Even in blue cities where leaders advocate for defunding police forces, residents still expect the cops to arrest people acting threateningly in a public place – especially if the suspect has a knife in his pants and tries to pepper-sprays law enforcement officers.
That’s why residents of Portland, Oregon, are concerned about city police recently getting into an hours-long standoff with a seemingly crazed man … and then deciding to leave the scene with the armed man still lurking in the area.
This scenario occurred Monday evening when a woman in a Northwest Portland neighborhood called 9-1-1 to report a suspicious character acting strangely.
After an hour and no police had responded, she called a friend to help her close her office and leave the neighborhood safely.
Later, officers from the Portland Police Bureau arrived on scene, according to a report by KPTV Fox 12.
Officers tried to take the suspect – brandishing a knife and attempting to pepper-spray them – into custody using a taser and by firing non-lethal rounds at the suspect. Neither of those options had any effects on the man, a police commander said in a report.
Commander Brian Hughes said, “In this case we had to weigh all the things going on, the potential to injure the suspect himself, the potential to injure officers, and what we deployed here was a third technique of de-escalation.”
Such de-escalation looked more like abandonment by many of the Portlanders who were patronizing shops and restaurants in the area.
After getting shot at, the suspect ran into a crowd of people dining outside. That is when officers switched to de-escalation tactics, reported the television station. A crisis negotiator was brought in to talk to the suspect for more than two hours.
“One of the key results was they were learning from the gentleman was that he was not a threat to the public. He had no intention of harming anyone in the area. As an organization you have to take in all those factors when we decide whether or not to use force,” Hughes said.
After the decision not to arrest the suspect and leaving the scene, police said Tuesday they’d try to make an arrest at a later time “without putting others in danger.”
“It was strange nothing really happened and they left and the guy hung out here for a while,” said Scott Rivera, proprietor of Scottie’s Pizza Parlor.
Added the woman who called 911, identified only as Michelle: “It’s a bit scary actually, because I physically saw he had weapons and I don’t know what his state of mind is. Yes, he could be going through something but I don’t feel safe and I don’t know why he was just left here by police.”
Watch the KPTV Fox 12 report: