Rep. Joe Gallegos working to make Hillsboro less safe

by NW Spotlight

Hillsboro was recently named as the second safest city in Oregon in a study released by CQ Press. Hillsboro ranked as the 58th safest city in the entire U.S.

Rep. Gallegos (D-Hillsboro) is teaming up with a group of Portland legislators to try to drag the rest of Oregon down to Portland’s level of safety – 280th in the U.S.

Rep. Gallegos is one of the sponsors of SB 781, a bill that takes critical life and death decisions out of the hands of trained and experienced law enforcement officers and puts them into the hands of a peanut gallery mindset. It will require police officers to NOT rely on their training and experience, but rather to try to imagine what a “reasonable person” in their circumstances would do. The police officer then would be judged using this standard. The judgment of the officer, with all their training, experience and instincts, executed in that unique moment and circumstances, is then discounted. This is a dangerous bill – the decision should continue to be made by a “reasonable person” who also happens to have the training and experience that law enforcement officers have.

Rep. Gallegos is also sponsoring SB 780, which moves from the peanut gallery mindset to the actual peanut gallery. SB 780 “Requires grand jury proceeding involving use of deadly force by police officer to be recorded, transcribed and made available to public.” When police officers face life and death situations, they should be focused on their own safety and the safety of the community. We should support them in that. We ask these brave individuals to put their lives on the line every time they show up for work, to protect us and our families. This bill undermines law enforcement by adding yet another layer of (unprofessional, uninformed and uneducated) review to the critical life and death decisions that we ask them to make on our behalf.