“I thought I was going to be hit. I thought they were intentionally trying to mow a bunch of people down on the bike path.”
– Elliott Young, witness
For several moments during a scary police chase on the Springwater Corridor last Friday, Elliott Young thought he’d become the latest victim of a reckless driver. Young was on his way to work at Lewis & Clark College, heading south on the popular bike path near Oaks Amusement Park when he saw someone in a car driving right towards him.
Young was one of the people who narrowly escaped tragedy when a suspected car thief chose to evade police by driving nearly two miles on the Springwater path at speeds near 50 mph.
“I noticed a car driving on the grass [near Oaks Amusement Park] and thought, ‘Oh must be some kids just having fun.'” Young shared with me in a phone call Tuesday. “But than as I got closer it went up the steep embankment and I thought maybe the person had lost control of the vehicle and it was headed right for me so I jumped off my bike.”
At this point, Young was standing right up against the chain-link fence that separates the railroad tracks from the path. And the driver of a white Kia was headed up the sloped embankment between the path and SE Oaks Park Way. “I thought I was going to be hit,” he recalls. “I thought they were intentionally trying to mow a bunch of people down on the bike path.”
Fortunately the driver of the car — a man who’s been charged numerous crimes including the theft of seven cars in the past four years — turned away from Young at the last second and continued north on the path.
Given the suspect’s long police record, it’s understandable why he wanted to escape the police.
According to court documents we’ve reviewed, the 23-year old man has been in and out of court and charged with numerous felonies since early 2019:
- February 2019: Arrested for theft of a bank card and possession of meth in Deschutes County.
- April 2020: Interfering with an officer of the law (misdemeanor).
- November 2021: Arrested and charged with five counts: fleeing a police officer (felony and misdemeanor), unauthorized use of a vehicle, and possession of stolen vehicle.
- March 2022: Arrested and charged with five counts: fleeing a police officer (felony), unauthorized use of a vehicle, and possession of stolen vehicle.
- June 14th. 2022: Arrested for stealing a car on NE 33rd Avenue.
- June 19th, 2022: Arrested for stealing a car on N Going Street.
- November 2022: Arrested for car theft.
- March 25th, 2023: Arrested for car theft.
- April 14th, 2023: Arrested for attempt to evade police, use of a stolen car, reckless driving, and hit-and-run (property damage).
His latest arrest on April 14th included four felony and three misdemeanor charges. According to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office he was released three days later and is no longer in custody.
It’s an indictment on our entire system that someone like this is in such dire straits and is able to continue to commit so many dangerous crimes.
“I think it speaks to the larger social issues that have been unattended to and uninvested in for the last 30 years in Portland,” Young said when asked to respond to the suspect’s long criminal record. “There’s obviously a lot of people who have various problems in our community that results in these kinds of behaviors. And it’s unfortunate, and makes all of us feel less safe.”
Young said he doesn’t want more police to be thrown at this type of problem. He wants the focus to be on the root causes. “My reaction is that we need to understand the underlying problems that lead people to houselessness, addiction, and mental illness; and then invest in finding solutions for people who are clearly hurting.”
Thanks for reading.
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I wrote the District Attorney an email expressing my concern about the release of the suspect to soon and they responded:
This was the attached document from Judge Judith Matarazzo:
https://www.courts.oregon.gov/courts/multnomah/Documents/PJO/PJO%202201-00002.pdf
My email reply to the above:
1) What does it mean in this case that “he is being supervised rather than released on his own recognizance.”
Does Mr L. have a known address? Were his prior attempts to evade officers not considered by the DA and Judge?
2) Did the DA write anything in opposition to the Judge’s order, or was your office in agreement with the guidelines?
3) The current standards do not appear to be working to prevent repeat vehicle thefts. Can the policy be changed by the judge or the DA, or is a change in the law required?
The DA office response:
Big kudos here for contacting our elected official. And thank you for relaying the correspondence.
