The Oregonian | By Isabel Funk | May 5, 2026
A woman who collided with a driver fleeing police in a stolen car on Portland’s Southeast 82nd Avenue two years ago is suing the Portland Police Bureau, alleging its officers caused the crash by chasing the car thief.
Selena Pinnell crashed into the other car, flipping it onto its roof, she said in the lawsuit filed Friday in Multnomah County Circuit Court. She was rushed to an emergency room for injuries to her leg, chest and head, and her car was totaled, she said.
Pinnell is seeking $2.5 million.
On May 25, 2024, Officer Alec Schultz and his passenger, Officer Dylan Shairs, spotted a red Subaru without plates, Shairs wrote in the probable cause affidavit for the driver’s arrest. They tried to pull over the driver, but he fled and they began pursuing.
Pinnell alleges in her lawsuit that Schultz drove nearly 50 mph on a narrow residential road, lost control and crashed into a “large rock.” He then continued the pursuit, she alleges.
The driver of the stolen vehicle then drove through a stop sign and crosses onto Southeast 82nd Avenue, where Pinnell said she didn’t have time to brake before smashing into his car, which rolled. The lawsuit doesn’t say how fast she was going.
Police alleged the driver tried to flee his upside-down car on foot. The car had been reported stolen that day, police said.
In an earlier notice to police that she intended to sue, Pinnell alleged that police approached her car with guns raised after the crash and she emerged to find police shouting commands at her and pointing the weapons at her head.
Police Bureau policy says officers can chase suspects only when they have reasonable suspicion that the individual committed a felony person crime or their driving before any attempted stop poses a safety threat. Vehicle pursuits are also permitted when they have been pre-approved during a particular mission, and supervisors can allow pursuits in special circumstances when the risks of not doing so outweigh the alternative.
Portland used to have tighter restrictions around police pursuits because of the inherent safety risks, but the bureau loosened those restrictions in 2023 because police said people realized police wouldn’t chase them and began to elude traffic stops. Pinnell’s attorney, Michael Fuller, said the city violated its policy in his client’s case.
And although the lawsuit doesn’t challenge the policy in court, he said he believes it needs to be changed.
“We’re calling on the city for a complete overhaul of its high speed pursuit policy,” he said.
Fuller said officers should be especially careful in residential areas and along high-crash roads such as Southeast 82nd Avenue.
Pinnell accuses the officers of being negligent by engaging in the high-speed vehicle pursuit when there was no evidence of a violent person felony and there was “foreseeable risk” of injury.
Schultz was hired by the Portland Police Bureau in 2020, resigned in 2023, and was rehired about a month before the crash, according to officer records. He went on a leave of absence in July 2024 and resigned nearly a year later. He does not appear to have been disciplined before resigning, though the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training does have a pending case against him.
The Portland Police Bureau and the city attorney’s office declined to comment on the pending litigation.
