LA GRANDE, Ore. -- Nine people were killed and at least 20 others hospitalized on Sunday after a tour bus veered out of control on an icy stretch of freeway in eastern Oregon and rolled nearly 200 feet down an embankment, state police said.

State police reported that the driver apparently lost control of the charter bus around 10:30 a.m. on the snow- and ice-covered lanes of Interstate 84 and crashed through a guardrail before plunging down an embankment. The Oregonian newspaper reported that the bus  tumbled nearly 200 feet before coming to a halt.

Oregon State Police Lt. Gregg Hastings told the newspaper that about 40 passengers were on the bus at the time of the crash, which occurred near milepost 227 on Interstate 84 near Deadman Pass, according to the East Oregonian newspaper. 

Hastings told the East Oregonian that he learned the bus was returning to Las Vegas from British Columbia, Canada.   

Rescue workers used ropes to help retrieve the injured from the scene. Westbound lanes of I-84 were closed.

The Oregonian said 18 passengers were transported to St. Anthony's Hospital in Pendleton, about 13 miles northwest of the crash scene. Hospital spokesman Larry Blanc would not say if or how many passengers sustained life-threatening injuries, it said.

Three fixed-wing aircraft also were on standby at the Pendleton airport if needed to transport injured to hospitals elsewhere, state police said.

Authorities did not immediately identify the operator of the charter bus.

Oregon State Police / Reuters

Rescue personnel respond to the scene of a charter bus crash on I-84, east of Pendleton, Ore. in this photo released on Dec. 30. Police said the bus may have gone out of control on the highway before crashing through a guardrail and down an embankment.

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Steve Dipaola / Reuters

Police move with an armored vehicle at the Clackamas Town Center shopping mall near Portland, Ore., on Tuesday. The sheriff says officers arrived at the shooting scene about a minute after the initial 911 call.

A gunman wielding a stolen semi-automatic rifle and several fully loaded magazines opens fire inside a shopping mall teeming with as many as 10,000 people. Yet, only two people are killed and one wounded. Sheer luck, or were authorities and mall officials well-prepared?

Probably a bit of both, say law enforcement and security experts, some of whom credit new police tactics and better security training at schools and public venues for helping to minimize the casualties at the Clackamas Town Center near Portland, Ore.

"I want to say that we were … well-prepared for this incident because we had practice in active shooter techniques at the Clackamas Town Center this past year for this type of situation," Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said at a news conference Wednesday.

It's not known what prompted the Tuesday afternoon attack. The sheriff said only that the shooter, identified as Jacob Tyler Roberts, 22, of Portland, appeared to be on "a mission" to kill.

But he added that the first officers arrived about one minute after the first 911 calls and immediately separated into teams to head into the mall.

Mall gunman: Personal setbacks, friends' disbelief

"Law enforcement has learned from past tragedies throughout this country that we can't wait for SWAT teams, and teams need to deploy immediately," Roberts said. "So we trained and equipped each of our individual officers to form up in teams as they arrive and move immediately into engaging the threat, wherever it might be."

That's a tactic that many law enforcement agencies began instituting in the aftermath of the April 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, where two young gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, shot to death 12 students and a teacher and injured 21 others before killing themselves.

At Columbine, law enforcement followed traditional tactics of surrounding the building and waiting for more heavily armed units to arrive. Crucial minutes ticked away, during which Harris and Klebold killed and wounded more people.  

Many agencies now train their officers to go after an "active shooter" immediately rather than wait for tactical squads.

That rapid-deployment response is exactly what happened in the mass shooting at an Aurora, Colo., theater on July 12 that left a dozen people dead. Aurora police got the first call at 12:39 a.m. Seven minutes later, suspect James Eagan Holmes was arrested.

"Ever since Columbine, there's been a paradigm shift," said Mark Lomax, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association. "In the past, it was the standard protocol if there was a shooting incident or a barricade suspect or a hostage situation, the first responder would secure and contain the crime situation until the SWAT team or negotiators or bomb techs would arrive."

Girl, 15, shot in Ore. mall cheats death twice

School shootings highlighted a need to teach first responders to handle situations before those specialized units' arrival, Lomax said.

