PORTLAND, Ore. — A man who ran down multiple people with his vehicle near Portland State University in 2018 is guilty on three counts of first-degree attempted murder, according to the Multnomah County District Attorney's office.
65-year-old Gregory Phillip Porter pleaded guilty on two counts of first-degree attempted murder, and was found guilty except for insanity on a third count at trial.
Porter will be committed for 20 years to the custody of Oregon's Psychiatric Security Review Board, concurrent with a 15-year prison sentence.
During May of 2018, Porter was driving in his Mazda Tribute SUV around Southwest 6th Avenue and Southwest Hall Street, in the middle of the Portland State University campus, when witnesses saw him veer onto a sidewalk.
Porter hit a woman with his car and kept driving, then hit two more women. All three were seriously hurt, the DA's office said, some with life-threatening injuries.
Witnesses said that Porter seemed to have tried to hit a group of men after the three women, but was stopped when a MAX train came through.
In a wide-ranging phone interview with KGW in 2018, Porter described financial problems, a troubled marriage and struggles with depression.
“The day that this happened, I guess I just lost it because I called the bank and I’m $200 in the hole and I mean, problem after problem after problem,” Porter said from Multnomah County Jail.
After Porter's arrest, a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge ordered that he be sent to the Oregon State Hospital following a psychological evaluation put forward by his attorneys, the DA's office said.
Throughout the case, Porter was in and out of OSH, until he was finally found competent to proceed to trial in April of 2022.
After his sentencing hearing on Monday, Porter will be taken to OSH under the jurisdiction of the psychiatric board.
"Should Porter be released from OSH for any reason, he will be transported to the Department of Corrections to serve out the remainder of his sentence," the DA's office said.
This is a developing story and will be updated with more details as they emerge.