A Fox News article implied that a shooting in Portland was related to protests against police violence and systemic racism, and other conservative media followed suit. The problem? The shooting happened 5 miles away from demonstrations.
Just after 11 p.m. on Friday night, Portland police responded to the 600 block of Northeast 87th Avenue to find the woman had been shot in the arm and more than 150 shots fired in the area.
The woman was taken to a hospital with what police said were non-life-threatening injuries. Police said at least eight occupied apartments and seven vehicles were struck by bullets, but no other injuries were reported.
That same night, a couple of thousand protesters gathered in downtown for the 65th straight night of protests in Portland against systemic racism and police violence after the killing of George Floyd. The Multnomah County Justice Center, the frequent focal point of protests, is about 5 miles from where the shooting took place in Montavilla.
“Portland sees 150-round shooting at apartment building, as crowds continue violent clashes with police,” blared the headline from Fox News on Sunday.
Fox News is one of the right-wing news organizations that have painted Portland as a “city under siege” as the protests continue.
“More than 150 rounds were fired and one woman was shot in Portland on Friday night while protesters on Saturday – some of whom appeared to impersonate press – threw glass bottles and shined lasers at city police officers sent to quell the nighttime unrest witnessed for more than two months straight,” reads the story, written by Danielle Wallace.
Friday night the Portland protests were markedly more peaceful, and federal officials were no longer standing guard or employing tear gas on demonstrators.
On Saturday night, police and protesters on the east side of the river did clash. That interaction took place outside the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office on East Burnside Street, about 2.5 miles away from Friday’s shooting.
The Fox News story acknowledged it was not “immediately clear whether the shooting was linked to demonstrations,” but presented no evidence to suggest they are.
“We have no information to suggest that this shooting was in any way related to protests,” Sgt. Kevin Allen, a spokesperson for the Portland Police Bureau, said Sunday evening. “While the protests have required significant resources, PPB officers continue to respond to calls for service, including shootings.”
Portland did see a spike in shooting and homicides in July. Last month, 15 people were murdered, the most killings in one month in more than thirty years, officials said.
On July 30, there had been a total of 63 shootings so far that month compared to 28 in July 2019, according to the Portland Police Bureau. That number does not include Friday’s shooting, which happened on the final day of the month.
Homicides, assaults, burglaries and vandalism are all up this year compared to last year, police numbers show, but total person-to-person and property crimes are still down from previous years.
A resident of the apartment building where the shooting occurred, interviewed by KPTV and quoted in the Fox News story, attributed the uptick to the dissolution of the Gun Violence Reduction Team in July as a result of budget cuts to police units that have targeted a disproportionate number of black people in traffic stops.
But a 2020 increase in shootings predates the team’s disbanding. The officers were placed elsewhere, including on the bureau’s patrol unit, where they continue to investigate shootings.
“What was really lost was the follow-up piece, picking up video, contacting people,” Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell on Thursday.
-- Lizzy Acker
503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker
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