Portland police officer ignored downtown robbery
A downtown worker who flagged down a Portland police car to report a robbery in progress said he was surprised by the officer's response Thursday.
"He told me he was off duty and I should call 911," said Rob Anderson, 31. "He rolled up his window and drove away."
Anderson said the officer was in uniform, driving a marked patrol car about a block from the robbery...
The robbery occurred at
Central Drugs at Southwest Fourth Avenue and Alder Street shortly after 1 p.m.
A suspect walked in and said he had a gun and would use it if the staff didn't give him drugs and cash. He also threatened to kill everyone in the store, police said.
That's about when Anderson, who works at a social software company around the corner on Southwest Third Avenue, entered the drug store to buy aspirin.
"I didn't notice anything until the pharmacist behind the counter yelled for us to 'Get out of here!' We're closed! " Anderson said.
"I thought that was kind of weird," he said.
He looked around, and noticed, "Everyone in here has their hands up."
He realized he had walked into a robbery and quickly backtracked out of the store with his parents, who were visiting from Delaware. There were about six people inside the pharmacy at the time.
Anderson started dialing 9-1-1 on his cell phone as he walked east on Alder toward Southwest Third Avenue. He was in the middle of dialing when he saw the police car, stopped in southbound traffic on Third Avenue near Alder.
"I ran around to the driver's side of his vehicle, and said, 'Hey, there's a robbery going on just down the block here,'" Anderson said. "I figured that would be faster than calling 9-1-1."
When the officer declined to help, Anderson did dial 9-1-1.
"I felt that the officer was less than helpful," Anderson said.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/07/portland_police_officer_ignore.html
Portland Police identify officer but refuse to release name
The Portland police officer who a witness said had declined to respond when he told him about a robbery in progress last week was from East Precinct and was either heading to or from court.
Portland police said the officer came forward after the witness had complained, and an internal affairs investigation has begun into his response. Police Lt. Robert King declined to identify the officer involved...
Even had he been headed to court on his day off, though, the bureau expects uniformed officers in marked patrol cars to respond to felony crimes in progress. At the very least, he could have called in the robbery from his car, and alerted the district officer, the other officers said.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/07/off-duty_portland_officer_who.html
