A couple of things to clarify in the ongoing story about two homeless men who were shot and wounded by a passing vehicle while sleeping under the Morrison Bridge on February 22: Despite statements issued to reporters and community members in the wake of the shooting, Carter "Joe" Hickman and Albert "Allen" Dean never stayed at Right 2 Dream Too, the tent refuge at NW 4th and Burnside.

R2D2 organizers had said the men were turned away from the tent refuge the night before they were shot; others told stories about Joe and Allen being at camp. The Mercury and the Oregonian both reported that assertion—and I wove that strand into a cover story about the shooting. Organizer Ibrahim Mubarak issued the correction a few hours before a Saturday candlelight vigil in honor of Joe and Allen, along with an apology.

No doubt the retraction will justly raise questions about whether organizers decided to seize on the shooting to help shine a favorable light on the camp, which is weathering a city code crackdown.

"People thought they had been staying there," Mubarak told me this morning. "It was mistaken identity."

Also, despite talk at the vigil that Allen has gone "missing" since the shooting, that's not the case. I learned this morning that a staffer at Saint André Bessette Catholic Church (aka the Downtown Chapel) spoke with both men in the hospital yesterday. "Allen is not missing," I was told.

R2D2's statement is after the cut.

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Portland police have identified the two men who were shot in a drive-by attack while sleeping beneath the Morrison Bridge early Wednesday, and say both are still in the hospital but expected to survive. A $1,000 reward is being offered, through Crime Stoppers, for information about the shooting.

New details include that one of the assailants was "wearing dark clothing and was in a black or dark blue-colored newer style Volvo station wagon with a large dog in the rear cargo area of the vehicle." Previous police reports said the vehicle in the shooting may have been a black pickup truck without a canopy.

The two men were identified as Carter "Joe" Hickman, 57, and Albert "Allen" Dean, 43.

Whether the shootings are still considered random, the prevailing theory as detectives began investigating the case and city and social services officials began reacting to it? That's not clear. But police say they'd "like to hear from anyone with information about this shooting, anyone who may have seen this vehicle before or after the shooting, or any instances where someone has driven up harassing or threatening homeless people."

Read the full release after the jump.

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The two homeless men shot this morning in what police suggest was a random drive-by attack had been staying "on and off" at Right 2 Dream Too, organizers of the Old Town tent refuge told the Mercury this afternoon. But the men had been turned away when they tried to sleep there again last night—after trying to escape stormy, blustery conditions—because there was no more room.

"Those two guys were coming here," says Ibrahim Mubarak, a spokesman for the group, "but we just didn't have enough room. This is a good reason why we need more places like this."

The men decided against sleeping in a nearby doorway, in hopes that some space would open up at some point in the middle of the night. And instead they trudged across the river and tried to sleep under the Morrison Bridge. Early this morning, someone in a black pickup truck fired shots at the two men as they lay in their sleeping bags, lightly injuring one man, but sending another to the hospital with injuries that police say were critical but aren't expected to be fatal.

Police have yet to identify the men, and say detectives are still investigating.

Right 2 Dream Too, which the city is treating as an illegal recreational campground and fining for a pair of code violations, normally hosts about 75 to 80 people every night. Art Rios, another organizer, says the tent refuge, right at NW 4th and Burnside, filled up around 9 pm. He says at least six other people were turned away.

"It's a lot of people we have turn away every night," Rios said, adding that some days it's as many as 20. "We tell them to go across the street and sleep in a doorway, and if someone leaves, we'll come and get you."

Rios also wouldn't share the men's names, but said he's spent some time with them over the past two months, about when they started showing up among Portland's homeless community. He says he'd sometimes walk with them up to Sisters of the Road for lunch and that they'd help clean R2D2 on the days they stayed there.

Both Rios and Mubarak say violence is a sad fact of life for anyone living on the streets—and that this attack just happened to get a lot more press than most other attacks that no one ever hears about.

"This is an awareness thing," Mubarak says. "We provide security. We provide walls. And the city wants to charge us money to do something they should be doing."

Police this morning sent out word of a senseless, violent crime targeting a pair of homeless men:

On Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 5:12 a.m. Portland Police officers assigned to Central Precinct responded to a call of a shooting in the 100 block of Southeast Belmont Street. Arriving officers made contact with two men who had been shot. The two men were sleeping when both were shot. One man was grazed by a bullet on the side of his body and the second man was shot in the chest. The man shot in the chest is being transported to an area hospital with possible life threatening injuries.

Officers learned from witnesses that the men were shot in a drive by type shooting by a suspect from a pickup truck. The truck is described as black, newer, 4 doors and had no canopy.

The Forensic Evidence Division and Homicide Detectives are responding to the scene at this time.

Lieutenant Robert King, a police bureau spokesman, is telling reporters that the cops believe the shooting was "random." A well-placed city source who said he spoke with Chief Mike Reese this morning says detectives are vigorously pursuing leads, and that the man who was shot in the chest was maybe in stable condition at a nearby hospital.

The shooting is stirring up a storm of outrage in City Hall and elsewhere—and it highlights the need for more projects like the homeless rest area Right 2 Dream Too at NW 4th and Burnside (which the city is currently trying to nickel-and-dime into oblivion) and the city's recent car camping pilot program. There are places where someone who's homeless can go during the day, like the Bud Clark Commons, but outside the city's crowded, filled shelters, there are no truly safe places to get a good night's sleep.

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