PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — Officials in Portland, Oregon, say the number of homicides in 2022 is "unacceptable" but believe they've effectively stopped the rapid rise in homicides year to year in the city.
"It’s a very difficult number to see," said Community Safety Transition Director for Portland Mike Myers.
He's referencing the 88 homicides the Portland Police Bureau says happened in the city this year. That number does not include officer-involved shooting deaths.
According to the Portland Homicide Problem Analysis done by the California Partnership of Safe Communities, that's the same as the total number of homicides Portland saw in 2021. If Portland continues at this rate, the city could easily exceed that number by the end of the year.
“Absolutely concerned we could exceed last year’s number. It’s a very real concern," Myers said.
PPB also reports the number of homicides by shooting went up from 68 last year to 72 so far this year.
KATU asked Myers if the work the city is doing, like the Safer Summer PDX program, is making an impact.
I think that’s a great question, and you know I get that question a lot, you know what are the expectations? And somebody told me, a street level officer or outreach worker explained it to me best the other day, is describing to me the interactions that he’s had with individuals that would’ve likely pulled a weapon and committed murder themselves, and he was able to talk them out of it. And those stories don’t get reported, we don’t know how many times somebody didn’t pull the trigger,” he said.He also pointed to the slowdown in year-to-year growth of homicides from 2021 to 2022.
“We have, I think, controlled that aggressive growth in gun violence in Portland. That was the main goal, was to try to figure out how to decapitate that growth," he said.
It's true that the city hasn't yet seen the kind of explosive uptick in homicides like it saw from 2020 (57) to 2021 (88).
We have spent an unprecedented, unprecedented amount of money to try to reduce gun violence here in the city of Portland. And we’re gonna continue to fund that. The mayor and the Council have put 10 million dollars over the next two years in just street level outreach and community-based organizations and a community-based approach to reducing gun violence in the community of Portland,” Myers said.In his office at City Hall, there are maps showing hot spots of where the most violence occurs in Portland.
“As we find clusters of violence, we go to those neighborhoods, those areas, we investigate what’s going on there, and it can be a number of different things at play,” he said.
But he acknowledges that his team still has a long way to go.
"This is very important that people understand this, we are not celebrating the number where we are at today. They have to go down, it’s unacceptable,” Myers said.
ncG1vNJzZmihlJa1sLrEsKpnm5%2BifK%2Bx1qxmp5mknryvedaoqaWcX6PCrq7Eq2Sonl2lvLPAy5qlnWWYpLqqr8idnKxlpaOupK%2FEqauampyaeqPB02ajnpmUmr%2B0edKenGaooqS0s7HSrGScp52iwq%2B107JkrJmWmsG6edOrmKermam2sLqMnaCrnZOpvLN5xaipZqifp8Gtrc2dZKahm5p6rsXEq6pmqpGltqV50aKqnmWUlsGiec2upJudoqh6tK3Fnqlmq6Wiuqa%2BjKmbsWWgp7yovsCm