Federal agents shot two people in Portland, Ore., Thursday, prompting local leaders to demand an end to an immigration crackdown there, while also urging calm in a community known for political dissent. The conditions of the two people were not immediately clear.
U.S. Border Patrol agents were conducting a “targeted vehicle stop,” and one fired a shot after a driver tried to run them over, a Homeland Security Department spokeswoman said in a statement.
The spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, described the agents’ target as an undocumented immigrant and member of Tren de Aragua, a gang with roots in a Venezuelan prison that has been a frequent target of President Trump. She provided no immediate evidence of his gang membership.
The shooting, which officials said occurred sometime after 2 p.m. local time, appears to have taken place near Adventist Health Portland, a hospital and collection of health clinics in the Hazelwood neighborhood, about eight miles from the city center.
The driver drove off after the agents fired on the vehicle, local officials said, and the two shooting victims, a man and a woman, were found by the police a short distance away, with gunshot wounds. Bob Day, Portland’s police chief, said in an evening news conference that the injured man had called 911.
Emergency medical technicians who rushed the victims to hospitals described both as Spanish speakers in conversations captured by emergency radio broadcasts. The woman had a gunshot wound to the chest, an E.M.T. told a dispatcher. The man was described as having two gunshot wounds.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Portland’s City Council president, said during a council meeting Thursday afternoon that she believed the two people who had been shot were still alive, though local officials later said they did not know their condition.
Chief Day said that the investigations would be led by the F.B.I., and that local officials knew very little about the incident. “We do not know if this is an immigration-related event,” he said at the news conference. “We do not know which federal agencies were involved.”
Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon demanded a full and transparent investigation by federal officials. “Trust is essential to maintain community safety and uphold the law,” she said. “Federal agents at the direction of the Department of Homeland Security are shattering trust. They are destroying day by day what we hold dear.”
Portland was the site of months of clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in 2020. Last summer, protests at the city’s ICE facility occasionally turned violent, and led Mr. Trump to attempt to use the National Guard to quell demonstrations. A federal judge blocked that effort.
Despite their criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, local leaders urged calm, particularly in the wake of the already charged national environment following the fatal shooting of a woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
Mayor Keith Wilson said the incident was another sign that federal immigration efforts were out of control. He called on the Trump administration to end enforcement operations in Portland.
“The administration is trying to divide us, to pit communities against one another, to make us fear one another,” he said. “Portland, this is a moment to hold each other close.”
Anna Griffin the Pacific Northwest bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of Washington, Idaho, Alaska, Montana and Oregon.
The post Federal Agents Shoot 2 During Traffic Stop in Portland, Ore. appeared first on New York Times.
