OPRD Volunteer Abuse

Oregon Parks & Recreation Department

Director Lisa Sumption's Stewardship

For Volunteers— if this happened to you, it has a name.Public Statements— rswfire.com, the best place to find me.

KEY INDIVIDUALS

SystemThe State of OregonMapped as a system

The trunk

No oneRoleSees the whole: the park, the agency, the police, the records, and the volunteer inside them. Holds each seat to account for what the others do.Actual functionLeaves the volunteer without recourse. There is no appeal above the seats that harmed him, no one to answer for them, and no one to repair what allowed it.3 in the record
Tina KotekGovernorRoleChief executive of Oregon. Answers to the people for every state agency, and holds the power to correct any of them. Sworn to uphold the Constitution and the civil rights of every Oregonian.Actual functionShields her agencies by staying out of it. She holds the authority to step in when one of them harms someone, and she does not use it.2025202613 in the record
The agency
Lisa SumptionDirectorRoleHead of Oregon Parks and Recreation. Answers to the public for what its staff do. The last word on a complaint about them, and the one who corrects it.Actual functionRuns the parks on unpaid labor without the protections owed to it. Volunteers work with no written standards, no notice, no hearing, and no appeal. Asked in writing for basic protections, she put in none.Used therapeutic language in both of her letters to dismiss the volunteer.2025202697 in the record
JR CollierDeputy DirectorRoleSecond in command of Oregon Parks and Recreation. Runs the agency’s operations, and its duty to the public it serves: fair treatment, due process, and the volunteer’s right to speak about it.Actual functionCloses the agency to the people it harms, and opens it to the police. Cuts the volunteer off from staff, routes all agency communication through himself.2025202654 in the record
Program ManagerRoleRuns the volunteer program across every state park. The volunteer’s recourse when a park fails them: hears the complaint, protects the volunteer, holds the park to the standard.Actual functionWrites the agency’s file on the volunteer. She treated his recording as the violation, ratified the dismissal, and extended it statewide. Her “timeline of events” went to the police.On July 8, 2026, the volunteer declined to pursue his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim against her personally. Her name is withheld from this archive despite the prominence of her role.2025202688 in the record

The park

Park SupervisorRoleSupervises the park’s rangers and its daily operations. Treats staff and volunteers fairly, and answers to the park manager for it.Actual functionThe source of the case. As hiring manager, she drove the volunteer to withdraw his application, then held the withdrawal against him. She explained away the unidentified man at his work. Her account became the agency’s file.2025202614 in the record
Park ManagerRoleRuns the park. Holds authority over its staff and volunteers, and the duty to hear a volunteer’s concern and resolve it fairly.Actual functionForces the volunteer out. He pressed him to quit, and when he wouldn’t, dismissed him by phone with twenty-four hours to leave.2025202669 in the record
Volunteer Services LeadRoleThe volunteer’s supervisor. The one a volunteer confides in, and their advocate inside the park.Actual functionExtracts the volunteer’s labor. The volunteer’s real supervisor, with none of a supervisor’s authority, the lead used the closeness of the role to take what they needed.2025202641 in the record
Robert Samuel WhiteVolunteerRoleServes the park, unpaid. Gives time and work to the public’s land.Actual functionUnpaid labor with no protection. The volunteer was removed from every park in the state for documenting what was done to him, then met at his door by three men with guns for writing to his government about it.7 in the record

