A horrible scene unfolded in Portland’s Hazelwood neighborhood on Tuesday.
Just after 1:30 pm, Portland Police responded to calls about a traffic crash on Northeast 100th and Glisan. A person was lying in the road. By the time the Major Crash Team responded that person was dead. But once on scene, a larger picture of what happened began to unfold.
Investigators were able to piece together that someone driving a truck with a flatbed trailer first hit a bicycle rider two blocks east at 102nd and Glisan and then dragged their body about 600 feet west to 100th. As the driver continued to flee, the person’s bicycle remained lodged under the truck and didn’t come free for another block (at NE Irving) where nearby residents came out of their homes to see what had happened.
According to the PPB, the truck was found one hour later about 3.5 miles away near North Killingsworth and Columbia. The driver, 41-year-old Kenlly Leyvachi, was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center and charged with Manslaughter in the First Degree, Reckless Driving, and Failure to Perform the Duties of a Driver.
The collision happened near the northeast corner of the 102nd and Glisan intersection. This location has a buffered and unprotected bicycle lane. The Portland Bureau of Transportation recently completed a major bike lane upgrade project on 102nd, but it ended a half-mile north of this location.
This was the first fatal crash with a bicycle riding victim in Portland since December 4th, 2020. There were no bicycle fatalities in 2021. A fatal collision last month was incorrectly reported by the PPB and in the local media as involving an electric bicycle, but it was actually an e-motorbike. I’ve confirmed with a PPB source that the victim in yesterday’s crash was on a standard electric bicycle.
I’ve also been told that the victim was pulling a child trailer that had a dog in it. The dog survived.
This was the second fatal hit-and-run crash involving a driver and vulnerable road user in Portland in less than 24 hours.
On Monday, PPB says a person who was walking on SE 82nd Avenue at Center Street was hit and killed by a driver. The driver in that case, 40-year-old Frederick Deatric Moore, was arrested Wednesday morning and charged with Murder in the Second Degree and Failure to Perform the Duties of a Driver (Hit & Run).
Both of these collisions happened on streets that are on the City of Portland’s “High Crash Network“, a list of streets and intersections with an above average rate of fatal and serious injury crashes. NE 102nd and Glisan is among the top 30 high crash intersections. SE 82nd and Center is adjacent to a popular food cart pod (where advocates and policymakers ended a walk to learn about dangerous conditions in September 2021) and is just a few blocks south of Powell, another top 30 high crash intersection.
Monday’s death on 82nd is the first one that will be logged as being under the jurisdiction of PBOT. The agency formally took over ownership and management of the former highway from the Oregon Department of Transportation back in April.
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That’s horrible. Given how bad and aggressive drivers are these days this is all the more reason we need more protected bike lanes and MUPs and to keep the ones that we already have free from the hazards to use they have today.
keep the ones that we already have free from the hazards
YES !
The number of hit and runs we’re seeing speaks to the sense of impunity drivers are feeling in New Portland.
This is why we need traffic cops and enforcement.
So, one cop per vehicle? Ok, that’s facetious but what number of cops committed to the mission of traffic enforcement will be enough to suppress the banal savage barbarity of actions like this?
What is your number, of police, or dollars for overtime or whatever, that you think would be able to impress somebody capable of this action?
I seriously believe that a vehicle involved in such an incident should be publicly crushed at a time that it would go out live on local TV news. Not for vengence or because it helps the victim Who Is Still Dead but because the sorry assholes out there who don’t give a fuck about another person’s pain will think…oooh I might lose my car…like it says in the song, God damn their eyes.
Do we know why one charge is manslaughter and the other is homicide?
“PPB’s Major Crash Team determined that Moore intentionally struck the pedestrian before leaving the scene.”
Here in Greensboro NC we’ve had several cases where police and the courts were able to prove that a perpetrator used their vehicle to intentionally kill a victim rather than by using a gun – “to try to make it look like an accident.” Generally, if the driver already knows the hit pedestrian, it’s probably murder, but it’s also common for gangs to literally hit rivals.
Sounds like murder to me.
Interestingly enough one can also be charged with murder for any death caused during the commission of other crimes, like burglary, robbery, etc.
https://www.findlaw.com/state/oregon-law/oregon-murder-laws.html
Why were either charged? I’ve read on this site a number of times that you can get away with murder by using your car. Obviously the police messed up.
both fled
Yep – you’re okay if the police say “The driver stopped and is cooperating with the police investigation.”
The old “everything I don’t like should be considered murder” perspective.
Don’t worry, an “activist” will be along shortly to invent a motive. And God help the driver if they’re operating anything larger than a Prius– that alone warrants capital punishment.
Hi Tomas,
It pains me to say that suspect “lib” cars are equally a hazard to a person on a bike. Cars that have knocked me down on Portland streets: a minivan, a VW new Beetle, a Subaru Forester and an ’70s American heavy metal street rod (driver apologized and offered cash).
The most usefully accurate and polite driver I ever encountered on Portland streets was driving a full bore rally car with Idaho plates. If not for the exhaust I wouldn’t have known he was there. It’s not about the car.
