A man who attacked a dozen people with a knife at Salem’s Union Gospel Mission shelter last Sunday night is now in police custody. He’s facing attempted murder and assault charges. Several of the 12 victims suffered serious injuries and were hospitalized.

The Union Gospel Mission has operated in Salem for more than 72 years.

Mark Hunter, the director of community engagement, has said that while it’s hard to make sense of the attack, he and the other staff and volunteers are more committed than ever to their work.

Hunter and Executive Director Craig Smith spoke with host Dave Miller on OPB’s “Think Out Loud.”

Here are excerpts from that conversation, edited for clarity and length.

How are those who were injured doing?

Mark Hunter: We’re blessed. We’re feeling very grateful for the current status of those that were injured. Many of them have been released from the hospital, but those that have not are stable. They’re recovering, and they’re responding to their treatment at this time.

I think any time something like this happens, there’s going to be trauma that is attached to it for those that witnessed it, or those that came alongside after the event. So there is a lot of that in our facility right now, amongst our staff as well as those that we serve. And so we have to take time to work through that.

A lot of community people have come alongside the county. A lot of churches have come alongside with counseling services for anybody that desires it, from staff to clients to guests to volunteers, whatever the case may be.

What has been the response from the community?

Craig Smith: It’s unbelievable who’s reached out, everyone in the community. It’s really bringing the community together. But the first call we made on Monday morning was to Summit Restoration, which is an amazing group of folks here in Salem, and they dropped everything they had, sent their trucks and their team down here to help us restore the mission, and we got it up and running that same day.

The churches are amazing. We’ve had offers like Mark said for counseling services, but just prayer, people to come down and sit with us, walk with us. We just finished a prayer meeting here and we had [hundreds] from all over the community to pray with us for those who were injured, to pray for the mission of the ministry here, which is strong and doing well.

Response from Salem Police Department:

Smith: Salem PD, who was right on the spot when this happened, they have offered us all kinds of help. They’ve opened their doors. I don’t know how many officers were at our prayer meeting this morning. They lined the windows. I could cry right now just thinking about it because I stood up to the podium and I looked up and I didn’t see them come in and they were all lined along the side of the building.

A lot of those guys were the ones that came and helped us. We’re right across the street from the police department.

On the resilience of the staff and volunteers at the Union Gospel Mission:

Smith: So this attack occurred at 7:15 in the evening, and I left the building probably about 1:15, 1:30 a.m. Our operations manager left about 2:30 a.m. The Salem PD forensics team finished with the crime scene at about 3:30 am. And at 4 o’clock, our kitchen staff came in through the back door — because they couldn’t come in any other way — got in the kitchen, and when I got to work at 5:45 that next morning, there were 150 guys sitting at tables out in our parking lot eating breakfast.

We didn’t miss a single meal. We didn’t miss a single service that we provide, and we were reopened by 5:30 in the afternoon for dinner, chapel and beds.

UGM is reviewing its security protocols in the aftermath of the attack:

Smith: We are in the process of reviewing everything. We have a pretty good safety protocol here. We lock down our doors at around 7, 7:30 each evening and access is only through buzzers. We also require all of our guests to check their bags when they walk in the front door in a locked and secure baggage storage area so that they can’t bring contraband into the mission. No one is allowed to bring in bags or backpacks into the mission on the floor.

Plus, we know a lot of the people that we serve here because they’re not just here one night, they’re here for many nights, a lot of them, and so we get to know them. We understand their tendencies, and then when we have new people, we try to get to know them so that we can assess their stability.

So we have security in place, but the question then becomes, “What could we do different, what could we do better?” And I actually was just talking to the deputy chief of the Salem PD this morning about that, and both the sheriff Nick Hunter and the Salem Police Department have offered to come meet with us and talk to us and evaluate and help us understand how we might be able to do some things better.

But an important point is that the ministry that we offer to the people that we serve, they don’t have a real good relationship with authority and police. So while we love those [law enforcement] guys, we can’t have them on site because no one would come.

And then if we put security guards out, the same thing happens, and so we have to thread the needle between security and being able to deliver the services that we want to serve for these people that need us.

How are UGM’s leaders preventing fear from creeping in and affecting the mission’s work?

Smith: The way we do that is because we’re the Union Gospel Mission. We trust Jesus. And our belief and our hope is rooted in the goodness and kindness of God. And therefore, we are committed. This is why we serve breakfast at 5:30 on Monday morning, because we knew those guys would be hungry and they had no place else to go. It is up to us. God has called us to this ministry, and we do love these people. We love them.

“I’ve only been here 30 days. I’m, like, in awe every day of my staff. They are unbelievable people. Are we scared? Yes, yeah, absolutely. Are we shaken? Absolutely. Are we going to do everything that we can to keep ourselves safe? Absolutely. But our commitment is to deliver the gospel and the services that we have here, no matter what. And that’s the kind of staff I have. I’m so proud of them.”

Craig Smith and Mark Hunter spoke to “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller. Click play to listen to the full conversation:

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/06/salem-oregon-knife-attack-stabbing-union-gospel-mission/