Arvoni Hayes was first charged with murder after Aaron McInnis’ 2024 death before resolving the case through a manslaughter plea.
PORTLAND, Ore. — A homicide investigation that began on a Northeast Portland street in July 2024, led to a murder indictment and a U.S. Marshals arrest two months later, has ended with Arvoni Alexander Hayes sentenced to 18 years in prison for first-degree manslaughter.
Hayes, 25, also pleaded guilty to unlawful use of a weapon with a firearm and will serve three years of post-prison supervision, according to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office. His Sept. 11 sentencing concluded a prosecution that changed significantly between the first police response and the final judgment. Hayes had originally been indicted on second-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon and possession of a loaded firearm in a public place in the death of 30-year-old Aaron McInnis. He was not ultimately convicted of murder.
The case began late July 14, 2024, when Portland police responded to Northeast 55th Avenue and Hassalo Street. KPTV reported that officers arrived at about 11:30 p.m. and found McInnis suffering from gunshot wounds. He was taken to a hospital but died. The medical examiner later determined that his death resulted from gunshot injuries. Police publicly identified McInnis several days later and continued searching for the person responsible, asking anyone with information to contact homicide investigators assigned to the case.
As investigators worked to determine what had happened, McInnis’ family began publicly mourning a father whose son was 10 years old. His father told KPTV that relatives were still in shock and wanted to continue supporting McInnis’ child. At that stage, police had not publicly announced an arrest. The family’s immediate concerns unfolded separately from the investigative process, as detectives gathered evidence and the case moved toward review by prosecutors and a Multnomah County grand jury.
By September 2024, prosecutors had obtained an indictment. The grand jury accused Hayes, then 23, of second-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon and possession of a loaded firearm in a public place. A warrant was issued. On Sept. 11, U.S. Marshals took Hayes into custody without incident. He appeared before a judge the following day and entered a not guilty plea. The district attorney’s office explicitly noted that the indictment represented an accusation and that Hayes was presumed innocent unless and until the state established guilt.
The factual account released later by prosecutors explained why McInnis had been near the shooting scene. He was dropping off a friend at her home near Normandale Park when another man approached him. The man had heard a woman crying in a nearby car and wanted help checking on her. McInnis agreed. The two walked to the car and encountered Hayes with a woman prosecutors described as his girlfriend. The meeting was apparently the first connection between McInnis and Hayes described in the public record.
Prosecutors said Hayes stepped from the vehicle naked and eventually agreed to leave the woman alone. He slowly got dressed, but then abruptly returned to the car and yelled for the woman to drive them away. According to the district attorney’s sentencing account, McInnis ran after the car as it left. At a nearby intersection, Hayes got out and opened fire. McInnis was hit three times and later died at Oregon Health and Science University. Those facts later formed the core of the prosecution’s public explanation for the manslaughter conviction.
Reporting based on court documents added details that were not included in the district attorney’s concise sentencing summary. Law&Crime reported that there was concern the woman might be in danger and that Hayes and the woman initially indicated that they were OK. The publication also reported that the woman later told police she had feared for her life, although the reason was not immediately clear. Some court-record accounts vary slightly from the prosecutor’s summary about how the vehicle moved and how McInnis approached in the final moments before the shots.
Those differences never had to be resolved through a jury verdict because the case did not proceed to trial on the original murder charge. Hayes eventually agreed to plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter and unlawful use of a weapon with a firearm. A guilty plea has a different legal significance from an indictment: The grand jury’s murder charge was an accusation, while Hayes’ later plea established his guilt for the manslaughter and weapon offenses he admitted. That change defined the crimes on which the court ultimately sentenced him.
The resolution also meant much of the evidence that might have been examined during a trial was never presented publicly through witness testimony. Jurors were not asked to decide precisely what Hayes intended when he fired, which version of the movements around the car was most accurate or whether the state could prove second-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, the case moved from contested allegations to an agreed resolution. Hayes accepted criminal responsibility for manslaughter, and prosecutors avoided the uncertainty and additional proceedings of a murder trial.
At the sentencing stage, Deputy District Attorney Eric Palmer turned attention back to McInnis and the circumstances that brought him into the encounter. Palmer called him “a hero to the very end” and said McInnis did not hesitate to check on a stranger’s safety. The district attorney’s office also thanked Portland Police Bureau homicide investigators, including Detective Shaye Samora, for their work. The acknowledgment connected the final sentencing hearing to the homicide investigation that had started more than two years earlier on Northeast 55th Avenue.
The prosecution’s evolution from murder charge to manslaughter conviction is important to the final record. Hayes was publicly identified in 2024 as a defendant accused of second-degree murder, and reporting at the time accurately described that charge. After his guilty plea, however, the case could no longer be summarized simply as a murder prosecution. Hayes’ established convictions are first-degree manslaughter and unlawful use of a weapon with a firearm. The court’s 18-year sentence is the punishment attached to that final resolution, not a conviction on the murder count originally alleged.
The investigation also left parts of the encounter outside the established record. The available public materials do not provide a complete explanation for why the woman was crying before McInnis and the other man approached the vehicle. Nor do they establish every word exchanged during the confrontation. What the district attorney’s office has confirmed is that McInnis went to check on her after another man sought his help, Hayes ultimately fired at McInnis, three bullets struck him, and Hayes later pleaded guilty to causing his death through first-degree manslaughter.
For McInnis’ relatives, the case followed a different timeline from the formal stages recorded in court. Their loss occurred the night of the shooting, before investigators had identified a defendant, before a grand jury had returned charges and long before a plea agreement established Hayes’ guilt. McInnis’ father spoke about supporting his grandson only days after the killing. Later reporting described McInnis as a sales representative and a person whose family remembered him for supporting people around him, adding personal context to a case otherwise organized around court dates and criminal counts.
What began with officers responding to a fatal shooting in July 2024 ultimately passed through a homicide investigation, grand jury indictment, federal fugitive arrest, not guilty plea and negotiated resolution. Hayes’ manslaughter plea and 18-year sentence complete that progression, replacing the unresolved murder accusation that once defined the case with convictions that now form its final court record.
Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.