Public Listening Session to Be Held on Death of Black Veteran in Police Custody

A Black veteran experiencing a mental health crisis died while restrained during an interaction with police in his home last month. Amid questions about police conduct and culpability, an independent police advisory group will hold a public listening session Wednesday.

While we mourn Damon, my colleagues and I are committed to asking difficult questions and seeking justice," Portland City Councilor Loretta Smith said in a statement released last week.

Damon Johnson, a 52-year-old Navy vet, lived in a Kenton neighborhood apartment overseen by Transition Projects, a shelter and housing nonprofit. On the night of June 27, staff contacted police about a distressed tenant who was allegedly flooding his apartment with water and dropping knives out of his window. Staff said they had evacuated the third floor where Johnson lived while Johnson remained in his apartment. Three responding Portland Police Bureau officers – identified as J.P. Duque Valencia, Travis Wortman and Jason Epton – entered Johnson’s apartment and ultimately restrained him. They held him face-down and with his hands cuffed behind him for about four minutes, during which time he lost consciousness and stopped breathing. Johnson was later pronounced dead at the hospital. 

“A lot of the questions I’m hearing are, ‘When Damon was unresponsive, why weren’t PPB performing CPR? Why did it take so long for AMR to come, why wasn’t there urgency in PPB telling them to come and telling them what was going on?’” Odelia Zuckerman of the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing (PCCEP) told The Skanner. PCCEP will host Wednesday’s listening session.  

‘Why Restrain?’

Zuckerman said that in her review of police footage released July 12, she was concerned by the officers’ approach to Johnson. 

“When they were at his (open) door, one of the officers pulled his gun out. That feels like a huge escalation or intimidation tactic, even though they saw him cleaning his bed. So why did that happen? It seemed like at the beginning, when the officers were walking up the driveway, in conversation they were saying the knives weren’t really a threat, it was more an issue of the water. Then when they got there, the water was off. Why did they enter the apartment? That’s one of the biggest questions. And then why did they use force and not just engage when they saw he wasn’t responding or breathing? His breaths sounded concerning – why were they still pushing down on his neck?”

On footage from police body cameras, officers turn Johnson on his side in what is commonly referred to as “recovery pose” when they notice he had stopped breathing, but they do not administer CPR. PPB directives are that when a person is restrained, officers should make every effort to put them in a standing, seated or recovery position. 

Paramedics were waiting outside, but PPB Chief Bob Day confirmed in a press conference there was a five-minute delay between when officers requested assistance and when emergency responders entered the apartment. Paramedics spent about 15 minutes performing CPR on Johnson, who was later pronounced dead at the hospital.  

The three police officers have been placed on administrative leave during the investigation. 

Service, Training Gaps

Johnson’s was the kind of case that Portland Street Response was formed to address: Behavioral health care providers respond or accompany responding officers to calls that likely involve mental health issues, using their own expertise to help de-escalate and to determine the best course of action. 

PSR staff are part of the triage resource set emergency dispatchers consider during 911 calls. But the program only operates from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, and the reported presence of knives would have precluded a PSR employee from being at the scene, Day said.  

“There could be something in the future where there is some type of co-response model where that would be appropriate,” he said. “It’s something we’re open to and we’re willing to consider.”

During his press conference on July 12, Day said the medical examiner had not yet determined Johnson’s cause of death and confirmed a criminal investigation is being conducted by the  PPB’s detective division in partnership with East County Major Crimes Team, which comprises investigators from the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, Oregon State Police, Port of Portland Police and the county's district attorney's office.  

Portland And The DOJ

Under the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2014 settlement with Portland, the city is required to have an active police oversight board.

“As part of the settlement agreement, PCCEP and its predecessors were created to be the conduit between the city of Portland and the PPB, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Portland community at large,” PCCEP member Kip Silverman told The Skanner. “We facilitate conversations around constitutional policing and outcomes, we facilitate the dialogues, we gather input, and a few times a year at least we come up with recommendations that we make to the mayor or the chief of police or both, and they have 60 days to respond to our recommendation.”

The 2014 settlement addresses PPB’s use of force, specifically against individuals suffering from mental illness. 

“Since this (case) directly related to why the settlement agreement exists in the first place and why we exist, this seemed very appropriate to facilitate and open up conversation to collect input from the community,” Silverman said.

All PPB officers go through some training, and one of the officers on the scene was a member of the PPB’s Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team (ECIT). 

Critics have voiced doubts that Johnson’s behavior merited a police hold, and question the officers’ sense of urgency in restraining Johnson, especially before paramedics were present. 

“I understand he was spreading shaving cream on his walls and outside and making sounds, and they cleared the floor.

"But I don’t know if I would say that in that exact moment he was in a crisis, or if they put him in a crisis,” Zuckerman said.

“His pants were at his feet – I think he was doing his own thing, and then they totally escalated it when I don’t know if they needed to enter when they saw the water was off. (Officer) Duque Valencia is ECIT-trained, so he should have a special understanding of what that means. Even if they’re saying to calm down, their actions aren’t saying that.” 

Silverman also expressed concern about what he saw on the police body cam footage of Johnson’s apartment. 

“It’s not for me to second-guess what decisions someone in the moment makes, but I think it’s always going to be the most valid question: Is there something that could have been done differently?” he said. “Was policy followed? And if it was followed, then is it the right policy? Is there something missing from it? If it wasn’t followed, what is the accountability process for that? 

The PCCEP listening session will be held Wednesday, July 23, 6 to 9 p.m., at The Portland Building (Leah Hing Room No. 108), 1120 S.W. 5th Ave., Portland. 

Participants unable to attend in person may view the session online via Zoom Webinar: 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81272428888?pwd=K3HK927RefDuDsVVMLqq2RRWQcuL4S.1

Webinar ID: 812 7242 8888, Passcode: 546136 +1 719 359 4580 US