The Portland police internal affairs captain should be transferred for not following bureau protocol and initiating an investigation of Chief Larry O'Dea's off-duty shooting of a friend, the presidents of the two Portland police unions said in a joint statement Thursday.

Portland Police Officer Daryl Turner, president of the rank-and-file union called the Portland Police Association, and Lt. Craig Morgan, president of the Portland Police Commanding Officers Association, said they shared "grave concerns'' that Capt. Derek Rodrigues "was notified of a very serious incident involving Chief O'Dea, yet failed to follow basic procedures that were specifically put in place to ensure accountability and integrity.''

Rodrigues, who remained supervisor of internal affairs late Thursday, declined to comment.

The memo doesn't mention any of the four assistant police chiefs, who also were aware of O'Dea's April 21 off-duty shooting and didn't ensure an investigation was started, or Mayor Charlie Hales, who serves as police commissioner and also never called for an administrative investigation of the chief.

The city's Independent Police Review Division, having learned about O'Dea's shooting from media reports on May 20, is now investigating why no one in the Police Bureau or mayor's office told the division to start an investigation. The division handles all internal investigations of high-ranking Portland police supervisors holding the rank of captain and above.

O'Dea was placed on paid leave on May 24, and is under criminal investigation by the state police and Oregon Department of Justice. He smelled of alcohol when he told a Harney County sheriff's deputy after the shooting that his friend appeared to have shot himself in the lower back accidentally, according to the deputy's report. But O'Dea sometime later apologized to the wounded friend for having shot him with his .22-caliber rifle, and told the mayor that he had accidentally shot his friend.

Yet O'Dea never told Harney County Sheriff's Office that he had been responsible for the shooting. O'Dea was with six others camping outside of Fields, Oregon, drinking and shooting ground squirrels, according to the deputy sheriff's report.

Portland police union members aren't the biggest fans of Rodrigues, the police internal affairs captain who has on occasion reversed police commanders' rulings that exonerated officers for alleged misconduct.

The most recent example involved a case before the Citizen Review Committee, in which Rodrigues disagreed with Capt. Mark Kruger who had exonerated Officer Scott Groshong of wrongdoing, following a complaint that Groshong acted unprofessionally by grabbing a man's video camera as the man, Robert Lee West, was filming him outside of Central Precinct. Rodrigues told the committee he believed the complaint should be sustained.

The Portland Police Association represents officers, detectives and sergeants. The Portland Police Commanding Officers Association represents captains.

Here's the unions' full statement:

The Portland Police Association and the Portland Police Commanding Officers Association share grave concerns about the integrity of internal administrative investigations in light of actions taken in the aftermath of Chief Larry O'Dea's incident in Harney County. At a minimum, it appears that the Captain of the Police Bureau's Professional Standards Division did not follow fundamental procedural requirements when he failed to notify Independent Police Review upon learning of Chief O'Dea's incident.

The integrity of the internal review process and those charged with overseeing it are vital to maintaining public trust in the Police Bureau. We recognize that Professional Standards investigations into other allegations of misconduct by Bureau members must continue while IPR investigates Chief O'Dea's matter. However, we have significant concerns about the due process rights of our members in investigations that are supervised by Professional Standards personnel, especially given that the Professional Standards Captain was notified of a very serious incident involving Chief O'Dea, yet failed to follow basic procedures that were specifically put in place to ensure accountability and integrity.

We believe the responsibility for the supervision and oversight of PSD internal investigations should be transferred to other Police Bureau command staff until Chief O'Dea's incident is fully investigated.

Daryl Turner, President

Portland Police Association

Craig Morgan, President

Portland Police Commanding Officers' Association

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian