Derrick Foxworth Prefers to Leave His Erotic Prose in the Past

Mayor Tom Potter called the emails a “serious lapse in judgment,” and demoted Foxworth, who retired two years later.

Where are they now?
By Lucas Manfield

DERRICK FOXWORTH

AGE: 64

BEST KNOWN FOR: Cop erotica.

In 2006, former Portland Police Chief Derrick Foxworth lost both his job and his dignity after an affair with a bureau desk clerk went sour—she accused him of sexual harassment, and disclosed his horny emails in a written threat to sue the city.

Foxworth called the affair, in public statements, “brief, but intense.” Angela Oswalt, the clerk, called his conduct “outrageous,” noting that he’d call her using bureau phones daily and sent “sexually disgusting email” on a regular basis.

The complaint was as salacious as it was disturbing. It included Foxworth’s emails, which described his “naked brown chocolate body” and made many laudatory references to the “size and feel” of, erm, what he was packing.

WW’s erotica critics found the prose underwhelming. “The letters of an obsessed man who apparently wasn’t very confident about whether the recipient of his attention wanted it,” wrote Theresa “Darklady” Reed.

Mayor Tom Potter called the emails a “serious lapse in judgment,” and demoted Foxworth, who retired two years later.

Foxworth now declines to discuss the scandal with WW, noting it had happened nearly two decades ago. “I will leave it in the past,” he says.

There was, after all, another chapter, a quieter one. Newly unemployed, he was hired by Portland Community College in 2009 and ascended the ranks to a $131,258-a-year position as public safety director. He retired, again, last year.

Foxworth hasn’t wholly retreated from the public eye, however. In 2020, he met with reporters to criticize city leaders for slashing the Portland Police Bureau’s budget. (His son is a lieutenant.) “And so now what you’re seeing is unprecedented shootings in the city of Portland,” he told KGW-TV. “And the sad fact is that many of the victims of the shootings happen to be Black.”

Foxworth’s crusade against gun violence extended beyond backing the blue. He was one of three former chiefs to endorse Measure 114, the gun control law that was passed by voters last year but stalled by court order.

In retirement, Foxworth has other things on his mind. “Currently just focusing on maintaining good health,” he texted WW.

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