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Other shootings in Oregon:
For years, community members have asked the Oregon Attorney General's office to consider taking on the task of investigating officer-involved shootings as one way to avoid the inherent conflict of interest of local District Attorneys investigating the very police they rely on daily to prosecute crimes. If that were to happen, it seems the state office could have its hands full. In addition to the three shootings which occurred in Portland in the first three months of the year, at least five more happened elsewhere in the state: * On January 22, Medford police shot and killed Elias Angel Ruiz, 18, who had been threatening suicide with a knife; they said Officer Brian Hall's stun gun did not work, so Officer Jason Antley fired six times (Medford Mail Tribune, February 23). * A few days later, on January 27, Fairview police initiated their first-ever fatal shooting when they said Larry McKinney, 37, approached them with a knife; McKinney's mother, who was on scene, said that Officer Joe Kaiser was not at risk and Officer Mike Morton had no reason to shoot McKinney three times (Oregonian, February 10). * In Salem, Oregon's capital city, Officer Oscar Zambrano shot and wounded Matthew Saner, 29, who allegedly fired at officers after a robbery on February 10; as in Portland, the same grand jury was used to indict Saner and clear Zambrano (Oregonian, February 18 and Salem Statesman Journal, February 17). * Two days later out on the coast, Astoria police shot and wounded 37 year old Yevgeniy Pavlovich Savinskiy when he allegedly came to a motel room door with a gun on February 12. Savinskiy drove away from the scene but was taken into custody after spike strips were used to stop his car (Oregonian, February 18). * On March 28, Gresham police shot at Floyd Andrew Young, 39, saying that Young tried driving his car into police as they were investigating "a man trying to break into an apartment with a bat." Young was not hit (Oregonlive, March 29). And while it would not necessarily fall under the AG's purview, another shooting in Medford, on January 5, involved two US Marshals, who shot James Georgeson, 20, wanted on a federal probation violation, when he allegedly came at them in his car (KTVL, January 6). As a point of information, Hillsboro officer Justin Morris claimed that, it was a Washington County Sheriff's Deputy who shot him in the back in 2010, not suspect Sepp Tokanaga (PPR #51), accusing the police union and local DA of asking him to lie (KATU-TV, December 30). Morris is facing losing his law enforcement certification due to admitted on-duty "sexual contact with a woman who wasn't his wife." |
May, 2012
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