Ardeshir Tabrizian

A historic look of Salem’s budget showed spending on police and fire has heavily outpaced inflation, while their staffing hasn’t kept up with rising costs. Here are five key takeaways from two decades of city budget data.

The Oregon State Police have provided few details about a police shooting at a U.S. Army aviation facility on Southeast Turner Road that left a person dead. The agency said it was responding at the time to a report of a “suspicious person.”

A Wednesday morning shooting is the second criminal incident reported at the Salem Tesla dealership on Southeast Mission Street in the last month. The FBI is helping Salem police investigate the shooting and a suspected arson on Jan. 20.

Salem police said Mark Coutis got into a standoff with officers for almost two hours on Friday, Feb. 14, before surrendered and was arrested on accusations of stalking, menacing and unlawful use of a weapon.

Police say Jonathan Haun is accused of approaching Hispanic family, including a young child, with a shotgun in hand and shouting “racially charged remarks” on Sunday in northeast Salem.

Police said two men performed “dangerous burnouts” during what started as a peaceful protest against national immigration enforcement in east Salem on Feb. 1.

Salem Police Chief Trevor Womack issued a bilingual statement Thursday seeking to ease any “anxiety or confusion” that his officers would take part in immigration enforcement, which is expanding rapidly under the Trump administration.

Tuesday marked the start of the criminal trial of truck driver Lincoln Smith, who in May 2023 struck and killed seven farmworkers on Interstate 5 in one of the deadliest crashes to ever occur in Marion County.

Salem officials are not admitting fault but agreed to settle a 2022 lawsuit alleging that overgrown vegetation and a lack of traffic signs resulted in a collision in south Salem that killed Sara Schumann, 17. 

The Oregon State Police said Salem police officers Chad Galusha and John Diaz were involved in a shooting Wednesday morning that killed Shawn Baker, 42, but did not specify who shot him.