Two Portland police officers pulled up to a shootout in downtown after hearing gunfire early Sunday, saw muzzle flashes and fired multiple times at a man who they say turned toward them holding a gun in a parking lot, according to new details obtained Monday by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Police shot Patrick K. Kimmons, 27, and he was pronounced dead at OSHU Hospital. It's not clear how many times Kimmons was shot. His family has claimed he was hit 12 to 15 times in the back, but police sources say the two officers fired less than 10 times.

Central Precinct Sgt. Garry Britt, with the bureau 10 years, and Officer Jeffrey Livingston, with the bureau one and a half years, are on paid administrative leave as police continue to investigate the shooting. The case will be presented to a Multnomah County grand jury for review.

Police suspect two other men were wounded at the scene before the officers arrived. The men were taken by private vehicles to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center a short time later.

According to a preliminary police inquiry, officers reported to emergency dispatchers about 3 am. Sunday that they heard gunfire near Southwest Third Avenue and Harvey Milk Street.

Britt and Livingston, in separate police cars, responded, driving into a parking lot from Southwest Fourth Avenue, at Harvey Milk Street. At least one of the cars had its overhead emergency police lights on.

Officers reported seeing muzzle flashes when they arrived. The sergeant and officer then confronted one man who turned toward them holding a gun and fired at him, the police inquiry indicates.

Kimmons collapsed in the parking lot along Harvey Milk Street. Officers recovered a gun near Kimmons, police said.

Harvey Milk Street is the new name for a 13-block stretch of former Stark Street, running from Naito Parkway to Burnside.

An officer reported immediately after the shooting that one person was shot, lying semi prone, with what looked like a gun beside him.

Investigators found five guns at the scene of the shooting, including some discovered in or around cars searched in the lot. It's not clear whose they were or what prompted the shootout.

The state crime lab will examine the ballistics to determine who may have handled the guns and fired the shots that wounded the two men. Investigators also are reviewing surveillance videotape from nearby businesses.

One man who identified himself only as Bucket, 35, who lives in The Henry building on Fourth Avenue, said he was awakened early Sunday by a "short burst of rapid gunfire.'' He said he looked outside briefly and saw police cars arriving in the area.

Letha Winston, Kimmons' mother, started a GoFundMe site to help pay for her son's funeral. On it, she wrote that her son was shot in the back and leg as he was running away and struck 15 times.

But police sources said the two officers fired fewer than 10 shots in total. Police didn't say where Kimmons was hit.

Two other men showed up shortly after the shooting at Legacy, suffering from gunshot wounds believed to have happened before police arrived at the parking lot. Their wounds were serious but not life-threatening, police said.

It's unclear if that altercation stemmed from a particular argument or simply because older rival gang members from the Rolling 60s Crips and the Bloods happened to see one another in the parking lot after leaving separate clubs nearby, police said. The parking lot stretches the entire block, on the north side of Harvey Milk Street; the Hi-Lo Hotel is on the south side of the street.

"The Police Bureau is sensitive to the fact a life was lost, and many people from the Portland community are impacted, including family, community partners and officers,'' the bureau's spokeswoman Officer Natasha Haunsperger said in a statement. "We will strive to release information as quickly as possible as the investigation unfolds.''

Four-and-a-half hours after the shooting, Kimmons' mother posted on her Facebook page that her "baby was gone'' and "police killed my son.''

"With my son's life being taken my life will never be the same," Winston wrote on her GoFundMe page. "My grandchildren's life will forever be filled with pain from a void that can never be replaced. This pain has to stop! I wouldn't wish this reality on anyone ... When it hits home I can't even put into words. I don't know how to go on, I don't know how to begin to accept this.''

She asked why police had to shoot her son instead of arresting him.

"As people get desensitized as if a life was not taken, as if my son didn't have kids. As if my son didn't deserve to live," she said. "There's nothing that can explain or be justified that my son is dead, or never coming back, never to hug me or tell me, 'I love you.' Realities such as this make it hard to believe in justice.''

Kimmons, a father of three young children, was well-known in the Portland community.

His shooting death by police immediately drew "Don't Shoot Portland'' protesters to downtown later Sunday. It marked the second fatal Portland police shooting and the third Portland police shooting this year.

Kimmons had ties to the Rolling 60s Crip gang, according to police and court records.

One of the men wounded in the leg was a friend of Kimmons, Dante Emanuel Hall, known as "Manny.''

Kimmons had been the victim of a shooting in April 2014 in Northeast Portland. He had prior convictions for witness tampering in 2010, and for delivery of cocaine and possession of a firearm in 2011. He had been ordered by a judge to have no contact with gangs in each of those cases, but he had had no serious criminal convictions in the past seven years.

His Facebook page said he was working as a baker for Dave's Killer Bread, but the company doesn't have any record of Kimmons having worked as an employee, according to Katie Kieper of the company's public relations firm Maxwell PR.

Kimmons wrote on his Facebook page in July, "Trying to work on myself as a man and also trying to raise my kids the proper way No one ever said being a parent was gonna be easy but i dedicate my time to my children because i want to teach them that they can be anything they want to in life Besides being a Stripper-Hoe, Selling Drugs, Gangbanging etc.. I have seen so much in life and and gained so much knowledge in life that i want to show them a better route to take so they can be more successful in life and not really have to struggle (.) #Family''

Mayor Ted Wheeler, who serves as police commissioner, didn't visit the scene of the shooting. Chief Danielle Outlaw was on vacation and wasn't in the city when the shooting occurred but returned Sunday night.

"My thoughts are with (Kimmons') family and those affected by Sunday's events, including the officers involved, witnesses, and our community partners who work every day to reduce conflict and violence in Portland," Wheeler said in a statement. "In the coming days and weeks, many will rightly have questions about what happened. These questions are important; the answers are important. There are now multiple active investigations, and I am committed to ensuring accurate information is disclosed as quickly and completely as possible."

Two other officers who witnessed the shooting have been interviewed by investigators, police said. Britt and Livingston were scheduled to be interviewed later Monday, police said just before 5 p.m.

Police ask anyone with information about the shooting to contact Detective Darren Posey at 503-823-0403 or darren.posey@portlandoregon.gov or Detective Rico Beniga at 503-823-0457, or rico.beniga@portlandoregon.gov.

-- Oregonian staff writers Jim Ryan, Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, Kale Williams and Gordon Friedman contributed to this story.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian