The police union in Portland, Oregon, along with two officers, agreed to pay a former city commissioner $680,000 to settle claims that they leaked information falsely implicating her in a hit-and-run.
Former City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty sued the city, the police union and the two officers when she said they falsely accused her of being involved.
Hardesty’s lawsuit seeking $5 million was scheduled to go to trial this week and a jury would have been asked to decide if police racially discriminated against the former commissioner.
According to the lawsuit, a Portland Police Bureau (PPB) officer leaked the accusation to an activist friend who later shared the information on a livestream and then-union president Brian Hunzeker also allegedly leaked the false information to a reporter.
From Fox News:
Hardesty and police had a fraught relationship during her tenure as commissioner. She spearheaded efforts to slash PPB's funding as social unrest rocked Portland in 2020, though the bureau's budget is now nearly $20 million higher than before the protests. Hardesty also apologized in July 2020 for alleging that police "saboteurs" were starting fires and infiltrating the crowds of protesters who took over Portland's streets for more than 100 consecutive nights.
