John Hummel is sworn in as a Bend city councilor in January 2001 with, from left, Kyla Merwin, Kathie Eckman and Oran Teater.

A native of the East Coast, John Hummel is sometimes struck by a tendency in Oregon to avoid confrontation.

More than once, the Deschutes County District Attorney and former Bend city councilor left a public meeting where little of substance seemed to have been discussed, only to hear an official’s true feelings afterward, in a hallway.

“It’s like, ‘Why are you saying this now?” said Hummel, whose tenure as district attorney ends next week. “That’s what the meeting was for. That’s the place to share ideas. It’s not rude to say, ‘I hear what you’re saying but have you considered another way?’”

Over eight years in office, the outspoken Hummel, a progressive former defense attorney, was nothing if not direct. But that directness occasionally put him at odds with the justice community and drew criticism from those who felt he was bringing attention to himself.

Hummel, whose last day in office is Jan. 2, is proud of his time as district attorney. He says his district, which includes Bend, Redmond, La Pine and Sisters, grew safer under his watch, and that by being direct, he was giving voters what they needed to make informed decisions.

“I’m all about transparency. When I explained my decisions on cases, many people agreed with me, and many people didn’t,” he said. “So I lean into it. Let’s talk about it. Why do you disagree with me? I’d like to know.”

For the past year and a half, Hummel, 53, has split time between a rental house in Widgi Creek outside Bend and a newly purchased home in the Multnomah Village neighborhood in Portland.

He’s left careers before, but this was the first time for love. Hummel met his wife, Juliana, during the pandemic, while she lived in Bend as a remote worker. When her employer, Nike, recalled her position to the office, she and Hummel settled on the idea of starting their life together in Portland.

Hummel moved to Bend in 1996. He worked six years as a public defender before starting a firm with law partners and serving six years on the City Council.

“Leaving, it’s hard and it’s easy,” he said. “It’s easy because I’m moving for love. That’s the best reason to leave. But it still is difficult to leave a place that is more of a home than any place I’ve known.”

He’s still not sure what’s next, though he’s been approached about running for higher office, including for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District. He’s given himself a few months to figure out his next steps.

“I had a paper route at 12, and I’ve worked consistently since. So the thought of not working is pretty weird.”

Hummel’s successor, Steve Gunnels, doesn’t favor the “progressive prosecutor” label himself. One of Hummel’s two chief deputy district attorneys, Gunnels coasted to victory in the May primary election after no challenger emerged.

Hummel rarely appeared in court himself. He personally prosecuted six cases in eight years. In smaller counties, like all of Deschutes County’s neighbors, the district attorney is in court most days. Hummel saw his role differently, he said, closer to that of a district attorney in a Portland-area county.

“I always said I was going to be more of a manager than a trial lawyer,” he said. “But I did cover cases occasionally, because it’s better to know what’s going on.”

Like a big-city district attorney, Hummel announced his charging decisions with press conferences, and they were rarely boring. Law enforcement officers would pack the room to watch Hummel recount the facts of a case.

Gunnels also said he plans to retain two programs started by Hummel.

“I think a big part of John’s legacy is that he was very creative about programs that expand treatment to people in our community,” Gunnels said.

One of the programs is Veterans Intervention Strategies, which was created in November 2020 as a way to provide the benefits of a specialty court for veterans, but outside of a courtroom.

The program gives military veterans accused of crimes a chance to see their charges or punishment reduced by addressing their drug-dependency or mental health issues. The project required buy-in from numerous stakeholders, including the county government, the Central Oregon Veterans Center, public defenders and a network of veteran-mentors.

The other Hummel initiative Gunnels intends to retain is the Emerging Adult Program. Created in 2021, it extends the services offered by the juvenile justice system to adult defendants younger than 25. The program is said to align with research showing the human brain doesn’t stop developing until a person’s mid-20s.

The program received a $936,000 grant from the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, which will cover operating costs for two years.

