PORTLAND — Police have confirmed the identity of the man killed over the weekend at Portland’s Allen Avenue Apartments as Taquan Samuels, 22, of Brooklyn, N.Y.

An autopsy determined that Samuels died when someone shot him once in the chest, police said.

Confirming Samuels’ identity took two full days after he was shot at about 3:30 a.m. Sunday. Police had to compare his fingerprints with those on file in New York, police said.

Police are still trying to find the person responsible for the shooting and what Samuels was doing just before the shooting. Police ask that anyone with information call 874-8533.

10:19 a.m.

PORTLAND – Portland police are waiting for a fingerprint match from New York before they can positively identify the man who was shot to death over the weekend at the Allen Avenue Apartments.

Police were called to a third-floor apartment after a report of a man who had been shot, and found the 22-year-old — who they were told is from New York. Police are still looking for witnesses to determine what happened and who shot him.

Investigators also are trying to get a better understanding of what the man was doing in Portland and what specifically he was doing just before the shooting.

Residents in the complex, which is very close to Forest Avenue, described the man — who they say went by either “Tarik” or “Julio” — as a pleasant person and not a troublemaker.

“He was a very nice young man,” said Bobby Hughes, who lives next door to the apartment where the man died. He said he would often see the man chatting with one of the women who lived in the apartment.

“Everybody liked him,” said Lashanda Gregory, who lives in a nearby apartment building. “He kept to himself too, so I don’t understand” why someone would shoot him, she said.

Gregory described him as a large man — 6-foot, 6 inches and powerfully built. She said he lives in New York but visits family members in Portland periodically.

“I was one of the last people he was with,” Gregory said. “We probably left at like 2 a.m.”

Some people had been in a fight some time before that and the man had sought to break it up, she said.

A group of young men who had been involved in the fight left at that point, she said. That, however, was almost two hours before the shooting was reported at 3:30 a.m., she said.

Amy Hua told WGME-TV that the man sat on a bed in her third-floor apartment and apparently died there, bleeding on the bed and on the floor.

Lt. Gary Rogers confirmed that there had been a fight prior to the shooting.

He also said the man had been at a party in the third-floor apartment, left and then returned after being shot.

Rogers would not say specifically where the shooting occurred.

Two people were seen running from the apartment building at that time, he said, though witnesses were unable to provide a good description of them.

Police ask that anyone with information call 874-8533.

 

Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at: dhench@pressherald.com