The Portland Police Bureau has opened an internal investigation into the actions of an officer who threatened to shoot a man in the head -- when the man refused to come out of his motor home.

Officer Matt Bigoni also threatened to shoot the man's dog if the dog came out, made a reference to a funeral bell ringing for the man and warned that "bad things are going to happen" if police had to retrieve him from the motor home. Three police officers ended the approximately 25-minute encounter by bursting into the camper, holding the man down, repeatedly punching the man in the face and fracturing the man's eye socket and nose.

Police said 27-year-old Christopher Lee Fish was resisting their efforts to handcuff him and take him into custody on a warrant for violating the terms of his probation for a prior misdemeanor conviction.

Fish caught about 10 minutes of the officer's threats on cell phone video. The evidence turned out to be a key piece of evidence at trial in February.

"Thank God Mr. Fish turned on his phone," said April Yates, a certified law student who represented Fish, in her closing arguments to the jury.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Christopher Marshall dismissed a charge of interfering with police, and jurors acquitted Fish of the only remaining charge against him: Resisting arrest.

On March 17, a civil attorney for Fish sent the city a notice of his intent to sue the city for alleged excessive force and lasting psychological damage.

Juror Cheryl Barham told The Oregonian/OregonLive that she's glad to hear that Fish has moved forward with plans to sue. She said the actions of the police officers was disheartening; their testimony during trial was "suspicious" and inconsistent; and it didn't take the six-person jury long to determine that Fish wasn't guilty of the crime charged against him.

"It was shocking to hear and see what they did," Barham said of the officers.

Juror Rachel Siegel said she knows Fish had a criminal record and police had a reason for showing up to take him into custody, but beating him was unnecessary and excessive. Siegel thought Bigoni was escalating the situation of a man holed up in his camper, not de-escalating it.

"The state had a very weak case, and I don't know why they even wasted taxpayer money prosecuting this," Siegel said.

Barham said she is not confident that the police bureau's internal investigation will reach a just conclusion.

"I don't have a lot of faith in those," Barham said. "...I don't want that method of policing to be condoned."

Christopher Fish arrest leads to internal investigation of Portland police officers 8 Gallery: Christopher Fish arrest leads to internal investigation of Portland police officers

*****

The video

Because the lights aren't on, there's little to be seen on the video that Fish recorded from inside his motor home. But there's much to be heard.

It's about 8 p.m. on Sept. 26, 2016. His motor home is parked near Southeast 122nd and Foster Road. Police had a warrant for Fish's arrest, for failing to meet with his probation officer for an oxycodone conviction and failing to complete domestic-violence counseling for a prior misdemeanor assault conviction.

Fish's recording captures Bigoni threatening to shoot Fish in three separate instances, and threatening to shoot Fish's dog in three separate instances.

The recording begins with Bigoni, the officer, saying "Get your ass out here, Chris. You've got a warrant. You're under arrest. You understand me?"

Bigoni warns: "Put your dog in or we're going to shoot the dog if it comes after me."

The dog is not barking, growling or making any audible noise during any point in the video.

Fish alerts the officers: "You guys are being recorded right now."

Bigoni responds: "That's great."

A few minutes later, Fish still hasn't come out of the trailer and says he wants time to put on his shoes and smoke a cigarette.

"Stop moving your hands around, or I'm going to shoot you!" Bigoni says.

Fish responds: "I'm not doing nothing to hurt you guys."

"Stop moving your (expletive) hands or I'm going to shoot you in your head!" Bigoni says to Fish, before addressing the other officers. "All right. That's it. Pepper. Pepper! Break that window."

A few minutes after that, Bigoni appears to be making a literary reference to a funeral bell, by stating: "Listen to the bell, Chris. It tolls for thee."

The police bureau opened its internal investigation on March 15, more than a month after the trial ended -- and on the same day The Oregonian/OregonLive asked the police bureau about the appropriateness of Officer Bigoni's words.

The news organization also asked about the veracity of the testimony of another officer -- Grigoriy Budey, who said he was holding onto Fish's arm in the darkened motor home but didn't see his colleagues punch Fish.

