PORTLAND, Ore. — Having been a security guard for about four years, Calvin Reynolds said that he knows the risks involved. It's something that he gets to do for the community, he said. Regardless, what happened to him in the early morning hours on Sunday was unexpected — and alarming.
"I took a corner, saw the guy hop out of the white Audi," Reynolds recalled. "For no reason, and [he reached] for his waistband, shot two shots … I ducked and I hauled past it and then he ran across the street and fired more."
Reynolds counted six shots fired during the attack on Northeast Rodney Avenue near Northeast Sacramento. One of those bullets nearly hit him.
"One bullet went through the passenger side window and lodged itself in the windshield right in front of me," Reynolds said. "I was ducking as I was driving away ... that bullet was about 3 inches away from my head."
Reynolds said that this isn't even the first time he's been shot at. There was another time in Northeast Portland, and once in Vancouver.
"You get kind of, I wouldn't say used to it, but … I'm all right, I'm doing better," he said.
Reynolds' experience also isn't the only recent case of violence against a security guard in Portland.
On June 26, on Southeast Division Street, Portland police said a suspect shot a security guard in the chest after a scuffle for the guard's handgun. Luckily the guard's ballistic vest prevented the bullet from seriously harming him.
Then, on Wednesday, officers said a woman being escorted out of a business near Pioneer Place Mall punched a security guard in the face — then threw a cup of coffee at her.
"It is hard to prepare for an ambush, which is what this was," said Mark Mercer, Reynolds' boss and owner of Eclipse Security, reflecting on the weekend shooting, "and I don't think that there is any amount of preparation you can do for something like this."
"This is the first time that I've ever had this happen to me or to one of my staff," Mercer continued. "We certainly have had our confrontations with people, but I will say that it seems like within the last three or four years ... things have gotten extremely hostile."
Mercer said that an uptick in violent incidents is making it much more difficult to find qualified candidates for this line of work.
"People do not wanna go out there and confront people. They don't want to challenge people. They don't want to engage people," Mercer said. "Nobody wants to put a uniform and badge on because they turn into a target."