Post by WaTcHeR on Nov 30, 2006 16:49:44 GMT -5
Officer John Wood
11.30.2006 - Portland police officer John Wood resigned Monday after pleading guilty to two criminal counts of official misconduct stemming from a July encounter in which he asked two young women to lift their skirts for him to avoid going to jail.
Standing in Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Jean Kerr Maurer’s sixth-floor courtroom Monday afternoon, Wood said little but “Yes, your Honor” in a soft voice. He spent almost the entire half-hour hearing looking straight ahead. His attorney, Mike Staropoli, spoke to him several times, but Wood stayed quiet, his mood seeming to match his dark, drab suit.
The victims were present with family members and a Spokane civil attorney, John Allison. One of the victims, who asked Portland police not to release their names, had her say in the courtroom, reading from a written statement from the witness stand. Every time she sees a badge or a uniform, she said, “I can’t breathe and I start to feel nauseous.”
“You have been the monster under my bed, haunting me,” she told Wood, adding later, “I hope that some day in the near future I can go a full 24 hours without spending one minute thinking about that night.”
Kerr Maurer told the woman she spoke eloquently and powerfully.
“I think, frankly, that no one can say it any better than the victim just did,” the judge said.
As the victims left the courtroom, Wood’s wife hissed epithets at them as she held the door open while they passed her by. Out in the hallway, Wood’s mother blamed the young women for the ill fortune befalling her son. The young women’s faces flushed, and both started crying before Allison led them up a staircase and away from Wood’s family.
When Wood left the courtroom on his way to having a county booking photo taken, he did not even twitch when asked to comment, walking briskly down the stairs with his wife and lawyer.
Wood faced a maximum two years in jail and $13,500 in fines for the misdemeanor counts he stood accused of. Kerr Maurer sentenced him to two years of bench probation, 100 hours of community service, immediate resignation from the Portland Police Bureau, the immediate surrendering of his Oregon police certification, and writing apology letters to his victims.
“This is the best outcome for everybody,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Donald Rees said. This guy lost his job – and it’s not a job at Subway or something where you can walk in with an application and get hired the same day. John Wood is never going to be a police officer anywhere ever again, and Portlanders can feel good about that.”
The case is similar to the pending criminal investigation of Multnomah County sheriff’s deputy Christopher Green. A number of women between ages 23 and 43 came forward beginning in 2004 accusing Green of having them lift their shirts, unfasten their bras or unzip their pants as he looked for a flower tattoo.
An initial sheriff’s office investigation in late 2004 and early 2005 found that there were no suspects matching that description and that Green lied to at least one supervisor when questioned about his actions.
Green remains on paid administrative leave while Sheriff Bernie Giusto tries to revoke his police certification, which would cost him his job.
Women were in parked van
According to police reports released by the police bureau Monday, Wood came upon a suspicious van parked at Southeast 113th Avenue and Pine Street, near Ventura Park, around 3 a.m. on July 21.
The two victims were in the back seat. According to the police reports, there were drugs in the car. Wood walked up to the passenger side, got one woman’s name then left to run it through his in-car computer. He came back and asked if she had any tattoos.
“After asking her if she had any tattoos the officer reportedly asked if she and (the other victim) were going to get busy,” Detective Mike Geiger wrote in one report. “I asked what she thought that meant, and (the victim) said she believed it was as question as to whether or not they were preparing to have sex. She said he next asked her about what she was wearing and if she was wearing underwear.”
Eventually, one victim showed Wood her tattoo, which police reports said was on her pubic bone, three times.
“She said she was upset at having to show her tattoo again and on this third occasion she did not spread her legs but only pulled her underwear aside,” Geiger wrote.
According to police and prosecutors, the women first reported Wood’s conduct to a sergeant at East Precinct, where he was assigned. The sergeant told the precinct commander, who alerted Chief of Police Rosie Sizer. Sizer immediately put Wood on paid administrative leave, where he remained until Monday.
At the request of the police bureau, the women also made a formal complaint to the city’s Independent Police Review Division, which is affiliated with the auditor’s office. IPR forwarded the complaint to the police bureau’s Internal Affairs Division in August. After an initial review, internal affairs investigators realized that possible criminal charges could result and forwarded the case to detectives.
The detectives referred the case to the Multnomah County district attorney’s office the week of Oct. 16, Rees said.
“Here is a case where a system was in place and it obviously worked,” Sizer said Monday.
The case came together so quickly, Rees said, that the hearing Monday served as the arraignment, guilty-plea settlement and sentencing.
Portland police Personnel Division Capt. Vince Jarmer sat in the courtroom for the hearing, supplying Staropoli with the necessary paperwork to sever Wood from the police bureau. Wood signed after the hearing while Jarmer, Personnel Division Lt. Kevin Modica and the Portland police detectives who investigated Wood waited in the hall outside.
Just before Jarmer left, he looked at one last piece of paper, looked up at Modica, and said, “We’re good. We’re done.”