Update: https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2023/05/26/multnomah-county-presiding-judge-changes-pretrial-release-standards-giving-judges-more-discretion-to-hold-defendants/
“Multnomah County Presiding Judge Changes Pretrial Release Standards, Giving Judges More Discretion to Hold Defendants
“A judge can now hold a defendant accused of a property crime until arraignment if it’s a third related offense.”
This is a good change. I suspect that other citizens had concerns about the current policies.
“My reaction is that we need to understand the underlying problems that lead people to houselessness, addiction, and mental illness; and then invest in finding solutions for people who are clearly hurting.”
Yeah, sure man. But we’re a little ways off from healing all the ills of society and finally seeing the day no one is left behind. This dude is unable or unwilling to participate in normal society. It’s amazing he didn’t kill someone the other day. No one can keep damaging other peoples lives like this and just keep truckin’ along like he has clearly been doing. It’s madness.
And in the mean time, let’s get them off of the streets.
It’s a very Portland response, but I have to wonder if the witness’s response would be different if he’d actually been struck by the stolen vehicle.
That’s a noble goal. Addressing the “root causes” of behavior like this is generational and will take decades, assuming Oregon is able to deliver, which almost all recent evidence indicates that it cannot, at any level of government, even when resources are available.
How do we fix our government so that we can address the root causes, and how do we protect the community while we wait for that project to bear fruit?
One also wonders if perhaps our continued tolerance of this sort of behavior is not, in and of itself, also a root cause.
Comment of the week!
I think the obvious answer is to check your privilege, suggest intersectionality as the reason and double down on funding.
“Given the suspect’s long police record, it’s understandable why he wanted to escape the police.”
Setting aside that there is no reason to “understand” what this suspect and other similar folks like him want, the suspect’s long police record and fact that he has already been released seem to clearly establish that there isn’t a substantial difference in consequences from fleeing or staying to get arrested.
aha yes I knew someone would make this exact comment. I hear you.
I’m not educated in legal matters at all, but how exactly does someone with that many prior arrests get released just days later?
Genuinely asking
This…
https://www.mcda.us/index.php/about-the-da/meet-the-da
Pre-trial release is a fairly complicated process but its guidelines come from the Oregon Supreme Court. I’m not a lawyer but being arrested of a crime probably is pretty low on their list of considerations since it doesn’t mean they were convicted of a crime. In a lot of cases the accused don’t even see a judge. Release officers are given authority to take an assessment of the person and release them within hours. The fact that he wasn’t released for days suggests to me that he had to go before a judge but that his charges, risk to the community and risk of skipping trial were low enough to warrant his release. Hopefully they included some monitoring but maybe not.The system is designed to be fair and treat everyone the same.
Generally we don’t want to hold people in jail disrupting their lives until trial. The alternative is people who eventually get found innocent have their lives ruined because they had to wait in jail for weeks or months to stand trial. It’s frustrating when you hear stories like this but I think it would be equally frustrating to hear about innocent people’s lives being destroyed because they were unnecessarily held.
This makes perfect sense actually, thank you for explaining. I think what confused me was the list of priors and why they were not convictions. I’m generally against the concept of bail in any form, for the very reasons you mentioned.
I wonder if the other arrests without convictions are related to the lack of public defenders I’ve heard about. It seems like that’s a real problem – complaining about not arresting more people and blaming Mike Schmidt seems like putting the cart before the horse as it were. If we don’t have public defenders, that really is a problem. But I don’t know if a lack of public defenders is even the problem, it’s just something I read rumors of in comments on this site.
“””Generally we don’t want to hold people in jail disrupting their lives until trial”””
Right! Because this person has a very important job at the Children’s Hospital and people are counting on him! (I’m not digging at you, idlebytes, I know you’re just sayin’)
So what’s your alternative? Apply a gut based assessment of each individual based on police reports and news articles? If you have a better way to asses people’s risk and apply the law evenly to each person within our constitutional rights I’m sure the Oregon Supreme Court would love to hear it.
