Preschool security guard won’t face charges in SW Portland fatal shooting, DA says

The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office is declining to prosecute a preschool security guard who

shot and killed a 32-year-old man

in Southwest

Portland

last month, calling the shooting “objectively reasonable.”

The security guard, 53-year-old Eric Salisbury, shot

Manuel Garza

in the abdomen once on May 8 after Garza charged at Salisbury, pinned him to the ground and tried to strangle Salisbury, a memo from the district attorney’s office said.

The confrontation happened in the back parking lot of a medical clinic next door to The Gan, the preschool where Salisbury worked.

The memo from the district attorney’s office said Garza drove into the preschool’s parking lot, came back and drove through again at “an unsafe speed,” almost striking Salisbury.

Salisbury, who was wearing a body-worn camera, then followed Garza into the nearby parking lot at Fanno Creek Medical Clinic, the memo stated. Garza then got out of his car, a green Hyundai SUV, charged at Salisbury and knocked him to the ground, prosecutors wrote. Garza did not have a weapon.

In the video, Salisbury was still on the ground when he told Garza he was going to shoot him.

Garza replied, “Shoot me then.”

According to the memo, a witness from the medical clinic was sitting in her car eating lunch and told police she heard Garza yell loudly then saw him attack Salisbury.

She saw Garza knock Salisbury’s glasses and earpiece off his face and ran inside “out of fear that Garza would get away from Salisbury and go towards her,” prosecutors wrote.

In a scuffle that lasted about a minute, Salisbury, still on the ground, drew his firearm and shot once at Garza, striking him in the abdomen.

Prosecutors wrote that Salisbury could not access his pepper spray on his back side since he was pinned on his back. They added Salisbury provided a warning to Garza that he would shoot, and Garza kept choking Salisbury.

Salisbury’s attorneys wrote that he was losing consciousness and drew his firearm fearing for his life and the lives of the children in the preschool.

After Salisbury fired the single shot, the footage showed Garza falling onto the pavement of the parking lot. According to Salisbury’s attorneys and the DA’s memo, he sought medical attention for Garza at the clinic and called 911.

Prosecutors said Salisbury used no further force.

“Salisbury had no lesser degree of force available to him to stop the threat Garza presented,” the memo stated.

Officers arrived at the clinic at 2400 SW Vermont St. around 11:50 a.m., and said they found Garza wounded in the parking lot. In the immediate aftermath, they offered few additional details about what happened.

But the school, in a statement that day, said the security guard acted in self-defense “after being threatened and assaulted.” The preschool is a Jewish institution and many Jewish organizations in Portland have hired guards, including armed ones, in the wake of antisemitic violence across the country.

Garza died from his injuries two weeks later in a hospital.

Garza

grew up in San Antonio

and had only been in Oregon for two years, according to his family. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia but had pursued treatment and never threatened anyone, his family said.

Salisbury is listed as a member of the private security firm Bulldog Armed Security, according to Oregon Secretary of State business records.

—

Zaeem Shaikh covers the Portland Police Bureau and criminal justice issues for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-221-4323,


zshaikh@oregonian.com


or on X


@zaeemshake

.

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