A state panel has cleared a Portland police officer accused of striking a protester with a baton during the 2020 demonstrations, finding he did not violate Oregon’s “moral fitness” rules and letting him keep his law-enforcement certification. The ruling follows years of circulating video, lawsuits and criminal filings that turned the case into a high-profile test of Portland’s crowd-control tactics.
On Thursday, the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training’s police certification committee concluded that Officer Corey Budworth did not breach moral-fitness standards and may retain his Oregon certification, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Committee chair Scotty Nowning told members the panel had received numerous letters of support for Budworth, including from Portland Police Chief Bob Day and Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez, and Sgt. Aaron Schmautz publicly welcomed the decision. Budworth has issued a public apology video to the protester and told the committee he made a mistake and takes the harm seriously.
What Happened In 2020
Video from the Aug. 18, 2020 protest shows Budworth, then assigned to the Portland Police Bureau’s Rapid Response Team, pushing and striking photojournalist Teri Jacobs from behind, hitting her in the head with a baton and knocking her to the pavement, as documented in detail by local media and reported by Willamette Week. The footage and first-hand accounts fueled public outrage and intensified scrutiny of how Portland officers were policing protests that summer.
Legal Aftermath
Budworth was indicted on a fourth-degree assault charge in June 2021, but a judge later dismissed the case after he completed a restorative-justice process, an outcome described by The Oregonian/OregonLive. Jacobs separately sued the city and agreed to a $50,000 settlement plus about $11,000 in attorney fees, according to OPB. The Portland Police Bureau later found that Budworth’s baton strike violated bureau policy and issued him a written letter of reprimand before the matter moved to the state certification review.
Why Critics Say The Decision Matters
Civil-rights advocates and some Portland residents argue the panel’s ruling highlights long-running concerns about Oregon’s reliance on local agencies to investigate their own officers. A 2021 audit of the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training found that DPSST often leans on local internal investigations and lacks strong conflict-of-interest rules for board members, raising doubts about the neutrality of certification decisions, according to a summary by Police1. Local attorneys who represented protest victims have stressed that a single indictment or committee ruling will not resolve broader disputes over crowd control and police oversight, a theme that has run through earlier coverage by Willamette Week.
The committee’s decision leaves Budworth’s certification intact and keeps him eligible for promotion, even as it is likely to reignite debate in Portland over how police misconduct is investigated and who ultimately decides when an officer should be decertified. For now, the state panel’s ruling stands, Budworth keeps his badge, and critics continue to push for changes to oversight and decertification rules.