"It takes a while for a fully equipped SWAT team or hostage negotiation team to get to the scene. We've realized over many sad incidents that time is of the essence when it comes to saving lives and that those first responders should be fully knowledgeable with how to handle those situations. They won't be the experts, but they need to have enough training and equipment to do exactly what they did in Portland," he said.

Sgt. A.J. DeAndrea of the Arvada (Colo.) Police Department, who was among the elite team members who searched Columbine High the day of the shooting, says the tactic of going after shooters immediately has helped save lives. He told The Denver Post the first SWAT team didn't even enter Columbine until 38 minutes after the first call.

"There are times when you cannot wait. It's an inherently risky job. Our job is to go in and protect innocent lives," he told The Denver Post in an interview earlier this year. 

Many malls and other public venues now routinely practice responses to emergencies like the one that unfolded Tuesday in Oregon. Clackamas Town Center has a lockdown procedure in place.

"Every mall that we own and manage has an emergency response manual and we rehearse for these things all the time. We go through those emergency response plans on a regular basis. We've done drills with the sheriff's office," said the mall's general manager, Dennis Curtis.

"Basically, in a situation like this it's either stay right where you're at and lock yourself down or get to the nearest exit and get out of the building. I just have to commend all of the retailers and our security staff. They did an amazing job."

Mall shooting victims: Hospice nurse, entrepreneur

Sheriff Roberts noted that the gunman's rifle jammed at some point, and that stroke of luck may also have saved some lives. He also said a large number of police officers arrived on the scene very rapidly, curtailing the suspect's ability to move around the mall.

Lomax said police departments across the country have been training for "active shooter" situations so they, too, can take down a suspect who has a weapon in a public area rather than waiting for backup or a tactical squad.

"I believe that there are a lot of departments that are being very proactive on this type of training and equipping their patrol officers with automatic weapons and ballistic vests and shields to address these types of things," he said. "It only takes a matter of minutes to do a lot of mayhem out there, and these sheriffs and police chiefs understand that they need a very equipped and trained front line whenever it comes."

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UPDATED at 3:21 p.m. ET: The masked gunman who killed two people and wounded a third at an Oregon mall packed with holiday shoppers before committing suicide was identified Wednesday as Jacob Tyler Roberts, 22.

The Portland, Ore., man opened fire with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle that he had stolen Tuesday from a person he knew, Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said at a morning news conference.

“At this time we do not understand the motive of this attack,” Roberts said, adding that the suspect acted alone and apparently did not know any of his victims.

The sheriff said that the shooter’s rifle jammed at one point during the Tuesday afternoon attack at a food court on the upper level of the Clackamas Town Center outside Portland. The suspect was able to fix the weapon and began firing again.

It’s not known how many shots were fired in the mall, which was teeming with as many as 10,000 people, many of them shopping for Christmas gifts. The sheriff said Roberts was carrying several fully loaded magazines.

After shooting his victims, the gunman walked down a stairway to the mall’s lower level, where he fatally shot himself, the sheriff said.

Authorities said Roberts had no significant criminal history. The Oregonian reported that he had two speeding tickets earlier this year.

Killed in the attack were Steven Mathew Forsyth, 45, of West Linn, and Cindy Ann Yuille, 54, of Portland. Forsyth owned a business at the mall, said Sgt. Adam Phillips.

Kristina Shevchenko, 15, of Portland, was wounded. She was struck by several bullets and was in serious condition Wednesday at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital after undergoing surgery, the hospital said.

“This was a sole person acting on his own by all indicators we have at this point,” Phillips said.

Courtesy Shevchenko family

Kristina Shevchenko was wounded in the attack Tuesday at Clackamas Town Center.

“There were no indicators that this was going to happen.”

The sheriff said authorities searched the suspect’s home and car, which was parked outside the mall, after the shooting. He wouldn’t disclose what was found.

A woman who referred to herself as Jacob’s mother said she is “very sad” and “sorry” about his actions. Tami Roberts provided a hand-written note to reporters via a friend, KATU reported.

“Tami Roberts wishes to express her shock and grief at the events at Clackamas Town City (sic) on Tuesday,” the note said. “She has no understanding or explanation for her son’s behavior and requests that her privacy be respected.”

Friends told KATU that Tami Roberts is technically Jacob's aunt, although she raised him.

