Anna Griffin gets it right in The Oregonian:

A bit of friendly advice to the fine men and women of the Portland Police Bureau: 

If you give a rat's tail about how you're perceived by the people you're paid to protect – the people who also happen to pay your salaries -- take off those T-shirts and go back to work. Because right now, you bear a startling resemblance to a bunch of out-of-touch thugs. 

Some 650 people, Portland officers and their friends and families, rallied downtown Tuesday to protest recent command decisions. They carried signs and wore freshly printed blue T-shirts bearing the motto, "I Am Chris Humphreys." 

Humphreys is the 10-year veteran at the heart of two recent high-profile incidents of police force. Three years ago, he chased and then fell on James Chasse, the schizophrenic man kicked and Tasered by police after they spotted him urinating on a Pearl District sidewalk. Chasse died in police custody from blunt force trauma to the chest. 

Earlier this month, Humphreys shot a 12-year-old girl in the thigh at close range with a non-lethal bean-bag shotgun. The girl had slapped another officer and resisted attempts to remove her from a MAX train. 

Humphreys faces a two-week suspension in Chasse's death and, last week, was placed on paid leave while internal affairs investigators look into the bean-bag shooting.

As Griffin notes, most police are good and decent people.  But the Bureau is spiraling out of control.  The police union - which has a long history of defending excessive force and even racist behavior - did little more in their rally yesterday besides show the ugliest side of the force.

I'm disappointed in the Portland City Council for their blind statements of support for the Bureau this week.  Right now the Council and the Mayor look like puppets of the chief instead of the leaders we elected to have oversight responsibility.

Related Link: Portland Police Bureau Out Of Control