Two shootings ring in the New Year, both in Montavilla

Week #186 Shooting Report | Fortunately, we didn’t start out 2024, as we have in the past, with shooting murders in outer East Portland, but …

Portland Police officers are called out to investigate two shootings in outer East Portland this week.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

One person died in a New Year’s Eve shooting just west of Columbia Edgewater Country Club, in the East Columbia neighborhood due to a shooting to which Portland Police Bureau (PPB) North Precinct officers responded on December 31. It was PPB Case No. 23-336668.

However, that was not in our part of town. Nobody has been killed in outer East Portland shootings, so far, this year. But shots were fired here, in one of our neighborhoods.

January 1
Man wounded in shooting near Harrison Park

A before-dawn shooting in Montavilla’s Harrison Park, and officers arrive to investigate.

Before the sun came up on January 1, PPB East Precinct officers were dispatched at 5:15 a.m. to a reported shooting on SE 87th Avenue, north of Division Street and across the street from Harrison Park Middle School and Harrison Park, in the Montavilla neighborhood.

“Officers who responded to reports of a shooting found one victim,” said PPB Public Information Manager Mike Benner, after the incident had cleared.

An ambulance prepares to rush a wounded patient to a local hospital for treatment.

“The wounded person was suffering from a non-life-threatening injury,” Benner told East Portland News. “While no arrests have been made, it appears the victim and the suspect were known to each other.”

While the PPB hasn’t requested witnesses to step forward, if you do have information to help their investigation, email it to crimetips@police.portlandoregon.gov, and reference Case No. 24-207.

January 3
Daytime shooting report brings officers to Montavilla

Officers close off NE 81st Avenue, just south of the I-84 Freeway, to investigate a shooting.

2.1 miles north-northwest of the New Year’s Day shooting, PPB East Precinct officers were sent to a shooting at 12:36 p.m. near the intersection of NE 81st Avenue and Clackamas Street, in the block behind the New Cathay Restaurant.

“Officers who responded to reports of this shooting got conflicting information from people at the scene,” the PPB’s Benner said about this incident. “One individual reported being grazed by a bullet; however, officers did not locate any [used bullet shell] casings, nor evidence of anything in the area being struck by gunfire.”

So there may, or may not, have actually been a shooting there.

If you have information that could help police with this shooting incident, email it to crimetips@police.portlandoregon.gov, and reference Case No. 24-1971.

And keep your head down until bullets stop flying in outer East Portland. And, pray that it may that be soon.

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