Do any of these guys have a daughter?
Sunday, September 10, 2006
The Oregonian

R est easy, women of Multnomah County. On a lonely road, in the dead of night, you may be stopped by a sheriff's deputy who will order you to remove your bra or display your more intimate tattoos for his inspection, ask you who you're sleeping with, then slip you his phone number.

Deputy Christopher Dennis Green has done it all before, then lied about his conduct to investigators.

Yet Sheriff Bernie Giusto won't fire him. District Attorney Michael Schrunk won't prosecute him.

And his union leader, Detective Todd Shanks, won't criticize him.

Don't any of these guys have a daughter?

As The Oregonian's Maxine Bernstein reminded us last week, Deputy Green has quite the record. In October 2004, Green told a drunken driving suspect to remove her bra when he was alone with her at the county jail.

And on a particularly outrageous day in November 2004, Green pulled over three "very attractive" women -- to quote the DA's report -- and ordered them to raise their shirts or unzip their pants to show him their tattoos. He also "shook out" the bra of one of the women, pulling the bra away from her body to make sure she wasn't hiding anything from him.

Green told the women he was pursuing a suspect with a flower tattoo. That wasn't true. He also lied to investigators. Deputy DA John Bradley concluded there was evidence Green's actions were tantamount to the crimes of coercion and official misconduct, given that he told the women to perform "demeaning acts" and two of the women believed they'd be arrested if they didn't play along.

"A very disturbing case," Bradley concluded. "It lit us up," Schrunk said, but he decided he could not prosecute with the evidence in hand. After bringing Green back from paid administrative leave, Giusto suspended him for an undisclosed number of days -- not many, in other words -- then sent him back out on patrol eight months ago.

What in the world does a rogue deputy have to do to get fired these days?

"That's a legitimate question," Giusto said. "I'm not sure. I agree that the public should be outraged by these actions."

Count County Commissioner Serena Cruz Walsh among the outraged: "I can't understand why the sheriff didn't fire him," she said, adding that no one "should be exposed to someone who repeatedly was willing to put people into degrading and threatening situations."

Giusto insists public safety is his first priority: "If I thought Chris Green was dangerous, he'd be fired. But I think his career is salvageable. He didn't come back to work without looking me in the eye and me telling him his margin of error is zero."

But Giusto hastened to add, "I have to sustain the decisions I make. As an administrator, what I've learned is that being right is making a decision you don't eat later."

The DA's office, I'm told, may have held off on a criminal prosecution because they were convinced Green would be fired.

"They made a judgment; I made a judgment," Giusto said. "They couldn't prosecute; I couldn't sustain." He reeled off several cases where deputies were caught (literally) with their pants down, then reinstated by an arbitrator's decision. "The Court of Appeals never overturns an arbitrator," he said. "Focus on the word 'never.' "

On Friday afternoon, Giusto -- evidently feeling some heat -- announced he was transferring Green from patrol to the training unit, "but with full police powers."

Perfect. I can imagine those training sessions now: How to talk chicks out of their lingerie. How to troll the county's back roads for great-looking dates.

How to deal with the women who reach for their Mace each time a Multnomah County sheriff's deputy steps from his car and approaches theirs.

Steve Duin: 503-221-8597; 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 steveduin@news.oregonian.com www.oregonlive.com/weblogs/papertrail