A shooting that killed one person and injured five others in Portland, Oregon, occurred during a confrontation between a homeowner and armed protesters at a park where a march was planned to protest police violence. authorities said Sunday.
Officers who responded to Normandale Park Saturday night found a woman dead, as well as two men and three other women who were taken to the hospital, Portland police said.
His condition has not been released, and police have not released the names of anyone involved in the shooting.
“The scene was extremely chaotic, with multiple witnesses refusing to cooperate with officers,” police said in a statement released Sunday. “Most of the people at the scene left without talking to the police…This is a very complicated incident, and investigators are trying to put the puzzle together without having all the pieces.”
Lt. Nathan Sheppard, a department spokesman, said in a virtual conference Sunday that it would be “irresponsible” to say whether related arrests have already been made. He did not explain a motive or release other details about the circumstances of the shooting.
A live news conference earlier Sunday to discuss the violence in Portland was interrupted by protesters, who began shouting anti-police slogans.
Posts on social media note that a march in honor of Amir Locke, a black man who was shot and killed by police in Minneapolis, was already planned at the time of the shooting, KOIN-TV reported.
In 2020, Portland, Oregon’s largest city, saw months of nightly protests that often turned violent following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Portland became the center of the movement to defund the police, but the ongoing protests in the city have largely dissipated.
Now the city deals with high numbers of violence by firearms.
Police responded to six shootings in a nine-hour span between Thursday night and early Friday morning. Shortly after the Saturday night shooting in Normandale Park, officers responding to another disturbance shot dead one of the people involved.