Jason Bland wasn’t really surprised when he learned the homicide Friday morning that had disrupted his usual morning walk was actually the second killing on the Willamette River waterfront in a week.
“Portland has changed,” said Bland, a nurse, shaking his head. “It’s not safe anymore.”
The deadly violence that spiked to all-time-record levels in the city during the pandemic has begun to abate, but not along Portland’s popular downtown waterfront.
“It’s a real concern, especially on the waterfront,” said Portland anti-gun-violence activist Sam Sachs. “Parks are a place that are supposed to feel safe.”
After police tore down the crime-scene tape on the Eastbank Esplanade near Southeast Madison Street around 10 a.m. Friday, the normal foot and bicycle traffic quickly resumed. Officers left no visible signs from the homicide that occurred around 4:30 a.m., near a fire station and a memorial statue of late Portland Mayor Vera Katz.
Abel Nistor, 29, was arrested in connection with the killing and faces murder charges, Portland police said Friday afternoon. Nistor pleaded guilty in October to an attempted strangulation charge; he had tried to strangle his father earlier that year, claiming the man was a demon. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to animal abuse charges after killing his brother’s dog with a hammer and knife.
Police have not released the victim’s name or provided details about how he died other than to say he had been injured in an assault and died at the scene.
The killing came seven days after a man was stabbed to death on the Steel Bridge around 1 p.m. March 15. Two other people were killed on or near the waterfront in January — a stabbing near Northwest Naito Parkway and Everett Street, and a shooting near Southeast Water Avenue and Salmon Street.
Two people also were killed along the waterfront in 2023.
While killings in Portland have declined since the city saw a sharp spike in deadly violence in 2020, 2021 and 2022, the spate of recent homicides near the waterfront — at a time when locals and tourists alike are packing the downtown stretch to take pictures of flowering cherry-blossom trees — showcase that the city still has a way to go to restore public safety and repair its reputation.
The Portland Police Bureau said recent violent incidents in the downtown, Old Town and Buckman neighborhoods are not connected.
“While tragic, these are isolated incidents that further spotlight the fact that our community still has a lot of work to do on addressing criminal behavior, especially violent behavior,” police spokesperson Mike Benner told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Portland Commissioner Carmen Rubio suggested downtown’s sagging fortunes are one reason for the recent violence along the waterfront. Rubio, who is running for mayor, said the city should continue to foster economic development in the central city and focus on the “root causes” contributing to gun violence.
The rise in violence that Portland has seen in recent years — going from 34 homicides in 2015 to a record 101 in 2022, “is alarming and unacceptable,” Rubio said in an emailed statement, noting that the increase in violence has occurred across the country. “And while these recent incidents are alarming, we need to concurrently continue the work that the City is doing to address these recent incidents.”
Commissioner Mingus Mapps said in a statement that he was “committed to doing everything in my power” to support the Police Bureau’s work keeping public spaces safe and Commissioner Rene Gonzales said “there can be no higher priority than driving violence from the streets of Portland.” Both are also running for mayor.
Last year, the city signed a contract with the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform to help develop a plan for reducing gun violence. Under that contract, which cost $437,600, the bureau has used specially trained outreach workers to contact people deemed at highest risk of being involved in gun violence.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has credited that program and other city efforts with the approximately 20% decrease in gun homicides in 2023, compared to 2022.
But it’s unclear what, if anything, the city plans to do to address safety concerns along the waterfront as spring and summer promise to bring more people to the area both downtown and on the east side. The Police Bureau said it would continue its usual approach for now.
“Between Central Precinct patrol officers, the Neighborhood Response Team and the Bike Squad, the Portland Police Bureau has an ongoing presence in the downtown area and inner Southeast,” Benner said. “It’s our mission to reduce crime and the fear of crime and we will continue to work every day toward that goal.”
Neighborhood Response Teams work with communities to figure out and try to tackle the underlying issues driving crime.
Wheeler’s Office did not address questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive about what, if anything, the city planned to change in its efforts to tamp down violence on the waterfront.
“The Mayor is continuing to focus on collaboration and coordination across bureaus and among our government partners to address public safety concerns in a holistic and sustainable manner,” Wheeler’s spokesperson, Cody Bowman, said in an email.
Tanya Helm, a doctor who was walking Friday with Bland along the Eastbank Esplanade, said they had both moved out of Portland because of how the city has changed. But they both continue to walk the loop from the Hawthorne Bridge to the Steel Bridge and back several times a week together, though they no longer feel safe in the area either alone or at night.
Jahmal Landers, an advertising art director, was walking on the esplanade on his way to work when he learned about the homicide that had occurred along his route. He had a more generous take on Portland’s ills — they were a sign that the city is growing from a big town into a city and was experiencing all the attendant “growing pains.”
He wasn’t going to let the violence stop him from enjoying Portland riverside parks and pathways.
“I think you just have to be a little bit more vigilant,” Landers, 40, said. “At the same time, I’m not going to stop walking this route.”
Data specialist David Cansler and reporters Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, Kristine de Leon and Zane Sparling contributed to this report.
— Fedor Zarkhin is a breaking news and enterprise reporter with a focus on crime. Reach him at 971-373-2905; fzarkhin@oregonian.
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