Michelle Washington on Monday stood in the spot where, months before, police bullets tore through her husband's body.

Flanked by their three daughters, she spoke of Jason Washington and his fatal shooting by two Portland State University officers.

"His motto was God, family, friends and country, and he lived that way until the end," Michelle Washington said. "He was our everything. He was needlessly and violently taken from us."

The emotional message came during a demonstration that drew a couple hundred people to campus on the first day of classes to decry Washington's death and demand an end to the school's policy of arming its public safety force.

From start to finish, his family stood alongside activists and students.

Two hours of tearful speeches, fiery chants and marching through the streets ended with more than a dozen demonstrators seated and arms linked in front of the school's public safety building.

The group vowed they would wage an occupation until PSU administrators met a trio of demands: Permanently disarm campus police; terminate the two officers who killed Washington, and; establish a permanent memorial for him on campus.

"All students should be aware of what happened," Andre Washington, Jason's older brother and a PSU graduate, told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an interview.

"I want people to know that whether or not you go to school here you're at risk of being killed by their officers."

Campus police fatally shot Washington, a U.S. postal worker and Navy veteran, while witnesses say he tried to break up a fight outside the Cheerful Tortoise, a bar near campus, on June 29.

Washington, 45, was holding a friend's handgun amid a drunken melee when Officers James Dewey and Shawn McKenzie ordered him to drop it.

Within seconds of the command, the officers then opened fire, striking Washington eight times. He was shot in his chest, back, abdomen and legs, the Multnomah County medical examiner's office found.

Another bullet grazed his head.

The school released body cam video of both officers, which captured a chaotic scene before and after the shooting. A grand jury this month decided not to indict the two officers, who have since returned to work.

Washington's death marked the first fatal shooting by the university's police force, and came during a brief but divisive history with arming campus officers.

Police at the school first began carrying guns on July 1, 2015, after a 2014 Board of Trustees vote in favor of deploying some officers with guns.

The vote was a controversial one among the campus community, especially for the student group Disarm PSU.

"There's no excuse. We told them this would happen," organizer Olivia Pace told a crowd of about 200 people assembled in the Park Blocks. "They didn't listen."

The PSU Student Union organized Monday's event. Representatives from the NAACP, Democratic Socialists of America and an array of student and social justice groups also spoke. Participants held signs that read "No More Killer Cops," "Disarm PSU" and "Justice For Jason Washington."

In a statement, a PSU spokesman reiterated the school's plan to hire an independent security consulting firm to review campus safety policies and procedures, including whether officers should be armed.

PSU also plans to hold a series of public forums in the weeks ahead, the spokesman said.

After the Park Blocks speeches ended, demonstrators marched to the site of Washington's death, where his wife shared her remarks.

They then continued through the urban campus along city streets to the Academic and Student Recreation Center, where the university's Board of Trustees meets, and eventually the Campus Public Safety Office at Southwest Broadway

and Montgomery Street.

As the demonstration neared its end and the occupation officially launched, Lexi Washington, 22, stood on the steps of the public safety building to reflect on what happened to her father.

"I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt to police," she said, tears streaming down her face. "But I can't."

Lizzy Acker and Jim Ryan of The Oregonian/Oregonlive contributed to this report

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

skavanaugh@oregonian.com

503-294-7632 || @shanedkavanaugh