Oregon Public Broadcasting

Just hours after Portland Mayor Sam Adams made big changes to the leadership of the Portland police, the new leaders have a major incident to deal with.

Last night, officers shot and killed a man during a traffic stop. An officer is recovering at a Portland hospital this afternoon, after allegedly being shot by the driver. Rob Manning reports.

Yesterday morning, Mike Reese was promoted to police chief, and addressed the media at Portland City Hall.

Later that day, Reese was on the scene of the third police involved shooting in the last five months in Portland. He faced reporters again, less than 24 hours after introducing himself as chief.

Mike Reese:  "I can certainly say that my first day as chief of police was very eventful."

Some details of the incident are still hazy, but here's what Chief Reese says happened: Officers started following a car close to Portland's Lloyd Mall. The car made abupt lane changes and turned without signaling. When officers tried to pull the car over, it kept going. When it finally did pull over, the driver yelled profanities at the officers and refused to get out of the car, when asked to.

Mike Reese: "A struggle ensued. He then reached into the passenger side of the car, produced a handgun and began firing at the officers. Officer Christopher Burley was shot twice in the legs. Other officers returned fire, and the suspect was shot and killed at the scene."

Sam Adams has been mayor during all three officer-involved shootings this year, but this is the first he's had to confront as police commissioner. He says he heard about the incident less than a hour after it happened. He went over to see the scene.

Sam Adams: "To see a young Portlander dead on one of our sidewalks was really heartbreaking. You have in a moment like that, I think anyone would have, I did, you have a reaction, 'this shouldn't happen in my city, this shouldn't happen in Portland'."

Mayor Adams says the man who died appeared to be African-American.

The reaction from some sectors of the community was immediate. Protesters gathered near the scene of the shooting. Dan Handelman with the advocacy group, Portland Copwatch, was at a police review meeting, and at first heard only that an officer had been wounded. Later he learned that officers had killed another black man.

Dan Handelman: "Why is is that so many times that there's people of color who get shot and nobody seems to want to answer that question. So that's one question: what drew their attention to this man in the first place? I guess we know how that it was this Hotspot Enforcement Action Team, which tends to, from what I've read, focus on people of color."

Groups like Portland Copwatch and the Albina Ministerial Alliance have been pushing for changes to the police for years.

After police fatally shot an unarmed African American last January, officials began publishing grand jury transcripts from officer-involved shootings. Mayor Adams and Chief Reese say they'll release information as quickly as they can. But Reese repeatedly declined to provide specifics at today's press conference.

Mike Reese: "One of the difficulties for us as an agency in these situations is giving so much information out that then potential witnesses' memory, or their thoughts about that are altered, simply because of what they read."

City observers see last night's incident as an obvious test of how prepared Mayor Adams and Chief Reese are to change the Portland police. But Dan Handelman with Copwatch says they're not the only ones being tested.

Dan Handelman: "This is also going to be a test for our independent police review division, which was just given the power, by ordinance to look over the shoulder of Internal Affairs in any case."

The police bureau expects to release more information about the shooting in the next few days.