A man with a box cutter is stabbing a stranger outside a downtown Portland hotel as the officer steps out of his car. He fires, and the man dies. The DA ruled the shooting justified.
- Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, about 4:39 p.m., outside a hotel in the 400 block of SW Broadway, downtown Portland, Ore.
- Portland Police Bureau officers were sent at 4:34 p.m. to an assault with a weapon near SW Broadway and SW Washington Street. On the way, they were told the suspect had a box cutter and was trying to stab or cut more people.
- PPB says that as the first officer got out of his patrol car, the man, Eric Jonathan Hurtado, 36, was actively stabbing a bystander. The officer fired and struck him.
- PPB says Hurtado fell but kept trying to stab the same man. The officer ordered him to drop it, ordered everyone out of the area, secured the scene and took the weapon. A box cutter was recovered, its blade on the ground next to where a victim had been lying.
- Hurtado was given trauma first aid and died at the hospital.
- Two people he stabbed, one inside a business and one outside the hotel, were hospitalized with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Two others he confronted didn’t need a hospital. No officers were hurt.
- On Oct. 29, 2026, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office found the officer’s use of deadly force justified, so the case will not go to a grand jury. PPB’s internal reviews and the Police Review Board are still pending as of Nov. 2, 2026.
Body camera footage: released by the Portland Police Bureau.
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Units Are Surrounded
The new book from Ray Dietrich. Five shootings in five months in Riverside County. The full book is coming - read how it starts, free.
