Federal immigration officers shoot, wound 2 people in Oregon: Official
Federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in a vehicle outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday, a day after an officer shot and killed a driver in Minnesota, authorities said.
The Department of Homeland Security described the vehicle’s passenger as “a Venezuelan illegal alien affiliated with the transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring” who had been involved in a recent shooting in Portland. When agents identified themselves to the occupants during a “targeted vehicle stop” Thursday afternoon, the driver tried to run them over, the department said in a written statement. “Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired a defensive shot,” the statement said. “The driver drove off with the passenger, fleeing the scene.”
There was no immediate independent corroboration of that account or of any gang affiliation of the vehicle’s occupants. During prior shootings involving agents involved in President Donald Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement in US cities, including Wednesday’s shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis, video evidence cast doubt on the administration’s descriptions of what prompted the shootings. Trump and his allies have consistently blamed Tren de Aragua for being at the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some US cities.
The shooting escalates tensions in an city that has long had a contentious relationship with President Donald Trump, including Trump’s recent, failed effort to deploy National Guard troops in the city. Trump’s decision to send militarised personnel into US cities to conduct immigration enforcement drew long-running nightly protests outside the ICE building in Portland. According to the the Portland Police bureau, officers initially responded to a report of a shooting outside Adventist Health hospital at about 2.18 pm Thursday.
A few minutes later, police received information that a man who had been shot was asking for help in a residential area a couple of miles away. Officers then responded there and found a man and a woman with gunshot wounds.