Authorities said the shooter parked his car outside the mall Tuesday afternoon and hurried in on foot toward the food court on the upper level of the 1.2 million-square-foot shopping center. He was wearing a load-bearing vest and his face was covered with a hockey-style mask.

“He had a mission set forth to really take the lives of people within that mall,” Sheriff Roberts said earlier Wednesday.

Witnesses described a scene of chaos and panic that ensued, and some said they heard the gunman announce, “I am the shooter,” before he began randomly spraying bullets.

"All of a sudden, I just heard a series of gunshots … boom, boom, boom, boom, boom … whatever the shooter was shooting at, they continued to shoot," shopper Bill Hoff told NBC station KGW.

Mira Sytsma told NBC’s Matt Lauer she was walking toward a store near the food court when she heard the first shots go off.

“After the first couple of shots I had a feeling I knew what was happening,” she said.

Girl, 15, shot in Oregon mall cheats death twice

Kelly Lay was in the food court when he heard “two loud booms,” he told Lauer. Glancing to his left, he saw people running in panic. He ducked and hid behind a pillar, where two elderly women – including one in a wheelchair – had already taken shelter.

“As soon as I heard bullets hitting behind me, the wall, seeing it hit the tiles, basically the food signs above… and seeing the tiles break around me, I kind of got in fear and scared for my life,” Lay said.

He saw people running toward the exit and told the women to do the same. After helping the woman in a wheelchair, Lay took off running.

Sytsma saw one of the gunman’s victims lying on the ground about 50 feet away from where she stood by a kiosk. Turning her head away from the victim, she caught a glimpse of the shooter.

“I couldn’t really see his eyes,” she said. “I felt like I looked right at him and it was pretty scary to see him face to face like that.”

Sytsma and three other women ran for cover inside a store.

People in line to get their photos taken with Santa immediately dove for cover, KGW reported, while others hid in break rooms and bathrooms.

The mall Santa, Brance Wilson, said he was about to invite the next child onto his lap when the shots rang out upstairs. He said he instead dove for the floor and kept his head down.

"I heard two shots and got out of the chair. I thought a red suit was a pretty good target," said the 68-year-old Wilson, The Associated Press reported.

Sheriff Roberts said his department's thoughts and prayers went out to the victims and their families.

"For all of us, the mall is supposed to be a place we can all take our families, feel comfortable, this is the holidays … these things are never supposed to happen. We have a young lady at the hospital fighting for her life right now," he said.

The sheriff said the first officers arrived about a minute after the first 911 call and immediately formed teams to try to contain the shooter rather than waiting for a SWAT squad.

He said casualties were low in part due to an overwhelming police response and because the suspect’s rifle jammed at one point, though he was able to get it working again.

Also, the sheriff noted, “Clackamas Town Center had a lockdown procedure for this type of incident and they did a great job implementing that program.”

“We rehearse for these things all the time,” said Dennis Curtis, the mall’s general manager.

“Basically in a situation like this it’s either stay where you’re at and lock yourself down or get to the nearest exit and get out of the building.”

The sheriff also credited people in the mall with helping other in a time of panic and danger.

“Ten-thousand people in the mall at one time kept a level head,” Roberts said. “They got themselves out of the mall. They helped others get out. There are just a number of heroes that took the time to help people get out, whether it’s (a person) in a wheelchair or a child.”

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Courtesy of the Shevchenko family

Kristina Shevchenko, 15, was hospitalized Tuesday night after being shot by a gunman at Clackamas Town Center in Portland, Ore.

Updated at 1:30 p.m. ET -- A teenager from Oregon faces a “long road to recovery” after surviving her second brush with death in just the past few months.

Kristina Shevchenko, 15, was rushed to a hospital Tuesday in critical condition after a masked gunman sprayed bullets around a suburban Portland, Ore., mall during the height of holiday shopping season, piercing her chest. After surgery, she was in stable condition, according to a statement from her family.

Her family continued to update supporters on her condition via a Facebook page on Wednesday, with her brother, Yevgeniy, writing early in the morning, "The bullet went through bruising her lung, it missed any vital organs and it missed her ribs. She will need 2 more operations. we appreciate any and all support including your prayers! Thank you."

In another post, Shevchenko's family revealed something else: Over the summer, Shevchenko had survived another fatal encounter.

