A critical incident video shows the events surrounding a Portland, Oregon, officers' fatal shooting of a man armed with a pellet rifle.Portland Police Bureau video screenshot
A Portland police officer fired a single shot that killed a man armed with an air rifle and a knife Oct. 4. The Portland Police Bureau this week released a video showing the incident from the viewpoint of multiple officers’ body-worn cameras.
Portland officers responded to a call of a man with a rifle yelling and making threats in an apartment building. The first arriving officers saw the man with what appeared to be a rifle. Officers set up a perimeter and engaged the man from a distance, the police bureau said in a social media post.
The 28-year-old man came out and stood on a second-floor veranda with what appeared to be a rifle in hand. The video’s narrator said the man refused to surrender and was seen raising the weapon and pointing it toward officers multiple times. He was also armed with a knife, according to police.
Police, according to the critical briefing video’s narrator, obtained informed that the weapon was possibly a .22-caliber pellet rifle. The man also said it was a pellet rifle and fired it once into the air.
An Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team (ECIT) officer spoke to the man and negotiations continued for more than a half hour.
At 1:22 a.m., an officer fired a shot from his bureau-issued rifle. A team of officers moved in and found the man injured. They initiated trauma first aid and brought in paramedics, but he was deceased.
As part of the use of force review process, the bureau will conduct an internal review of the entire incident, including the initial response, resources requested, tactics used, and post shooting actions. The case will go before the Police Review Board (PRB), which is composed of community members, Bureau members, and representatives from the Independent Police Review Division.
