‘It’s like a dagger in the heart’: Black Life Matters truck vandalized in Northeast Portland
By Web Staff
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PORTLAND, Oregon (KPTV) — Black Life Matters Trucking was born at the end of 2021 with one goal in mind.
“The only thing we were trying to do was create jobs. Take guns out of young men’s hands and put paychecks in them. We already hired one person and we had intentions of hiring more until this happened,” Charles Preston, a supervisor at BLM Trucking, said.
They’re a part of the Golden Opportunity Youth Association and do deliveries for companies like Amazon and Western Pacific.
On Thursday night, owner Timothy Luther McNair said they parked their box truck at Safeway on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, which is something they do often.
They came back Friday morning only to find it was vandalized. Someone had spray painted profanity on the side of their truck and the cab was burned, leaving a torched mess behind.
“The window was broke, you couldn’t see. So, when we opened the door, all we could smell was gasoline and soot and smoke damage,” McNair said.
“To see this right here? It’s like a dagger in the heart,” Preston said.
For an up-and-coming business, this is quite the financial blow. McNair said they’re now out tens of thousands of dollars until they can replace it.
“When we did the math, it was upwards of 42, 40 thousand and some change if we were without a truck for 12 weeks,” he said.
As upsetting as this is, McNair said he won’t hold a grudge against whoever did this.
“I forgive you,” McNair said.
If you’d like to help BLM Trucking replace their truck, they’ve set up a GoFundMe.
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