On Monday afternoon, the Portland Police Bureau offered up its most-detailed account yet of Portland’s first deadly police shooting of the year. We learned the name of the man who cops say came at two officers with a knife (Christopher Ryan Healy, 36, of Pennsylvania). And we got a glimpse at the “double-bladed knife, 10 inches in length,” police say Healy menaced officers with, describing how he wielded it in a “weaving, figure eight motion” and attempted to stab an officer before being shot, then tased. (This is by no means the only account of the incident, as we pointed out in yesterday’s GMN.)
Here is the knife:
For an instant I was thinking “10 inches, just like they said.” Then I realized, no, that knife’s not a hair over nine inches (with blades that are closer to two inches), and for some reason the police bureau uses a ruler that begins after the first inch and looks homemade.
So we asked: Why are you calling this a 10-inch knife? Is this what the PPB measures evidence with?
Lead spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson understood why we were asking, and got back to us today.
“It was an unintended mistake,” Simpson says. “The photo was taken for the release (not the official evidence photo) and the end of the cloth ruler folded under. It would accurately be called a 9” knife rather than 10″.”
I’ll admit I’m still curious about the ruler. Particularly that “7.” How bout you, Blogtown? Any pressing questions about this ruler?
I’m glad to see that the transition from Denis to Dirk hasn’t altered the hard-hitting reporting that the Mercury is known for.
It was even reported on OPB this morning as a 10-inch blade. I remember seeing this photo in the Portland Police twitter feed and so I screamed at the radio this morning that they were misreporting. Measure twice, report once. Don’t ever hire the police department to build your house.
And yeah, now that you mention it, that “ruler” is really, really sketchy.
YEAH I GOT A QUESTION CAN I BORROW THAT RULER TO MEASURE SOMETHING I’D LIKE TO ADD AN INCH TO
A police spokesman said, “Sorry, we’ll run the knife down to Home Depot, we hear they have real tape measures there. But it’s still pretty scary, and possibly manufactured by Klingons.”
I hate to have to go legal terminologistic on ‘yo ass, butt it’s a moot point.
The police didn’t shoot the victim because he was threatening them with a knife that was too big to be doing that with. They would have been just as happy to kill him for waving a rolled up newspaper at them in a tsk, tsk, type manor.
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t get that we were solicited to answer the question with a question. Okay, I want to ask the Police Chief if the Joint Terrorism Task Force gives him Federal authority above the Mayor, or is the Mayor supposed to be the police ruler?
Yeah, those are some kinda sketchy looking inches too…
I don’t know… if that Wolf Knife is anything like Wolf Shirt, it’s wicked fucking deadly.
Came for the comments. Was not disappointed.
Sorry anyone waving this Apocalypto style blade in a figure 8 pattern at me I would probably shoot also. YAY COPS!
You still have to pass at least grade school to become a police officer, don’t you? There’s nothing accidental about that measurement starting at 1. Combined with the clearly homemade design, this looks like a very clear attempt to misrepresent the blade’s length.
Addendum to previous: That’s to say nothing about the fact that the handle is included in the blade length, which I’m willing to overlook considering the nature of the blade.