The disfunction of pre-trial release is a very real problem that can ruin innocent people’s lives. You shouldn’t make light of it based on what you gleaned from a situation in a couple of news articles. How many people has our current system helped? How many people’s lives is it worth ruining so that you can feel satisfied that this one particular individual is held in jail?
Look, I’m not a smart man and the OSC isn’t gonna benefit from my opinions (I’m not even sure they’re reading this). But I guess if you’re arrested while ripping down a MUP in a stolen car, and this is not your first rodeo, I personally would go with that gut assessment here, sure, and maybe you gotta stay in jail until your court date.
To be clear, since I struck a nerve here, I wasn’t taking a shot at you.
Thanks for the explanation. It sure seems like that many priors in such a short amount of time would be enough to indicate that they should be held until trial.
6 car thefts in 12 months…I’m gonna take a wild guess they are going to steal a car after being released.
How many car thefts does it take to get caught 6 times in Portland?
I would guess that the major issue here is that they’re not priors as in prior convictions. Despite how obvious it seems that this person is a criminal our constitution is pretty clear about not pre-judging someone before they’ve had a fair trial. There’s no way our pre-trial assessment could legally get around that so you get situations like this.
It all feeds into itself if you think about. We don’t have enough prosecutors to take people to court so they never are convicted, police don’t see results from their work so they stop trying, when there is a public defender the DA doesn’t have enough evidence to bring a case so he doesn’t, and then people who are suspected of multiple crimes continually get released because there’s no legal justification to hold them. Rinse and repeat.
This guy isn’t innocent and is an obvious threat to the community.
Well this is what voters have asked for. Electing leaders who prioritize ideology over common sense (DA Schmidt, Karfoury, Hardesty, Eudaly, Rubio, Vega-Peterson) have brought us here. Only voters can change our course back to the “Pragmatic Progressivism” that had made Portland a great place to live.
100% agreed, Jenni!
I wouldn’t put Rubio on that list, she seems like the best person on council.
Is trying to give to a convicted fraudster $12 million taxpayer dollars because she is the right skin color make someone “the best person on council” (and then not even owning the debacle). Yeah that is ideology over common sense and good governance.
https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2021/12/portland-awarded-12m-clean-energy-contract-to-executive-with-long-history-of-financial-misdeeds-unpaid-taxes.html
I was impressed by the work her office is doing to improve the building permit process, the people I talked with seemed really competent. She has a well-run office.
Comm. Rubio was the person who restructured PCEF after this debacle but keep on blaming her for something she proactively addressed:
https://www.portland.gov/rubio/news/2022/9/15/commissioner-carmen-rubio-announces-proposed-changes-strengthen-and-streamline
And I say this as someone who is not a fan of Rubio given her unwillingness to deny Zenith’s LUCS.
LOL. Rubio took zero responsibility for her financial recklessness with taxpayer dollars and attemtped justify the fraud committed by Woodley using the excuse of sytemic racism. That’s so unfair to the millions who are honest upstanding productive citizens and have suffered from systemic racism. And we wonder why Portland is such a mess.
Rubio’s statment on fraudster Wodley: (excerpted). No apology, just defensiveness.
Commissioner Rubio’s Statement on Heat-Response Grant Recipient | Portland.gov
Rubio’s response seemed good. The system relied on a volunteer committee to vet the grants, and the committee wasn’t competent to do that. (Portland relies on volunteer committees a lot.) Rubio responded by changing the system so that city employees now vet the grants. That’s a good response, what’s not to like?
Lisa,
If you’re a city council member you can’t pass the blame on not even running simple background checks on someone getting $12 million dollars on the “volunteers”. This was straight up incompetence by an activist turned bureau chief (Rubio). The buck stops with her (or it should).
It’s weird that you are blaming Rubio but not Ryan or Mapps when they had just as much oversight over the voter-created and formerly independent PCEF.
