Family of a Black food truck owner assaulted by a white man hires a lawyer to investigate the attack and officers' response
Family members in Portland, Oregon has hired a lawyer, Alicia LeDuc Montgomery, to investigate the assault of Black food truck owner Darell Preston, 36, and officers’ response to his attack, Oregon Live reports.
The outlet claims that on June 15, Preston was on the phone with his wife outside his business in Southeast Portland’s Foster-Powell neighborhood when after 7:00 p.m., “without warning,” a white man started beating him while calling him racist slurs. Per Montgomery, Preston required medical attention for severe facial injuries. “We are deeply disturbed by this assault, which has left the community shaken and outraged,” she said. “We call upon law enforcement to thoroughly investigate this despicable act of violence.”
Along with investigating the incident, Montgomery is also reportedly looking into the “timeliness and sufficiency of the government’s response,” the publication noted. On June 20, a police spokesperson alleged Preston declined to talk with the cops at length when they arrived at the scene.
“It took officers several minutes to convince the victim to come out of the foot cart to talk with them,” spokesperson Terri Wallo Strauss said. “Once the victim was out, he told [law enforcement] he was delivering food and was ‘attacked.’ When the officer asked for more detail on exactly what happened, the victim refused to say more and locked himself in the cart.” Montgomery responded to authorities’ claim by stating her client was too injured and scared to speak with police then. “He could hardly speak because his face had been so badly beaten in,” she said.
Yesterday (June 26), another police spokesperson, Sgt. Kevin Allen, said that local detectives are investigating the attack as an assault and not as a bias crime. “This isn’t being investigated as a hate crime since no elements of a hate crime was detailed to [police],” Allen said. “The victim would not agree to cooperate with the investigation and provided no description of the assault to [law enforcement].”
On June 17, Preston’s loved ones started a GoFundMe to help with the family bills. Per Oregon Live, the victim closed his food truck after the incident left one of his eyes leaking blood, the other swollen shut, and a swollen lip. Montgomery shared that the truck is set to open back up later this week.
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