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Brian Hunzeker, who resigned March 16 from his role as Portland Police Association president due to what the union described as a “serious, isolated mistake related to the [Portland] Police Bureau’s investigation into the alleged hit-and-run by Commissioner [Jo Ann] Hardesty,” has now been placed on paid administrative leave from his city policing job.
Following his resignation from the union, the bureau assigned Hunzeker to the patrol unit in the city’s North Precinct. As of June 2, PPB spokesman Lt. Greg Pashley says that is no longer the case.
“He is not working patrol in North Precinct,” Pashley said. “His current assignment is administrative leave.”
PPB spokesman Sgt. Kevin Allen says Hunzeker has been on leave since May 27, but that the Police Bureau cannot share details of what prompted it. “The reason is a personnel matter and therefore confidential,” Allen says.
As WW previously reported, it has been 89 days since the Police Bureau launched an internal affairs investigation into the leaking of information that falsely implicated Hardesty in a March 3 hit-and-run crash, and 77 days since the city signed a contract with the California-based OIR Group to investigate the leak.
That said, it is unclear if the hit-and-run leak investigations are what prompted Hunzeker’s placement on administrative leave.
On May 18, the city’s Independent Police Review opened an investigation following a civilian complaint that accused Hunzeker of filming a civilian with what appeared to be a cellphone during an incident that morning.
The complaint also accused additional PPB officers on the scene of asking bystanders to check on a pair of unconscious people in a nearby vehicle before police would approach. IPR director Ross Caldwell told WW that all elements of the complaint were subject to investigation.