Message from Chief Jeff Lynn

SWEET HOME, Ore. June 2, 2020 —  As the Sweet Home Police Chief, I have received several questions on my thoughts and opinions regarding the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Like the vast majority of the public, I believe his death was reprehensible and criminal. The actions I saw on the video were not in line with the law enforcement mission. Many of us have worked hard to build trust within our respective communities. Actions like this destroy it. I was encouraged the Minneapolis Chief responded quickly with firing the involved officers.

The officers' actions that led to the death of George Floyd are a dramatic departure from the training, standards, and policies of a professional police officer. The intent of policing is to serve and protect life. The actions and inactions by the officers involved in the video that I saw is a failure for our profession. Those failures resulted in the unnecessary loss of life.

Our Sweet Home officers receive anti-bias training regularly. In light of the Minneapolis incident, I am committing our department to increase our anti-bias and cultural competency training.

The state of Oregon adopted new hate and bias crime law in January 2020 to improve data reporting and access for reporting instances of hate and bias incidents. Oregon now has a hotline 1-844-924-2427 and online reporting option through the Oregon Department of Justice.

Sweet Home police officers have been equipped with body-worn cameras since 2011. We were one of the first Oregon agencies that furnished all patrol officers with body-worn cameras. I believe they are an invaluable tool for both law enforcement and the community,  another way of building trust with transparency.

These are but a few things that Sweet Home and Oregon are doing to address and eliminate what took place in Minneapolis and other locations around our Country. We will continue to work at strengthening the trust you have placed in us.

  Chief Jeff Lynn
  Sweet Home Police Department