The man who fatally shot a security officer inside Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center had an extensive criminal record, threatened staff at the hospital in the days leading up to the weekend shooting and threatened to harm the woman bearing his baby months before the birth.
Police shot and killed the gunman — identified Monday by police and prosecutors as PoniaX Kane Calles, 33 — during a standoff in Gresham several hours after Saturday’s shooting at the Northwest Portland hospital.
Calles had menaced hospital staff for at least three days, spurring some workers to ask supervisors to have him removed, according to sources familiar with the investigation. He was at the hospital for a partner who was giving birth to their third child.
At one point Saturday when Calles wasn’t around the woman’s room, hospital security officer Bobby Smallwood went into the room with another employee and removed a case that appeared suspicious. The case turned out to hold two guns, the sources said. The woman in the room claimed the guns were in her name because Calles couldn’t have them, the sources said.
Just before 11 a.m., Calles returned to the floor and got in the face of a charge nurse. Smallwood stood between them. Calles apparently had a third gun, pulled out the handgun, a struggle ensued and he shot the unarmed Smallwood, the sources said.
Calles previously went by the name Reginald Kane Jackson. He formally changed his name in 2019. He had an arrest history from California before arriving in Oregon around 2012, as well as a history of mental illness, court records indicate.
Earlier this year, Ashley Heil, while six months pregnant, sought and obtained a restraining order on April 21 against Calles, with an order that he be prohibited from buying or possessing any guns or ammunition. She noted he had two handguns and a rifle, according to court records.
There’s no record that law enforcement officers removed guns from Calle’s possession.
Heil cited Calles’ “anti-government & anger issues.” She expressed concern about the safety of their 8-year-old daughter, a 1-year-old and an unborn child. She reported unspecified child abuse by Calles involving their oldest daughter that involved state child welfare authorities, according to her petition.
Calles also endangered her, she wrote, reporting in the petition that he threatened to punch her “and that thing in your stomach” on April 16 when she pushed him aside aside as he went to hug her.
“That same day he said he didn’t want the baby and a few days before he said he was going to punch the baby out,” she wrote.
She was concerned for “the children’s safety in his care without him having anger management,” she wrote.
Earlier in January, when he held his finger up to her face and she batted it away, he smacked her hands, put her in a “chokehold over the bed” and grabbed her arm “really hard,” leaving a bruise, the petition said.
“Poniax can be unpredictable and his anger problems seem to be getting worse,” she wrote. “I worry that he will seriously harm us.”
She wanted Calles to leave their apartment on Northeast Sandy Boulevard and not come within 150 feet, except “when we are at our church,” the petition said. The couple had been together from 2012, Heil wrote. Aside from their 8-year-old daughter, she also gave birth to a child last year and identified Calles as the father.
Calles obtained a lawyer and sought a hearing challenging the restraining order. When Heil failed to appear for a hearing on June 8, Circuit Judge Francis G. Troy II dismissed the order, according to court records.
On Saturday afternoon, three Portland officers fired at Calles after police from multiple agencies stopped a van he was riding in outside the U.S. Bank on Northeast 181st Avenue. Witnesses told The Oregonian/OregonLive they heard three loud gunshots — two consecutive shots, followed by a pause and then a third shot.
Earlier that day, police from across the city had responded to an emergency call from Good Samaritan at 10:55 a.m. that “someone visiting a patient verbally threatened hospital staff.”
Calles is accused of pulling a gun and fatally shooting Smallwood, 44, during a struggle in a hallway on the fifth floor maternity unit. A second employee was injured from shrapnel, according to the hospital.
Good Samaritan went into lockdown, with staff barricading lower-level doors with beds and recliners. A manhunt followed, with police evacuating the Stadium Fred Meyer store in Northwest Portland in search of the gunman and later leading to the police stop of the van in Gresham.
Smallwood typically worked at Legacy’s Randall Children’s Hospital but was filling a shift at Good Samaritan on Saturday. His parents told The Oregonian/OregonLive that their son was shot in the chest.
