[OregonLive] Henry Kirim had ducked out of his Southeast Portland apartment to search his car for a missing bank card when a strange man rushed into his ground-floor unit, closed the door and locked it.Kirim fumbled for his house key, thankful he had it on the same ring as his car key, and raced to open his apartment door.
"I was so scared," he said.
The next 10 minutes unfolded in a blur on Aug. 22. The stranger grabbed a kitchen knife. Kirim’s petrified son managed to dart out of the apartment. Kirim followed and started yelling for neighbors to help. When the man eventually fled, several residents gave chase and cornered him nearby.
For some reason, the residents are not described as "vigilantes."
It took police more than 90 minutes to arrive. Just before an officer finally appeared, the suspect ran off. More than a half-dozen calls had come into 911 over the course of the bizarre ordeal. But that apparently didn’t speed the response.
The wait confounded and angered Kirim and his neighbors. They wondered what it would take for police to respond if not an armed man placing a child in jeopardy.
Police were responding at the same time to a tactical call in East Precinct that required a special team and also were monitoring what turned out to be a violent clash between dueling protesters in downtown as well as preparing for another nightly protest.
| Those bloody-minded anarcho-communists ruin everything for everybody. On purpose — something you might want to remember when you and your neighbours go to vote in November, Mr. Kirim. |