"Many of you have noticed the earlier tragedy that happened in our family a couple months ago where 7 of my siblings and 2 friends were involved in a fatal car accident. You could read it online for yourself, but yes it did happen and yes Kristina was in that car accident," the post read, and linked to an article about a Beaverton, Ore., man who was killed after veering into a van driven by a 27-year-old member of the Shevchenko family.

Oregon mall gunman ID'd; motive unclear

The crash happened in Vancouver, Wash., in August, and alcohol was believed to have been a factor, Vancouver police told Columbian.com. Multiple teens and adults were in the van when the driver -- Alberto Perez Garcia, 25 -- veered into it, they said. The driver and at least two other adults had been hospitalized at the time.

In a statement, the family described Shevchenko as a "happy child" who is "active in church," and said "by the mercy of God she is now in stable condition, but has a long road to recovery."

Shevchenko, who had been with a friend when she was shot, regularly walked through the mall around the time of the shooting -- which happened at about 3:20 p.m. on Tuesday -- to get home from school, her family said. 

The motive for the shooting, which sent Christmas shoppers and people waiting in line to see Santa running for cover, wasn't clear.

Several witnesses reported hearing the gunman, identified as Jacob Tyler Roberts, 22, announce, "I am the shooter," before he began firing.

"All of a sudden, I just heard a series of gunshots… boom, boom, boom, boom, boom… whatever the shooter was shooting at, they continued to shoot," shopper Bill Hoff told NBC station KGW.

Macy's employee Mariah Saldana told KGW that she was sitting by the door "watching what was going on, and then some guy just ran by in a white mask and an assault rifle, and then I look out because I hear a few shots and he's … and he’s sitting there and he's pointing the gun at some people."

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The heavy winds and rain that pummeled the Pacific Northwest, flooding roads and highways and leaving at least one person dead, eased on Tuesday though showers remained in the forecast for much of the Thanksgiving holiday week.

Rain and wind pounded Washington and Oregon on Monday, flooding streets, toppling large trucks and cutting power to more than 20,000 people.

Nearly 2 inches of rain fell in six hours in one Seattle neighborhood — a total that Seattle Public Utilities meteorologist James Rufo-Hill called "extraordinary."

"It was a pretty big storm for most of the city — lots of rain in a relatively short amount of time," he said, but several neighborhoods "really got drenched."

By late Monday night,  2.13 inches of rain had fallen for the day at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, shattering the record of 1.23 inches for Nov. 19 set in 1962.

Other areas of Western Washington fared even worse. More than 7 inches fell over a two-day period in Potlatch, Mason County, more than 6 inches in Bremerton and nearly 4 inches in Olympia, meteorologist Jay Neher said, according to The Seattle Times. 

The drenching caused widespread flooding of roads and highways and some residential neighborhoods, and even sewage overflows in parts of Seattle and Everett, Wash. Several blocks of downtown streets were briefly flooded in Port Orchard, west of Seattle.

Wet weather was expected to continue through the week, but National Weather Service meteorologist Jay Neher in Seattle said that the "heavy rain is over."

"We're into showers now," he said.

The Spokesman-Review via AP

During a strong gust of wind, Michele Purkey's umbrella flips back as she crosses street Monday in downtown Spokane, Wash.

Weather Service meteorologist Ted Buehner said he had one "screaming message" for those traveling across mountain passes for Thanksgiving: "Be prepared for hazardous winter weather — and that includes coming back," Buehner told The Seattle Times.

On Oregon's northwest coast, an elk hunter was killed Monday morning when a tree crashed on his tent near Nehalem. Two hunters in an adjacent camp heard the tree snap as gusts reached more than 70 mph, and saw it lying across the tent. They cut it away in an attempt to rescue the man, to no avail.

Tillamook County Sheriff Andy Long identified the hunter as Nathan Christensen, 52, of Seattle.

A Portland police officer was seriously injured during all-terrain vehicle training when a tree fell. Sgt. Pete Simpson said the accident on Hayden Island in the Columbia River appeared to be weather-related.

In southwest Washington, a Washington State Patrol car and another vehicle were struck by a tree carried by a mudslide on U.S. Highway 101 near Naselle.

The patrol car started burning, and the trooper had to break a window to crawl to safety. The trooper was unhurt, and the female driver of the other vehicle was OK except for neck pain. Both vehicles were destroyed by the fire.

