Man in crisis dies after being Tased by Portland police, bureau says

A man died in Portland Police Bureau custody on Wednesday after being struck with a Taser, bureau officials said in a statement.

Details still remain unclear about the incident and the man at the center of it. Officers had reportedly responded to “an adult male who was cutting himself at a home” in Southeast Portland around 5:45 p.m. The incident occurred around Southeast 78th and Tolman Street.

In a press statement released hours after the initial dispatch, bureau officials said the man was in crisis and continued to “stab himself” and had barricaded himself in the home, refusing to come out to police. Eventually, officers got the man into custody, though the statement offered few specifics.

The statement noted that the bureau had dispatched its Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team, a group of volunteer officers who are trained in behavioral health crises, to the scene.

Sometime during the arrest, according to the press release, an officer shot a Taser. The man was reportedly put in an ambulance, but died en route to a hospital.

Police spokesperson Mike Benner declined to answer questions about the man’s relationship to the home and would not provide specifics on how the man was taken into custody, citing the ongoing investigation.

The death is being treated as an in-custody death, which triggers several reviews. The Police Review Board will review the case and the incident will be investigated internally, per bureau policy.