A Portland Police Bureau official says the force “can’t keep up” with all the crime plaguing the Oregon city.
Lt. Greg Pashley, who is a public information officer with the bureau, offered the assessment after a stabbing and two shootings early Wednesday morning resulted in three deaths, one of which police said was a suicide.
“We are at 69 homicides since July 1 of 2020, so these homicide detectives are essentially buried under their cases,” Pashley said, according to local ABC affiliate KATU.
Pashley said the bureau has added more detectives and officers to work on the shooting investigations, but “quite frankly, they can’t keep up.” If the other two deaths are deemed homicides, it will give the city of Portland its 24th and 25th homicides of 2021.
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Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who is also the city’s police commissioner, recently acknowledged the city’s problem with violent crime, promising to ask the City Council for a one-time $2 million appropriation to improve the city’s policing against gun violence.
A group of faith leaders had urged the mayor and the City Council to do more to mitigate violence in the city. The Portland City Council disbanded the city’s Gun Violence Reduction Team last summer following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and subsequent protests in the city.
“Cuts to the Police Bureau created a vacuum that undermined public safety and the very communities whose voices the Council — and our community — seek to amplify,” the Inter-Faith Peace and Action Collaborative wrote in a March 11 letter addressed to Wheeler and to city commissioners. “We are deeply concerned about the dramatic increase in violence on the street. People are getting killed, injured, and traumatized. The cycle of retaliation will continue until we intervene and address the root causes of such violence.”
After he announced the $2 million ask, Wheeler reportedly recommended that the proposal be slowed down.
“This is politically controversial,” he said. “My colleagues will need to know the community is standing with them as they make these decisions. … As mayor, I am not an island. I am one vote out of five. I need at least three votes.”
The Oregonian reported on Wednesday that every member of Portland’s City Council opposes Wheeler’s $2 million ask. According to the Inter-Faith Peace and Action Collaborative’s request, it would fund a uniformed police patrol, among other initiatives like an independent oversight committee.
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Portland’s North Precinct has seen a year-to-date increase in shooting incidents of nearly 104%, according to city data. Twenty-five homicides would put the city at nearly half of its 2020 homicide total, which was 55.
