By Carli Brosseau and Rebecca Woolington

The whistleblower who reported a Clackamas County detective for bungling sex crime cases is now leading a campaign to push the state to take a more aggressive role in investigating bad cops.

Sgt. Matt Swanson was appalled that his supervisors waited a year to ask an outside agency to launch a criminal investigation of Detective Jeff Green for neglecting his duties, ignoring sexual assault cases and not following up with rape victims or submitting evidence.

Swanson is now spearheading a small group of mostly police officers who are working to make sure derelict cops like Green don't get a pass. The public call to reform the profession from within stands out in a national climate where police often close ranks around officers accused of wrongdoing.

It's particularly unusual, according to experts in police accountability, to see a grassroots movement made up of line officers.

"When you see the system is broken, it's time to change the system," Swanson told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

The members of his group number only about 10, and some haven't announced their affiliation because they fear backlash on the job. Swanson said they share the realization that no one else is likely to champion the reforms they see as necessary.

They call themselves Police Professionals for Law Enforcement Accountability and have set ambitious goals for the state:

Give the state police certification department more money and power to investigate problem officers and keep them from moving to other agencies.

Provide better protections to officers who face retaliation for reporting misconduct.

Offer better sexual assault training for officers and their supervisors.

"We're not trying to get cops in trouble," said George Dominy, a retired Lebanon police officer who serves as the group's spokesman. "We're just trying to bring our profession back up to where it needs to be."

Several scholars who study police certification said they've never heard of another group of officers agitating for this kind of regulatory change. More common is police union advocacy for less oversight.

"This is a very, very different approach," said Roger Goldman, professor emeritus at Saint Louis University School of Law. Pressure to increase police standards often comes from the chiefs of large agencies and established state-level training departments.

Matthew Hickman, a professor at Seattle University who occasionally surveys certifying departments across the country, said the idea was new to him, too. "It's like they're asking for an external oversight body," Hickman said.

That's not how certifying departments typically see themselves. In many places, Hickman said, an investigation by the state would be seen as butting into a local police agency's business.

All of the group's goals relate back to how Clackamas County handled Green's misconduct and Swanson's complaint.

Cases like Green's, Swanson said in a press release in announcing the group, "shock and disgust us all." He posted the announcement on Twitter on June 29, the same day that Green was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree official misconduct in Clackamas County Circuit Court.

At the hearing, prosecutors said Green's offenses came to light only because Swanson doggedly pursued the case. Within days of being assigned as Green's supervisor in February 2015, Swanson noticed serious gaps in the detective's work and started asking his supervisors to take action. But they didn't ask Milwaukie Police Department to investigate until March 2016.

EXPANDING THE STATE'S ROLE

Swanson's group is looking to give officers in a similar position a place to appeal. That would require dramatically transforming the state's Department of Public Safety Standards and Training. The department and the board that oversees it have the final say on who can work as a police officer in Oregon.

The department grants police certifications and has the power to take them away for misconduct. Oregon has a reputation for being one of the most proactive states in stripping bad cops of the right to carry a badge. The state decertified 23 officers in 2015, according to a national survey of states that regulate the profession.

That's 3.6 decertifications for every 1,000 officers working in Oregon, compared to the national average of 2.3. At the time of the survey, six states didn't have the power to declare an end to an officer's career, and at least three more had the power, but didn't use it.

In Oregon, the board that oversees police decertification recently approved new rules, which were drawn up in secret by a state task force. The new rules narrowed the categories of misconduct that can get an officer thrown out of the profession. In many cases, the rules require more evidence of bad behavior and an officer's intent.

Swanson's group believes Oregon could be much more proactive.

The department focuses mainly on training officers. Out of the department's 150 employees, just two people review professional standards cases involving police, corrections and parole and probation officers and dispatchers. One of the professional standards investigators is a certified police officer.

The group envisions adding a whole investigative arm to the department, hiring more police officers as professional standards investigators and enabling them to do criminal inquiries when necessary. Members want the state to step in and investigate allegations of misconduct when police agencies refuse to take action themselves or when a top cop is the one accused.

The changes would require state lawmakers to give the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training more authority and more money.

"We don't have the staff or the budget," said Eriks Gabliks, the department's director. He estimated the department would need to add more than a dozen investigators.

The department is slated to receive about $60 million over the next two years, with the largest chunk devoted to training. About $3 million is allocated for standards and certification.

