Preschool security shoots man who threatened to attack him right in front of the Jewish facility
A security guard at a Jewish preschool shot a man who threatened and assaulted him – leaving the alleged assailant hospitalized with injuries.
Police found the man injured with a gunshot wound in the parking lot of a medical clinic next door to the Gan Jewish Preschool Thursday, KATU reported.
It was not immediately clear what precipitated the shooting, but the preschool said the guard had been “threatened and assaulted by an individual in an area immediately adjacent to the school.”
“During this interaction, the individual presented a direct threat to the guard. In response, the guard was forced to take protective action, using his licensed weapon to defend himself,” the school said in a statement.
While the Oregon school said it did not believe they had been targeted over any religious bias, they noted they had hired private security officers over threats to the Jewish community.
“For the past several years, Jewish schools have accepted the responsibility of protecting their students and spaces, and it is considered standard practice to have security guards,” the school said.
“Jews are only 2 percent of the U.S. population, yet are subject to approximately 65 percent of religious bias crime, and the need to protect our most vulnerable populations is paramount,” the statement added.
No arrests have been made and no charges have been filed, though they may be in the future, according to Portland police.
Neither man has been publicly identified, but the security guard is cooperating, authorities added.
“We’re trying to determine whether the person was armed or whether there was some kind of threat to the life of anyone else or the security guard,” police spokesperson Sgt. Kevin Allen said.
Authorities said Thursday afternoon that the man who was shot was out of surgery and recovering in the intensive care unit.
No children at the preschool saw or heard what happened, and there is no ongoing danger to the public, police said.
