She looked out of her kitchen window, which overlooks the corner of Pool and Hill streets here, and she saw a white car circling in the intersection.
Three people who appeared to be federal agents, wearing what looked like bulletproof vests, were “screaming at whoever was in the car,” Brinkman said.
The people, who looked like law enforcement, were telling the person in the white car: “Do not get out of the car. Do not get out the car.”
Brinkman then heard a woman screaming inside of her apartment building. “Mi amor, mi amor,” Brinkman said she heard the woman yell in Spanish. “My love, my love.”
Brinkman said she and other neighbors soon realized the woman was the victim’s wife, who has at least one child. The woman wanted to go to her husband, but people who were in the building held her back.
“We just know that she is a wonderful person, and we didn’t want to put her in danger, too,” Brinkman said through tears. “She felt the need to run out into the street.”
Em Akerley, another nearby resident, thought she’d heard the sound of an engine backfiring. Half a beat later, a succession of gunshots — six or seven, she said — pierced the air.
The 34-year-old lives in a second-story apartment also overlooking the intersection of Hill and Pool streets. She rushed to her window and peered out.
A white vehicle was slowly driving around the intersection, as if the driver had lost control, she said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. Two plainclothes officers in green vests had shoved up against the passenger side door, trying to corral it.
Then, she said, an unmarked white vehicle pulled up and wedged the car to the curb. The vehicle stopped moving.
Although her view was now obstructed, Akerley said she saw the officers bending over. It was clear, she said, that the person ”was not alive.”
Prior to the fatal shooting, she said she heard no commands being shouted, nor screaming or yelling.
“It didn’t feel real at first,” said Akerley, a barber who works in Portland. “It’s really upsetting.”
Ackerley said it took more than 10 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. An emergency responder was “the only one that ran towards that man to attempt to save his life,” she said through tears.
”Regardless of his status or who he is as a person, it’s not up to ICE to decide if he dies in the street or not,” she added.
Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @giuliamcdnr. Shannon Larson can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @shannonlarson98.