Though Smallwood was wearing a ballistics vest, Calles was able to point the gun and shoot the officer under his vest, sources said. Smallwood was taken to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Calles changed his name in Multnomah County in April 2019, according to court records. He had a criminal record in California and Oregon, which included an attempted assault conviction in Portland stemming from an altercation at a Portland restaurant that ended with him stabbing another man. He also faced a stalking order. He described himself in court records as suffering from mental illness.
Around 2012, he was splitting his time between Los Angeles and Oregon but planned to move to Oregon permanently because he found the job market better. In 2016, he lived with friends from the Portland International Christian Church. At that time, his attorney wrote to the court that he was the sole provider for his girlfriend and young daughter. He sought construction jobs through Labor Works, according to the records.
Under his original name, he was convicted in 2016 of stabbing another man in the face with a knife after a dispute in September 2015 at a Boxer Ramen restaurant in Northeast Portland.
At that time, he was attending Alcoholics Anonymous on and off and suffered from depression, according to court records. He had chased two women into the restaurant, walked up to a stranger’s table, asked, “Does it taste good?” and got into a fight with a man seated at the table who asked to be left alone.
The two ended up fighting in front of the restaurant, where the stabbing occurred, according to court records. Under the name Jackson, he pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree assault and was placed on probation for three years, ordered to undergo drug treatment and have a mental health evaluation.
On Nov. 18, 2019, he was arrested in Multnomah County on a third-degree criminal mischief allegation. At the time, he gave an address on Southwest Columbia Street. The next month, prosecutors dropped the charge. In March of this year, he filed a motion to set aside the arrest record, providing a different address on Northeast Sandy Boulevard.
In 2019, he also reported he had been diagnosed as suffering from a bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, had no job or benefits, according to court records.
In the fall of 2019, Calles, under his original name, was the target of a stalking order obtained by a man living in Northeast Portland who alleged “unwanted repeated contact” from him. The man wrote to the court that Calles had thrown an “incendiary” powder that exploded into smoke on his driveway in March of that year and had “pointed a red laser-sighted pistol” at him in October 2018, according to court records. The man’s lawyer said Calles told him that Calles “wanted something bad to happen to me,” according to the petitioner.
Calles had in turn sought a stalking order against that man in 2019, writing that the man had called him a racist slur and “homeless filth,” and pepper sprayed him, according to his petition. At the time, Calles was living in a motor home in the city, according to court records. Both stalking orders were granted temporarily and then dismissed.
The most recent conviction under his changed name of Calles was in 2020 after he was stopped the year before for driving with a suspended license in Washington County, according to court records. He was placed on one year of probation, ordered to complete 48 hours of community service and pay a $1,300 fine.
In a May 2021 handwritten letter to the court, he described himself as a single father and family man who couldn’t afford the fine because he hadn’t been able to get steady work. “I rarely get work for odd jobs aka gig work,” he wrote.
He wrote “America The Great” at the top of the letter and signed it, “United We Stand, your citizen poniax calles.” The court ended up shaving off $300 of his $1,300 fine.
His arrest history in California dates to 2004, including arrests for attempted murder, robbery, battery, disorderly conduct and vandalism as well as a 2016 mental health commitment, according to court records.
Marcy Jensen, who worked as a nurse at Legacy Good Samaritan for 10 years before leaving in late June to move out of state, said the staff have been extremely concerned about safety at the hospital for some time.
“This is something we all saw coming,” said Jensen, a cardiac nurse who was the hospital’s nurse of the year in 2021.
While there are metal detectors at the emergency department entrance, there are none at two other entrances to the hospital, she said.
“You can’t make one secure location and have two unsecure locations,” she said. “That doesn’t do anything for the staff. We have complained multiple times to the higher ups. They’re unwilling to take responsibility. It was bound to happen, to be honest.”
Legacy Health officials have not answered questions about what actions the hospital took in response to complaints made about threats to staff on Saturday or the days before the shooting.
The hospital released this statement Monday: “Legacy Health is grief-stricken from losing one of our security officers Bobby Smallwood to gun violence at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center on Saturday. We know you have many questions and are requesting interviews about this horrific event that occurred in a place of well-being and healing. We are focused on providing factual information to our employees and supporting those deeply impacted by this tragic event. We will provide additional information this week. We appreciate your understanding and patience.”
