A compilation of security video footage released by the Portland Police Bureau Thursday offers the public a glimpse at the last moments of 31-year-old Lane Martin's life.
Martin was killed on July 30, 2019 after being shot nine times by Officer Gary Doran outside an East Portland apartment complex. Martin was experiencing a mental health crisis at the time of his death, a reaction allegedly spurred by an untreated mental illness and methamphetamine use.
Doran was one of the 23 police officers dispatched to a NE 122nd parking lot after hearing reports of a man carrying two knives, claiming he was a federal officer, and trying to break into a vehicle. After confronting Martin at the parking lot, police followed him down various busy sidewalks, through a MAX station, and eventually to the courtyard of an apartment complex.
The newly released videos—a cobbling together of different security cameras in the area—show snippets of that chase. None of the four videos, however, capture the two separate instances when officers shot Martin with lethal and foam-tipped "less lethal" bullets.
The first clip shows Martin walking down a sidewalk away from the parking lot and stopping to talk to the driver of a black SUV. According to police interviews with the driver of that car, Richard Miller, Martin had appeared at the driver's side window "speaking in gibberish" and pounding an identification card against the closed window. Miller said Martin appeared to be carrying a hatchet.
The video shows Martin eventually leaving the SUV as police officers appear on the sidewalk behind him. Martin seems to be holding something in his left hand as he walks briskly away from the officers.
The next clip shows Martin crossing a MAX platform at SE 122nd and Ash, and appearing to gesture toward the growing number of officers and police vehicles responding to the scene. The video doesn't capture what happens directly after this moment, when two officers shoot Martin in the legs with so-called "less lethal" foam-tipped bullets.
The third clip shows Martin running down SE Ash—after being shot in the legs—as police sprint after him. The fourth clip comes from a camera at the apartment complex where police eventually cornered Martin. The camera angle, however, doesn't include the courtyard where Martin is shot. Instead, the video only shows armed officers running into the apartment complex, their backs to the camera.
What happens next isn't captured on video footage: Officers order Martin to get on the ground, but he instead steps toward the officers while grabbing for something in his waistband. Doran believed it was a knife. According to his grand jury testimony, Doran then shot at Martin until he "saw a response.” Martin died at the scene.
In October, a grand jury declined to bring charges against Doran after determining he had acted in self-defense. The PPB is still in the process of conducting its internal review of the incident.
That same day, lawyers representing Martin's family filed a lawsuit against the City of Portland, accusing the city's police officers of discriminating against Martin having a mental illness. On January 21, Federal Judge Michael Simon denied the city's request to dismiss part of the lawsuit's complaints. City attorneys are required to submit their full response to the lawsuit by February 11. If that case goes to trial, it's expected these videos will be included as evidence.