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A federal agent shot and wounded two people in outer Southeast Portland on Thursday afternoon, adding new fear and rage to a city already on edge about immigration enforcement.
The couple, a man and a woman, were shot by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer shortly after 2 pm while in a vehicle near a professional building at Adventist Health Portland, a major hospital in the Hazelwood neighborhood. The wounded man at the wheel of the vehicle then drove more than 2 miles to an apartment complex near Northeast 146th Avenue and Burnside Street, where Portland police were called to assist.
“Officers responded and found a male and female with apparent gunshot wounds,” police said in a statement. “Officers applied a tourniquet and summoned emergency medical personnel. The patients were transported to the hospital. Their conditions are unknown. Officers have determined the two people were injured in the shooting involving federal agents.”
That the gunshots were fired by a Border Patrol officer was first reported by KATU-TV and soon confirmed to WW by an assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security.
But other questions remained unanswered Thursday evening, including who the wounded people were, why they were on hospital grounds, and the reason they fled to an apartment complex more than 2 miles away.
“These people haven’t been identified,” said Police Chief Bob Day at a Thursday night press conference, “and I don’t know the condition of them at this time.”
Federal officials asserted that the driver of the vehicle was a Venezuelan national with gang ties and had tried to run over the Border Patrol agent with a truck, but did not offer evidence to substantiate that account. Even before Homeland Security made those claims, Portland elected officials warned residents to distrust whatever version of the story the feds offered—a signal of the deep distrust and hostility between a blue city and the immigration agents sent to it by President Donald Trump.
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Flanked by a bevy of local officials, Mayor Keith Wilson and Gov. Tina Kotek held a press conference at the Police Bureau’s Central Precinct on Thursday evening. Repeatedly, officials drew a parallel between today’s shooting and the slaying of Renee Good by an immigration agent in Minneapolis the day before.
“I’m outraged and angry and frustrated,” said state Rep. Kayse Jama (D-Northeast Portland). “Let me speak to Oregonians: I share your frustration. To ICE: This is Oregon. We don’t need you. You’re not welcome, and you need to get the hell out of our community.”
At the scene where police found the couple, the Bria Apartments on the corner of 146th and Burnside, bystanders gathered at dusk to watch a mix of FBI and Portland police officials huddled in distinct groups. Police had taped off the apartment complex on all sides. A portion of westbound East Burnside Street was closed to traffic.
Multiple residents of the Hazelwood neighborhood confirmed to WW reporters that the shooting had occurred elsewhere, but the victims arrived wounded at the Bria Apartments. None of the people who spoke to WW had seen the victims before Thursday.
A woman who lived nearby and declined to give her name said she saw two Hispanic people who “appeared conscious” getting loaded into separate ambulances. The ambulances were parked in front of the apartment complex on Burnside, she said.
The man, shot in his upper body, was sitting up, but she did not see where the woman was shot. The couple appeared conscious in that “their eyes were open,” she said.
Other residents told WW that immigration agents had not been heavy on the ground in Hazelwood in recent weeks, although the neighborhood is home to many immigrant families.
“I knew it was going to start here,” said a local resident, who gave the name Aaron D., fighting back tears. “This neighborhood is deeply integrated, it’s deeply diverse.”
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Word of the shooting began rippling through City Hall as the City Council was holding its second day of voting on a council president. Current Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney abruptly adjourned the meeting, and some councilors hurried upstairs to the mayor’s office on the fourth floor, where some joined a conference call that looped in the governor and members of Congress.
After returning to council chambers, visibly shaken councilors postponed the meeting and vote until next week.
By evening, they had gathered at police headquarters to denounce U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s presence.
“This situation just got real,” added City Councilor Loretta Smith, who represents the Hazelwood neighborhood where the shooting occurred. “This is not a PlayStation moment where you can shoot folks and they come back alive again…The harassment, the violence, infiltrating our communities as if we’re some sort of third-world country, it’s not cool.”
Shortly after the press conference at the Police Central Precinct, the six members of the City Council’s progressive caucus, or Peacock, held a press conference of their own three blocks away outside City Hall to “condemn the shooting of two Portlanders by federal agents,” according to a press release their offices sent out.
Outside City Hall, hundreds gathered, many holding candles, and vented their disgust. Speakers pledged to organize to force federal immigration enforcement agents out of the city.
“It is sickening, it is infuriating, that this administration thinks that they can send their armed goons into our communities and spill blood and expect no accountability, no consequences, no resistance,” said one of the speakers, Councilor Candace Avalos. “They are wrong.”
The shooting comes days after the Pentagon demobilized Oregon National Guard members that Trump had been trying to deploy to the city for months to crack down on protesters who had gathered nightly outside the ICE facility in South Portland. The president has promised to renew his quest to send the military to Portland when crime increased—which he says is only a matter of time.
A Homeland Security spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, told WW in a statement that the Border Patrol agent fired his gun in self-defense. “When agents identified themselves to the vehicle occupants, the driver weaponized his vehicle and attempted to run over the law enforcement agents,” McLaughlin said. “Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired a defensive shot. The driver drove off with the passenger, fleeing the scene.”
McLaughlin said that the wounded man at the wheel “is believed to be a member of the vicious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.”
Day, the Portland police chief, said he had no information to suggest that Tren de Aragua has an active presence in Portland.
The claim of self-defense echoed a similar statement released by the White House on Wednesday after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Good, a woman observing federal operations in Minneapolis. That version of events was swiftly called into question by bystander video.
In a press conference at the Central Precinct on Thursday night, Mayor Wilson expressed skepticism of the feds’ story and demanded a halt to ICE operations in the city.
“There was a time when we could take the [feds] at their word. That time has long passed. We’re calling on ICE to stop all operations in Portland until a full independent investigation can take place,” Wilson said.
“Our community deserves answers, accountability, and most of all, peace…When the administration talks about using full force, we’re seeing what it means in our streets.”
