Cop’s ‘Use of Force’ report questioned

Officer tabbed man as armed, violent before police knew his name or his past

By Jacob Quinn Sanders

The Portland Tribune, Nov 14, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (20 Reader comments)

JIM CLARK / PORTLAND TRIBUNE

A 911 call to a Northeast Portland apartment complex led to a standoff between police and Greg Benton. Benton says a cop wrote that he was armed and violent in a report to justify police actions that night.

When Portland police officers Benjamin Davidson and Quency Ho pointed a shotgun and an AR-15 rifle at Greg Benton’s apartment door, they didn’t know his name or anything else about him.

All they knew was that a call had come in earlier — shots fired — and that an anonymous female tipster had later called to say there was a bleeding, wounded man somewhere among the 10 apartments at 1621 N.E. Killingsworth St.

They never found a bleeding, wounded man. But when Davidson filled out a “Use of Force” report later that night on Sept. 18, as he was supposed to do after any encounter in which he drew a gun, he checked boxes indicating that Benton, 54, had been reported to be armed and that he had a history of violence.

The officers didn’t know anything about Benton’s past, their precinct commander said. And the anonymous caller mentioned nothing about an armed man, let alone one who lived in apartment No. 4.

“I don’t know if they made that up to cover their own butts or what, but what they put in that report has no truth about me or my situation,” Benton said.

Bret Smith, commander of the Portland Police Bureau’s Northeast Precinct, where Davidson is assigned, said the officer filled out the report based only on that one event, not based on anything in Benton’s past nor on a third-party report that Benton was armed.

“And based on his perception of the incident,” Smith said of Davidson, “he filled out the report with information he believed to be accurate, though it seems there was something unclear in the officer’s mind about how this information was supposed to be recorded. I would say I’m comfortable with how the officer did it in this case, but I’m not sure it’s the best thing to do in the future.”

Davidson noted on the report form that the guns were necessary to defend the officers, to prevent Benton’s escape and to make an arrest. Benton was not arrested or charged with a crime, was locked in his apartment for most of the encounter, and said he was not at all aggressive toward the police.

“But I wouldn’t let them in,” Benton said. “That’s what really seemed to escalate their attitudes.”

Police will review procedure

After the Portland Tribune began asking questions about this incident and whether the report had been filled out accurately, Smith said he called Lynnae Berg, police bureau assistant chief of operations.

He said she told him she was concerned that inconsistencies in filling out the reports made information contained in any of them suspect — something the police bureau could not afford as it begins its first-ever review of the reports, which officers have filled out since July 2004.

Berg also told Smith, the commander said, that the police bureau should immediately review how officers are instructed to fill out the reports and that the issue would be raised at a public Independent Police Review Division meeting this week. IPR’s public calendar shows no such meeting, though there is a Citizen Review Committee meeting next Tuesday.

Berg said in an e-mail that it was a routine review to ensure the reports’ accuracy.

“You’re damn right this is a problem,” Benton said. “It means police can put whatever they want on that piece of paper to make their actions look justified. I’m guessing they just looked me up and put something down in their report later on to make me look bad.”

Benton said he has lived in apartment No. 4 in the building for five years. He said he keeps a handgun locked in a chest in his closet and keeps ammunition separate.

A few traffic tickets are Benton’s only convictions. He was arrested in 1980 on a homicide charge but a Multnomah County grand jury did not indict him, finding that he acted in self-defense, records show.

And a 1997 arrest for a felony aggravated assault with a handgun charge was reduced to misdemeanor menacing, a charge that ultimately was dropped, records show.

But the officers with guns pointed at his door knew none of that. They didn’t even learn his name until afterward. Their written reports invariably call him an “unidentified male,” who was “later identified as Gregory Benton.”

Man wouldn’t open door

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