May 29, 2019
Page 3
INSIDE L O C A L N E W S
The
Week in Review
page 2
‘We Miss Eddie’
Gunned down and still
unsolved 25 years later
D anny p eterson
t he p ortlanD o bserver
25 years ago Eddie Morgan was shot to death on
the corner of Northeast 42nd and Alberta in what
remains an unsolved murder. The mentally chal-
lenged, 46-year-old was an icon of the neighbor-
hood, a kind spirit with a gruff tone who frequently
walked along 42nd Avenue by announcing to his
neighbors the weather report.
“Looks like rain!” or “snow in the mountains!”
were some of the catch phrases he would say.
“We called him the Mayor of 42nd Street,” Jane
Ingram, a longtime neighbor, told the Portland Ob-
server. “Everybody knew Eddie…he’d stop into all
the businesses and was always checking in with ev-
erybody.”
At about 4 a.m. on May 29, 1994, Duke Sultzer
heard multiple gunshots and looked outside to see
Morgan clutching a bus bench in front of the US
Bank on 42nd Avenue. As he rushed to provide aid,
Morgan collapsed to the sidewalk. Sultzer was cred-
ited with trying to save his life with emergency CPR.
Morgan was disabled from birth and the shooting
was apparently random.
Debra Brocato, used to talk to Eddie Morgan
when he visited her flower shop, the now-closed Al-
ameda Floral.
“We were all just really, really shocked to hear
that he was shot in a drive by,” she said. “He was
just a big, sweet teddy bear.”
The only description of the suspects at the
time was three males in a late 1970s or early 80s
dark-colored Buick or Oldsmobile. A 9mm alumi-
num shell casing was spotted by Ingram’s husband,
Mike Joancsik, 30 or 40 feet from where Morgan’s
body was found, within a two week period of the
incident, and was later picked up by police.
“Thinking about it now, it gets me upset. He was
probably just at the wrong place at the wrong time,”
said Pete Parsons, a friend of Morgan’s and a former
by
pages 5-6
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
C ALENDAR
M ETRO
page 7
Eddie Morgan
TV weathercaster.
According to reports, Morgan had been con-
cerned with growing crime at the time he was killed.
In 1994 the per-capita homicide rate in Portland
was 10 per 100,000 people; more than double the
4 per 100,000 deaths recorded last year, according
to Portland Police Bureau and US Census statistics.
A photo of then-Mayor Vera Katz honoring Mor-
gan in a ceremony that took place just a few weeks
before his death used to adorn the wall of the now
shuttered Magoo’s Tavern on 42nd Avenue. Morgan
would frequently visit the establishment, where Sul-
tzer tended bar, to have conversations with neigh-
bors, though he was not a drinker, Joancsik said.
Morgan lived with his sister and mother in an
apartment just two blocks east from where he took
his last breath. He was also known for doing odd
jobs for local businesses, often without pay.
C ontinueD on p age 4
page 8
Winning School Board Candidates
O PINION
C LASSIFIEDS
F OOD
pages 9-10
pages 10
page 12
Two longtime African Amer-
ican community members won
election in local school board rac-
es last week, Michelle DePass
for Portland Public School Board,
Zone 2; and Tiffani Penson for
the Portland Community College
Board of Directors, representing
north and northeast Portland and
Columbia County.
DePass—who works for Port-
land’s Housing Bureau--pulled in
66 percent of the vote while her
closed opponent, Shanice Clarke,
another African American woman
and an educator, netted 29 percent.
DePass’ win marks the first time
in over 10 years at least one black
member of the community will be
represented on the seven-mem-
ber Portland School Board when
the district begins its new fiscal
year in July. Andrew Scott, Eilidh
Tiffani Penson
Michelle DePass
Lowery, and Amy Kohnstamm—
the only person to return for an-
other term—also secured seats on
Portland Public School Board, the
unofficial results said.
Tiffani Penson--also a city
worker--garnered 86 percent
of the 20,600 total votes for the
Portland Community College
Board.