Texas Hold ‘Em Poker is based on three simple facts. One is that you have hole cards that are known only to you. Next, you’ve got the cards on the table that everyone sees. Then there’s the River, the last common card dealt. A good poker face comes in handy here because you either bet a strong hand or bluff a weak one. The goal is to run the other players out of chips.
Good players know that making emotional decisions and poker are a bad mix. They know it is smart to fold a potentially winning hand if it means gaining a psychological advantage toward a successful final result.
Hold em’ of sorts is what is being played between Mayor Sam and the Portland Police Officer’s Association (PPOA) over the arbitrator ordered reinstatement of
Officer Ron Frashour in the death of Aaron Campbell. The winner-take-all pot
pits the career of Officer Ron Frashour against Portland politics. What makes this stare down so drama filled is that the chips left on the table for each side are more important than who wins in the end.
For the Mayor, the stakes are whether he can show he can manage the Police Bureau from crisis to crisis instead of day to day. Adams could be running a bluff; trying to run out the clock on his term and the pending results of the ongoing Department of Justice Investigation into Use of Force by Portland Police.For the PPOA, playing their chips risks the confidence and support of the public. And because we know their the strength of their cards in the early betting rounds, be assured they are not bluffing.
The Chief of Police used to be in the game but is low on chips and has no leverage. If he could he would throw-in entirely with his cops. He will be left to manage the results.
“He had better check his hole cards. Because if he plays the city’s cards like he has so far he will cost his community dearly–well beyond the over $1million spent defending the City so far.”
Oregon labor law and the precedent surrounding the Binding Arbitration hearings process guarantees one thing,”binding” means just that. The premise on which the Mayor is appealing the decision of the arbitrator that his authority and interpretation of the Police Bureaus Use of Force/Deadly Force policy trumps the arbitrator’s decision tells me one thing. He had better check his hole cards. Because if he plays the city’s cards like he has so far he will cost his community dearly–well beyond the over $1million spent defending the City so far.
“[T]o win at the Court of Appeals the court will have to find that the policy is so out of the norm of police practice that Frashour’s decision to use deadly force was the problem not that he was in violation of the policy. That is just the opposite of what the City has been arguing.”
There are two more moves to play, the state Employment Relations Board (ERB) and the Oregon Court of Appeals. The chance of unbinding the arbitrator’s decision by having it overturned going into the last two hands of the betting rounds is problematic at best. He will lose at ERB. And unless he can get the Court of Appeals off the labor law question and on the merits of the city’s Deadly Force Policy he will lose there as well. And to win at the Court of Appeals the court will have to find that the policy is so out of the norm of police practice that Frashour’s decision to use deadly force was the problem not that he was in violation of the policy. That is just the opposite of what the City has been arguing.
For those reasons and the lack of success appealing arbitrator’s decision is why police agencies all over the state honor the decision of the arbitrator, like it or not. The city needs to do the same and then take a different a different approach to their hole card. The strength on their hole cards is the past Frashour career mis-steps. Individually those incidents are not important here but together they paint a picture of seriously questionable judgment in deciding and applying the correct use of force, judgement a police officer must have to an armed protector of our communities.
Put Officer Frashour back to work now. Assignment of a police officer’s work belongs exclusively to management, the City. As long it is legitimately representative of the duties which any other police officer might be assigned and at the rate of pay in line with his seniority and work conditions, he can be assigned to take telephone reports, work in personnel or any other position of low risk to the public.
“Withdraw or hold on the current appeals. Sit down with the PPOA and work out the parameters for sending Officer Frashour for a Fitness For Duty assessment. Use a process of alternately striking names from a list of qualified Police Psychologist to determine which will do the assessment.”
Withdraw or hold on the current appeals. Sit down with the PPOA and work out the parameters for sending Officer Frashour for a Fitness For Duty assessment. Use a process of alternately striking names from a list of qualified Police Psychologist to determine who will do the assessment. Agree in writing that whatever the result both sides will accept the result. The purpose of Fitness For Duty assessment is not to condemn the individual act of an already employed police officer but to determine if the experienced police officer still qualities possesses the essential emotional and reactive thinking skills necessary to safely protect the public.But in the end if an agreement cannot be reached, Mayor Adams should order the Fitness For Duty and live with the results. If there is an appropriate fight to be had beyond the arbitrator’s decision it is on these grounds. Legal cost are better spent defending the future fitness of a police officer to safely serve the community, not losing an appeal that does not answer any real concern. The real risk is not accepting the arbitrator’s decision about the correct use of force in the rear view mirror but it is not knowing that there is no way to solve the future risk issues.
The last winning strategy of Texas Hold Em is to recognize when you probably don’t have the chips to play beyond the hand you have been dealt. But position yourself to raise the stakes until the only thing left to do is to ” Go All In” with your remaining chips in order to call the last highest bet. It is better to choose a new strategy that actually serves a definable purpose than continue to chase one just because you want to be right.
The City of Portland is running out of chips in the Frashour hand. The hand has gotten expensive in both monetary terms and has been costly to the the city’s image.
The weight of the evidence presented to the arbitrator by the PPOA makes it very clear that the only technical arguments on the other side are being made by those who don’t live the result of the policy everyday. The smart bet here knows that instead of believing that your hole card will be strong enough in the current hand, it would be better to fold, deal again, change the stakes, not blink and then have the confidence that the time is right to Go All In.
If the Mayor believes in the greater purpose here, he will remember that long after he is gone the police Bureau will need to serve the city. His job is not to unreasonably alienate his police bureau any further, but to answer the question about the individual. If Frashour was so clearly wrong, as the Mayor believes, a professional assessment will prove him right. But if Sam Adams loses he also loses the faith of the Portland Police Bureau.
Mayor, it’s time to Go All In.
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com