Portland police shot and killed a man near an RV in an industrial area of Northeast Portland on Wednesday morning.
The RV was parked on Northeast Marx Drive off 92nd Drive near a homeless encampment that included a line of trailers and cars on the street.
Acting on a report that someone was stealing power from a nearby business, officers approached one of the parked RVs after 10 a.m. An officer then shot a man following an unspecified encounter, said police spokesperson Mike Benner.
Benner said he could not provide more information about the man who was killed, who called 911 or how many shots were fired. Around 5 p.m., the Police Bureau said detectives found a handgun near the man’s body.
Benner said one officer shot the man but two officers were placed on paid administrative leave, a standard practice after police use deadly force. It’s not clear how the second officer was involved in the shooting. Benner didn’t release their names.
“This is not an outcome that anyone in our organization, or certainly in our community, would desire,” Police Chief Bob Day said at the scene. “We are doing everything in our power and our ability to try to minimize these tragedies.”
A man whose trailer and motorcycle were parked outside a strip of yellow crime scene tape declined to give his name but said he heard nine consecutive shots.
Kenneth Fairchild, an employee of the nearby Ventura Foods manufacturing plant, said he heard seven gunshots but didn’t know what led up to the shooting. The plant wasn’t involved, he said.
Plant officials have called police multiple times in the past to complain about people living in RVs and trailers along the nearby street, he said, but they didn’t summon police to the area Wednesday.
The fatal shooting brings the number of people shot and killed by Portland police so far this year to three. The two previous deaths happened outside of Portland.
On April 24, two Portland police officers and a Clackamas County sheriff’s deputy fatally shot 20-year-old Jack Watson of Portland, after Watson fired at them from his car near Clackamas Town Center, prosecutors said. Watson was a suspect in the death of Zachery Freeman, who was shot and killed inside Fantasyland, an adult entertainment store on Southeast Foster Road. A grand jury determined all three officers were legally justified in Watson’s killing.
On July 22, Portland officers in Gresham shot and killed 33-year-old PoniaX Kane Calles who was suspected of shooting and killing a Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center security guard. Last month, a Multnomah County grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing by the three officers involved in the July shooting.
Police ask anyone with information about the case to contact Detective William Winters at William.Winters@police.portlandoregon.gov or Detective Jason Koenig at Jason.Koenig@police.portlandoregon.gov and reference case number 23-315194.
— Catalina Gaitán, cgaitan@oregonian.com, @catalinagaitan_
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