Do you know who killed Alvaro Ramirez-Avila in 1996? In the pre-dawn hours of a Thursday in January 1996, the streets of downtown Portland were disturbed by the sound of a fatal gunshot. Alvaro Ramirez-Avila, a 24-year-old Hispanic male, was shot and killed in the street on Southwest Alder, between 4th and 5th Avenue, at approximately 12:50 a.m. on January 25th. Multiple witnesses heard the shot and saw the events unfold.
Investigators determined that Ramirez-Avila, who was known to be a drug dealer, was killed as the result of a drug
transaction that had gone wrong. The sudden violence left him dead in the roadway, and his killer quickly vanished into the night.
The immediate aftermath of the shooting saw the suspect flee the scene, heading north on Southwest 4th Avenue. Witnesses described the unidentified man as either white or Hispanic, with curly brown hair, and wearing a tan jacket at the time of the incident. Despite these details, no arrests have ever been made in the case, and it remains an unsolved homicide. The identity of the man who shot Alvaro Ramirez-Avila remains unknown.
