By Rebecca Woolington and Carli Brosseau

When Oregon's police oversight board meets on Thursday, one item won't be on the agenda: The case of former Hillsboro Police Sgt. Megan Hewitt.

The Police Policy Committee, which sends recommendations to the board on whether to throw police officers out of the profession, talked about her case in November. The agency's staff gave a brief overview saying Hewitt was accused of sending a threatening text.

But the documents that the staff gave committee members from Hillsboro's internal investigation had been so thoroughly blacked out that members had to postpone a decision.

Committee members asked the staff of the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training to undo the redactions. They couldn't tell what investigators had found.

"It was just a total mess," Jeff Hering, a Tigard detective who is chairman of the committee, said at the meeting, according to a recording.

"This is a joke," said John Bishop, executive director of the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association. "It's just a waste of paper."

"Who are we protecting?" asked Keizer Police Chief John Teague, president of the Oregon Association Chiefs of Police. He suggested that redacting names wouldn't be worth the effort.

Hewitt's attorney spoke at the meeting, denying allegations against Hewitt and pointing to flaws in Hillsboro's investigation.

The blacked-out pages stand in contrast to the image of a proactive, aggressive and transparent agency that officials have promoted following an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive that examined the department's work. The department certifies police officers and has the power to take away their certifications for any misconduct.

The newsroom's investigation found that regulators took no action to sideline dozens of officers fired for chronically inept police work or worse misconduct, including brutality.

After the investigation's publication in December, Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, invited regulators to address members of the House and Senate judiciary committees.

Regulators responded by presenting lawmakers with an overview of the department's work and changes they have recently made to their rules. Linsay Hale, the department's director of professional standards, trumpeted changes that she described as improvements in transparency and records management.

For example, the department will add one public member to each of its advisory committees and plans to start posting meeting materials online, she said.

Yet Hale had previously told members of the Police Policy Committee to expect to see more redactions. The Hewitt file won't be an anomaly, she said. Regulators intended to keep committee members focused on the allegations against Hewitt and not other officers.

Hale also told lawmakers the department made changes to the complaint process, but did not detail how. New rules outline a limited set of circumstances when the agency can perform its own investigations, including complaints against elected sheriffs.

But the new process, on display for the first time at the Police Policy Committee's November meeting, didn't change the outcome.

The committee decided against ordering an investigation into Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer. He had been accused in 11 complaints of behavior ranging from violations of gun laws and public records laws to association with militants during the 2016 federal standoff in Harney County.

State regulators referred potential criminal allegations to the Oregon Department of Justice, which found insufficient evidence to file charges.

Katrina Robson, an investigator for state regulators, recommended closing the case because most of the complaints related to management of the sheriff's office and were, she said, outside the scope of the committee's oversight. Robson said she thought it was unlikely their investigation would turn up new information they could use in a decertification case.

Committee members agreed, in part because Palmer was re-elected in November 2016.

"I think that a lot of the complaints are relevant to the citizens that live in that county," said Murray Rau, a committee member who is a detective for the Washington County Sheriff's Office. "And last November, the citizens spoke again, and they're good with it."

One additional change to the department's procedures did not come up during the department's January presentation to lawmakers. It made clear the limits of the agency's knowledge.

Staff members at the Police Policy Committee's last meeting introduced a disclaimer, intended to spotlight the lack of investigation or verification of claims at the state level. Each time the committee was asked to make a recommendation about whether a police officer should be suspended or decertified, a staff investigator read:

"Please be aware that the information being presented to you in the staff report is reflective of the information received by DPSST upon request. Staff has not supplemented the investigation in any way. Any mitigation being presented has not been verified or fact-checked by DPSST or the employing or arresting agency. Policy committee members are encouraged to request further investigation or fact finding being conducted by staff and the case presented for consideration if it is necessary to make an informed recommendation."

At least one lawmaker still has more questions. Rep. Karin Power, D-Milwaukie and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the department having only two investigators "spoke volumes."

The two investigators are responsible for the more than 10,000 police officers, corrections officers, dispatchers and parole and probation officers in the state. The investigators rely on documents that employers send them and almost never follow up once those documents arrive.

"I'm pretty sure we have more people investigating wildlife violations," Power said during an interview.

Power is interested in having more discussions about the state's oversight role. One question she thinks lawmakers need to better answer: "What's the balance of power between local agencies that do direct employment -- and hire and fire and investigate -- and any state agency that certifies?"

Clackamas County Sheriff's Sgt. Matt Swanson said after the Judiciary Committee's Jan. 12 meeting that he was glad lawmakers were beginning to pay attention to gaps in regulation.

"The law enforcement profession relies on the public's trust," said Swanson, who is the leader of a grassroots organization of law enforcement officers calling on the state to do more investigations into police misconduct and provide stronger oversight.

"We need to make sure that there are systems and controls in place to root out bad cops and hold those that condone their behavior accountable."

When the state police oversight board meets on Thursday, it will vote on nine cases forwarded by the Police Policy Committee and decide whether to approve the first phase of an overhaul of Oregon's police training curriculum.

-- Rebecca Woolington and Carli Brosseau