That extra step can make it harder to connect officers’ identities with their use-of-force histories. Since 2017, 991 Portland Police Bureau officers have reported using force at least once, according to the bureau’s data. The dashboard is updated 45 days after the end of each quarter.

The identification process came under scrutiny after a request concerning Eli Arnold, a Portland City Council District 4 candidate and bike patrol officer hired in 2017. The request was intended to establish whether Arnold had reported using force. The city had not supplied the officer’s identity by Oct. 23, leaving that question unresolved.

The request was submitted through the city’s officer-identification portal on Oct. 13. A police spokesperson directed the requester to that portal after saying the bureau’s public information office did not provide the information. The bureau later said it had no estimate for when the request would be completed. A city legal records supervisor said the bureau expected to respond by Oct. 27, two weeks after the request was filed.

Oregon law requires public records to be released as soon as reasonably possible, though what counts as timely depends on the circumstances. A 2021 state law, House Bill 3355, established a process for members of the public to identify officers, with an exception for undercover operations. Requests through the portal are subject to a 14-day response period. The law allows an appeal through the courts, but the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office said it does not have authority over this type of identification request.

A prior ruling by then-Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt found that Portland must provide the names associated with anonymous use-of-force numbers. The city had argued that releasing the names would be an unreasonable invasion of privacy. Schmidt said the legislation reflected an intent to let people know the identities of officers policing them, and that he favored transparency when deciding such requests.

The city’s process can also leave residents unsure which office is responsible. Police records staff said the identification request was not technically a public-records request handled by their office. A police spokesperson suggested the City Attorney’s Office might be responsible, while the city’s legal records supervisor said the request was outside her office’s purview and asked police records staff to act promptly.

Kip Silverman, co-chair of the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing, said the committee cannot meaningfully assess whether its recommendations are changing police practices without information about individual officers’ conduct. He said he welcomed the police chief’s stated goals for cultural change, but argued that insufficient transparency weakens accountability efforts.

The data can reveal broad patterns, including racial disparities, but anonymous identifiers make it harder to examine whether particular officers repeatedly use force or whether their conduct changes over time. For community members and oversight bodies, timely access to the names connected to those records is key to evaluating how policing policies work in practice.