Today the Portland Police Bureau and Mayor Sam Adams deserve praise and profound condemnation.
They correctly announced the firing of Officer Ronald Frashour for his role in the shooting death of Aaron Campbell.
However, I am deeply dismayed by the decision announced today by the Portland Police Bureau to only temporarily suspend Capt. Mark Kruger for bringing "discredit and disgrace upon the Bureau and the City" when he erected five plaques honoring Nazi SS troops in a public park.
Capt. Kruger's public apology is unacceptable and misleading. He states that he is not a Nazi sympathizer but neglects to note that in addition to posting memorials to the troops most responsible for the horrors of the Holocaust that he has also wore the Nazi uniform in war simulations and his first marriage has been reported in the media to have taken place in Germany at a location considered to be a summer refuge for Adolf Hitler, the architect of the worst crimes in human history.
The punishment handed out to Capt. Kruger amounts to slap on the hand and will leave Portlanders wondering if they can (or even should) trust the very men and women sworn to protect our beloved Portland. Can you be a Nazi sympathizer and be trusted with the protection of Portlanders who are Jewish, black or gay?
As a minister in the United Church of Christ - ”a united and uniting, multiracial and multicultural, accessible to all, open and affirming, and peace with justice church” - who has long advocated for police accountability, this decision to simply suspend Capt. Kruger leads me to question what the ethical norms of the Portland Police Bureau are.
I continue to believe that an investigation into Capt. Kruger's activities - along with the killings of James Chasse and Aaron Campbell - needs to conducted by an outside agency, such as the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Oregon Department of Justice and / or the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, which has jurisdiction over many civil rights issues in Oregon.
To that end, I have been meeting with other area religious leaders and government officials and will continue to do so in the coming weeks.
