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Second Oregon police officer indicted over incident involving Black Lives Matter flag

The incident happened in October and involved off-duty Forest Grove officer Steven Teets allegedly punching a BLM flag outside a person's home.

A second Forest Grove, Oregon, police officer was indicted over an incident involving a Black Lives Matter flag.

The officer, Bradley Schuetz, was taken into custody and charged with first-degree official misconduct over an Oct. 31 incident involving another officer accused of punching a BLM flag that was hanging on Mirella Castaneda's garage door.

Schuetz was booked into jail and released, according to a statement Friday by the Beaverton Police Department, which conducted an investigation into the officer's conduct.

Castaneda said in a tort claim against the Forest Grove Police Department that Teets targeted the family “for harassment because of her political viewpoint” after he saw the BLM flag outside her home.

“Officer Teets terrorized Ms. Castaneda and her family and yelled at them to fight. Officer Teets banged on the Black Lives Matter flag, and charged Ms. Castaneda and kicked her front door in an attempt to enter her home, and frightened her young son,” it says.

Castaneda called police, but claims that the responding officers denied her “equal protection under the law, in substantial part because of Ms. Castaneda’s political viewpoint and her support of Black Lives Matter,” according to the tort, an action taken prior to a lawsuit being filed.

The Beaverton police statement said that the call came in for a theft in progress. The first officer who arrived recognized the suspect as off-duty Forest Grove officer Steven Teets.

A second officer who arrived, Schuetz, took Teets home instead of arresting him. Another officer reported the incident to their supervisor, according to the statement.

Teets was arrested the following day and charged with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. His case is currently pending trial, online court records show.

Beaverton police Sgt. Kevin MacDonald told The Oregonian that in not arresting Teets, Schuetz “prevented the investigation from happening.”

Attorneys for Teets and Schuetz did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.

Steve Myers, who is representing Schuetz, told The Washington Post that his client was limited in how he handled the situation because the local center where intoxicated people are held had been closed. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the county jail was not housing people charged with misdemeanors, he said.

Schuetz believed that taking Teets home was the best course of action, the attorney said.

“It’s hard to believe that this grand jury could find probable cause,” Myers said.

Neither officer could be reached at phone numbers listed for them.

The Forest Grove Police Department also could not be reached, but said in a statement posted on its website that an outside law enforcement agency will evaluate if any department policies were violated during the incident. The investigation will take place "once the criminal process is complete," police chief Henry Reimann said.

According to NBC affiliate KGW of Portland, Teets and Schuetz are on administrative leave, as is the first officer who responded. The first officer was not charged.