Oregon Sheriffs Use Fire Hose on Suicidal Suspect

Tuesday morning a high-speed chase with Clackamas County Sheriffs deputies turned into a suicide negotiation when a man climbed onto a single story building and threatened to kill himself. Mike BlueHair with Film the Police Portland and his colleague Robert West (aka Bob) were on scene and captured the incident on video.

Not long after Mike & Bob began filming, they were asked by  Deputy Heinbach to move. He was polite and they moved to another location. Another deputy approached and asked them to move back to the intersection. This time Mike maintained his right to be there, as well as document the incident as a member of the press. He told the officer he would remain out of his way, but he was not leaving. Shortly after this, deputy Cochran ,another one of the Sheriffs on scene, told them if they did not move, they would be arrested for interfering with the investigation. In order to avoid being arrested Mike and Bob ,under protest, moved back to the intersection.

After a six-hour negotiation the police started spraying the man on the roof. According to Mike who told me that “the chase ended at around 6am and they started hosing down the roof around noon”. The police hosed the roof down for 20 minutes before the man decided to come down, during that time the man slips and falls multiple times due to the soaked roof and steady stream of water.

Mike and Bob are approached again while filming the hosing and are shuffled down the bike path. They continue to film and the new angle reveals a large ladder attached to the building that was ignored by police, who instead opted to use a fire hose. It was probably the same ladder the man used to get up there.

I can only think of one reason why the police would choose to do this and that would be to make the environment as uncomfortable as possible for the man on the roof. Tuesdays weather in Clackamas had a high of 52 and a low of 47 degrees, no one would be able to hold out very long under a constant stream of water in those conditions.

 

More videos of this incident.

Longer Version

Getting Asked to Move