A brawl involving six or seven people erupted in Portland’s North Park Blocks on Tuesday evening, leaving one person stabbed and another detained by officers. Police were called to Northwest Davis Street and Park Avenue to investigate the disturbance, and by the time the scene cleared, part of the fight had spilled two blocks east onto Broadway.
According to the KATU report, a witness described the scene as chaos, recalling seeing six or seven people fighting in the park blocks. That witness also said one person hit another with a skateboard during the melee. A KATU reporter on scene observed officers putting one person in handcuffs as the situation was brought under control.
Per the Portland Police Bureau, one person was detained after the fight and one person was stabbed. Police said the stabbed person was taken to a hospital for treatment and, per police, is expected to survive. Officers gathered both at Northwest Davis Street and Park Avenue and two blocks east on Broadway, after a few of the fighters moved between the two locations. Police said the people involved in the fight knew each other.
A Park With a Recent History of Violence
Tuesday’s stabbing lands in a stretch of green space that neighbors have already flagged as increasingly volatile. In June, the Northwest Examiner reported that residents and business owners raised formal safety concerns after an axe-wielding man broke windows and attacked responding officers in the same stretch of the North Park Blocks between West Burnside and Glisan streets. Local residents told the outlet that unprovoked disturbances had made basic errands feel unsafe during daytime hours…