On June 21, 2010, in North Portland's New Columbia neighborhood, 17-year-old male Billy A. Moore stepped off a TriMet bus near North Woolsey Avenue and Trenton Street after visiting his dying mother at OHSU. Minutes earlier there had been tense words on the bus; as he walked away, a single round struck the 17-year-old male in the back. He collapsed two blocks from McCoy Park and died that night, the same night his mother passed.
Police said the shooting followed the bus dispute and that a teenage suspect was identified and arrested within hours.
In the days that followed, Portland lowered flags to half-staff and honored the 17-year-old male at City Hall. Friends and relatives described him as a devout Christian, a recent graduate and prom king of Rosemary Anderson High School, and a hard-working kid who split time between school and shifts with the Salvation Army in North Portland. Church members at New Freedom Assembly said the 17-year-old male ran the sanctuary's recording gear when he wasn't singing in the choir, and they gathered with city leaders to plead for calm and change.
Police leaders called the killing senseless. At a June 22 briefing, the bureau said a 17-year-old male suspect was already in custody and facing a murder count, and witnesses reported the shooter flashed a gang sign toward the 17-year-old male moments before the shot. The killing was located in the 8900 block of North Woolsey, at the edge of New Columbia, and became a grim focal point in a spate of early-summer shootings.
Within months the case moved through court. The defendant was identified as 16-year-old Marsel Darvis Upton Jr., who initially faced murder but ultimately pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. In March 2011, a Multnomah County judge sentenced Upton to 19 years in prison. In court, the teenager apologized; his lawyer said he fired to scare the 17-year-old male during the bus-stop confrontation and never intended to kill him. The judge credited his remorse even as he imposed the lengthy term; Upton began his sentence at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn.
The 17-year-old male's death rippled through city policy and the neighborhood. New Columbia residents and city officials convened public meetings, and by August the City Council approved an emergency measure allowing people excluded from the housing development to also be banned from McCoy Park, a step meant to tamp down late-night disorder around the complex. The killing likewise spurred added security attention in New Columbia in the months after the shooting.