Strong winds overturned large commercial trucks on two highways Monday. One tractor-trailer rig tipped over while crossing the Astoria-Megler Bridge that carries U.S. 101 across the Columbia River. That caused a lengthy traffic headache.

Another tractor-trailer rig was blown onto its side in the middle of the Chehalis River Bridge in Aberdeen, on the Washington coast, Aberdeen police said.

Peak wind gusts in Washington reached 101 mph on the Astoria bridge and 61 mph at Hoquiam on the coast. They hit 114 mph on isolated Naselle Ridge in the mountains of southwest Washington, the Weather Service reported.

Thousands of people in Oregon and Washington were left without power on Monday.

Flood warnings were issued for a handful of western Washington rivers, with moderate flooding expected Tuesday along the Chehalis River in the Centralia area. Residents there were told where to find sandbags and were directed to move any endangered livestock to higher ground.

The Weather Service reported 24-hour rainfall totals as of Monday evening that included 4.09 inches in Bremerton, west of Seattle; 2.97 inches at Hoquiam on the Washington coast; and 6 inches at Cushman Dam on the Olympic Peninsula.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Brennan Linsley / AP

People celebrate in a Denver bar after a local television station announced the passage of Colorado's marijuana amendment on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012.

Colorado’s governor has a message for those excited by the decriminalization of marijuana in his state: “Don’t break out the Cheetos.”

The reason is that marijuana is still a controlled substance under federal law, raising all sorts off issues for how Colorado and Washington, the other state where voters decriminalized the recreational use of marijuana Tuesday, will implement their initiatives.

“The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will,” Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) said after the vote. “This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don’t break out the Cheetos or goldfish too quickly.”

In both states, adults aged 21 and older will be allowed to possess a small amount of marijuana, which will be sold in only state-licensed stores where it will be heavily taxed. For the most part, pot could not be consumed in public. In Colorado, the amendment also allows people to grow a few plants at home.

Dr. Kevin A. Sabet, former senior drug policy advisor to the Obama administration and director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida, suggests these results could portend a growing weed war between the feds and the states.

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“Once these states actually try to implement these laws, we will see an effort by the feds to shut it down,” Sabet said. “We can only guess now what exactly that would look like, but the recent U.S. attorney actions against medical marijuana portends an aggressive effort to stop state-sponsored growing and selling at the outset.” 

The texts of each initiative -- Amendment 64 in Colorado and Initiative Measure 502 in Washington -- make clear that the elimination of penalties for possessing up to an ounce of marijuana if you are 21 or older takes effect after 30 days, once the election results are certified. But the provisions allowing commercial production and sale of cannabis for recreational use require regulations that will be written during the next year in both states.

The Justice Department has so far declined to discuss how the initiatives might function under federal law. Late Tuesday, a spokesman said in an e-mail to NBC News that they were reviewing the Colorado initiative and had no immediate comment.

Sue Ogrocki / AP file

"Don't break out the Cheetos or gold fish too quickly," Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) said after the marijuana initiative was passed in the state Tuesday.

Obama has cracked down harder on medical marijuana than any president to come before him, argues Rob Kampia, the executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. In the 17 states where medical marijuana is legal, U.S. attorneys have enlisted the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Internal Revenue Service to take down hundreds of pot shops in just a few short years, Reuters reported.

Three states weighed in on medical marijuana Tuesday with mixed results. Massachusetts voters approved an initiative allowing people to use marijuana for medicinal purposes. In Arkansas, a similar initiative failed. In Montana, voters approved a plan to revamp an existing medicinal marijuana law to make it more restrictive.

Former DEA Chief Peter Bensinger, an outspoken opponent of marijuana legalization, said legalization would lead to an increase in crime and threaten public safety.

“You’ll lose productivity, you’ll have accidents on the highway, you’ll have absenteeism, and you’ll really have a much more weakened society if you have widespread use of marijuana,” Bensinger said.

Still, proponents argue it’s about time pot was made legal and that the war on weed hasn't worked. 

“The violence associated with it has become greater, use rates have gone up, the respect toward law enforcement has gone down so the government isn’t achieving any of its stated goals," legalization advocate Allen St. Pierre said. 

