‘Devastating’: Mass shootings obscure daily U.S. gun toll – By Gillian Flaccus (Associated Press) / Sept 1, 2022
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Cameron Taylor was watching an illegal street race that had attracted hundreds to an intersection in Portland, Oregon, but decided to leave as the crowd got increasingly unruly. Moments later, gunfire erupted and Taylor was hit by a stray bullet as he and a friend headed to their car.
Police, who were overwhelmed with 911 calls about other shootings, couldn’t control multiple street takeovers in the city that night and had trouble finding the victims of three shootings that occurred during the chaos.
“His friend who was with him put him in the car and drove him out to get him to the hospital, but he was not able to make it and that friend called his parents” to say Taylor was dead, family friend Erin Russell told The Associated Press.
Taylor, 20, died Sunday the same day that four high-profile, public shooting rampages in Bend, Oregon, Phoenix, Detroit and Houston drew national headlines. His slaying went largely unnoticed amid the daily toll of gun violence that has come to define Portland and a number of other American cities since the pandemic.
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