Suspect in Stabbing of Off-Duty OR Firefighter Arrested
A man suspected of stabbing a Portland fire lieutenant at a bar on Saturday night has been arrested, after officials say he fled the scene and eluded police for three days.
Portland police said Carroll McClendon, 30, was arrested around 6 p.m. Tuesday in the 3900 block of Northeast Martin Luther King Boulevard. McClendon is charged with second-degree assault and unlawful use of a weapon.
Though fire and police officials have not named the off-duty fire lieutenant, sources say it was Fire Lt. Paul Komanecky, 53, who was out to dinner with his wife celebrating their wedding anniversary with friends at Kingston’s Sports Bar & Grill, a downtown bar near Providence Park, when McClendon allegedly walked in and stabbed him.
Portland Fire & Rescue Bureau said Komanecky, a 23-year veteran of the bureau, was treated for stab wounds to his upper torso and upper arms, and released from the hospital the same night. He has not returned to work and is recovering from the injuries.
According to Portland Fire & Rescue and Komanecky’s wife, who called dispatchers, the two men did not know each other and the stabbing was “unprovoked.”
Video footage from Kingston’s Sports Bar & Grill, which shows the encounter from two different angles, appears to capture a confrontation between the two men before the stabbing.
The video shows McClendon walking by the front of the restaurant and appearing to look in the window toward where a group of people are sitting. He then walks into the bar, approaches a table at the front and appears to start speaking to someone who’s out of view of the camera. He then starts to walk away, but as he does, a man gets up, knocks over a chair and confronts McClendon, shoving him. Video from a different angle shows that the man, later identified as Komanecky, pushes McClendon up against the wall. Video is not clear, but McClendon appears to make a stabbing gesture toward Komanecky, then walks out of the bar. According to the dispatch audio from Portland police, McClendon ran eastbound on West Burnside Street.
According to court records, this is not the first time McClendon has threatened someone with a knife. He was charged with a similar scenario in June of 2018, after he was accused of going into a business in North Portland, pulling out a steak knife and threatening a woman when she tried to stop him from grabbing her food.
Court records show he also walked into a laundry service on North Lombard Avenue and was talking and flirting with a patron. When he tried to grab some of her food, she told him not to, and he verbally abused her before taking out a knife and chasing her, threatening to stab her. According to a probable cause affidavit, a witness also saw him throw a beer at the woman. He was arrested for that encounter, but the charges were dismissed a week later because prosecutors had difficulty securing critical witnesses for the preliminary hearing, according to a spokesman for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office.
In December of 2017, McClendon was accused of walking up to a stranger on a MAX train and verbally confronting a man. The man moved away and held a small folding knife in his hand. According to court records, when McClendon saw the knife, he said, “Oh you got a knife... I got a knife too.” He then pulled a kitchen knife from his jacket. He was arrested and was later convicted of menacing.
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