PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A man was killed and a Portland police officer was wounded Wednesday when shots were fired in a southwest Portland neighborhood near a high school.
A uniformed school resource officer was led from the scene with a bleeding hand, The Oregonian reported (https://is.gd/E4rGgL). He was treated at a Portland hospital and released Wednesday evening. The officer, described as an eight-year veteran assigned to the Youth Services Division, was not immediately identified.
“There was an exchange of gunfire, and the officer was shot,” Police Chief Mike Reese told reporters.
Witnesses reported hearing five or six shots.
The man who was killed collapsed on the street near Wilson High School. Police say they found a gun beside him. He was not immediately identified.
Police had been on the lookout for a suspicious green van reported to be following school children or approaching them in recent days. The chief said police don’t know whether the dead man is the man they were looking for in connection with those reports.
The mayor, a chief deputy district attorney and the police union president were among those who arrived at the scene in addition to the police chief. The officer-involved shooting was the first in Portland since last March, the newspaper said.
The gunfire broke out after police responded to a call about a suspicious vehicle parked near a library branch.
Witness John Canda told the newspaper he and his son saw a man walking toward them, followed by a uniformed Portland police officer.
Canda said he heard the officer shout, “Stop right there, hold it right there!”
The witness, a former head of the city’s Office of Violence Prevention and a longtime gang outreach worker in Portland, said the man stopped and sat down on a retaining wall.
“The guy stood up and turned toward the officer, and that’s when we saw the officer fire shots,” Canda said, adding he later saw a gun beside the man’s body.
Canda said he couldn’t tell who fired first, adding, “It was instantaneous.”
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Information from: The Oregonian, https://www.oregonlive.com
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