Widow of Portland officer goes to court over benefits

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The widow of a Portland police officer who killed himself is going to court after being denied survivor benefits.

The Oregonian/Oregon Live reports (https://bit.ly/2bCjQQz ) that Robyn Reister (RY’-stur) has asked a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge to review the denials.

Her husband, 43-year-old Dane Reister, was the first Portland officer to face a criminal indictment for force used on duty. He was fired in 2013 over a 2011 incident in which he seriously wounded a man by mistakenly firing lethal rounds.

Reister was struck by a train last May in a death that police ruled a suicide.

The city’s public safety fund said it denied Robyn Reister’s request for benefits because Dane Reister wasn’t a city employee at the time of his death and was too young to be eligible for retirement.

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Information from: The Oregonian/OregonLive, https://www.oregonlive.com