A routine airport pickup turned into a scene straight out of an action movie at Portland International Airport this week, and not in a good way. A man was simply loading passengers into his Nissan Rogue at PDX on Monday, May 4, when a stranger leaped into the driver’s seat and floored it, setting off a terrifying chain of events that left one person hospitalized with serious injuries and another watching in horror as her friend tumbled down the road like a ragdoll.
Port of Portland police were called to the lower road at the airport after reports of an assault and carjacking. What they found was not a minor fender bender or a simple theft. The suspect, later identified as 52-year-old Vidal Pedraza, had already dragged one man who tried to grab the door handle and sent another flying out of the backseat after swerving, hitting a curb, driving onto a median, and taking out an electrical box before somehow steering the car back onto the road.
Eyewitness Helena Wolfe watched the chaos unfold as her friend, Mark Campbell, was thrown from the moving vehicle. She told KATU News she was certain he was dead. Campbell, who rolled several times before landing face-down and motionless on the pavement, was later transported to intensive care. He suffered five broken ribs, a concussion, memory loss, and head injuries serious enough to require staples. He remains in the ICU.
Pedraza did not get far. Police tracked him and the stolen Nissan Rogue to a Dutch Bros parking lot nearby, where another witness reported that he tried to get into their van. Officers arrested him a short distance away, near Northeast Airport Way, and CCTV footage from the scene confirmed what witnesses had already described. Pedraza now faces nearly 20 criminal charges and is lodged in jail while prosecutors push forward with an aggressive case against him.
What the Charges Look Like
Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez did not mince words about how seriously his office is treating this case. Pedraza was arraigned Tuesday on a sweeping list of charges including two counts of robbery, six counts of assault, two counts of theft, two counts of reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, reckless driving, possession of a stolen vehicle, and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
Vasquez told KATU that the top charges include robbery in the first degree and assault in the second degree, along with failure to perform the duties of a driver when a person is injured. That last charge is particularly notable given that a man was ejected from the vehicle and lay bleeding on the road while Pedraza kept driving.
A Pattern of Behavior Before the Airport Incident
The PDX carjacking was not Pedraza’s first brush with law enforcement in recent weeks, and that is putting it mildly. Just five days before the airport incident, on April 30, multiple witnesses saw him smashing parked vehicles with a rock near Southwest 13th Avenue and Columbia Street in Portland. Police responded and found three cars with significant damage.
Pedraza was released in that case through pretrial release services, a decision that raised immediate questions given what came next. He failed to show up for his arraignment on May 1, just four days before the carjacking. The pattern is difficult to ignore: released, failed to appear, then allegedly victimized multiple people at a major international airport.
A Criminal History That Spans Decades
Pedraza is not a stranger to the court system. According to court records, he has two felony convictions in California, including an assault charge from 2018 involving a prisoner and a domestic violence-related conviction from 2014. He also carries a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction dating back to 2000. That is more than two decades of documented violent behavior, culminating in what prosecutors are calling a first-degree robbery.
When officers interviewed Pedraza after his arrest, he told them he had been awake for five days, said he was tired and looking to get help, and claimed he had asked multiple people for rides but nobody would assist him. He said he just wanted to get home to Los Angeles. His explanation did not address why he chose to slam the car into a curb with a passenger still inside.
What We Can Learn From This Incident
This case raises uncomfortable but important questions about pretrial release practices and the risk assessment tools used to decide who walks free pending trial. Pedraza had an open case involving property destruction just days before the airport carjacking. He was released, skipped his court date, and within days allegedly injured multiple people in a dramatic, high-speed incident at one of the Pacific Northwest’s busiest airports.
It also underscores how quickly a routine public moment, like picking someone up from the airport, can turn dangerous. The victim had done everything right. He showed up, was loading passengers, and was suddenly in the middle of a carjacking. His passenger ended up in the ICU.
For travelers and everyday Portlanders, the incident is a stark reminder that crime does not always announce itself and that the consequences of gaps in the justice system can land squarely on ordinary people going about their day.