Portland police responded to the beach along the Willamette River downtown about 9:30 p.m. on June 7, 2015, after receiving a call that a man with a Samurai sword was swinging it at people. Despite police efforts from the shore and a boat to convince the man to put down the sword, he would not. When he approached officers, one fired 5 beanbag shotgun rounds at him. The man still would not relinquish the sword, so police decided to leave the scene around 12:30 a.m. the next morning.

(The Oregonian/File)

A Portland police officer this month fired five beanbag rounds from a shotgun at a man wielding a sword along the downtown waterfront.

But when the less-than-lethal shots failed to disable the man and his sword, Portland police decided to withdraw and leave the scene.

Medical personnel were called but were unable to check on the man.

Nearly four years ago, Portland police adopted a new walk-away option, allowing officers to leave an encounter with someone in crisis to try to eliminate unnecessary confrontations with people suffering from mental illness.

Yet the June 7 incident was unusual because police departed after using force against a suspect.

The man with the sword has not been located since, police said.

Sgt. Pete Simpson, bureau spokesman, said officers weigh several factors when determining whether to leave a scene: the governmental interest in making an arrest; the risk of having to use a greater level of force to make the arrest; risk of injury to the suspect, officers and the general public; and any actual threats by the suspect to hurt others.

Central Precinct's command staff found the officers' actions appropriate, and Assistant Chief Bob Day, in charge of patrol operations, concurred, Simpson said. The officers' supervisors must write an after-action report, which will be reviewed by the bureau's force inspector in its Professional Standards Division.

The call came in at 9:27 p.m. Vancouver resident Amir Kovacevic, who was visiting a friend at the Marriott Residence Inn, said they were walking to the beach along the riverfront when they saw several people leaving that area. The people leaving warned them not to go down to the beach because there was a man threatening people with a Samurai sword.

Kovacevic and his friend decided to check for themselves, and sure enough, found a man waving a sword around, and charging at people who came close to him.

Kovacevic and his friend left and called police.

Portland police found the man, described as in his 30s or 40s with no shirt and wearing blue jeans, pacing with an approximately 4-foot-long sword. Officers standing on the river embankment yelled to the man, saying they wanted to talk to him. The man with the sword yelled back, saying he didn't want to talk to police. He also picked up a baseball-sized rock and threw it toward officers, according to police reports.

Police had an officer respond on a Multnomah County Sheriff's boat to try to engage the man. But that wasn't successful, either. Police then asked the boat to return to shore to pick up an Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team (ECIT) officer - a police officer with specialized training on how to interact with people in crisis. The ECIT officer Stephen Yakots tried to strike up a conversation with the man, but that didn't work either.

The man with the sword cursed at him and threw rocks at the boat, police reported.

At 10:33 p.m. police supervisors decided to withdraw the boat and most of the officers who responded, but leave four officers - including one armed with an AR-15 rifle, one with a beanbag shotgun and one with a police dog - at the scene until the beachfront park closed.

"The beach where the subject was is a public beach with easy pedestrian traffic. There was a large hotel nearby and numerous people passing by. There was one point of entrance and exit to the beach just north approximately 50 yards from our location,'' Officer Jason Wands wrote in his report. "The plan was to ensure the subject did not leave the beach area with the sword and pose a danger to citizens who were in the nearby park and marina area.''

About 11:30 p.m. , the man on the beach began to walk, holding his sword like a bat with two hands and resting it on his shoulder, along the walkway that leaves the beach. Wands and Officer Matt Manus said they ordered the man to drop the sword, and warned that he might be shot with a beanbag if he didn't comply, his report said.

"You will have to shoot me,'' the man reportedly responded, according to Manus' report.

The man ignored the officers and continued to walk down the path. The officers who remained walked down the path and saw him about 15 to 20 yards away.

Manus, thinking the man with the sword was going to attack the officers, fired one beanbag round, striking him in the thigh, according to his police report. The man continued to hold the sword despite repeated commands to drop it, so Manus fired a second round to his thigh.

A third round struck the man in his right buttocks. He saw the man close the distance between officers, and Manus fired a fourth round, hitting him again in the right thigh. The man's behavior didn't change, Manus wrote in his report.

Manus asked his sergeant if he wanted him to fire a fifth time, and was given the go-ahead. The fifth round struck the man in the upper right thigh. A bean bag round consists of a small fabric "pillow" filled with lead shot, and is fired from a 12-gauge shotgun.

Manus noticed the man rubbing his leg, and "raising it up and down while limping,'' his report said. Manus wrote in his report that he was shocked the man struck still hadn't complied with police commands to drop the sword.

An ambulance was called, but asked to stage nearby. Police bureau policy requires officers to request a medical evaluation of the person struck with a beanbag round, but the person hit can't be forced to accept treatment.

Sgt. Stephan Mirau radioed to his lieutenant that a beanbag shotgun had been deployed. Lt. Mike Frome responded. Police called out a sheriff's boat with a crisis intervention-trained officer again to try to establish some communication with the man, who remained on the beach. The officer still was unable to convince the man to relinquish his sword.

About 12:30 a.m. the next morning, police decided to pack up and leave. Sgt. Mirau wrote that the man bean-bagged didn't appear to be injured in any way from the rounds, even writing that he continued to walk along the shoreline "without even so much as a limp.'' That appeared to contradict an officer's report.

Kovacevic, who had called police initially that night, said he stuck around for about an hour and then left. When he learned later that the man wasn't taken into custody and police were unable to remove the sword, Kovacevic said he was disappointed.

"That's not good .They should have finished the job,'' Kovacevic said. "They should have made sure the guy was all right after getting shot, or arrested him or taken his sword. I just didn't want anyone to get hurt.''

--Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212; @maxoregonian