Before Joseph Kelly Banks took to city streets to carry out one of the most violent shooting sprees in Portland’s recent history, he successfully pushed to reduce his antipsychotic medication while developing dangerous delusions that he tried to conceal.
During the first three months of 2022, Banks randomly shot people as they went about their daily lives – driving home, walking to work, leaving a convenience store, picking up a child from after-school care or standing near a park. He was on federal supervision and lived in a residential mental health group home at the time.
After his arrest for killing three people and wounding three others, Banks, now 53, told a forensic psychiatrist that he had become convinced he was part of a “secret government group” and that enemies were stalking him…