Quinton was walking home on a fall evening when he was detained, harassed, and injured by police just steps from his front door in Newberg, Oregon. The officers accused Quinton of walking in the middle of the street. When he said he hadn’t been, one of them pointed a gun at Quinton. Scared, Quinton turned to run and was quickly thrown to the ground with his hands behind his back, his shoulder popping from its socket in the process. After being subjected to verbal harassment and racial epithets, Quinton was arrested and later found guilty of criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.
“This experience was severely traumatizing. Whenever I see a police car, my heart begins to race. My anxiety got so bad, I had to leave school. I was ultimately diagnosed with PTSD and got therapy to help manage the stress. Because of my record, I wasn’t able to join the Peace Corps. I still feel pain in my ankle and shoulder where I was injured that night.”
While legislators banned police profiling in 2015, the truth is that it’s still happening every day in communities across Oregon. And we know that low-income neighborhoods, communities of color, and LGBT people are targeted the most.
Tell your legislators that it’s time to end police profiling here in Oregon.
House Bill 2355 will require police departments to collect data on all pedestrian and traffic stops. The bill also requires training in cultural competency and implicit bias for all state and local law enforcement officers and establishes a statewide system to hold police departments accountable for profiling.
Contact your legislators today, asking them to pass HB 2355 and move forward with data collection, mandatory training, and a statewide system of accountability.