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Political pressure has increased at City Hall in the eight days since a fire ignited outside of City Councilor Candace Avalos’ East Portland home, destroying her car and a carport and damaging the side of her house, leaving it uninhabitable.
Much of that tension centers on how Portland police have characterized the investigation of the Oct. 26 fire. As WW previously reported, Avalos took exception to police announcing, just one day after the blaze, that there was “no evidence to suggest the fire was specifically targeting Councilor Avalos,” just 24 hours after they had initially deemed it “suspicious in nature.”
Avalos told WW she was worried “police leadership may be jumping to conclusions before the investigation is complete.” In a late Thursday night blog post, Avalos connected the fire outside of her house to recent high-profile incidents of political violence, including the double homicide of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband earlier this year and an April attempt to burn down the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
“We still don’t know yet if the fire was targeted, or even if it was set on purpose,” Avalos wrote in the blog. “Whatever the cause, this didn’t happen in a vacuum. In our current national context, it’s hard not to connect this moment to everything happening around us—the threats, the division, the way public service sometimes puts a target on your back."
And behind closed doors, some councilors have put pressure on investigators to do more, and do it more quickly. As a result, WW has learned, the Portland Police Bureau on Friday shared with Avalos’ office a list of 38 steps it had taken to investigate the blaze.
The memo detailed extensively the steps investigators had taken since the fire. Among the steps listed: a lengthy canvass for “witnesses, surveillance video, and additional physical evidence that may have been discarded in the area by the suspect”; the towing of Avalos’ charred car to inspect for evidence; and ongoing extra police patrols in the neighborhood following the fire. Investigators notified the bureau’s Criminal Intelligence Unit along with its Major Crimes Unit for “potential bias implications” of the fire, they told Avalos; investigators conducted an “exhaustive forensic scene examination and reconstruction that lasted approximately 10 hours”; and police obtained surveillance footage showing a person walking in the parking lot of Avalos’ complex around the time of the fire, which they then distributed publicly in hopes that someone could help identify the person. (Another step taken later on: Investigators contacted TriMet to “obtain surveillance footage on all TriMet buses, trains, and platforms to conduct an extensive search for subjects matching the clothing description for the subject walking through the parking lot.”)
Fire investigators also “coordinated with private insurance investigators on Oct. 28 and reviewed the scene with [a U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] fire investigator assisting,” the memo explained. And police are patrolling the area around Avalos’ complex to “identify the persons in the photo/video obtained to date.”
The release of this list to Avalos is a demonstration of how sensitive the case has become, as political figures on both sides of the political spectrum have become targets of violence. It also suggests the Police Bureau is aware of its fraught relationship with its critics in elected office, four years after a police union official leaked a report falsely linking then-City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty to a hit-and-run crash.
Avalos’ chief of staff, Jamey Evenstar, says the numbered list provided by police in fact supports Avalos’ concern that the bureau jumped to conclusions about the nature of the fire.
“That list clearly demonstrates that there is a lot of information they have not yet acquired, so we continue to ask that they refrain from speculating on the cause with the public until the evidence is clear one way or the other,” Evenstar says, adding that they still “greatly appreciate the steps that police and fire have taken so far to investigate the cause of the fire.”
Questions persisted into the weekend about the integrity of the investigation.
Over the weekend, District 1 Councilor Loretta Smith, who has sometimes clashed on policy matters with Avalos on the dais, went to bat for her fellow councilor. Smith asked some of her colleagues onthe council if they’d join her in hosting a press conference asking for a more “comprehensive investigation” into the fire.
Smith told WW on Monday that “fire represents a lot for me as a Black elected.”
“Medgar Evers’ house got blown up. Dr. King’s house. Malcolm. All of these things have been associated with speaking truth to power. Just like Candace has been speaking truth to power,” Smith tells WW. “Immediately, we think about these things. Candace has every right to feel everything she’s feeling right now.”
Police Chief Bob Day, after catching wind of Smith’s idea, spoke to Smith over the weekend. She dropped the idea.
“To his credit, he carefully outlined all the things that he was going to do that have not been made public,” Smith says. “I felt a little better after I talked to the chief.”
Still, Smith says, she believes the police erred by putting out the statement on Monday saying there was no evidence that the fire targeted Avalos.
“The city must do everything we need to do to make sure we’re investigating every lead before we send out to the public that she’s not a target,” Smith says. “Those words did not comfort her, saying that it wasn’t a threat.”
The Police Bureau said late last week that it stands by its investigation. Day said in a statement to WW that detectives from the outset have been “fully committed to uncovering the truth.”
“Our investigators have worked around the clock, collecting evidence, canvassing for witnesses and video, and coordinating with multiple agencies to ensure a thorough, professional, and exhaustive investigation,” Day said. “I stand firmly behind their work and their integrity. This is a complex investigation, and we remain committed to following the evidence wherever it leads—for Councilor Avalos and for our entire community."
The fire outside of Avalos’ house did come at an exceptionally tender time for the city. The state is in a high-profile legal battle with the Trump administration over his attempted deployment of National Guard troops to Portland, which he’s falsely called “war ravaged.” That standoff has catapulted Portland into the national spotlight, and a number of the 12 city councilors have appeared on national television in recent weeks to speak out against the deployment, significantly upping their exposure at a time of deep political polarization.
Indeed, in her Thursday blog post, Avalos said that a policy staffer in her office recently received an email that read “hope the entire state burns and your house is the first one to go.” She wrote that the email demonstrates “how quickly words can turn into threats, and threats can turn into harm.”
Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement he “empathize[s] deeply” with Avalos, but he defended the investigation.
“I have full confidence that the dedicated public servants at the Portland Police Bureau and Portland Fire & Rescue will continue to carry out this investigation with transparency and integrity.”