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Marijuana-legalization backers believe they’re well schooled on all things leafy – from cannabis to political tea leaves. With pro-pot measures leading in recent polls in Washington and Colorado, proponents don’t foresee federal agents interceding in those states if voters approve the initiatives.

Their rationale: Two years ago, when California voters considered a similar proposal to legalize the adult possession of an ounce or less of pot, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder publicly vowed the feds would continue to prosecute anyone in that state caught possessing marijuana — even if the law passed. It failed.

This year, in contrast, federal anti-drug authorities have repeatedly declined to discuss decriminalization proposals in three states — including a measure in Oregon that would end the prohibition of marijuana there. (That initiative trailed in recent polls.) The response routinely delivered by U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman Allison Price, including in an e-mail to NBC News: “We are not going to speculate on the outcome of the various ballot initiatives in each of the states.”

“That, to me, is significant because they didn’t just copy and paste what they did and said in 2010. We feel pretty good about that,” said Alison Holcomb, campaign director for Washington’s Initiative 502, which seeks to regulate and tax marijuana production and distribution in that state. According to a poll released Thursday, Initiative 502 had the support of 55 percent of Washington voters.

But Dr. Kevin A. Sabet, former senior drug policy advisor to the Obama Administration and director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida, predicts a far different law-enforcement reality on the ground in Washington — as well as in Colorado, where Amendment 64 would allow the state to regulate marijuana as it does alcohol.

“Once these states actually try to implement these laws, we will see an effort by the feds to shut it down,” Sabet said.

Sabet’s vision of post-election pot realities in Washington and Colorado — where Amendment 64 has majority support, according to a recent poll — seems to suggest a possible weed war between the feds and the states.

“We can only guess now what exactly that would look like,” Sabet said. “But the recent U.S. Attorney actions against medical marijuana portends an aggressive effort to stop state-sponsored growing and selling at the outset.” (That includes, he said, letters sent by federal prosecutors last January to medical marijuana dispensaries in Colorado operating within 1,000 feet of schools, ordering those businesses to halt sales.)

“The question voters should be asking themselves,” Sabet said, “before voting on these initiatives is this: Is your right to buy pot from a store down the street worth the risk of increased teenage drug abuse, increased enforcement action by the feds, and increased problems like 'stoned driving?’ "

Whether a legal showdown is ignited or not, some state-legalization proponents see their measures as possible footholds in a march toward national marijuana decriminalization.

“Exactly 80 year ago, Colorado voters approved a ballot measure to appeal alcohol prohibition, and that came prior to it being repealed by the federal government,” said Mason Tvert, co-director of the Yes on 64 campaign in Colorado, a state that already regulates the sale of medical marijuana. “And it was the individual states taking that type of action that ultimately resulted in the federal (Prohibition) repeal.

“The same kind of thing is underway with marijuana,” he added. “Whether there’s going to be a critical mass, who knows?”

In Washington, Holcomb echoed that uncertainty: "I'm not sure how that’s going to play out.”

“It may be there’s going to some generational evolution on this. Medical marijuana was introduced in the mid-90s and we were still talking to a lot of people that were coming out of the ‘Reefer Madness’ era, who had a lot of fear. And (medical marijuana) was a really powerful way to help them see that marijuana is not this terribly scary thing that they had been told,” Holcomb said.

Indeed, the most recent poll on Colorado’s Amendment 64 found that 73 percent of state state’s residents who are under age 30 want pot legalized. At the same time, more than half of seniors are against decriminalizing marijuana.

Anti-drug watchdog Sabet, meanwhile, sides with most current political leaders — “the overwhelming majority of Congress (and) both major presidential candidates” — as well as the American Medical Association standing against the decriminalizing of marijuana: “I don't envision national legalization as a realistic possibility in the near future.”

“The state-level efforts could soon prove to be a tipping point for more aggressive legalization initiatives,” Sabet said. “However, there is a growing consensus within the medical and treatment community — who deal with the problems of marijuana use and addiction everyday — to reject both extreme prohibition and lax legalization. I think we'll end up with a policy that is more centrist, for example, not punishing people by barring them from a job for a past marijuana arrest, but also not allowing marijuana to be marketed and sold like alcohol or cigarettes.”

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A man who assaulted a protester outside a southern Oregon Planned Parenthood clinic on Tuesday ended up stabbed by the demonstrator, police said.

