Portland policeman arrested for domestic violence:
VANCOUVER -- Portland policeman James A. Botaitis was arrested Monday by Vancouver police and accused of crimes that include domestic violence.
Botaitis has been with the Portland Police Bureau for 10 years. He was assigned to East Precinct, according to spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson.
Botaitis was expected to be in Clark County Superior Court Tuesday morning to face accusations of first-degree burglary related to domestic violence, and second-degree assault and criminal harassment not related to domestic violence, Simpson said.
He was lodged in the
Clark County jail.
The Oregonian reported in 2009 that Botaitis was one of two officers involved in an arrest that led to a $18,500 settlement with the city of Portland.
After responding to a dispute at an apartment complex in 2006, Botaitis and a Multnomah County sheriff's deputy reportedly broke the arm of a woman while taking her down. The woman said the officers stepped on her back and pushed her face into the mud as her children and grandchildren watched, the paper said.
The officers said the woman was yelling, swearing and blocking a truck as she stood in the street. She was accused of resisting arrest, harassment, disorderly conduct and assaulting a police officer.
Prosecutors dropped those charges after the woman's attorneys showed dozens of photos of her that showed she was away from the officers as she stood on the sidewalk. The attorneys said that she was entitled to speak out about the original dispute that drew the officers.
The deputy on that call, Bret Burton, became a Portland policeman. He was one of the officers involved in the take down and death of James P. Chasse Jr., whom they accused of urinating in public.
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