And once again, I say this as someone who would never vote for any of the current crop of Councillors.
Isn’t this the “back and forth” that is frowned on?
It’s off topic and just arguing between 2 people?
i have zero problem reading it, does not bother me in the least since I don’t have to read it if I don’t want to, which is why I don’t know why people care so much about it?
It seems that “back and forth” is mostly discouraged depending on the post of view which is fine since it is your website.
This kind of thing is a perfect example of someone who should be held. And I don’t believe that anybody who has advocated for more humane treatment of homeless people, reducing police violence, etc etc, was suggesting that this kind of thing should have no consequences. I want to know for what reason they just released him. It’s not because DA Mike Schmidt has decided not to prosecute grand theft auto, nor is it some caricature of Hardesty’s politics. Something else is going on here. Repeated car theft is a perfect reason to hold someone without bail because there is good reason to expect a repeat offense, so the fact that they let him go is strange.
It’s amazing that someone charged with two felony counts of eluding the police would be released on his own recognizance.
Jonathan, thank you for shedding light on this issue, and I encourage you to continue to dig in further. This situation is madness. How will we ever reduce crime in this city if we continue to catch and release criminals?
We can expect that this individual will steal another vehicle, and another, and another until he is stopped. Additionally, this is more than a theft issue. His reckless driving is grave risk to the public, and it won’t come as a surprise when this individual eventually hurts or kills someone.
Sorry but “root causes” are for 10-20-30-40 years in the future. Yes, we should work on that but let’s not be naive. No amount of root cause “work” is going to solve this felon’s behaviors. There need to be consquences. Without consequence we have lawlessness. Unfortunately this is the new Portland.
Many of these dangerous acts (i.e. fleeing arrest, reckless driving, hit-and-run) likely would not have occurred if police hadn’t decided to give chase in the first place. Police car chases (1) injure or kill more innocent bystanders than any other use of force, and (2) only rarely manage to stop further violence. Even if the cops don’t drive recklessly, the suspect is obviously motivated to do so.
“Why Police Pursuits Keep Killing People”: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/police-pursuit-high-speed-car-chase-deaths.html
PPB officers are only supposed to pursue someone if they are suspected of committing a “felony person crime” (i.e. not just car theft) or display “willful disregard for the safety of others” through their actions behind the wheel. The second part seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy if just fleeing from the cops is the evidence.
“0630.05 Vehicle Interventions and Pursuits”: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/article/753448
Thankfully no one was hurt this time, but there was no apparent reason the incident had to escalate as far as it did, given that the person was described as *passed out* in a *parked car* when cops first approached. They even took the time to lay down spike strips; this was not one of those split-second moments so often used as an excuse for police doing whatever they wanted to do anyway. PPB even has a bunch of fancy new aerial drones that are supposed to be used to reduce inconveniences to the public. I’d say what happened here certainly qualifies.
“City Council Okays $80K for New Police Drone Program”: https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/2023/04/06/46441542/city-council-okays-80k-for-new-police-drone-program
Oh not the “police are the bad guys” routine again. You were already told the police were going 10-15 mph in the “chase”. This dude has a rap sheet a mile long and it’s the police’s fault? Just stop.
A history of attempting to elude police in a vehicle – an action that causes 100’s of deaths yearly and … let’s just toss him back on the street.
He’s a clear and present danger to other human beings and will clearly do the exact same thig again. If jails don’t exist to keep dangerous people separated from the rest of society – what the heck are they for?
And, no, at this point in time I don’t *CARE* wtf the root causes are, that’s immaterial to the fact that only luck stood between vulnerable human beings and 1000’s of pounds of heavy machinery hurtling along a narrow path with nowhere to escape.
The lack of public defenders throughout the state is something that’s not being talked about enough, imho. https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2023/02/oregon-is-losing-public-defenders-how-much-money-will-bring-them-back.html
It *seems* likely that it’s at least a contributing factor to situations like this (and others) where an individual is continually released, with seemingly no consequences…
As someone who rides the Springwater path here often, I’m thankful no one was hurt physically during this… But it’s hard to imagine that this doesn’t also mentally traumatize those who were there, and the rest of us who read these stories day after day here.
