Portland homicides reach highest level since 1994

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Portland police seeing officer shortages as gun violence rocks the city

Portland Police Association President Daryl Turner joins to discuss why crime is surging in Portland

Tuesday’s violence in Portland upped the total homicide count so far this year to at least 58 people killed, making 2021 the most deadly year for the liberal city on record in more than 25 years. 

In 1994, there were 55 homicides recorded by the year’s completion, The Oregonian reported. Portland saw 55 homicides in 2020. 

On Tuesday, gunfire rang out at about 5:19 a.m. in the Madison South neighborhood, on Northeast Milton Street between Northeast 82nd Avenue and Northeast 84th Avenue, nearly what reportedly was a homeless camp. Two people were killed, and three others wounded were rushed to the hospital. 

No suspects were taken into custody. 

PORTLAND SHOOTING AT HOMELESS CAMP TURNS DEADLY, WITH POLICE OVERWHELMED BY HOMICIDE SURGE 

Portland Police Bureau Lt. Greg Pashley described to Fox 12 Oregon the burden his detectives face as police already are investigating two other homicides that happened over the past several days. 

"Detectives have a lot of work to do, on top of all the other cases they're already working," he told the outlet. "It's the same group of detectives that are responding to all of these. So there's no rest for them and our heart always goes out to victims and their families."

Those two deaths added, the city’s annual homicide total rose to 58. And including a fatal hit-and-run that happened earlier Tuesday around 1:39 a.m. at Northeast 33rd Avenue and Northeast Broadway Street, the homicide total would reach 59. 

This comes as the Portland Police Bureau is struggling to find officers willing to serve on a newly resurrected gun violence team – a year after its original unit was disbanded at the height of the "Black Lives Matter" movement. The once-prestigious positions on the Portland’s Gun Violence Reduction Team are now considered less desirable due to the added scrutiny that comes with the role.

Portland police set up a command van outside the scene of a fatal shooting that happened near a homeless camp early Tuesday.  (KPTV )

Homicides have surged since the unit was disbanded last summer after the Portland City Council voted to slash the police bureau’s budget by $15 million. Amid the uptick in gun violence, Mayor Ted Wheeler proposed a new unit in March renamed the "Focused Initiative Team."

Uncertainty around the new role is believed to have also slowed applicants to the gun violence unit, which also includes its own citizen advisory board. And because officials railed against the old unit for alleged racial profiling, job qualifications for the new team include the "ability to identify and dismantle institutional and systemic racism in the bureau’s responses to gun violence."

"They’re demonizing and vilifying you, and then they want to put you in a unit where you’re under an even bigger microscope," Daryl Turner, leader of the Portland Police Association, a union representing rank-and-file officers, told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month. 

In the last six weeks alone, Portland’s Enhanced Community Safety Team recorded an average of 30 shooting incidents per week in the liberal city. As of Monday, there had been approximately 732 shooting incidents so far in 2021, with about 237 people injured by gunfire.

That amounts to an average of one person injured per day, police said.

On Sunday, a man was fatally shot just before 5:30 p.m. on a TriMet bus in southeast Portland. 

Three people were injured in separate shooting incidents across Portland Saturday alone. Officers responded around 2:11 a.m. to a shooting at Northeast 148th Avenue and East Burnside Street. A victim was rushed to the hospital with a serious but nonfatal gunshot wound, police said. 

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Officers found another victim, who showed up at a hospital at about 8:58 p.m. suffering from a gunshot wound that was also not life threating. Police determined the victim sustained injuries during a separate shooting earlier at Northeast 140th Avenue and Northeast Sandy Boulevard in the Argay Terrace neighborhood.

The third incident happened at about 11:49 p.m. when an individual waved down bystanders in the 11900 block of North Center Avenue, telling them he had been shot. Officers arrived and performed medical aid until an ambulance came to transport the individual to the hospital. 

In nondeadly clashes this weekend, Antifa descended on a Christian worship event by the Portland waterfront. Clashes later ensured in the streets with the Proud Boys. Antifa reportedly launched projectiles and deployed gas, fireworks exploded in the streets, and Proud Boys shot paintball guns.