The Bureau continues its inexcusable practice of with-holding the names of officers involved in incidents for roughly 14 days, after their previous policy required disclosure in 24 hours (PPR #88). The officer who shot Seeger was Nicholas Morales (#59830). Morales was named in a lawsuit where in 2020 a property owner reported a burglary, Morales and another officer arrived, found nothing and left, then the burglar emerged from the basement and injured the caller.

[Oregonlive article, August 24]

The Bureau released the body camera footage on September 9, with a “Star Wars”-type scroll of text at the beginning to “contextualize” what viewers would see. However, it was far from a neutral presentation. It asserted that the officers tried de-escalating prior to the events included in the clips that were released. The system is always so scared of tainting a jury pool (whether if be for the community member’s crimes or the officers’) that they withhold information. Putting their thumbs on the scale in this way is outrageous.

Anyway, Seeger should have been known to the PPB as someone who lives with mental illness because in 2014, they brutalized him while he was in a hospital seeking help, including, apparently, putting their knee on his neck. The resulting lawsuit cost the City $80,000 plus attorney fees (Oregonlive, August 28). Remember, Portland continues to live under a US Department of Justice lawsuit filed in 2012 because police use excessive force against people in mental health crisis. So they attacked the same person twice while the DOJ has been watching.