaints.

“Unfortunately, that’s become a place where anonymity behind screens lead to real life emotional and physical consequences,” she said.

HB 3145 is sponsored by the judiciary committee at the request of The Innocence Project and the Oregon Justice Resource Center.