It’s gratifying to see the widespread outrage from elected officials and community members alike over the ordeal suffered by Michael Fesser at the hands of West Linn Police.

As The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Maxine Bernstein reported last week, legal filings show that the Portland man was illegally recorded, wrongfully arrested and charged with thefts that never took place as a result of a vendetta by Fesser’s boss – a friend of the then-West Linn Police chief. The racist hostility fueling the crusade against Fesser, who is African American, was clear in epithets and text messages about him that were uncovered as part of litigation proceedings.

And while Fesser secured a $600,000 settlement with West Linn, the extent of wrongdoing and the lack of serious consequences for those involved have ignited demands by local, state and federal officials for investigations into what happened.

That strong, immediate response by Gov. Kate Brown, the district attorneys of Clackamas and Multnomah counties, Oregon’s congressional delegation members and others is the only positive takeaway from this three-year saga. The investigations now underway are necessary and worthwhile – provided they are conducted with a focus on accountability and an unsparing analysis of what went wrong. The entitlement with which some officers abused their authority, as laid out in the lawsuit, should worry every Oregonian.

But agencies and community members should also resist the easy conclusion that the solution lies simply with getting rid of a few bad apples. Because while some individuals certainly drove the effort to railroad Fesser, his story exposes a much more troubling reality of how easily overt racism capitalizes off institutional racism to devastating effect. What started out as the vendetta of a single business owner snowballed into a multi-agency arrest and criminal charges because it was easier to believe the cliched narrative about a guilty black man than to question the many irregularities in the case.

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Consider how this all began in February 2017. As Bernstein wrote, A&B Towing owner Eric Benson was angry with Fesser who had complained of co-workers’ racist comments and was, Benson believed, preparing to file a racial discrimination complaint. Benson contacted his fishing buddy, Terry Timeus, who was West Linn police chief at the time.

Timeus had one of his detectives, Tony Reeves, investigate Fesser – even though the towing company is in Portland and Fesser is a Portland resident. Reeves had Fesser unlawfully recorded at work, as the detective sought information to support speculation that Fesser could be stealing from the tow company owner. Although Reeves turned up nothing to support such claims, he and then West Linn Lt. Mike Stradley arranged for several Portland Police officers in the gang enforcement unit – Stradley’s former colleagues – to descend on Fesser and arrest him as he drove home from work.

Why did West Linn officers go along with what was clearly an inappropriate assignment? Was doing the chief’s bidding simply a known expectation that came with the job? Why didn’t Portland Police question why West Linn was coming into Portland territory for a supposed employment theft case that was in Portland’s jurisdiction? Why didn’t gang enforcement officers challenge Stradley’s tenuous claim that Fesser was a gang associate – a claim that Stradley himself later acknowledged was based on recollections more than 20 years old of who Fesser hung out with in the 1980s and 1990s. Such a failure reflects that the gang enforcement unit, now called the Gun Violence Reduction Team, was either too willing to do a Stradley a favor or lacking the expertise it claims to have. Neither is acceptable.

The role played by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office also deserves scrutiny. The office initially dismissed the theft charge against Fesser in February 2017. But under prosecutor Christopher Shull, the case was revived with five charges filed in November ­– shortly after Fesser filed a lawsuit against Benson and A&B Towing for racial discrimination and retaliation. What prompted Shull at that point to take the case to a grand jury? Did he recognize the peculiarity of West Linn officers testifying on a case that had no apparent tie to West Linn?

There are so many more questions in this wide-ranging failure that deserve answers. But investigations are just one part of the equation. The various entities must also be willing to hold individuals accountable for their actions, particularly the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, which certifies police officers and now employs Stradley as an instructor. Fesser’s attorney has already established instances in which Reeves and Stradley were untruthful or unethical. The credibility of police officers throughout the state depends on the willingness of DPSST and other agencies to enforce expectations of professional conduct. Elected officials should keep close watch.

Because what finally halted this abuse of power wasn’t any of the checks and balances supposedly in the current system. It was Fesser, a man who had every reason to not trust the system, and his attorney, Paul Buchanan, whose expertise is in employment law ­– not police litigation – who exposed the institutional racism that turned a boss’ grudge into a systemic assault.

It’s telling that, according to Fesser, no one from West Linn has apologized for what the city’s police put him and his family through. In fact, West Linn Mayor Russell Axelrod, in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board, barely mentioned Fesser in answering questions about the city’s failures. While Axelrod said he shared the “feelings of disgust and dismay over these past incidents and the impact it has brought to our community and to all communities,” he doesn’t even note the impact on Fesser and his family.

But the mayor and others should know exactly the effects on Fesser, who runs a nonprofit that helps newly-released inmates transition to life outside prison. In a call with the editorial board, Fesser talked of his bewilderment that he, as “a family man, a God-fearing man, someone who works with people coming out of the justice system,” was suddenly in its crosshairs. He remembered feeling as if the entire police force was against him and acknowledged how terrified he was to go to West Linn. And he recalled seeing the pain and hurt on his 15-year-old son’s face as the teen tried to understand why his father was being targeted, arrested, jailed and indicted. It’s why Fesser insisted on a meeting with West Linn officials as a condition of the settlement – to help start the healing process for him and his family.

The trauma Fesser and his family suffered gave Oregonians a glimpse of the institutional racism that persists when those who know better fail to speak up. And while Fesser’s case may be settled, Oregon’s police agencies and elected officials should understand that this is just a start.

- The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board