Ryan Brennecke / Bulletin file photoPolice gather in Bend after apprehending a suspect in 2014. The Bend Police Department's staffing level is just above adequate, Police Chief Jim Porter said at a City Council meeting Wednesday night. A reduction in the size of the force would compromise its ability to meet the community's policing needs, Porter said.

A Tigard woman is suing the city of Bend and two Bend Police Department officers, alleging negligence, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress in connection with their response to a May confrontation outside a bar, court records show.

Linda Barrow, 51, claims in a lawsuit filed Dec. 18 that Bend Police Officers Russell Skelton and Victor Umnitz didn’t recognize she had a concussion after she was allegedly assaulted in the parking lot of the Third Street Pub in southeast Bend.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, seeks economic and noneconomic damages and claims the officers weren’t properly trained and that the police reports on the incident were “misleading, inaccurate and incomplete.” Barrow’s attorney, Karen Park, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

According to police records of the incident, at about 1:04 a.m. May 26, Skelton was flagged down at the Third Street Pub, finding a man and two women, one of whom was Barrow, arguing. Barrow was “crying hysterically” but declined medical treatment, according to a redacted version of the report, authored by Skelton and released to The Bulletin last week. The lawsuit states she was taken to a hospital via ambulance.

The man, Taylor Gorman, said in the report that his mother, Kristie Gorman, and Barrow were intoxicated and arguing. He said Barrow fell in the street and he was holding her arm when she fell, but that he didn’t cause her to fall. Barrow later told dispatch and in emails to Bend Police officers that she was “thrown down” and physically assaulted by Gorman, according to the police report.

“Based on the statements Officer Umnitz and I collected at the scene, I determined that probable cause did not exist to arrest Taylor for assault,” Skelton wrote in his incident report. “Over the next several days, Linda contacted myself and other officers and insisted on pressing charges against Taylor.”

Barrow contacted the police department and the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office multiple times, prompting reviews of the incident at both agencies, records provided to The Bulletin by Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel on Thursday show.

Hummel’s office in August declined to prosecute the case. Hummel wrote to Barrow’s then-attorney, John Walsh, that the evidence was “insufficient” to charge Taylor Gorman with assault.

“As I previously told Linda, I don’t know what happened that night,” Hummel wrote. “Linda might have been assaulted by Taylor and she might not have been. Based on the contradictory and changing evidence presented by all involved parties, I cannot say that more likely than not Taylor Gorman is guilty. And meeting the beyond a reasonable doubt standard would be near impossible.”

“Our officers acted within protocol,” said Bend Police Chief Jim Porter in a phone interview Wednesday. He added the lawsuit had “no foundation.”

Assistant City Attorney Gary Firestone said Wednesday the city was aware of the lawsuit and that the claim might be handled by Citycounty Insurance Services, but that he could not comment further on the allegations.

In a September letter to Porter and Hummel, Park, Barrow’s attorney, asked both officials to not have direct contact with her client and to forward any correspondence Barrow sent to them to her. She also requested any records of internal investigations of Skelton and Umnitz.

—Reporter: 541-383-0376,

cwithycombe@bendbulletin.com