District attorneys often work hand-in-glove with police, but that wasn’t always the case with Hummel.

In June 2021, Bend Police Department arrested members of the activist group Central Oregon Peacekeepers for trespassing during a sweep of a homeless camp off the Bend Parkway. Hummel declined to file charges against the Peacekeepers and instead scolded Bend officers for targeting people who are critical of police.

“This is the kind of conduct that should never happen in American law enforcement,” Hummel wrote at the time.

This drew the ire of Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz, who co-signed a response letter with his boss, the city manager.

Hummel was aligned with law enforcement in at least one significant way. District attorneys in Oregon review instances of police using deadly force to determine if officers were justified. In every lethal-force case that crossed Hummel’s desk — eight — he sided with police.

The murder trial of Ian Cranston was one of the most high-profile cases of Hummel’s tenure. The 28-year-old Redmond man shot and killed 22-year-old Bend resident Barry Washington Jr. outside a downtown nightclub on Sept. 19, 2021. Earlier that night, Washington had spoken to Cranston’s girlfriend in the club. Later outside, he struck Cranston in the head. Cranston then fatally shot the unarmed Washington.

Two weeks later, Hummel announced his decision to charge Cranston with murder in an evening press conference across the street from the nightclub. In a lengthy statement, he told the crowd he had received hundreds of calls and emails from people reminding him of Emmett Till, a Black teenager murdered in 1955 in Mississippi by white men angry he’d interacted with a white woman.

He pointed out that racism exists in Bend.

“There is a reckoning with race that needs to happen in Central Oregon, and it needs to happen now,” he told the crowd.

Hummel said there’s a misconception Bend is a vacation paradise free of racism and other social ills. By referencing Till, and pursuing a second-degree murder charge against Cranston, Hummel said he was trying to speak out for people who aren’t often heard.

“People of color in Bend and around the country were contacting me to tell me that this killing evoked strong emotions inside them, and many of them talked about Emmitt Till,” he said. “The idea of a Black man being killed after complimenting a white woman — it impacted them greatly, and many of them grew emotional as they talked about their kids.”

A jury found Cranston guilty of first-degree manslaughter, but not second-degree murder after a trial in November. Hummel called it a likely “compromise” verdict, with jurors ultimately voting with a mind toward avoiding a deadlock.

“It was murder — I mean, I can’t come up with a rational basis for the jury’s verdict under the law, but that’s the jury,” Hummel said. “But we were very pleased the jury determined it wasn’t self-defense.”

Hummel grew up in White Plains outside New York City and moved to Oregon after law school. He’s worked a varied career including stints in health policy for the Oregon Primary Care Association and in international public policy for the Carter Center. When he was elected district attorney in 2014, coverage of the race focused more on the record of embattled incumbent Patrick Flaherty, who was contending with several controversies, than it did with the challenger.

Associates say as time went on, Hummel grew more vocal about reducing incarceration and fighting injustice.

“I think if anything, he’s become more outspoken over time in communicating his beliefs,” said Bend defense attorney Bryan Donahue.

Hummel said his biggest regret is doing little about the issue of homelessness, now understood to be among the root causes of criminality. There’s little district attorneys can formally do about the issue, but he thinks he could have used his office as a bully pulpit.

“I think I could have ruffled some feathers,” he said. “Maybe I would have failed, but it was an issue worthy of my attention early on and, yeah, I didn’t do it.”

He said by focusing on cases individually, his office was able to arrive at the fairest outcomes and offer help to those who’d most benefit, which in turn reduced recidivism. He thinks this approach is a factor in Deschutes County seeing fewer Measure 11 violent crimes annually now than when he took office.

“Honestly, I don’t know what our conviction rate even is,” he said. “Never use convictions as a proxy to judge us. The ultimate judgment for any public safety professional has to be, did you make the community safer? Judge me on that. Did I make this community safer in my time in office? I’d say we’re simply safer.”