Two outside groups have released a report with 57 recommendations to improve the Eugene Police Department’s practices, management procedures and community relations. The recommendations are part of a review spurred by what City Manager Dennis Taylor called the “unconscionable actions by two on-duty police officers (that) deeply damaged the reputation of the entire department” in a memorandum to Mayor Kitty Piercy and the City Council on Tuesday.
The International City/County Management Association and the Police Executive Research Forum conducted the audit and their final report was the subject of Wednesday’s City Council work session.
The City Council had approved $108,000 in contingency funds to pay for the audit.
“The most important component in the recommendations is that the City Council becomes more actively involved in establishing priorities and the policy direction for the police department,” ICMA representative Leonard Matarese said.
One recommendation was to work on reversing the prohibition of polygraph testing when hiring new police officers. The use of a polygraph test may have prevented Roger Magaña, currently serving a 94-year prison sentence for raping, kidnapping, sexually abusing and harassing women, and Juan Lara, convicted of official misconduct, public indecency, coercion and harassment, from becoming police officers in the first place.
Taylor explained that background investigation and psychological and polygraph examinations are all important parts of the hiring process.
“Without those three components, you can’t get as complete a picture of the applicant as you could if you had all of the information,” Taylor said.
“Out of crisis comes opportunity,” Police Chief Robert Lehner said “It gave us the opportunity to look at this system from top to bottom.”
Lehner said the convicted officers were not discovered on his force sooner because they were “rehearsed at these kinds of crimes.”
“In Magaña’s case in particular, the crimes that were committed were committed against victims that were somewhat carefully selected by him, that he knew probably would not complain,” he said.
Dr. Tory Caeti, director of
management services at PERF, further emphasized that the weakest part of the entire system was the “lack of coordination” between the human resources department and the police department.
Other recommendations included having sergeants spend more time on the streets developing their officers, establishing an intake process and coding of complaints, and being mindful not to overlook the internal assessment following criminal investigations into complaints. The groups also recommended that supervisors go over all aspects of performance with employees during an evaluation and regularly update employees of their expectations and job performance.
“The commitment we made today is that these won’t just be strategic plans laying on a shelf, but actually be action plans that will guide work that we will accomplish,” Taylor said. “They’re going to take some time, they’re going to take some resources and they’re going to take keeping this a priority over time.”
In the memo, Taylor said he has directed Lehner, Human Resources and Risk Services Director Lauren Chouinard, and other city staff to provide him with a plan of action and timeline by May 1 for implementing the recommendations made in the report. He also said the plan “will incorporate ongoing work by the Police Commission and input from our community members and the public.”
The final report did not cover all concerns about the EPD.
“There are some other questions that were raised about going back at looking at why the three (qualified) black applicants in the past two years weren’t hired,” Lehner said. “That’s something that we obviously still need to look at.”

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