Isaiah Demetrius Kent, a 28-year-old Black male, was shot just before 6 p.m. on February 25, 2016, near Northeast 6th Avenue and Alberta Street in Portland’s King neighborhood, next to King K-8 School. He was rushed to a hospital and died shortly before midnight, marking Portland’s first homicide of 2016. Friends, family, and neighbors gathered days later for a candlelight vigil at the scene, where community members pleaded for an end to gun violence that had shaken the area.
Detectives quickly identified suspects, and within two days police arrested 34-year-old Clifford Lee Moffett and 24-year-old Terry Lee Spencer Jr. in connection with the killing. Both men were booked into the Multnomah County Jail; charges announced at the time included murder, attempted murder, unlawful use of a weapon, and felon in possession of a firearm. Investigators said early on that the shooting appeared to be gang-related, and authorities emphasized the danger posed by gunfire erupting so close to a school and apartment complex as families were coming and going.
Public records and memorial pages later cataloged Kent’s death among the city’s 2016 gun homicides, preserving his name and age amid lists of lives lost that year. Coverage and community posts focused on the suddenness of the violence and the speed of the arrests, while subsequent reporting centered on broader concerns about shootings in the neighborhood. Available reports do not detail the final court outcomes for the arrested suspects, but at the time of their arrests authorities publicly linked them to Kent’s killing and said the case was being pursued as a homicide.
