Lents shots shatter car windows, and neighbors’ nerves

Find out why this daytime outer East Portland shooting, in the Lents neighborhood, has neighbors ‘on edge’ …

Portland Police Bureau investigators begin looking through this shot-up Toyota Camry, left abandoned on a Lents neighborhood street.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

Officials are trying to figure out of a “gunshots fired” call, near the southeast edge of Bloomington Park in the Lents neighborhood, are linked to a shot-up Toyota Camry LE found some ten blocks to the southwest of that location, on the afternoon of October 7.

Portland Police Bureau (PPB) East Precinct officers were dispatched to the area of the 10200 block of SE Steele Street at 1:11p.m., that afternoon, “after multiple reports of shots heard in the area,” as described by a Bureau spokesperson.

Investigators have tagged bullet holes in this car’s body, and windows shot in this incident.

Officers didn’t find anyone near the park – but they did come upon the Toyota Camry parked in the street, with its rear and driver’s side windows blown out, apparently by bullets, on SE 99th Avenue just south of Knight Street

Investigators with the PPB Gun Violence Reduction Team also marked bullet holes in the trunk lid of the car, and in the driver’s side rear passenger door of the sedan.

Evidence markers are affixed to the broken window, and the door of the car, which was riddled with bullet holes.

“We called 9-1-1 after hearing guns going off; and it sounded real close,” said nearby neighbor Elmer Larock, as he looked at the shot-up car from his front yard.

“[The 9-1-1 operator] told us to go as far away as I could from the sound of [the gunfire], back inside our house, and not to come out until the police came,” Larock told East Portland News.

Items from the shot-up car – like the hoodie this investigator is holding — are all collected and cataloged.

A contingent of investigators removed personal articles from the Toyota, and cataloged them, as their analysis of the crime scene went on into the afternoon.

“We’re kinda worried, because we haven’t heard nothin’ about this; the police aren’t saying a word about what happened, or if we should expect someone else to shoot up the neighborhood,” Larock commented. “I’m left feeling on edge about this.”

One with an evidence bag in hand, these investigators discuss their findings about this incident.

Other than providing early information about this incident, PPB officials have remained silent about any developments in the investigation.

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