I can’t speak for all the other witnesses, but I was not personally traumatized. It was just really surreal.
I do have some experience with car crash trauma (got knocked across an intersection by a truck back in 2010, and it took years to regain my previous confidence on the road).
“My reaction is that we need to understand the underlying problems that lead people to houselessness, addiction, and mental illness; and then invest in finding solutions for people who are clearly hurting.”
Lock this criminal drug addict up before he kills someone. That’s what prisons are for. It’s ludicrous the lengths that some people will contort themselves to enable and excuse this kind of behavior.
Apparently my original comment wasn’t sufficiently clear (and replies are now locked), so I’ll reiterate: whether the police are speeding to pursue a suspect is irrelevant. The very act of pursuing induces the person being pursued to speed recklessly to evade capture. That puts bystanders at risk.
I’m also seeing lots of comments that we just need to lock up this one guy and forget about any social ills that may lead to this kind of behavior in the first place.
The US as a whole, and Oregon in particular, already put more people per capita behind bars than any other developed country. If more prisons actually reduced crime you would expect to see less antisocial behavior. Instead we have more violent crime than virtually any place with a working social safety net. The “law and order” approach is not working.
“Oregon profile”: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/OR.html
Conservative ideology says the individual is ultimately responsible for all problems, so trying to change society is at best pointless and at worst actively harmful. Instead, the belief goes, we should focus on punishing the “bad guys”. It’s a view that equates crime with sin, which is innate and unavoidable, so the only role for public policy is to separate the sinners from the virtuous.
Personally I would rather live in a society that uses its resources to help people rather than spending all its money on weapons and prisons, but hey, that’s just me.
We don’t need to stop thinking about social ills to lock up someone who has demonstrated they are willing to put the lives of many people at risk to avoid accountability for his actions.
Let’s figure out what’s wrong with Oregon that we can’t seem to address a myriad of social ills despite voters expressly providing the resources to do so. Let’s fix the problems, repair the ills, and reap the downstream benefits of lower crime and better social outcomes for everyone.
In the meantime, we need to get dangerous people off the street to prevent them from harming others.
I honestly don’t understand why that’s controversial.
PS I am pretty sure if we released everyone from prison, there would be an increase in antisocial behavior. If I’m right, then prisons do play a role in reducing crime.
It’s generally not controversial to think that people who have actively harmed others should be taken off the street, and nowhere did I state we shouldn’t do so. My comment was addressing the belief that punishment is the *only* response worth considering, symbolized in the phrase “law and order”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_order
Honestly, nothing new here besides someone fearing their life and a police report being filed. I’ve called Parks too many times to report cars, motercycles, and other gas powered items. The typical response from parks and non-emergency is “well, is it still happening?” Well, I wouldn’t know considering I got myself out of that wild situation. As far as the witnesses response, he doesn’t seem like someone who has had to deal with this problem on a normal basis like the rest of the comments I’m seeing. Glad he can still be positive and separate from this mess. Yeah, mess. No, Portland isn’t on fire but it’s worlds away from other places.
If housing is the issue then why does the county sit on the critical funding to help this cause?
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2023/03/multnomah-countys-plan-to-house-300-homeless-by-may-already-delayed.html?outputType=amp
https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/03/22/in-years-first-six-months-county-spent-less-than-half-its-budgeted-metro-homeless-services-money/
Something has to give.
Maybe the witness hasn’t had to deal with this problem on a regular basis like another commenter suggested. Or maybe he is able to separate his personal feelings from the issue, and instead let his policy opinions be guided by unbiased factual evidence. Such as a new report showing police spend more time and money on pointless and racially discriminatory traffic stops then actually “fighting crime”: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-primarily-crime-fighters-according-data-2022-11-02/