Portland shooting at Normandale Park kills 1, hurts 5
PORTLAND, Ore. - A shooting at a park in Portland left one person dead and several others hurt, reportedly at the same time as a planned march for Amir Locke, a Black man who was fatally shot by police earlier this month in Minneapolis.
The shooting happened around 8 p.m. local time Saturday at Normandale Park. The Portland Police Bureau said one person was killed and five others were hurt.
Arriving officers found one woman dead, and two men and three other women were taken to the hospital, police said. Their conditions were not immediately known.
Police have not named anyone involved in the shooting but said two people were in custody, according to FOX 12.
Social media flyers show there was a planned march for Amir Locke, a Black man who was fatally shot by police in Minneapolis, the same time the shooting took place, FOX 12 reported.
It’s unclear right now if the protest and shooting were related.
RELATED: Amir Locke shooting: What we know so far
Who is Amir Locke?
Photo of 22-year-old Amir Locke, provided by Locke family attorneys
Locke, 22, was shot by a SWAT team member on Feb. 2 as officers were serving a search warrant in a St. Paul homicide case.
Body camera video showed at least four officers using a key to quietly enter the downtown apartment where he was staying, then shouting their presence. The video shows Locke, wrapped in a comforter, stirring and holding a handgun right before an officer shot him.
Locke wasn't named in the warrants and his family says he was a legally registered firearm owner.
Family members called his killing an "execution," noting the video shows an officer kicking the sofa, and suggested Locke was startled awake and was disoriented.
RELATED: Amir Locke shooting: Unsealed documents shed light on why police wanted no-knock warrant
Meanwhile, Locke’s cousin, Mehki Speed, has been charged in connection with the homicide that was the basis for the search warrant. Speed lived in the same apartment building.
The funeral for Locke was held earlier this week in the same church that hosted
Daunte Wright's funeral last April. The Rev. Al Sharpton officiated.
Amir Locke bodycam video
Police released body camera video of the shooting about 36 hours after the incident.
The graphic body camera video is 54 seconds total, in which the first 29 seconds was edited in slow motion, the next nine seconds was edited to be extra slowed, and the last 15 seconds shows the video in real-time.
You can watch the video or read through a description here.
No-knock warrants
A no-knock warrant is a search warrant in which authorities are authorized to enter a certain premise without first knocking and announcing their presence.
Locke’s death has sparked protests in downtown Minneapolis with demands by family and protesters to ban that type of warrant in the state.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has imposed a moratorium on such warrants while the city reexamines its policy. The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating Locke's shooting.
The death of a Black woman in Kentucky in March 2020,
Breonna Taylor, at the hands of police also serving a no-knock warrant garnered national attention and calls for change. No-knock warrants have since been banned in Louisville.
RELATED: Breonna Taylor death: Jury questioning begins in Kentucky officer's related trial
Portland protests and violence
Portland, Oregon's largest city, saw months of nightly protests in 2020 that often spiraled into violence following the murder by police of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Portland became the center of the movement to defund the police, but the sustained protests in the city have largely faded away.
The city is now dealing with a plague of gun violence.
Police responded to six shootings within a nine-hour span between Thursday night and early Friday. Shortly before Saturday night's shooting at Normandale Park, police who were called to a separate disturbance were involved in a shooting that left one person dead. It wasn't immediately clear if the person died by police gunfire.
Although last year was marked by record-high numbers of gun violence in Portland, the number of shooting incidents during the first month of 2022 outpaced January 2021, according to police data. During January alone, police recorded 127 shootings.
Police and city officials say the increase in violence, which disproportionally affected Portland’s Black community, was fueled by gang-related arguments, drug deals gone wrong and disputes among homeless people. The situation was exacerbated by the pandemic, economic hardships and mental health crises.
The number of homicides in Portland last year surpassed more populous cities such as San Francisco and Boston — and was more than double the number of slayings in its larger Pacific Northwest neighbor Seattle.
Portland recorded 90 homicides in 2021 amid a surge in gun violence, shattering the city’s previous high of 66 set more than three decades ago.
This story was reported from Detroit. The Associated Press and FOX 9 Minneapolis contributed.