But Hanley suddenly became upset by the sight of the plastic lint roller. Fennell began putting his stuff-a toothbrush, a Chicago Bulls cap, two camping stoves-in the new bags. Hanley turned down the bread but accepted the plastic bags. On this day, according to multiple witnesses interviewed by police, Fennell saw Hanley and took a piece of bread and two fresh trash bags outside to him-as a peace offering to encourage him to leave. " had come out to tell him that he needs to get off the property. "We had seen Hanley a couple days ago, rummaging in the garbage," she told police. He'd talked to Vinci at least once in the recent past, according to Chloe Fennell, who also works at the catering company. Hanley had been living on the streets in the neighborhood for weeks. He had run-ins with police from then until 2016-almost all of them connected to an abusive relationship with an ex-girlfriend he repeatedly assaulted. He abused drugs and had suffered from mental illness since at least 2014. Richard Hanley (Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office)Ĭourt records show Hanley was a troubled and violent man. He had lugged two garbage bags of his belongings in front of the storefront windows. She didn't think anything of it when she saw Hanley sitting outside. Vargas arrived for work at Eat Your Heart Out in the early morning to prepare for deliveries. It houses Timeless Tattoo, a teriyaki joint, a hair salon and a catering company called Eat Your Heart Out. 10 over the strip mall with forest green awnings on Southeast 7th Avenue between Salmon and Main streets. (Justin Katigbak)Ī rare beam of winter sunlight peeked out Feb. Richard Hanley was shot and killed in front of this strip mall in Southeast Portland, near the Hawthorne Bridge. I think he's got some PTSD and just shouldn't have a fuckin' gun." "He's just hyper-vigilant," she said of Vinci to police minutes later. One of the people who watched was a caterer named Jacqueline Vargas. The shooting of Hanley, as revealed in the raw accounts witnesses gave to police, shows how much leeway Oregon's self-defense law gives to gun owners. "He's opened himself up to being shot," says former Multnomah County prosecutor Chuck French. In Oregon, when Richard Hanley threw the plastic lint roller, he became vulnerable to the justified use of deadly force. Had the incident outside the Portland tattoo parlor occurred in Connecticut or Wyoming, Vinci probably would have been indicted, because he would have been required by law to retreat from the confrontation before using deadly force. But the fact is that Oregon has one of the nation's strongest stand-your-ground doctrines, with laws that have been on the books so long they preceded the recent national debate. In Oregon, the issue has rarely been debated or examined. Neither Florida gunman faced criminal charges. The shooting, which was captured on a cellphone camera, again raised the debate over so-called stand-your-ground laws that became the center of a national conversation after the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, who physically confronted the 17-year-old as he walked home. Last month, a man was killed in Clearwater, Fla., during an argument over a disabled parking space. These protections are commonly called "stand your ground" laws, and they've been immensely controversial in other states. The law, Oregon Revised Statute 161.219, protects the rights of private citizens to use deadly force as much or more than nearly any other state in the U.S.-except perhaps Texas, where citizens can pursue fleeing felons and still be justified in shooting them. Outside of law enforcement circles, it is little known that Oregon has one of the nation's broadest self-defense laws protecting gun wielders who pull the trigger-so long as they claim they did it out of fear. That's because Oregon law says what he did was just fine. Two weeks later, a Portland grand jury declined to indict him. Vinci was never arrested or charged with a crime.
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