Police have identified a 39-year-old Portland man, Sean K. Smeeden, as the victim of Thursday’s fatal shooting on the MAX platform at North Interstate Avenue and Prescott Street.

Officers responded to reports of the shooting at 8:30 p.m. and found Smeeden dead on the scene. Police haven’t identified any suspect in the killing.

Attacks on TriMet vehicles and property have been a source of acute concern during the prolonged upsurge in violence that coincided with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic four years ago. TriMet announced last week that it plans to step up enforcing fare payments and other rules.

The transit agency said it has increased security and hopes to eventually have safety personnel on every MAX train. Thursday’s shooting took place on a MAX platform, and police said there were no trains in the vicinity at the time.

Smeeden’s killing was one of two fatal shootings in Portland on Thursday night. The other took place about three hours later, a dozen miles away on Southeast 82nd Avenue in the Lents neighborhood.

Police have yet to formerly classify that Lents shooting. If it was indeed a homicide, it would have been the 35th already this year in Portland. That would put Portland killings on roughly the same pace this year as in 2023.

That’s down from a peak of 101 homicides in 2022 but nearly triple the city’s homicide rate in the decade before 2020.

-- Mike Rogoway covers Oregon technology and the state economy. Reach him at mrogoway@oregonian.com or 503-294-7699.

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