Headlines print edition (page 1): Chance encounter ends in death. Linfield
student stabbed at a convenience store
Headline online edition: Linfield's Parker Moore
fatally stabbed in 'random act'
By Saerom Yoo, Salem, Ore., Statesman Journal 11/17/2014
McMINNVILLE – Parker Moore's
trip to the 7-Eleven just off Linfield College's campus on Saturday night was
not out of the ordinary. It's a frequent destination for many students.
But for the 20-year-old business management major from Woodinville,
Wash., the outing that students make every day turned deadly. And based on the
police's investigation so far, it could have been anyone who was stabbed to
death by a man who had no connection to Moore or the small private school.
"I just don't understand — why him," sophomore Anna Bruns
said Sunday. "A lot of Linfield students go there all the time. It could
have been any of us."
Investigators were just as stumped.
"We don't really have any reason as to why," Yamhill County
Sheriff's Office spokesman Capt. Tim Svenson said.
McMinnville police officers responded to a call of a stabbing at the
convenience store about 11:08 p.m. Saturday. The suspect had fled.
While officers were assisting Moore and talking with witnesses, the
suspect returned, with a knife in hand. He refused to put down the weapon, and
police shot him, Svenson said.
Both Moore and the suspect, tentatively identified as 33-year-old
Joventino Bermudez Arenas, died at a hospital.
"This is a random act committed by someone totally unrelated to
Parker and unrelated to the campus," Linfield's director of campus safety
Ron Noble said at a press conference Sunday.
Yamhill County Sheriff's Office is handling the investigations of the
stabbing and the officer-involved shooting.
Investigators spent Sunday morning interviewing witnesses and
obtaining surveillance video of the incident, Svenson said.
The officers involved in the incident have been placed on paid
administrative leave, which is standard protocol while the use-of-force
investigation continues.
McMinnville Police Chief Matt Scales declined to say how many officers
were involved or whether they were veterans.
A makeshift memorial wall adorned with flowers, a Linfield football
jersey and candles along a fence of Maxwell Field became a gathering place for
students to comfort one another.
Moore was a resident adviser and linebacker on the Linfield football
team.
"He embodied everything that's good about Linfield," head
football coach Joe Smith said during Sunday's press briefing. "He was a
consummate teammate who put everybody first ahead of himself. He was incredibly
loyal, a great man of character with a lot of integrity."
Classmates echoed Smith's sentiments.
"I just thought he was really sweet, really caring," Bruns
said. "He was just a good individual taken too early."
Sophomore Sean Pellatz walked by the memorial, bumping his fist on the
purple jersey on the fence. He stopped at the edge and wept.
"He was the best guy on campus," Pellatz said.
Parker was one of Pellatz first friends at Linfield, and the two
golfed together, talked about sports and shared meals. The last time the two
saw each other was in a sociology class Thursday.
Both students and officials have said that crimes of this nature are
rare at Linfield and McMinnville. Scales said Saturday's was the first
officer-involved shooting he has seen in his 21 years with the police
department.
"It's one of the reasons
we're spending so much time processing the scene and interviewing
witnesses," Svenson said. "Because not only do we want to know what
happened, we want to give the victim's family some understanding and some
closure as to why this happened."
