July 2021

By Maxine Bernstein | The Oregonian/OregonLive
An OHSU nurse who was volunteering as a medic during a Black Lives Matter protest last year is suing the Portland Police Bureau, accusing an officer of chasing after him, knocking him to the ground, slamming his head to the pavement and then punching him repeatedly.

The suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Portland, accuses Officer Thomas Clark of using excessive force, battery, making an unlawful arrest in violation of his civil rights. It accuses the city of negligence.

Tyler Cox suffered a traumatic brain injury, a scalp hematoma, sprains to his left elbow, shoulder, neck, and back and sought mental health treatment for the trauma and anxiety he suffered during the encounter, according to his lawyers.

Cox was arrested late on Aug. 31 after police had declared an unlawful assembly in the city’s Pearl District. He said he was retreating from police when he was knocked to the ground and punched and then arrested, accused of assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, interfering with an officer and disorderly conduct. All charges were later dropped.

“Clark immediately lunged at Plaintiff, grabbed him from the side with two hands, lifted Plaintiff’s feet off the ground, and slammed his head into the pavement. Clark brought his weight down on Plaintiff’s torso and covered Plaintiff’s face with one hand while pressing the other against Plaintiff’s neck,” the suit says. “At this moment, Mr. Cox believed he was going to die.”

Cox extended both of his arms, with his palms out, to protect his head from the punches and “brushed” Clark’s face shield, which knocked the officer’s helmet off. The officer then repeatedly punched Cox in the face, the suit says.

Cox said he yelled, “I’m not fighting you!” but the blows continued and the officer tore the bicycle helmet off his head, according to the suit.

Cox was in a van for about two hours with others arrested and taken to jail, but the jail declined to book him, noting he was “lethargic, woozy” and couldn’t walk in a straight line, the suit says. An officer then drove Cox to OHSU Hospital, where he was treated, before returning to jail about 6 a.m. on Sept. 1.

While at the hospital, Cox said a police sergeant interviewed him and told Cox, “You punched him. You assaulted the officer. We’ve got it all on video,” according to the suit.

The federal complaint is the latest lawsuit filed against Portland police alleging excessive or improper force over police actions during racial justice protests in the past year.

Portland police Sgt. Kevin Allen said he couldn’t comment on the pending litigation. City Attorney Robert Taylor also declined comment on the suit.

Cox’s lawyer Joseph E. Piucci said he’s aware the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office had been reviewing the case but has been told they are still considering “options.” No criminal charges have been filed against the officer.

“This lawsuit is about holding Officer Clark accountable and holding the city’s police department accountable,” Piucci said. “This is such an egregious act. It’s not just an act that violated Tyler Cox’s civil rights, but it’s also a criminal assault and it needs to be treated as such.”

The city’s Independent Police Review Office is conducting an internal administrative investigation into Clark’s use of force, said Ross Caldwell, the director of the office. Independent Police Review is the intake center for complaints against police.

From May 29, 2020, through Nov. 15, during the height of the protests in Portland sparked by the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Portland police used force more than 6,000 times, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Police sometimes targeted people who attended protests but weren’t involved in any violence through “guilt by association” or focused on people simply because they were slow-walking away when ordered to disperse, according to Justice Department lawyers. The department earlier this year found that Portland police had failed to comply with federally mandated reporting of officer use of force and supervisory reviews of the force.

Tyson Cox
Tyson Cox, the OHSU nurse who was volunteering as a medic during a protest late Aug. 31, 2020 and is suing the Portland police and city of Portland.

Clark was working as part of a mobile field force, pulled from precinct officers, that August night.

One Portland officer faces indictment, accused in mid-June of fourth-degree assault stemming from his alleged baton strikes against a woman he had knocked to the ground during a protest. He has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The officer indicted, Corey Budworth, was part of the Rapid Response Team, a specialized crowd control team, whose members resigned en masse from the assignment on June 16, the day after the indictment was announced.

The team’s commander, in an email to the police chief, wrote that officers could no longer “serve on the team under the extreme liability they are currently facing.” He also cited other factors, including a lack of clear direction from the chief’s office, changing interpretations of police force directives and policies, officer safety concerns and what they called inconsistent internal reviews of officers’ actions.