The police

Oregon State Parks
  1. Jamen LeeEmergency ManagerRoleEmergency management for the state’s parks: fires, storms, evacuations, threats to the public.Actual functionGives the agency its cover for calling the police. He sent the volunteer’s website to the state police press captain, framed as a safety matter, “since he is now including the Governor as well as our Director.”202520268 in the record
Oregon State Police
  1. Kyle KennedyPress CaptainRoleGovernment and media relations for the state police. Speaks for the agency to the public and the press.Actual functionGives a state agency a back channel into the police. The agency emailed him, and he handed it to criminal investigations with an order that a “threat assessment be conducted asap.”An agency facing a real threat does not email the press captain.202520266 in the record
  2. Sean HendersonSergeantRoleSupervises investigators. Assigns cases where there are grounds to suspect a crime.Actual functionCarries out the captain’s order. He assigned a detective to run a “threat assessment” on the volunteer, and supervised him through the “knock and talk”.202520266 in the record
  3. Haley McQuillanLieutenantRoleCommands criminal investigators. Answers for what they open, and why.Actual functionTakes the volunteer to a terrorism task force. She passed the captain’s order down, then brought “some concerns in the Florence area” to a detective on the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.202520265 in the record
  4. Jerred NelsonDetectiveRoleInvestigates crimes. Bound by ORS 181A.250: no information on a volunteer’s political, religious or social views or activities without reasonable grounds to suspect criminal conduct.Actual functionTurns the volunteer’s speech into a police file. He listed the volunteer as a “Suspect” for “publicly airing grievances,” planned the “knock and talk,” and stood armed at his door.2025202613 in the record
  5. Jake HydeDetective; FBI Task Force OfficerRoleTrusted with federal intelligence systems on the condition, set by the Attorney General’s Guidelines, that no one is investigated solely for exercising First Amendment rights. Also bound by ORS 181A.250.Actual functionPuts an armed officer at the volunteer’s door. He carried the agency’s account into federal hands, to FBI personnel and to a Forest Service agent he enlisted to find him, then drove sixty-nine minutes to stand there.Federal guidelines bar investigating anyone solely for what the First Amendment protects.2025202620 in the record
Department of Justice
  1. Dianne GreenleeFusion Center AnalystRoleCriminal intelligence at the state’s fusion center: files kept on people who never see them. The easiest power in the state to abuse, which is why ORS 181A.250 bars keeping information on anyone’s political, religious or social views or activities without reasonable grounds to suspect criminal conduct.Actual functionGathers intelligence on the volunteer. She wrote that she was documenting what Oregon State Parks shared “for our internal awareness.”A U.S. Senate investigation found fusion center intelligence often shoddy, and sometimes a danger to civil liberties.202520265 in the record
U.S. Forest Service
  1. Matthew OliverSpecial AgentRoleLaw enforcement on national forest land. Protects the people who live and work there, volunteers among them.Actual functionTurns his own agency against its volunteer. A Forest Service special agent with the keys, he unlocked the federal gate for the state police, stood at the volunteer’s door, called afterward to tell him it wasn’t going away, and refused to give him the officers’ names.2025202617 in the record

The records

Oregon State Parks
  1. Public RecordsRoleFinds the agency’s records and releases them as soon as practicable. The records belong to the public.Actual functionPrices the volunteer out of the agency’s records. It posted its answer to his first request on a portal he had no access to, then wrote that it had “not received any response from you,” and priced the Director and her Deputy’s own notes at up to $1,728.2025202622 in the record
Oregon State Police
  1. Central RecordsRoleFinds the agency’s records and releases them as soon as practicable.Actual functionHides the police file from the volunteer. It told him there were no records while it held the file on the armed visit to his door, then charged him for it in pieces, and kept back the body-camera video and the FBI report on him.2025202615 in the record
  2. Risk ManagementRolePreserves the records when a claim is coming.Actual functionContains the volunteer’s claim. It keeps the claim inside the state’s own process: a hold on the records that he must renew “every six months.”202520263 in the record
Administrative Services
  1. Public RecordsRoleFinds the agency’s records and releases them as soon as practicable.Actual functionSends the volunteer back to the agency he is asking about. It said the records were someone else’s, then that there were none.2025202614 in the record
  2. Chris LiedleCommunications DirectorRoleSpeaks for the agency to the public and the press.Actual functionSpeaks for the records office without answering for it. He wrote to the volunteer that the requests were being processed, and addressed none of them.202520262 in the record
Department of Justice
  1. Public RecordsRoleFinds the department’s records and releases them as soon as practicable. Waives the fee when disclosure benefits the public.Actual functionPrices the volunteer’s own file. It counted 1,350 records about him, called them his “private interests,” and asked $599 before any work.2025202611 in the record
  2. Benjamin GutmanDeputy Attorney GeneralRoleReviews records denials on petition, for the Attorney General.Actual functionJudges petitions against his own department’s clients. The Department of Justice advises the agencies; he decided every petition the volunteer brought against them in their favor, and twice threw out his petitions against the Governor’s office.202520266 in the record
  3. Dan RayfieldAttorney GeneralRoleThe state’s chief lawyer. Enforces the public records law, and runs the department that holds the fusion center and counsels the agencies.Actual functionRuns the department that sits on every side. It holds the fusion center file on the volunteer, advises the agencies, prices the records, and decides the appeals.His department claims 1,350 “potentially responsive records” on the volunteer.202520263 in the record
Office of the Governor
  1. Cameron D. MilesGovernment Accountability AttorneyRoleHolds the Governor’s office to the public records law. Waives the fee when disclosure benefits the public.Actual functionShields the Governor’s office from the volunteer. He called the request for its records about him “a personal, rather than a public interest,” and priced them at $572.50.202520265 in the record
Public Records Advocate
  1. Todd AlbertPublic Records AdvocateRoleMediates public records disputes between the public and the agencies.Actual functionTo be determined.202520262 in the record