To meet requests of the group, Gabliks said, the department would need at least an additional $3 million to pay for staff, more office space, travel expenses, computers and other supplies.

Historically, the department hasn't investigated the complaints against officers that it receives from the public or other officers. Instead, it sends them back to an officer's employer.

After a rule change earlier this month, the department will follow up with agencies to make sure they received the complaints. In very limited cases, the department could launch an inquiry.

REQUIRING SWORN STATEMENTS

Swanson's group also wants to change how the state receives information from an agency that has investigated an officer's misconduct.

When an officer leaves a police agency, the agency must fill out paperwork to tell the state the terms of the departure. The paperwork dictates whether the state will consider revoking an officer's certifications.

For example, if an officer leaves under investigation, the state would follow-up to learn the findings of the inquiry. But if an officer resigns or retires, without notice of an investigation, the state will take no action.

Swanson's group contends that the current system leaves room for deceit, allowing agencies to shield officers in trouble by saying they left on good terms. Members want the paperwork to be a sworn statement to dissuade cover-ups, and they want anyone who makes a false report to be prosecuted.

Dominy, the group's spokesman, said he's heard of agencies misrepresenting why officers leave on the paperwork, allowing them to escape scrutiny from the state.

"You sneak it in, you hope for the best, and because he's your friend, you hope that everything goes away and he gets a job somewhere else or gets to retire and collect his pension," Dominy said, describing the current situation at some agencies.

The state recently mandated that a sworn officer sign the paperwork and began studying how other states collect this information.

IMPROVING SEXUAL ASSAULT TRAINING

Swanson's group also has targeted what it believes is inadequate sexual assault training.

Too many officers and their supervisors disbelieve sexual assault victims and blame them for what happened, the group says. It wants to make sure officers know that very few sexual assault cases involve strangers.

"Having seen police reports focusing on a victim's 'lack of emotion' 'inappropriate response,' attire, apparent confusion under questioning and the like we feel it is important to stress several things in training all officers and investigators," the group wrote in a letter to the department.

"First, statistically very few sexual assault reports are 'false.' Second, there is no 'normal' reaction to being the victim of a sex crime. Third, facts and statements matter and a complaint should be taken at face value and evidence pursued regardless of an initial assessment of victim credibility."

The state now contracts with the Oregon Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force to train officers going through the state's academy. The training materials discuss victim blaming at length and emphasize that sexual assault perpetrators choose victims because they are vulnerable and lack credibility.

The Sexual Assault Task Force offers some continued training to police officers that covers ways to improve sexual assault investigations, trauma responses in victims and ways to decrease barriers to reporting. But the state doesn't require it.

Michele Roland-Schwartz, executive director of the task force, said police need ongoing training.

"We're excited to hear that people are asking these questions and are wanting to improve our response in Oregon," she said.

Swanson's group is especially interested in requiring more training for supervisors, who can be promoted without ever having investigated sex crimes.

STRENGTHENING WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTIONS

The state needs to strengthen protections for whistleblowers before the group can begin lobbying for other changes, said Dominy, the group's spokesman who now works for the state teaching officers how to respond to active shooter situations.

Some members fear their employers will retaliate against them by withholding promotions, giving them undesirable assignments or even firing them, Dominy said.

Oregon law protects whistleblowers from retaliation in some circumstances, but the group wants the state to go further.

They want the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training to make sure supervisors are put on administrative leave while allegations against them are being investigated. Supervisors should be stripped of the power to hire or fire people during that period, Dominy said.

The department doesn't see that as its job, said Gabliks, its director.

"We're not the employer," Gabliks said. "That's an employer piece. We're not involved in that part."

Dominy thinks the group might be able to persuade Gabliks and the state board that oversees police standards to make changes if they can arrange a meeting.

The group wants to lobby the governor and lawmakers for more money and authority for the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, but they want to do it with the department's blessing.

The department has responded warily. Gabliks said the department has a track record of being open to suggestions for improvement.

But when Swanson asked how to sign up to speak at a board meeting, the department's director of professional standards, Linsay Hale, didn't immediately agree to set it up.

"Board meetings are not typically open to public participation or public comment," she wrote in an email.

Hale said she would ask the board's chairman, Marion County Sheriff Jason Myers, for approval.

Myers said he would make time for the board to consider the group's suggestions, but he decided against letting members of the group speak.

-- Carli Brosseau and Rebecca Woolington