No need to invent a motive; the driver’s neighbors say he was a menace. Perhaps charging him with murder was justified.
This neighbor is probably an “activist” inventing things.
https://www.kptv.com/2022/06/10/neighbor-deadly-hit-and-run-suspect-speaks-out/
And this
https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/pages/ors.aspx
This is horrific. I know a few people that ride with a dog in a trailer so my mind is racing right now. Ugh
Or children!
When my roommate commuted with a trailer ten years ago, we felt that people drove more carefully around her. I guess it’s not magic.
That’s so horrible!
This is horrible . My family and I live less than a mile from where this happened and regularly ride through this area to access shopping and the Gateway Green. The improvement to the 108th and Glisan crossing cannot come soon enough and we need to clear the people living on the MUPs so we have safe ways to bike and walk.
Building infrastructure is good, but keeping our current infrastructure rideable and safe matters just as much.
This has easily become the most unsafe place in this town. This event makes me not want to continue biking like I do 3x a week. This is horrifying. This is not Portland. This is somewhere else right? No, we have to own this. I hope it begins with life behind bars and no 25/30 year minimum. This could’ve ended at the strike. This could’ve end within the first 5 feet afterwards. This was either rage or pure stupidity. I don’t wish evil on too many people but this person has made me rethink how I want to get around town.
Also, this section of road is literally the wild, extremely Wild West. Something needs to be done tonight, tomorrow, and/or this weekend to fix it. Drivers act like they have little sense when they navigate it. One lane should do the trick.
May this rider’s life not go wasted as a statistic. It was taken way too soon and by someone who didn’t deserve to be operating a vehicle. Im heartbroken
I’m in favor of mandatory motor vehicle governors myself – it can’t go beyond the posted speed limit, if you hit anything the engine shuts off, etc.
The crossing of 82nd at Center has a hawk crossing half a block away, but as a cyclist I always find that inconvenient to have to ride half a block on the sidewalk, cross the street (which involves weaving through a mid-82nd island, and then riding half a block back to Center.
I’ve always scratched my head about the placement of that crossing’s design.
The mid-block crossings with RFBs were always designed first and foremost for pedestrians and persons using mobility devices, not necessarily for bicyclists. The typical problem with corner crossings is that car drivers are typically only looking for other car drivers and not pedestrians and so the intersections are inherently unsafe, while a mid-block crossing is thought to allow drivers to concentrate on the pedestrians crossing (aside from looking at their phone etc.) A secondary consideration (alas) is that a corner ped island impedes turning car flow, which is naturally much more important than pedestrian safety.
The ideal solution, of course, is a fully-protected signalized intersection.
Not that any of this would have necessarily prevented either particular driver from hitting the victims and then driving off afterwards.
Driver is in jail but for how long? In America’s overworked and underfunded legal system most cases like this are released on their own recognizance, and then quietly dropped with a plea bargain of don’t do it again.
I agree with you about the overworked and underfunded legal system, but believe the main problem is a general lack of sensitivity by the public and their elected officials to bicyclist and pedestrian safety. If that mindset changes, which I hope it will, the legal system will change. It is long overdue.
It’s more a symptom of Portland’s broken legal system. We’ve elected an activist DA and judges who think cash bail is unfair… and that criminals deserve a 17th chance. Then the arrested don’t even bother showing up for court:
https://katu.com/news/katu-investigates/quick-release-for-suspect-accused-of-luring-minor-in-portland-oregon-underscores-concerns-in-system
Platinum status.
Some places referred to as hit a pedestrian others as a bicyclist.
Truck with a flatbed? Vehicle found out by Killingsworth/Columbia? Was this one of the “involuntary” towing operations operating around town lately?
You reported that Brandon Reid was killed on 114th & Powell on April 14, 2020. It was a hit and run but they caught drive later that day, 19 year old Pavel Krechco. Due to covid and numerous other nonsense, a trial has still not happened & Pavel has been out on bail for the last 2+ years. Inexcusable. Brandon’s family has a right to a fair and speedy trial. What can we do to apply pressure to the DA to actually take these crimes to court?? I’ve seen other trials proceed for more recent crimes.
Anyone who’s spent time driving or cycling on 102nd knows that those bike lanes are useless. At intersections like the one where the man was killed, they become de facto turn lanes for drivers trying to sneak around stopped traffic. I’ve had close calls behind the wheel there myself where someone will blast through at 20+mph and almost hit my vehicle. I’ve seen people drive on the curb and cut through the Arco parking lot to do the same.
At the very least PBOT should install bollards at major intersections. I won’t touch 102nd on a bicycle until it’s safer.
Yeah, any time I’m in my car and waiting to make the same right turn that the killer made, I’m acutely aware that there’s a popular bike lane I need to turn across. And usually the car behind mine is large and has pulled up so close behind me that my mirrors are nearly useless. So I make the turn very slowly and the driver behind me often gets upset that I don’t go faster. But I’d rather have a billion people angry at me than the guilt of killing one person.