Portland Police Are Still Shooting People Who Experience Mental Illnesses. Cristi Martin Wants Her Son To Be The Last. – OPB News

For Cristi Martin, the question that breaks her heart each day is, why? Why did police shoot and kill her sonLane?

Lane Martin and his mom, CristiMartin

Courtesy of the Martinfamily

Cristi lives in Reno, Nevada, with a husky puppy. She has a blonde bob and bluntbangs.

On July 31, she was hoping Lane would call. He was turning 32. He never failed to send her a handmade card for mothers day and he usually called on hisbirthday.

Instead she got a voicemail from the Portlandpolice.

When I called them back, they said, Are you anywhere near your sons house? Can you please go to your sons house, and then we will, and then well talk. And then I knew, right then and there I knew, Cristisaid.

Lane Martin was the fourth person killed by Portland police this year. In many ways hes typical of who dies in police shootings in this city: He was armed with a small folding knife. He wasnt following orders. And, his mom, Cristi, said, he had a mentalillness.

Im sure that he looked like he was some homeless crazy person, and he wasnt, she said, suggesting thats not a fair way to look at anyone. You look at people wandering around the street, and you think, theyre just crazy. But theyre somebodysfamily.

The knife police found under Lane Martinsbody.

Portland PoliceBureau

In 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice conducted a year-long investigation into the Portland Police after a series of high profile deaths of people in a mental healthcrisis.

On Dec. 17, 2012, the city signed a settlement agreement with the DOJ. It spelled out how the Police Bureau would improve training and supervision for its officers to reduce unnecessary uses offorce.

The DOJ investigation had two key findings. First, police officers were using excessive force including deadly force against people with mentalillnesses.

Second, Oregons mental health care system was so profoundly broken that police were often the first, or the only responders in acrisis.

In a city thats supposed to be working on solutions to both of these problems, Lanes death is an illustration of how far it still has togo.

Lane had a record of addiction, jail time and mental illness. In his 20s, doctors suspected he had bipolar disorder, though his mom said Lane rejected thatdiagnosis.

Lane Martin at his Portland Community CollegeGraduation.

Courtesey of the Martinfamily.

In recent years, Cristi said Lane was proud of being healthy and inrecovery.

He was doing so well that we thought that was kind of behind him, shesaid.

Lane Martin lived in a small apartment in East Portland. Hed earned his associates degree. He was studying fine art at Portland State University and had a job in the facilities department there. His classmates described him as the kind of enthusiastic student who would sit in the front row and ask lots ofquestions.

He loved the outdoors and drove a 2017Subaru.

Then, last June Cristi got a call from her sons girlfriend. Lane hadnt slept and was acting strange. Cristi flew toPortland.

He was very paranoid about other people. At one point, wed gone for a walk. Hed started taking pictures of random people walking by, said he felt like they were threatening him, Cristisaid.

Lane started recording his conversations with Cristi. She worried he was having a psychoticbreak.

If our system worked better, this is when Lane might have gotten the help heneeded.

His mom and his girlfriend took him to see doctors who prescribed Seroquel, an anti-psychotic medication. His cousin, a psychiatric nurse at the Oregon State Hospital, gave the familyadvice.

A text message Lane Martin sent his family before checking himself out of a Portland psychiatric emergencyroom.

Courtesy of LoriMartin

But Lane never grasped that he was acting differently, which can be a symptom of some mental illnesses. His family said that made it virtually impossible to get him consistent care, because of policies in Oregon that protect people from being committed against theirwishes.

After a particularly bad night, police officers and Project Respond, a mental health crisis team, came to Lanesapartment.

They took him to the Unity Center, Portlands psychiatric emergency room. He was held there for 72 hours. Before he checked himself out, Lane texted hisfamily.

Im doing the best I can, he wrote. Love youguys.

Cristi doesnt really know how he spent the next fourweeks.

The Portland Police Bureau isnt answering questions about Lanes death, but they have released 500 pages of records from theirinvestigation.

On July 30, according to police records, Lane threatened a security guard in the parking lot of an abandoned Safeway in EastPortland.

He claimed he was a federal officer and pulled out a knife and a hatchet. Police followed him as he walked and ran through traffic and into an apartment complex. He dropped the hatchet after police shot him with sponge-tippedbullets.

What happened next is a littleunclear.

Two officers who witnessed the shooting said Lane had reached to his waistband. A third witness officer said she saw a knife in ishand.

Officer Gary Doran fired his gun 11 times, according to police detectives 12 times, according to the familysattorney.

There arent any statements from Doranin the documents the Portland Police Bureau has madepublic.

Officers found a 3-inch folding knife attached to a set of keys underneath Lanesbody.

This week, a grand jury concluded that the shooting was justified as an act of self-defense or defense of thepublic.

Lanes family disagrees. This week, they sued the city and Doran.

The suit alleges that the pattern of police using excessive force against people with mental illnesses in Portland hasntchanged.

Data presented in the lawsuit, and in official reviews of recent officer-involved shootings, suggest that between one-third and one-half of the people the Portland Police shoot have a history of mental illness or are in acrisis.

Thats not an usual scenario, unfortunately, said Mike Genaco, an expert on police practices and founder of the OIR group, a firm that reviews officer-involved shootings for Portland.

Genaco said each fatal shooting is a tragedy but also a chance for the Portland Police Bureau to learn from what went wrong, and to improve its officerstraining.

In that particular arena, more definitely can be done, hesaid.

Genaco thinks the bureau is sometimes too hesitant to be critical of officers performance after ashooting.

But he alsosaid the public should understand that fatal shootings represent a tiny percent of police interactions with people who are mentallyill.

He said the bureaus training is getting better. More officers are learning how to deescalate situations, instead of resorting toforce.

What the data doesnt reflect, he said, is how many times officers have used their training to avoid a deadly confrontation. Its hard to quantifythat.

A card Lane Martin sent his mom, Christi, in2019.

Courtesy of CristiMartin

Thats what makes me optimistic, he said. Where an officer who did go though critical incident or crisis intervention training was able to diffuse asituation.

Cristi doesnt understand why Doran shot her son, but she said she has a lot of respect for the work policedo.

They put their lives on the line every day. I understand that, she said.

Cristi is still trying to figure out what would have kept her son alive. Better training for the police? Consequences for officers who use excessive force? More compassion for people who have a mentalillness?

Shes notsure.

She just knows she doesnt want it to happen again, toanyone.

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Portland Police Are Still Shooting People Who Experience Mental Illnesses. Cristi Martin Wants Her Son To Be The Last. - OPB News