The City of Tigard will pay $3.8 million to the mother of a 26-year-old jacob macduffwho was fatally shot by Tigard police while experiencing a mental health crisis outside his apartment complex in January 2021.
As part of the July 2022 wrongful death settlement agreement, the city has agreed to undergo an independent review of its officer’s conduct during the shooting. The city also agreed to implement 15 changes to its policies and procedures as a result of the shooting, including training officers on de-escalation, moving up the timeline to deploy body cameras and creating a mental health response team that will also serve Sherwood. , Tualatin and Ciudad Rey.
Under the agreement, Tigard denies any “responsibility, fault or wrongdoing” related to the shooting. A representative for Tigard did not immediately respond to a query from The Oregonian/OregonLive Wednesday.
At a news conference Wednesday afternoon about the settlement, David Park, an attorney for the victim’s mother, Maria Macduff, showed police footage taken during the shooting and described a series of quick and unexplained decisions by police officers in Tigard that resulted in the death of Jacob Macduff.
Maria Macduff said in a statement provided by Park and another attorney that her son should never have died. “My deepest wish since this happened has been to do everything I can to make sure that no other family loses a child like me,” she said. “I believe we have made it”.
Tigard Police responded shortly after 4 pm on January 6, 2021 to a reported domestic disturbance at an apartment complex at Southwest Hall Boulevard and Bonita Road. Macduff, who suffered from mental illness, had been yelling at his roommate and repeatedly banging her head against the wall, prompting several residents to call 911.
Macduff had a history of mental health hospitalizations and his friends had called 911 multiple times that week as his behavior became increasingly volatile, including one instance in which he punched holes in the walls of his apartment.
A police dispatcher told a responding officer that police had been called to the apartment complex the day before and that Macduff had between 12 and 34 issues: a code which refers to concerns about a person’s mental health. First officers on scene spoke with Macduff’s roommate, who told them he was having a “psychotic episode,” Park said.
Officers found Macduff locked inside his gray Nissan pickup, which was parked in his designated parking spot below his apartment complex. When Macduff refused to get out of his truck, officers called for backup.
For the next hour and 14 minutes, an officer spoke to Macduff through his window. A police car was parked behind Macduff’s truck to block it, and spike strips were placed behind the truck’s rear tires to prevent it from driving away.
Maria Macduff said she spoke to police on the phone minutes before her son was killed and gave them permission to enter the truck, which was registered to her. She told police that her son’s behavior was the result of mental illness and asked them to “be nice to my son.”
Park said officers, “for unexplained reasons,” decided sometime after 5 p.m. a domestic violence charge.
During the news conference, Park showed dash cam footage captured at 5:48 p.m. by a Tigard police car at the scene. Split-screen footage showed part of the truck and several officers, but did not show Macduff or the officers who shot him.
According to the video, an officer raised a hand as if to signal. The movement was followed by the sounds of screaming and two loud gunshots, quickly followed by five more loud gunshots. An officer is heard yelling “show me your hands” and “keep your hands up,” followed by three more shots. The interaction happened in less than 30 seconds.
According to Park, Macduff moved inside his truck when Officer Gabriel Maldonado smashed the window next to him, prompting another officer to fire his weapon without warning into the windshield. Park showed a photo of the broken windshield, which had two holes in it.
Not sure where the shots had come from, Park said Maldonado fired his gun five times at Macduff, killing him.
Maldonado later told officials he fired several more times because he thought Macduff, who had his back to him, was holding a knife.
Police later found a jock’s ax under the rear passenger seat and three knives in the center console, according to an inventory of items seized from the truck. Police also found a small Swiss Army knife that was attached to a fanny pack. It is unclear from the reports which knife Maldonado thought he saw in Macduff’s hands.
Bullets hit Macduff eight times in the chest, back and arm, according to the autopsy by the state medical examiner.
Park said the police shooting of Macduff, who had not been threatening and officers knew he did not have a firearm, was “indefensible.”
“There was no reason not to just wait for Jacob to make the decision to leave. We never got an explanation for the impatience of these officers,” Park said. “Hopefully the city of Tigard takes this opportunity to learn from this.”
Maria Macduff said she received almost no information in the days after her son’s death from the city police department or the Washington County district attorney’s office. She learned from her son’s death certificate that the police had shot her several times in her torso.
Maldonado, a 14-year veteran of the suburban police department, was placed on paid “critical incident leave” while the shooting was investigated. He retired several months later from the department and was hired in April by the Port of Portland Police Department, who placed him on paid administrative leave after learning he was still under investigation.
In April 2021, Maria Macduff’s attorney, Scott Levin, filed a tort claim against the city and its police department.
The following month, the Washington County district attorney’s office I ask State Department of Justice to review the fatal shooting and make an “independent assessment” of the police department’s investigation. The request came a week after Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum agreed to review the fatal shooting of Robert Delgado by Portland police officers in Lents Park.
A grand jury convened by the Oregon Attorney General in September 2021 completed Maldonado was justified in shooting Macduff.
In a December 2021 condolence letter, Tigard Police Chief Kathy McAlpine told Maria Macduff that “we did not protect or serve Jacob.”
According to Park, Macduff, who lives in Santa Barbara, was pleased with the deal and believed it would make a difference, but “she will never bring her son back.”
“The worst thing about this for Maria Macduff is that she spoke to an officer and told her that her son had mental health issues and was in crisis,” Park said. “She was waiting for the chance to talk to him and she didn’t get that chance.”
— Catalina Gaitan
