Nearly Two Weeks After Mayor Wheeler Called for Review Into Leaked Hardesty Allegations, More Questions Than Answers Remain

On March 5, Mayor Ted Wheeler called for an independent review of the leaking of an incident report that incorrectly implicated Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty in a hit-and-run car crash.

"We need to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible," Wheeler said at the time. "I'm determined to find out what happened and to prevent it from happening again."

Now, 13 days later, that investigation hasn't started. In fact, Wheeler and Hardesty still haven't finalized what that investigation will look like or who will conduct it.

It also remains unclear whether their outside review will be split into two separate investigations—one looking into the leak itself, and a broader review of the Portland Police Bureau's culture and connections with the far right—or if those two lines of inquiry will be one and the same.

Jim Middaugh, a spokesman for the mayor, says his office and Hardesty's are working diligently to get the investigation off the ground.

"The mayor is anxious to move as quickly as possible, but he's also really wanting to get it right and ensure that the result is credible at the end," Middaugh said. "This is not a simple procedure, so it's important to really dig in and make sure you're getting the scope right."

The slow rollout of the investigation (or two of them) is a little puzzling, given that most Portlanders have one question: Who in law enforcement leaked the dispatch report with Hardesty's name on it to a right-wing political action committee and the press?

A surprising announcement on March 16 offered a potential clue: Portland Police Association president Brian Hunzeker resigned due to a "serious, isolated mistake related to the Police Bureau's investigation into the alleged hit-and-run by Commissioner Hardesty."

That afternoon, Wheeler demanded that Hunzeker immediately "give a full and transparent accounting of what he did and what his motivations were to Commissioner Hardesty and the public." The PPA has declined to provide additional details.

Yet neither Wheeler's office nor Hardesty's office have contacted the PPA or Hunzeker since his resignation seeking further details, and both offices tell WW they don't plan to do so.

"She doesn't think it will be fruitful to speak to them," says Matt McNally, a spokesman for Hardesty. "She encouraged people to reach out to the mayor's office. He is the police commissioner."

The mayor's office says the onus isn't on it, either, and that the complaint needs to go through internal affairs procedures.

"The person who is subject to that complaint could truncate it by saying, 'Here's what happened, here's the evidence,'" Middaugh said, adding that it would be "uncharacteristic" for the mayor to call Hunzeker or the police union to demand answers because it could be viewed as Wheeler undermining procedures.

"The burden should really be on PPA and Hunzeker to share information," Middaugh said. "It seems to me that the ball is really in their court."

At this point, the only investigation that has actually started looking into the leaked incident report is PPB's internal affairs investigation, initiated on March 5 by Deputy Chief Chris Davis. A bureau spokesman declined to comment on whether the internal affairs investigation is still ongoing or when it might be completed.

As for the city's investigation into the leak itself, Hardesty hopes to have an agreement signed by Friday, March 19, McNally says, adding that, once the agreement is signed, the investigation should start immediately. (It is unclear whether that investigation would scrutinize the Police Bureau's internal affairs findings, or if it would be a totally separate inquiry into the leak.)

Meanwhile, the mayor's office is unsure about the extent to which the investigation into the leak will be a part of or separate from the broader investigation into the culture of the Police Bureau.

"I think it's still a little bit uncertain how that investigation would overlap or Venn diagram with the investigation into the leak," Middaugh said, "because we're looking a little bit more broadly at a range of issues about reluctance to change and potential ties to different political organizations."

Hardesty has been coordinating with former Mayor Sam Adams, who is now Wheeler's director of strategic innovations, to find an outside agency that can partner with the city on the broader outside investigation, McNally said. He added that the mayor's office wants to incorporate a "community process" related to policing, which has stymied it slightly.

"That is part of the reason there's been a delay in signing off on this and getting it going," McNally says.

Middaugh chalked up perceived discrepancies between the two offices' stated plans to "semantic confusion land," adding that Wheeler and Hardesty are largely on the same page about the bigger picture of what the investigations will accomplish.

"How they are characterized as one or three or two [investigations], I just don't know yet," Middaugh said. "But certainly, the range of issues that we want to investigate, there's broad agreement."

McNally echoed that sentiment.

"I don't think there's anything contentious that's slowing things down or [that] anyone's thrown up road blocks," he said. "It's just a matter of, when do the right people have the time to sit in the virtual room together and hash it out?"