77
McMINNVILLE, Ore. >> A 20-year-old Oregon college student was killed in what police believe was a random stabbing at a convenience store, and officers said they shot and killed the suspect when he returned to the scene and menaced them with a knife.
Linfield College president Thomas Hellie identified the victim as Parker Moore, a Woodinville, Washington, native who was majoring in business management. Moore also served as a resident adviser and played linebacker on the football team.
“We are all still in shock, but we know that it is important to speak to counselors, to support each other as we mourn, and to think about and pray for Parker’s family and friends,” Hellie wrote in a message on the school’s website. “We have lost a valued, important member of our community and all of us share in the grief.”
The stabbing happened just after 11 p.m. Saturday at a 7-Eleven near campus. It wasn’t clear what prompted the stabbing.
Yamhill County Sheriff’s Capt. Tim Svenson said investigators don’t believe the suspect and Moore knew each other or had any previous run-in, and from witness accounts, there did not appear to have been a robbery in progress. Authorities had not yet reviewed surveillance video from the store, Svenson said.
Moore, a sophomore, was flown to Oregon Health and Science University, where he died.
As investigators from the McMinnville Police Department were questioning a witness in the parking lot outside the store, the suspect returned and confronted officers with a knife, Svenson said.
“They were talking in the parking lot to a witness, and he pointed and said, ‘There he is right there!'” Svenson said. “The officers commanded him to show his hands, and he presented a knife, and that’s what resulted in him being shot.”
The suspect’s identity was not immediately released. He died at Willamette Valley Medical Center, authorities said.
Linfield is a private, liberal arts college of about 2,500 students in McMinnville, 40 miles southwest of Portland. The school said counselors were available during the day Sunday and for the foreseeable future.
