PORTLAND, Ore. — Police confirm a shooting on Swan Island Monday night is related to ongoing gang violence.
A sergeant with the Portland Police Bureau said about 60 people were at McDonalds on Swan Island after a funeral for 21-year-old Jemare Manns.
Manns was shot and killed on May 9 at a house party in the Lents neighborhood.
The police sergeant said at least one rival gang member shot at the group and some people fired back. Investigators found over 55 cartridge casings at the scene.
Four victims from that group showed up to Legacy Emanuel hospital in North Portland. The victims are expected to survive. No arrests have been made.
A crowd followed and things got contentious. A tense and chaotic situation played out and fights broke out. Police said some people tried forcing their way into the emergency room and the hospital went into a brief lockdown.
Dozens of officers from all over the city swarmed the hospital to calm things down.
Portland police said funerals and vigils in the coming days are potential targets for retaliation.
"They're out hunting, looking for more, more, more," Portland Police Sgt. Ken Duilio said. "And at vigils! I mean funerals and vigils should be somewhat sacred. And people should be allowed to grieve in peace and process that tragedy. And they're not. That is something we didn't necessarily see in the past. Although, in the past, we had uniformed assets in place to work funerals."
Portland is on track this year to have the most homicides the city's ever seen. Police can't keep up with all the gun violence and are now working with the FBI to respond to and investigate retaliatory shootings and whether cases are connected.
"To have a crime scene with 55 bullets fired that's a lot of fire power. That's a lot of bullets that are either going to hurt, injure, or kill somebody they're intending to," FBI Portland Special Agent in Charge Kieran Ramsey told KGW, "Or they're going to keep going and hit somebody who's in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's the scary thing here."
"We’ve never been on pace to break these sort of records," Sgt. Duilio said, "And so it is crisis mode right now. It absolutely is. And it’s super sad to see all this going on."