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An OPB file photo of a police tape on a downtown Portland street. There have been 37 homicides in Oregon’s largest city so far this year, more than six times the number recorded at the same time last year.
Beth Hyams / OPB
When Oregon’s most populous city had a rampant gang problem 30 years ago, Portland detectives were stunned if they found more than a few dozen cartridge cases after a shooting. Now the police are recording multiple shootings per week with 50 to 70 shots, and in one case more than 150, as gang attacks and retaliatory shootings get bogged down again in a vicious cycle.
With more bullets comes more bloodshed. There have been 37 homicides in Oregon’s largest city so far this year, more than six times the number recorded at the same time last year. If nothing changes, Portland will surpass its all-time high of 70 homicides set in 1987, when the city was in the midst of a gang siege.
The violence has deeply affected Portland, a liberal city that continues to grapple with the role of its police force more than a year after thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters demanded changes following the murder of George Floyd.
The upsurge in gang-related shootings, which has disproportionately affected people of color, highlights a sensitive and polarizing subject being felt in major cities across the country where violence is escalating as people continue to call the police.
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Police estimate that half of the 470 shootings in Portlands this year, which have injured more than 140 people, are linked to gangs. Mayor Ted Wheeler warned last month that gangs are ordering criminals to shoot someone within 30 days or be shot at and people are coming from other states to engage in violence in the Pink City .
People are scared. They are angry. They are fed up, said the Portland Police Sgt. Ken Duilio.
Portland’s pervasive gang violence in the 1990s, when it was estimated that there were 2,500 people in as many as 600 gangs in the area, left a crimson stain on the city’s recent history. But now, after the pandemic closed and Floyd’s murder coupled with a decrease in police presence, community leaders say the problem has returned.
While the number of shots is on par with the 1990s, police and locals say the daring of the shooters and the number of shots fired exceeds what they have seen before. Gangs also no longer wait for the typical “blow-for-blow” cycle to target a rival, but immediately shoot again at places such as vigils, injuring up to seven people in a single event.
Related: Peak In Portland Area Shootings, Homicides Sparks New Collaboration Between Local Federal Police
You have multiple shooters, it’s kind of a new phenomenon, multiple guns and a lot of shots, said Duilio, who added that more shots increase the chances of passers-by being hit, including more. recently a newspaper carrier, an Uber driver and a city bus driver.
While everyone agrees that Portland has a problem, the way to fix it is where people go their separate ways.
There are a lot of bullets being fired in this area everywhere, Duilio said. But the police office is underfunded, understaffed and underfunded.
The rise in violence comes at a time when the Portland Police Bureau’s staffing levels are at their lowest in decades, the department has more than 100 officers short of “authorized strength,” as determined by the city.
Over the past nine months, the department has seen a rapid turnover with more than 120 officers having left the department, many citing low morale and exhaustion due to nightly racial justice protests that would end in confrontation and plumes of tear gas. Meanwhile, as officers’ priorities shifted to protests, Portland was also experiencing its deadliest year in more than a quarter of a century.
A photo of a Portland Police crest on an officer’s uniform.
Michael Clapp / OPB
Despite calls from the police for more staff, city leaders cut the police budget by $ 27 million by $ 11 million due to a budget crisis caused by a pandemic and $ 15 million amid calls to fund police pledging money to community groups working to fight gun violence.
Police can’t stop shootings, ”Portland activist Royal Harris said. “That part, as a community, we have to work together to prevent these things instead of seeing it as a police approach.
Officials also disbanded a specialized unit focused on combating gun violence that had long been criticized for disproportionately targeting people of color, a move some gun violence-affected residents still question. .
You kidnapped the gun violence reduction team. There is no one in this town stopping the flow of these armed and violent snipers who scour the city looking for their rivals to shoot and go to vigils and light up a whole crowd, Duilio said.
An OPB file photo of Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who supports the city’s choice to disband its gun violence reduction team.
Kaylee Domzalski / OPB
Jo Ann Hardesty, the first black woman elected to city council and who pushed to cut unity, maintains that disbanding the team last summer was the right move.
“The police have a role but their role is simply to solve crime, their role is not to prevent crime, their role is not to intervene in other community activities,” Hardesty told KOIN 6 last month. “A response to gun violence shouldn’t be a knee-jerk reaction.”
But as gun violence continued in 2021, leaders were forced to reassess. More officers have been assigned to shootings, the police office has partnered with the FBI to investigate crimes, and the US Oregon prosecutor has stepped up efforts to prosecute gun violence cases. But efforts to reimburse even part of the cuts have been controversial.
Related: Mayors’ Gun Violence Reduction Plan Takes Gradual Step Towards Reality
In addition, the city council voted to create a team of 12 officers and two sergeants to fight gun violence, but without additional funds.
Chief Chuck Lovell said the department is so thin right now that officials will likely have to remove officers from patrolling, domestic violence or human trafficking investigations to support the new team.
Duilio said that while funding for organizations and social services is important, it is only part of the solution and should not compete with funding for the police.
They both have to happen, Duilio said. If you can get a 15-year-old on the right track without them getting involved in bi-weekly shootings, that’s great. But to really quell this level of intense violence that we are seeing right now, it will take uniformed police officers to stop these cars traveling from point A to point B for a shootout. “
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Cline is a member of the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative Corps. Report for America is a national, nonprofit service program that places reporters in local newsrooms to cover undercover issues.
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