Clackamas County Shootings Outnumber Portland;

published on Portland CopWatch

From September to December, 2005 Clackamas County Deputies shot four men, killing three of them; in contrast, Portland Police shot three, killing two, in roughly the same time frame. Clackamas only employs 68 deputies, while Portland has over 900 officers.

As a result of the shootings and a deputy indicted for theft (see Quick Flashes), in late December twelve of the 68 deputies, nearly 18% of the force, were placed on leave. Others were busy conducting the investigations into the shootings.

The first two shootings, reported on in our last issue, were (1) the September 8 killing of Fouad Kaady, an unarmed man who had stripped naked after being badly burned who was shot by a deputy and a Sandy officer; and (2) the fatal shooting of Donald Graham, an unarmed suspect who ran away from a police chase.

The third shooting, which occurred as PPR #37 went to press, was the wounding of Joseph Lee LaMarsh, 23, whose family called police after LaMarsh allegedly threatened his father with a rifle. Though officers say they ordered LaMarsh to come out of the Molalla home without his gun, his sister says he didn't know the police were outside (Oregonian, December 31). LaMarsh survived a shot to the torso by Deputy Geoff Erichsen and was jailed.

The fourth was the fatal shooting of 24-year-old Clint Carey, who supposedly said he wanted to kill a police officer on a 911 call on December 28, at a mobile home park near Carver. He had a knife, and didn't stop after officers tasered him twice, so Sgt. Kevin Layng shot and killed Carey (KOIN- TV, December 29). Layng previously shot a Milwaukie man in 1990 (Oregonian, February 4).

Many in the community were not surprised, but nonetheless outraged, when the Clackamas Shootings Review Board found in January that Deputy David Willard did not violate any policies when he killed Kaady. "Sheriff Craig Roberts offered condolences to Kaady's family and friends, 'Everyone involved would have hoped for a different outcome,'" he said (Oregonian, January 22). Some Portland-area activists including Alejandro Queral, the new director of the NW Constitutional Rights Center, took to the streets of Oregon City on February 11 to protest the decision.

Roberts blamed the string of shootings in December on the holidays, claiming the deputies shot in self-defense against people "sprinting at them with a weapon" (Oregonian, December 30). Interesting notion, but Kaady was unarmed and Graham was allegedly trying to grab an officer's gun when he was shot.

In other Oregon shootings news, Medford Officer John Torgerson shot and wounded teenager Justin Pina, who was allegedly standing over his 55-year-old neighbor with a knife on December 26. The neighbor apparently suffered stab wounds. 17-year-old Pina had been acting violently earlier in the day and police had spoken to him two times (Oregonian, December 28).