The next day, Police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson responded to the news organization's questions by saying he couldn't talk about specifics because of the internal investigation. When asked, Simpson said the bureau didn't initiate the investigation because of the news organization's questions, and he couldn't elaborate on what sparked the internal review.

"This is a case about officers who went too far -- officers who escalated a peaceful situation and made it violent," said Yates, the certified law student representing Fish. Yates attends law school at New York University and is interning for the Portland-area public defense firm Metropolitan Public Defender Services.

Deputy district attorney Victor Mercado told jurors that Fish took far too long to get dressed, lied to the police by saying they had found the wrong man and could have ended the entire incident before it got started if he just would have stepped out of the motor home in the beginning.

"His tone in the video is not the tone of someone who is scared," Mercado said. "It is the tone of someone who is flippant, cavalier, defiant."

Mercado offered no defense of Bigoni.

"Let's be clear, Officer Bigoni was unpleasant," Mercado said. "I don't think he comes off well in the video."

*****

Fish's testimony

Fish testified that nearly from the start, Bigoni took a "super aggressive" approach. Fish said he didn't want to step out of the motor home and told the officers they had the wrong man because he feared for his life.

"He (Bigoni) instantly said he was going to pepper spray me. And started making threats. Said he was going to tase me or pepper spray me," Fish said. "I was nervous. I had anxiety and shock."

Asked Yates, the certified law student:

"When the officer threatened to shoot you, did you take his threat seriously?"

Answered Fish: "100 percent. ...I could hear it in his voice. You know when someone's sincere. ...If they mean it, you can feel it."

Fish said when police burst in, he dropped to his knees and put his hands behind his back. Police testified, to the contrary, that Fish flailed about and resisted their attempts to handcuff him -- forcing officers Bigoni and Royce Curtiss to have to punch him in the face seven to nine times.

"Hands down, it's the worst pain I've ever gone through," Fish said.

Once in a patrol car, officers wouldn't bring him to the hospital, Fish said, so he lied by saying he swallowed a baggie of heroin -- knowing they would have to bring him to a doctor. Medical staff scanned Fish and found no heroin baggie, but they did treat him for his broken facial bones.

Fish said physically, he still aches. But he hurts psychologically, too.

"I still take PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) medicine," Fish said. "I still get nightmares. And I don't trust cops."

*****

Police testimony

Jurors who spoke to The Oregonian/OregonLive said the inconsistencies between the officers' testimony was obvious.

Curtiss, the first officer to testify, said he didn't recall Bigoni threatening to shoot Fish or his dog. Curtiss said he only remembers that Bigoni made some sort of threats.

Bigoni -- who was the second officer to testify and was caught on the video recording making the threats -- admitted he'd threatened to shoot Fish and his dog. But upon questioning by the defense, Bigoni said he didn't mention those threats in his police report or tell his supervising officer because he didn't think he had to.

"Purely verbal actions on my part do not constitute a use of force," Bigoni said.

Budey, the third officer to testify, didn't mention anything about Fish being punched by his colleagues during direct examination by the prosecutor. On cross-examination by the defense, Budey said he hadn't seen any punches thrown by the officers while he maintained his grip on Fish's arm -- Budey's head no more than a foot or two away from Fish's face.

Budey said it was too dark to see, but he was able to describe in detail other actions of the officers -- including that Fish was "body slamming" the other officers; that one of his fellow officers lost hold of Fish's left arm and that Budey helped by grabbing it; and that another officer was able to wrench back Fish's right arm so it could be handcuffed.

Photos police took of Fish shortly after they pulled him from his camper show his badly bruised and swollen face -- a stream of blood running from a gash on the bridge of his nose.

Simpson, the police spokesman, said that while the internal investigation is ongoing, the three officers -- Bigoni, Budey and Curtiss -- remain on patrol duty.

The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office also is investigating the case in light of questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive. Jenna Plank, the deputy district attorney who oversees the misdemeanor trial unit, said she couldn't answer specific questions because of the bureau's internal investigation.

-- Aimee Green