PORTLAND — Portland police on Saturday identified the officer who shot and killed man in a park Friday as Zachery DeLong, who has worked for the Portland Police Bureau for eight years.
Two sources with direct knowledge of the investigation said DeLong shot Robert Douglas Delgado, 46, after Delgado drew what appeared to be a firearm. The sources said investigators recovered an orange-tipped replica firearm at the scene in Southeast Portland. DeLong was put on administrative leave, which is standard practice after police shootings.
Delgado’s family said Saturday he had struggled with mental health and substance abuse issues. He’d had numerous interactions with the legal system, including what his family said were negative interactions with police that left him scared. He never found success through court-ordered substance abuse programs or probation.
It may be while before officials offer any more details. “I’m not expecting too much more information to be released for a few days,” said Jim Middaugh, spokesman for Mayor Ted Wheeler. The Portland Police Bureau “is working closely with the DA to try and release as much as they can as soon as they can.”
While the Police Bureau has released few details about their investigation, and DeLong’s record as a bureau employee was not publicly available Sunday, he has made headlines in Portland and elsewhere before.
In 2014, DeLong distinguished himself when he helped save a sobbing man who had crawled out onto a fifth-floor building ledge. He credited his bureau crisis-intervention training.
That same year, he also courted scandal when he was among 19 Police Bureau employees who “liked” a Facebook post showing a police badge with the message “I am Darren Wilson,” according to a Willamette Week report from the time. Wilson was the white Ferguson, Mo., police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown, a young Black man, sparking a wave of protests.
DeLong grew up in the midst of the cop life. His father, Mark DeLong, is a retired Portland officer whose boss once called him a “model” policeman. In 2012, the elder DeLong received the bureau’s Mark Zylawly Distinguished Service Medal, which honors officers for exhibiting “high moral and ethical standards.”
Before joining the Portland Police Bureau, Zachary DeLong was a U.S. Army Ranger who served as a sniper in Afghanistan.
History Channel’s 2016 series “The Warfighters” featured DeLong in an episode that focused on a harrowing 2010 nighttime mission against the Taliban.
DeLong joined the Army Rangers, he said in the episode, because “I wanted the action. I wanted to test myself.”
A severe test came with Task Force Merrill, during which a fellow soldier had his legs blown off by an explosive device. The soldier had backtracked to help DeLong, who had fallen into a creek.
“I started patting down his arms and legs, and when I got to his knees, it just stops,” DeLong remembered of his efforts to aid the wounded man. “That didn’t click. I didn’t realize what had just happened …. I’d trained on what to do in situations like this 100 times over, and I froze. It took a minute. It was weird.”
After the injured soldier was evacuated, the team continued the mission, but DeLong was shaken.
“Throughout my entire military career, through all the training, through all the missions prior, I had nothing but the utmost confidence,” he recalled. “I was never frightened by anything. I’d been in numerous firefights. I always felt comfortable in my element. And this totally threw me off. I was terrified.”
Yet DeLong had long wanted to be in the midst of such life-and-death situations. Growing up, he said, “I would watch war movies. ‘Black Hawk Down’ specifically. I watched that movie 75 times. I was just obsessed with being a part of that.”
He was drawn to the “mystique” of the rangers, to the elite unit’s “phenomenal reputation.” In particular, he was determined to become a sniper.
“I’ve always been enamored with snipers,” he said in the “Warfighters” episode. “I always thought that was the coolest thing ever. I shot a lot of guns growing up. You know, your dad is a cop, he’s got a safe full of guns that we’d always go out and go shoot. … I learned a love of that early on.”
