A number of the city’s street kids — a group already in the sights of Mayor Charlie Hales and the Portland business community for aggressive panhandling tactics—added unfortunate fuel to that fire today.

According to a release from the Portland Police Bureau, a “large group of transient ‘street kids'” assaulted a 70-year-old employee of the Portland Outdoor Store this afternoon at Southwest Third and Oak. One suspect hit the man in the head with a skateboard.

Here’s the release:

This afternoon, Monday July 15, 2013, at 2:30 p.m., Central Precinct officers responded to Southwest 3rd Avenue and Oak Street on the report of an assault outside the Portland Outdoor Store.

Officers and medical personnel arrived and located the 70-year-old male victim suffering from a head injury. He was transported to a Portland hospital for treatment to the non-life-threatening injury.

Witnesses told police that a large group of transient “street kids” were involved in the assault of the man, an employee of the Portland Outdoor Store. Witnesses told police the victim was hosing off the sidewalk when he was attacked.

Officers recovered a skateboard possibly used in the assault but have not identified the suspect. One person was arrested on an unrelated warrant.

The suspect is described as a white male in his 20s not wearing a shirt, blonde shaggy hair above the shoulders.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call Assault Detectives at (503) 823-0400.

I'm a news reporter for the Mercury. I've spent a lot of the last decade in journalism — covering tragedy and chicanery in the hills of southwest Missouri, politics in Washington, D.C., and other matters...

9 replies on “Portland’s “Street Kids” Aren’t Gonna Win Friends Like This”

  1. That group of “street kids” is there ALL the time… especially on busy weekend nights. They love the crowd outside Silverado… I’ll bet anything the employee wanted them out from in front of the store and thought a wet sidewalk might help.

  2. NOTHING TO SEE HERE! PORTLAND’S SUMMER STREET KIDS ARE JUST RASCALLY, LOVABLE LIL’ SCAMPS WHO ADD TO THE FLAVOR OF THE CITY. IF YOU’VE GOT A PROBLEM BEING ACCOSTED OUTSIDE OF YOUR BUSINESS YOU SHOULD MOVE TO BEAVERTON, YOU FASCISTS!

  3. Everybody knows the Mercury thinks of street kids as romantic heroes who should roam freely with their lovable misadventures like The Little Rascals. So let’s focus on what the 70 year old did wrong.

  5. City Hall: There’s just nothing we can do, because of the first amendment and stuff!

    Portland Police: We’re not sure that assault is even a crime any more. We’ll look it up sometime.

    Local Advocates: These kids have to shoot heroin and smash in people’s heads because you haven’t built them any free houses yet, you capitalist dogs!

  7. Okay, I’m pretty sure the Merc isn’t actually in favor of…whatever the hell it is you schmucks are barking about, so perhaps you could give it a fucking rest.

  9. OPEN YOUR EYES SHEEPLE THIS IS CLEARLY A FALSE FLAG ATTACK PERPETRATED BY CHARLIE HALES’ CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION TO BOLSTER HIS ANTI-PANHANDLING AGENDA! I MEAN, JUST LOOK AT THE PIXELS.

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