Portland, Oregon: Prosecutors Rule Officer Shooting of Eric Hurtado Justified and Close the Case

Multnomah County prosecutors have closed the criminal case against the Portland officer who shot and killed Eric Jonathan Hurtado, ruling the use of force justified under Oregon law. The decision came on Thursday as the Police Bureau released body camera video of the October 15 attack in which Hurtado stabbed two people downtown with a box cutter.

The district attorney's office announced the case is closed in a decline to prosecute memo released Thursday. The case will not be presented to a grand jury because there are no material facts in dispute about the incident, the memo said, as reported by Police1 in its account of the footage and the memo.

What happened on Southwest Broadway

At about 4:20 p.m. on October 15, witnesses said Hurtado, 36, was acting erratically outside St. Honore Bakery at Southwest Washington Street and Broadway in downtown Portland, according to the memo. He then entered the Dossier Hotel, picked up an ornamental clock and swung it at the hotel clerk. Outside the hotel, Hurtado attempted to stab a security guard, but the blade was not extended, the memo said.

The first 911 call came at 4:33 p.m. from inside the hotel, reporting that Hurtado had assaulted two people and had a box cutter. Portland police were dispatched at 4:34 p.m. Hurtado went back to the bakery, entered the kitchen and repeatedly stabbed an employee, the memo said. That victim suffered a lacerated left ear, a lacerated left neck cut to the muscle level, a lacerated upper left arm, a lacerated left wrist and a small fracture of the left upper arm bone.

At 4:39 p.m., Officer Daniel Hall, a seven and a half year veteran assigned to Central Precinct, located Hurtado outside a hotel in the 400 block of Southwest Broadway. Hurtado was actively stabbing a bystander as Hall got out of his patrol vehicle, police said. One employee was stabbed twice in the forehead, according to the memo.

Hall fired twice, striking Hurtado once. Hurtado fell to the ground and dropped his weapon, then reached for it and appeared to keep trying to stab the man he had been attacking, the footage shows. Hall ordered him to stop and ordered the victims to clear the area. Officers gave Hurtado first aid before he was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Two people stabbed by Hurtado, one inside a business and a second outside the hotel, were taken to a hospital with serious but non life threatening injuries. Hurtado physically engaged two other people, who did not require transport to a hospital. A box cutter and its blade were recovered at the scene.

Family and next steps

Relatives of Hurtado previously told The Oregonian that he had been showing signs of serious mental illness and that his family in Southern California was hoping to fly him home to get help, Police1 reported.

Hall remains on administrative leave, which is standard protocol, the Police Bureau said in its video release. The bureau said the case still goes through policy, procedure and training reviews and before the Police Review Board and the chief, separate from the criminal case that prosecutors have now closed.