PORTLAND, Ore. — A 27-year-old man was killed after a driver struck his tent near a highway offramp in Southeast Portland on Sunday.
Police said officers responded to the northbound I-205 offramp at Southeast Powell Boulevard just after 3 a.m. and found a crashed Honda sedan that had gone off the road and struck a tent.
Police identified the victim as Terrance Tombe.
Police said the driver, 20-year-old April Johnson, was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide, DUII and reckless driving.
Portland Central Church of the Nazarene sits just across the intersection on Southeast Powell. Pastor Matt Huff said his congregation does all it can to help people living on the streets.
"I know everybody needs a place to go, and we've got quite a few unhoused neighbors," said Huff. "But obviously camping along the side of 205 and the offramp is just not safe. So it would be fantastic if the city could really move on the Safe Rest Villages they've been talking about."
Those villages are slated to open in 2022 after being delayed several times.
"I always worry about them," said Sarah Chapman, an outreach worker with the church. "This is not the first time a care has left the road and hit one of the tents. That happened to someone I knew closely up on Division a couple years ago."
Chapman was referring to a 2019 crash just up the road, where a woman was severely injured when a driver hit her tent at the Southeast Division offramp from I-205.
The city of Portland is responsible for clearing camps on freeway offramps.
This crash is Portland's 63rd traffic fatality of 2021, the most since 1990, which also recorded 63 deaths in one year.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact crimetips@portlandoregon.gov, attention Traffic Investigations Unit, or call 503-823-2103. Please reference Case No. 21-339498.
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