I’ll just go right out and say it: I was appalled when I read the transcript of KLCC’s Michael Dunne’s interview with newly sworn-in Springfield Police Chief Jami Resch that was published on July 9. So much so that I published a brief thread on the social media app Bluesky about the interview’s complete lack of actual journalism the following day.

You see, when I was starting out as a scrappy college newspaper journalist at Lane Community College’s The Torch, notably the home of KLCC, one of the first things I learned is to never take a person in power’s words at face value. Do your background research, talk to other sources, think critically, and always have a follow-up question. 

This is our job. We hold those with power accountable.

So when I read the 21-minute-long interview with Resch, I was not just disappointed, but angry, that at no point did Dunne bring up the chief’s prior controversies. Not once. And Resch is far from without. 

I know this because, in light of her promotion to interim-chief in Springfield, I published an article with Left Coast Right Watch four months ago, on March 12, specifically about Resch’s controversies as the short-lived chief for Portland Police Bureau.

One thing about police departments is they can, and will, perform what they believe to be grandiose actions in the name of “progress” and these can often lead to an amnesia of prior controversies. In Resch’s case, she resigned but not before promoting Chuck Lovell into the position, making him the fourth Black man to ever lead the department and one during a time of great civil unrest. These actions, much to the detriment of the general public, can be successful—especially when aided by an uncritical press. 

According to KLCC, Springfield residents shouldn’t even be remotely concerned about Resch, who authorized her PPB officers to obscure their name tags and badge members—a tactic now regularly seen in use by federal agents during ICE raids—during the beginning of Summer 2020 protests for George Floyd, leading what was already known to be a violent police department. One that recently wrapped up one lawsuit from 2022 and is still in the middle of another from 2020. 

Nor does KLCC think Springfield residents should be concerned that Resch, herself, was at the center of an $85,000 settlement to a PPB captain who sued the department in 2020 for discrimination and retaliation after Resch promoted her then-fiancé against recommendation.

KLCC also doesn’t want Springfield residents to know that she was at the helm of PPB when they deployed over 140 munitions over a few short hours in what would later be infamously known as “Tear Gas Tuesday.” The events of that night were even covered by renowned London-based research agency Forensic Architecture. 

All of this, apparently, isn’t even history for KLCC, for history is something that journalists would look to for guidance and for context. None of Resch’s prior controversies, based on KLCC’s reporting, apparently matter to Springfield residents, even one iota, as long as it meant that the city got its first-ever female police chief.

That’s “progress,” right?