Portland deli owner Bruce Chirre unlawfully punched a man who set fire to a trash can outside his store in 2021, but he wasn’t responsible when the man collapsed and died of heart failure and drug use, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Multnomah County Circuit Judge Steffan Alexander acquitted Chirre, 39, of first-degree manslaughter and other charges, while finding him guilty of fourth-degree assault, a misdemeanor. The judge also cleared Chirre’s wife, an unsworn Portland Police Bureau supervisory clerk at the time, of interfering with the investigation into her husband.