December 23 2020
OIR Group recommends reforms and policy changes following a scathing review of the Michael Fesser case.
The authors of a report lambasting the city of West Linn for its handling of the Michael Fesser case sat down (virtually) with West Linn city councilors to discuss their review and recommendations at the council s most recent meeting on Dec. 21.
Councilors told Michael Gennaco and Rob Miller of the OIR Group that they hope to engage them further as the city moves forward in the wake of the racist policing scandal.
In April, the city hired OIR Group to conduct a review of its own approach to the Fesser case after fallout from a settlement rattled the city in February.
Recently released report shows how West Linn dealt with racial discrimination lawsuit.
Over the past seven months Michael Gennaco and Robert Miller of the investigative firm OIR Group have attempted to piece together everything that went wrong for the city of West Linn and who is to blame since the moment Michael Fesser served city officials with a tort claim alleging racial discrimination by West Linn police on June 4, 2018.
While it was fairly easy to find fault with the actions of former Chief Terry Timeus and former Sgt. Tony Reeves (as the Clackamas County District Attorney s office demonstrated in its Brady investigative report released in May), the OIR investigators focused on when and how the city from its administrators to members of the police department, elected officials, attorneys and insurance providers failed to handle the aftermath of the illegal and racially-motivated 2017 arrest of Fesser.