“100 cops executed my neighbor”

By Editor-in-Chief on February 12, 2026

Anonymous Red Phoenix correspondent | Portland, OR–

*^{The front door of the victim’s apartment unit after a raid by police and federal agents, Feb. 5, Portland, OR. (The Red Phoenix)}*

On the morning of Feb. 5, Portland Police Bureau and federal agents killed a man named Erik D. Sherrer, who was wanted for a previous incident at a nearby grocery store. Over 100 officers from both the Portland Police and Federal Government descended on a low-income housing complex to serve a warrant, deployed two breaching charges to the door, and gassed an entire complex to force Sherrer from his apartment and into the hallway, where he was killed by a SWAT team.

Personal Account:

I was asleep when it started.

Around 5:00 in the morning on Feb. 5, 2026, I woke up to shouting and loud bangs in my apartment building on NW 14th Avenue. At first I didn’t know what was happening. Then I looked outside and saw police everywhere.

Not a few cars. Dozens.

There were armored vehicles on the street. Many different federal agencies in military gear. Officers with assault rifles. Dogs. Drones. Robots. The blocks around the building were shut down in every direction. A spotlight from the Fremont Bridge was pointed straight at us, lighting the building up like a war zone.

Later I learned all of this was for one person, living on the 10th floor. To get him, they woke up the entire building.

Some people were trapped inside. Only some could leave. Some residents were trying to get to work. Others were panicking about their pets and children. We were told to stay put while police took over the place we live.

This man was not hurting anyone, the federal agents started to escalate it.

I could hear police shouting commands through the walls. Then there were explosions in the hallway. The kind you feel in your chest before you even understand what they are. The entire 10th floor was cleared out. People were forced from their homes in the middle of the night.

Police later said they tried to talk to the man. I also heard them blow open his door and pump tear gas into the apartment.

*^{A bullet hole in a wall of the apartment building outside the victim’s unit. (The Red Phoenix)}*

Around 6:00 a.m., I heard gunfire. About eight shots.

After that, everything went quiet.

Police brought a stretcher into the building. No one came out on it. The only person who died was the person they came for.

Hours later, things slowly went back to “normal.” SWAT vehicles rolled away. The elevators reopened. By around 8:10 a.m., police were packing up like it was just another job.

But for those of us who live there, it wasn’t nothing.

Nearly 100 officers, including dozens of federal agents with rifles, were brought in to deal with one person in an apartment. Watching that happen from inside my own home made something very clear to me.

When someone breaks under this system—when they panic, spiral, or act out of desperation—the response isn’t help or care. It’s force. It’s fear. It’s overwhelming control.

That morning, the police didn’t just kill a man.

They showed everyone in that building who has the power, and what they’re willing to do with it. And they made sure we all saw it.

Statement:

The Portland Division of the American Party of Labor strongly condemns this unnecessary violence and outrageous waste. It is a sick joke of the capitalist system we live under that while people live on the streets have to choose between buying food and electricity, the Portland Police Bureau and the city of Portland spend tens and tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars sending 100 police armed to the teeth with dogs, drones and armored vehicles, to execute a desperate working-class man, far more than it would have cost to provide Sherrer with a heated roof over his head and any necessary mental health treatment.

The City of Portland sits on a “lost” unspent housing fund of $106 million, while workers like Erik Sherrer are forced into abject poverty even at subsidized rent. Erik Sherrer is yet another casualty of a broken system, a desperate man living for months with no electricity and barely enough to pay rent in one of the most expensive cities in the nation.

This system is not designed to liberate people, but rather to keep them subjugated by the shackles of poverty, beholden to predatory capitalist landlords to avoid the nightmare of the streets. When workers desperately try to ameliorate their conditions, they meet their ultimate fate at the hands of state executioners. This is class war.

We call on Mayor Keith Wilson as Police Commissioner to end the PPB’s wasteful and violent attacks on our neighbors, including the homeless and people on the streets rightfully protesting the ICE incursions. In addition, we call on the city of Portland to demilitarize its police and redirect its funding to programs in service of everyday working-class people so that there will be no more Erik Sherrers.