Mejia convicted in 2020 Blue Heron fire

By Danielle Harrison

Smoke Signals staff writer

OREGON CITY – The man suspected of starting a fire that damaged the Grand Ronde Tribe’s Blue Heron property was found guilty of several felony and misdemeanor charges in Clackamas County Circuit Court on Thursday, March 10.

Enrique Omar Mejia, 30, was arrested by Oregon City police for the Dec. 5, 2020 fire at the former Blue Heron Paper Mill site that the Tribe purchased in August 2019. He was originally scheduled to go on trial in February 2021 but it was delayed multiple times.

Mejia was found guilty of first-degree arson, second-degree arson, second-degree burglary, second-degree disorderly conduct and second-degree criminal trespass. The first three are felony convictions.

He will be sentenced by Clackamas County Circuit Court Judge Kathie F. Steele on Monday, May 23.

According to circuit court documents on the case, Mejia waived his right to a jury trial and instead opted for a bench trial.

The trial was delayed due to a mental health evaluation for Mejia and judicial complications due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

After undergoing a mental health evaluation, Mejia was found fit to proceed early in 2021 by Clackamas County Judge Heather Karabeika and had another trial date set for June 1, but that was rescheduled to November after new statements by a witness during a pretrial meeting. The trial was later postponed another time due to a lack of available judges during the pandemic.

Competency called into question

Mejia’s court-appointed attorney Ruben Medina Jr. requested a psychiatric/psychological examination in late December 2020, saying that a criminal trial could violate his client’s “fundamental right to competency.”

Mejia reportedly made “concerning statements” that called into question his ability to stand trial, Medina said. He added that his client’s family members said that he had been having mental health issues for some time.

Medina told the court that Mejia claimed to have had a chip implanted in his head and wanted to know what would happen when the chip was discovered. He also asserted that he was followed around by a cult that was trying to frame him for a crime.

According to a Dec. 29 court filing reported by The Clackamas Review, Mejia said that because of his brain implant “a group of people can see what I’m thinking; they can see what I see, and they can hear what I hear. … I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I think it’s part of a cell phone or Google eye or something.”

Mejia’s most recent criminal conviction was a 2018 disorderly-conduct charge in Lincoln City. According to the Lincoln City News Guard, he also was cited and released by the Lincoln City Police Department in July 2020 after police received a report of a man with a beer pushing a crosswalk button over and over again.

Other criminal convictions include driving under the influence of intoxicants, reckless driving, criminal trespassing, harassment and interfering with a parole and probation officer.

Oregon law states that a person may be found incapacitated if, as a result of a qualifying mental disorder, he or she is “unable to understand the nature of the proceedings against the defendant or to assist and cooperate with the counsel.”

Mejia remained in the Clackamas County Jail in Oregon City on $100,000 bail on one count of second-degree arson until June 3, 2021 when was he released on his own recognizance. He had been previously denied release because of failure to appear charges, the felony arson charge, having adult convictions and being unemployed. 

Includes information from Pamplin Media Group and KGW