Attachments: Death certificate, tort claims notice & photos: Jacob Macduff March 9, 2020; Jacob Macduff with mother, Maria Macduff, and pickup truck March 18, 2020
The mother of Jacob Macduff wants to know what happened. "It's been over 90 days," she said, "since the police shot and killed my son while he was in mental health crisis. No one has been able to tell me how or why. I think it's reasonable – more than reasonable – to expect some answers after all this time."
Jacob Macduff was killed by Tigard Police on January 6, 2021. The 26-year-old had been experiencing what his mother and his roommate describe as a "mental health crisis." Neighbors called police to Macduff's apartment because of the noise he was causing, punching holes in the apartment's walls. When the police arrived, he became scared and ran and locked himself in his parked pickup. Because the truck was registered to the mother, police called her in the middle of the crisis to ask for permission to break a window on the vehicle. The mother, Maria Macduff, a retired medical doctor residing in Santa Barbara, gave the police permission, but cautioned them that the event was mental health related and asked them to be "gentle with my son." A short time later, she learned her son had been shot and killed.
Since then, the police and the investigating agency, the Washington County District Attorney's Office, have provided no details about what led to the shooting. What the family does know was contained in the state death certificate. The document lists "homicide" for "manner of death," and "multiple gunshot wounds of torso" as "immediate cause of death." It also says, "Shot by police during confrontation."
Dr. Macduff retained Portland attorney Scott Levin to help get information from the law enforcement agencies.
"What steps did they take to defuse the situation?" said Portland attorney Scott Levin, who represents Jacob's family. "What protocols did they follow to reach the point where it seemed necessary to shoot and kill a sick young man? Those are some of the things we'd like to find out."
Levin filed a tort claim notice with the City of Tigard and the Tigard Police Department on April 13. The attorney said the purpose of the notice was to preserve the family's right to a legal claim against the police, depending on what is revealed about the facts of the case.