Bills would alter EPD policy.

Byline: Rebecca Nolan The Register-Guard

In a rare move, the Eugene Police Department has submitted four draft bills for this year's state legislative session, among them a proposal to allow police agencies to require prospective recruits to take a polygraph examination as part of the hiring process.

Current Oregon law specifically prohibits employers - both public and private - from using polygraph or psychological stress tests in hiring decisions.

But most states allow police agencies to use truth detection technology in the hiring of police officers because of the authority they have over others, said Ellwood Cushman, policy analyst for the Eugene Police Department.

Cushman said the department typically monitors legislation that could affect the way the agency does business, but it rarely proposes its own.

"We don't very often try to get legislation introduced at the state level," he said.

In the case of the polygraph proposal, outside consultants recommended the city lobby to change Oregon's law following the convictions of two former officers who misused their positions to take advantage of vulnerable women.

In a March 2005 report, consultants from the International City/County Management Association and the Police Executive Research Forum found that the prohibition "most certainly led to the hiring of problem police officers, some having committed serious crimes."

"Hiring authorities need every tool possible to ensure that police officers are fully suitable for the job," the report stated.

Former officers Juan Lara and Roger Magana both had concealed aspects of their pasts during the hiring process, a police review found. Officials have said they believe polygraph or other stress tests might have helped ferret out the truth.

"It would be another tool for police agencies to use to select the best candidates," Cushman said.

Police agencies throughout the state have voiced support for the bill, although the Oregon ACLU has expressed some reservations, citing the tests' lack of reliability.

The department also wants to exempt uniformed police officers using in-car video systems from a law requiring that people be told they are being recorded.

The law was designed to prevent surreptitious in-person recordings of one person by another, but it has become a burden for officers using Eugene's new audio and visual recording system, Cushman said.

"It's a practical matter," Cushman said. "If an officer advises person A that he is being recorded and later person B comes up - do I have to notify person B?"

Also unclear is whether an officer must inform every member of a group, and how they should notify someone who is resisting or fleeing from police.

As the law exists now, a person could argue that an officer who accidentally forgets to notify a person that they are being recorded is technically committing a crime, Cushman said.

Police also want to expand the crime of eluding police to include people other than drivers. The current statute does not apply to pedestrians or people on bicycles or skateboards. It also doesn't apply to people other than a driver who runs from a car being pursued by police.

And they want a new law making it an offense for people to refuse to identify themselves when lawfully stopped by police.

Currently, drivers stopped by police are required to present a driver's license, but pedestrians, bicyclists and others are not.

Police have dealt with people who have refused to provide any identification, and officers have spent hours trying to figure out who they are in order to write a citation or make an arrest, Cushman said.

The bill as written would allow people without official identification to verbally identify themselves.