A citizen panel reviewing a Portland police investigation of a citizen complaint alleging excessive force voted 6 to 3 to have internal affairs do one more interview of another officer who was at the scene.

Internal Affairs Capt. Dave Famous, after consulting with the director of the Independent Review Division, refused Wednesday night.

"We really don't believe that it's relevant to the specific allegation of excessive force," Famous said.

The refusal marked at least the second time that the Police Bureau has refused to do additional investigation when asked to by the citizen panel.

The majority of the Citizen Review Committee asked that internal affairs verify an account of a man who suffered a dislocated elbow as he was arrested July 3, 2010 for resisting arrest and interfering with police.

The man, in a written statement reviewed by internal affairs, wrote that he had said out loud at the scene to the officer who arrested him, "You broke my arm on purpose." The man who was arrested said he overheard the officer involved say to another officer, "Yes, I did."

Citizen committee members questioned why internal affairs investigators did not ask the second officer if the officer involved had made that remark.

"I find it troubling you just interviewed the one police officer," committee chair Jamie Troy told the internal affairs investigator Mike Barkley.

Mary-Beth Baptista, director of the Independent Police Review Division, said she didn't think the additional interview would "tip the balance" in this case. Two other civilian witnesses at the scene were interviewed, she said. She also later explained that sending the case back for more investigation would delay a hearing for another two months.

Citizen committee members expressed dismay that their request won't be heeded.

"We voted as a body and now we're being denied," said Rochelle Silver, committee member. "What's the sense of us going through this...? We're asking for a simple piece of information. I don't know why it's being withheld. Why can't we have this information?"

Famous said an assistant chief, Capt. Pat Walsh and he all agreed the additional interview wouldn't be necessary to rule on whether or not excessive force was used during the arrest.

Citizen Review Committee co-chair Michael Bigham said finding out whether the officer involved made the alleged statement would go "to the officer's intent."

The injury came when the man arrested, who was stopped by an officer in a patrol car for riding his bicycle about 11:30 p.m. without a light at Northeast Cleveland and Going Street, refused to give an officer his backpack. There was some discussion among committee members that the man may have believed the officer did not have a right to search through his backpack.

The man later died on Sept. 19, 2011. His death was unrelated to his 2010 arrest. A sibling and a friend filed the complaint on his behalf.

The bureau ruled that the complaint of excessive force was unproven, but recommended a debriefing for the officer involved.

The internal affairs inquiry also didn't request any of the injured man's medical records for it's review.

A full review of the case will go before the committee in June. Wednesday night, the committee did not name the officer involved or the man arrested.

In a prior case, the bureau's internal affairs division had refused to do a diagram of a scene after the citizen review committee had requested one for a case it was examining. In that case, the Independent Police Review Division stepped in and did the diagram instead, Troy said.

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