Police Investigate Possible Arson at Home of Portland City Councilor

U.S.|Police Investigate Possible Arson at Home of Portland City Councilor

A fire that charred several cars and a carport at the home of a city councilor in Portland, Ore., early Sunday morning is being investigated as a possible arson, the police said.

The councilor, Candace Avalos, said she woke up to find that her car, carport and home were engulfed in flames, but she was able to get out safely with her cat, Valentino. The Portland police said the cause of the fire, which was reported at 2:40 a.m., had not been determined, but it was “considered suspicious in nature.” No arrests have been made.

The fire came during an extraordinarily tense time for elected officials and public figures who have been confronting a rise in political violence in recent years.

In September, Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist, was fatally shot at a college in Utah, and in June, Melissa Hortman, a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota, was killed along with her husband inside her home. In April, an arsonist firebombed the Pennsylvania governor’s residence as Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family slept upstairs, and last year, President Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.

Ms. Avalos was elected in November and took office in January. The daughter of Black American and Guatemalan parents, she said she was among a group of activists who received racist threats in the mail in 2020, when they were calling for police accountability after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Ms. Avalos has also been outspoken in criticizing Mr. Trump’s crackdown on immigration and his push to deploy the National Guard in Oregon.

Earlier this month, the Portland City Council unanimously adopted a resolution Ms. Avalos introduced with other councilors that denounced Mr. Trump’s efforts to send National Guard troops and federal immigration agents to Portland and that called on the mayor to fight back.