The Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association, the Oregon Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Oregon State Police encourage all Oregonians to comply with the Governor’s Executive Order during the two-week coronavirus freeze.
Oregonians have a strong tradition of unifying to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities. As your fellow community members, please join us in adhering to the Governor’s Executive Order during the two-week freeze. As your Oregon law enforcement professionals, our primary objective throughout the pandemic has been to take an “education first” approach and to seek voluntary compliance with each Executive Order. We recognize the inconvenience the pandemic and subsequent restrictions have caused all of us. We also know that the risk of spreading COVID-19 to our most vulnerable populations is extremely high at this time, so we urge everyone to follow these restrictions in order to protect them. After all, we are all in this together.
With the issuance of the latest Executive Order, Oregon law enforcement will continue to follow an education first approach. Oregon law enforcement will only take enforcement action (criminal citations) as a last resort.
As with most enforcement decision-making, discretion will be used if/when any Executive Order enforcement action is taken. Oregon law enforcement recognizes that we cannot arrest or enforce our way out of the pandemic. However, we can work together in following these restrictions to make our communities a safer and healthy place. We include the following recommendations when it comes to reporting Executive Order violations.
◼️ Business/workplace violations – Please report these to Oregon OSHA.
◼️ Restaurants/bars – Please report these violations to OSHA or OLCC.
Oregon law enforcement is faced with many challenges one of which is typically receiving more police calls for service than available resources to respond. Because of this, we ask the public to follow the above-mentioned recommendations for reporting alleged violations of the Executive Order.