The incident occurred after Kailah L. Clair, 22, walked into the facility in Grants Pass, Ore. Witnesses told police that she kicked over protest signs, after which a demonstrator, named by police as Christopher R. Tolhurst, 54, pushed her.

The woman then returned with her father, Ted A. Clair, who pushed Tolhurst to the ground and punched him "numerous times" in the face, Lt. Dennis Ward told reporters.

That was when Tolhurst stabbed the elder Clair, The Associated Press quoted Ward as saying.

Clair received seven stab wounds to the abdomen and neck, according to The Oregonian newspaper.

Kailah Clair received small cuts to her right hand, according to the paper.

Tolhurst received bruises and swelling to the left side of his face, police told the Oregonian.

Tolhurst and the younger Clair were treated and released from the hospital but Ted Clair, 48, remained hospitalized with serious injuries, police told reporters.

No arrests have been made over the incident.

More news from southwestern Oregon on NBC affiliate KOBI5.com

Abortions not performed at clinic
Tolhurst had been carrying signs denouncing abortion and Planned Parenthood, according to The Associated Press.

But spokeswoman Sarah Mosely of the Planned Parenthood for Southwestern Oregon told the AP that clinic only provides health services and does not perform abortions.

"It just appears to be a tragic situation," she told the AP. "Our thoughts are with the people who have been injured and their loved ones."

Local resident Charlotte Cook said Tolhurst accosted people coming and going through the area.

Complete US coverage on NBCNews.com

"It was an accident looking for a place to happen," she told the AP.

Cherie Adams told the news agency that the protester would shout obscenities at her when she passed by him, which has led her to change he route to work.

“He's been out there for months," she told the AP.

"He's screaming at people. I had a feeling something like this would happen,” the AP quoted her as saying.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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GRESHAM, Ore. – Searchers found the body of a young Oregon woman who vanished this week on her way to work and a neighbor has been arrested, Gresham police said late Friday night. 

The body of Whitney Heichel, 21, was found on Larch Mountain, a remote, forested area east of Gresham, Police Chief Craig Junginger told a news conference. 

After collecting DNA and fingerprints and conducting three interviews over three days, police arrested Jonathan Holt, 24, of Gresham, for investigation of aggravated murder, the chief said. 

Holt lived in the same apartment complex as Heichel and her husband. 

The Starbucks barista reportedly left her apartment for work at about 6:45 a.m. Tuesday on a drive that typically takes less than five minutes. 

Her husband, Clint, called police roughly three hours later. He told investigators he tried to reach Whitney multiple times after her boss alerted him that she never arrived for her 7 a.m. shift. 

Police said Heichel's ATM card was used at a nearby Troutdale gas station at 9:14 a.m. Tuesday. Two hours later, her sport utility vehicle was found in a Wal-Mart parking lot with the passenger side window smashed. 

Missing Oregon barista’s cell phone found; police searching for clues

A child later found her cell phone in a field that lies between the gas station and the Wal-Mart, giving investigators another venue to search. 

Police have been searching Larch Mountain since Wednesday, believing that Heichel's SUV was driven there. 

“To say that this case brought fear and anxiety to the community is an understatement," Gresham Mayor Shane Bemis told the Oregonian on Friday. "Our law enforcement personnel and our community searched for Whitney as if she were a member of their own family."

Detectives interviewed Holt on Wednesday and Thursday before arresting him during a Friday night interview, the chief said.

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There were "many inconsistencies" in Holt's interviews, Junginger said. 

Additional crime lab evidence received Friday morning tied him to Heichel's vehicle, the chief added. 

It was not immediately known if Holt was represented by a lawyer. 

Brent Wojahn / AP

Clint Heichel gets a hug from Lorilei Ritmiller, mother of Whitney Heichel, as he breaks down after he attempted to speak at a news conference on Thursday.

Jim Vaughn, a family spokesman, addressed the Friday night news conference, thanking police for their commitment in the case. 

"Really, words can't begin to express the sadness that our families are experiencing tonight," Vaughn said. 

"Whitney was a very loving person," he added. "She was warm, she was kind, she was everything you would want in a friend, relative, spiritual fellow worshipper." 

He asked for privacy for the family, saying "our loss and heartache is too much to bear right now." 
Police took no questions. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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