Human remains were found in downtown Portland during a sweep of a homeless encampment Tuesday morning, police said.
A rapid-response team, which the city hires to clean up homeless encampments, cleared out the encampment on Southwest Harvey Milk Street near Naito Parkway on Monday, police spokesperson Mike Benner said.
On Tuesday, the team was called back because more personal items were found at the site, he said.
The team found what appeared to be human remains at about 9:15 a.m., and called for the medical examiner and the police homicide unit, Benner said.
“At this point, we don’t know what we have,” Benner said. “But human remains were found on a downtown Portland street. That’s incredibly troubling to our detectives.”
Benner declined to clarify what the human remains entailed, saying only that the homicide unit is investigating.
“We do not have any indication right now that someone is going around our city committing violent acts,” he said.
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