Portland, Oregon

 On June 4, 2015, officers Tequila Thurman and Carrie Hutchinson arrested Gregg and allegedly told him that he needed to cooperate because heroin he sold had resulted in a fatal overdose. Deputy District Attorney John Copic warned that if Gregg rejected a plea offer, he could face a sentence of at least twenty years in prison. Gregg accepted the plea deal, but after serving more than five years in prison, he learned that the individual whom officers said fatally overdosed was actually alive. Gregg’s conviction was vacated in 2022, and his subsequent lawsuit alleged that the officers conspired to manufacture evidence that Gregg sold heroin leading to an overdose death.

On August 29, 2023, Officer Gregory Burns observed a silver sedan driving recklessly and initiated a pursuit on his police motorcycle. Burns then misidentified McDonald and Rossio’s silver car as the suspect’s vehicle and relayed this incorrect information to dispatch, which broadcast it to other officers. Officers attempted to deploy spike strips behind the women’s vehicle. A police car without lights or sirens activated then slammed into the side of their car, and a second police vehicle struck the front. Officers surrounded the vehicle, pointed firearms at the women, and shouted commands for them to raise their hands. McDonald and Rossio stated that they were given no notice that police were attempting to stop them and maintained that they were neither speeding nor driving evasively. 

On November 19, 2022, Portland Police Bureau officers pulled over a car that they believed to be carrying suspects involved in an armed robbery. When two individuals fled on foot, Officer Christopher Sathoff fired his rifle at them, striking thirty-year-old Clark-Johnson in his back. According to the lawsuit, officers left Clark-Johnson bleeding on the ground and instructed him to crawl toward them rather than approaching him. Clark-Johnson did not receive aid from medical personnel for twenty-five minutes and was then transported to a hospital, where he died two days later. Police later determined that the vehicle had no connection to the armed robbery, and Clark-Johnson was unarmed at the time of the shooting. A grand jury cleared Sathoff of any crimes. An internal affairs investigation found that Sathoff had failed to follow the bureau’s policies, but Portland Police leadership sided with the officer, who was still employed on the force as of August 2025. 

On September 28, 2020, Ferreira was in his wheelchair while attending a Black Lives Matter protest in North Portland when Sergeant Justin Damerville allegedly attempted to pull him from his wheelchair and forcibly arrested him, wrenching his arm hard enough to lift part of the chair. Ferreira suffered soft tissue damage to his shoulder and an exacerbation of his medical condition that causes brittle bones. Ferreira reported that the injury was life-altering and resulted in his reliance on a power wheelchair. Damerville resigned from the Portland Police Bureau in 2022. Ferreira also stated that Portland Police regularly targeted him both before and after the 2020 incident. He alleged that officers assaulted him again in April 2023 as he was attempting to go home and kicked his leg, requiring surgery. 

The Portland City Council agreed unanimously to a $250,000 settlement. Bruders, who has faced other claims of wrongful behavior, will be partially responsible for a total of about $800,000 being paid to his victims. The city has paid other settlements because of Bruders’ actions including his beating of Jason Cox, a man who was detained by police on suspicion of drunk driving.

On February 9, 2017, Portland police officer Andrew Hearst, shot Hayes three times with an AR-15 rifle from 10 feet away. Hayes was on his knees with hands in the air. Police had cornered Hayes in a driveway in Northeast Portland, following reports of armed carjackings in the area. Hayes was not armed when Hearst killed him. A month later, Hearst was acquitted by a grand jury.

Lane Martin was fatally shot by a Portland Police Bureau (PPB) officer in July 2019. Officer Gary Doran did not face charges for actions resulting in Martin’s death. According to public documents, the PPB was aware that Lane Martin suffered from mental health issues.

In 2019, the City of Portland agreed to a $10,000 settlement with a woman who accused police of assaulting her with a baton in October 2016. According to local news reports, the woman alleged that officers beat her with the baton on the chest and forearm as she watched a downtown protest.