Neighborhood on edge after U.S. Marshals team shoots Portland killing suspect at complex
Residents of the Tanglewilde Terrace Townhomes were still in shock Friday after a U.S. Marshals team shot and killed Michael Reinoehl, a suspect in the fatal shooting of a right-wing activist in Portland, at their housing complex Thursday night.
Multiple residents of the townhome complex in the Tanglewilde neighborhood near Lacey told The Olympian that they began noticing a new person at the complex in the past few days.
Reinoehl didn’t live at the complex but had been staying there in the days since the fatal Aug. 29 shooting in Portland that killed 39-year-old Aaron “Jay” Danielson, part of a pro-Trump caravan and rally that night. Authorities have identified Reinoehl as being a resident of Oregon, and his Facebook page listed Gresham as his home.
Kemarion Hill lives in the Tanglewilde Terrace townhome adjacent to a mailbox where Reinoehl’s body lay after the shooting. He said he started seeing a gray Volkswagen in the last week or so, parked in the curbside spot where his sister usually parks her car.
Jess Hamilton said she saw an unfamiliar man entering and exiting Unit No. 1, just two units away from hers on the corner of Third Way and School Street. The townhomes are arranged in a U-shape around a parking area with carports in the middle.
Hamilton said she was checking her mailbox Thursday afternoon when she saw an unfamiliar man wearing a full scarf face covering get out of a Volkswagen.
The full face covering stuck out to her since people often don’t wear them in cars, she said.
She described the complex as a quiet neighborhood where she knows most of her neighbors.
“It just didn’t sit right,” she said. “We know who belongs here and who doesn’t.”
Multiple neighbors described the gray Volkswagen that appeared parked on the street outside the complex within the last week.
Hamilton said she thought the people in Unit No. 1 were selling possessions online and maybe the guy was there to buy them.
Other neighbors described being inside when they heard the shooting Thursday evening. Hayley Williams, who lives on the other side of the complex in a separate U-shaped courtyard, came outside later to find her back car window shattered by a gunshot.
Deshirlynn Chatman was on her way home when she happened upon the confrontation Thursday night.
“I was pulling up when it was all happening,” Chatman said. “The marshals were already in this neighborhood, they already got sight that he was here, so they were waiting.”
Chatman said she saw the man leave one of the townhomes and get into the Volkswagen parked in front of Hill’s unit.
He tried to start the car, and that’s when he began firing at the officers, who fired back, she said. Then he got out and ran from the car.
“And as soon as he did come out, he tried to grab his gun and they got him. He made it as far as this mailbox and was gone, at that point they killed him,” Chatman said.
“It was really scary, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
This story was originally published September 4, 2020 at 5:03 PM.
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