Comments

1
They tried the Tazer multiple times, to no effect, and didn't fire until fired upon (and hit, I might add).

Adams' being there seems right to me, as it was his first day on the job as Police Commish. I would've done the same.

Also, I realize I'll receive harsh criticism for this next statement but I feel disingenuous not posting it here:

After reading Adams' statement of, "This shouldn't happen in my city, this shouldn't happen in Portland", I couldn't help but be moved. I feel the same way.
2
And great reporting as usual, Smirk.
3
Very good reporting
5
I agree with Jackattak. Well put.
6
un-fucking-real has clearly never had a blowjob, if he thinks that was one.
7
I know whose comment is getting deleted!
8
"This was a heartbreaking scene to see: a young Portlander dead on one of our sidewalks," said Mayor Aams.

More like a worthless piece of shit dead on one of our sidewalks. The kind of person who would even consider shooting at cops shouldn't be mourned, to ANY degree, by our fucking MAYOR.
9
Sarah, great reporting. Thank you! Please follow up on the "confiscated" video from the person who was shooting from their private property with their personal device. That just sounds wrong.
10
I'm with dieselboi. While I'm not in a rush to watch someone get shot for the fifth time in my life, I would like to watch to see how it all went down.
11
Everyone points out that this is a terrible first day on the job for Reese. I imagine it's a GREAT first day of retirement for Sizer. She was probably upset with the firing yesterday and suddenly totally okay with it today.
12
@CC: From a systemic perspective, they're a victim too. Where did society fail them so badly that this is their response? Maybe, just maybe they're that one in a million sociopath... but I doubt it.
13
It must have been Rasputin in that car.
14
"This shouldn't happen in my city." I couldn't disagree more, Mr. Mayor. Portland will always have criminals who carry guns and inflict harm on others. Community policing doesn't make the bad guys go away. Better the perp was confronted by officers and not an unarmed citizen who cut him off on the onramp.

If we could persuade citizens to simply follow verbal instructions given by the Police, they wouldn't get shot. How about a big yellow patch on the front of their uniforms that says, "Do what I tell you and you won't get shot."
15
@ Graham: I agree that society/parents/etc MAY have failed them, and that is a shame that we should try really, really hard to prevent.

However. At some point, fucked up people cross a line where where it doesn't matter much how they got to be the way they are - THEY are the ones fucking up society now.

I don't know where that line is, but it's certainly before they open up on a group of cops.
16
Colin: I think the mayor was more mourning it as a loss of a young man's life than the fact that this particular person died... if that makes any sense. But I agree with you about everything else. There are plenty of people who face poverty and societal adversity who are working hard and getting educated and not shooting at cops. There is a certain point where you did, in fact, ask for it. And he got it.
17
I wonder if the deceased had any kind of a criminal record.
18
I would believe so, ujfoyt, although for now it's simply conjecture (which I happen to love).

I think so because the responding officers were immediately on guard and immediately requested backup, which typically spells "felony offender".

The car didn't belong to the deceased however, so that might mean that the deceased was clean to a certain extent, as well. Although, if you're willing to fight with and shoot at cops, you had it coming eventually anyway.
19
It's too bad, Jackattack, but some people just refuse to be law-abiding and civil. The really bad ones usually wind up like this, if they don't kill some innocent person first.
20
@ bruce
yes, now unarmed citizens just need to worry about running into off duty cops on the on ramps huh?
It amazes me how people deploy the fascistic reasoning that if you just do what the armed thugs tell you to then you won't get shot. Did you know that there have been cases where disobeying the commands of an officer has been deemed acceptable if the broader social context reasonably leads the person to believe that they could be in danger from, not an individual officer, but the police in general. Like say if they have killed a good number of citizens with no accountability. Or maybe if they have repeatedly publicly stated that in implementing their LA wannabe anti-gang tactics they feel that race is entirely appropriate as a factor for picking out criminals.
In fact within the last couple months the federal courts ruled that a person can legally resist arrest if it can be reasonably judged that the force being used on them is excessive. That might sound like a crazy law to folks who think that you should just do what cops say but to my mind the crazy part is that that wasn't the law already.
I don't know what happened in this case but I do know that the sort of blind faith in authority that you advocate is the kind of thing that gives me slepless nights.
21
As far as a little bit of context goes,its important to keep in mind that the Hotspot Enforcement Action Team doesn't exist to make routine traffic stops. They don't pull anybody over without; knowing the driver from previous encounters, running a license plate and getting a 'familiar' name or, at least a hunch that just about any black dude driving a car is up to no good. They don't get out of the car without expecting trouble, whether its of their own creation or not.

Like everybody else that wasn't there the day of this present incident, I have no idea what happened. But for the naive bunch that thinks the PPB is incapable of provoking a shootout the case of Robert Christopher can be informative.
22
@eastside
"[officer]Berne acknowledged that race is 'a factor Iโ€™d consider' in deciding who to pull over."(http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/Blogto…)

"Corno is frank about who theyโ€™re targeting: young black men. 'Statistics donโ€™t lie,' he says. 'You gotta go where the numbers go.โ€ (http://wweek.com/editorial/3512/12150/)

So there's some hints as to how narrow the target of the heat team is.
23
Sounds like suicide by cop.
24
I vote with Demondog. It will be interesting to see the deceaseds' police record, if they release it. Sounds like he was a bad guy.
25
Every life has value, even those who meet their demise in this manner. They are someones son, daughter, sister, brother, mother, father, they are loved, and every act of violence by one human being against another diminishes us all. I'm glad the Mayor showed up, and for some reason, I choose to believe that our newly appointed Police Chief, whom I know personally will be transparent, as well.

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