Portland sees record shootings after mayor disbands Gun Violence Reduction Team
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 11:37 AM PT – Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Portland, Oregon is experiencing its highest number of homicides in
nearly three decades. The Portland Police Bureau is begging the public
to take community action as a way to stop the violence.
As of December, there have been over 850 shootings this year. This
resulted in at least 250 people shot and contributed to 50 homicides.
“The number of bullets that must have been flying around our
neighborhoods, city streets, sidewalks. It’s awful,” Lieutenant Greg
Pashley of the Portland Police Department said.
In June, Portland city officials and Mayor Ted Wheeler (D-Ore.)
reduced the Portland Police Bureau’s budged by $15 million. Part of the
massive budget cut was the total disbanding of the PPB’s Gun Violence
Reduction Team, who Democrat city leadership accused of
disproportionately stopping people of color.
“We propose to direct over $7 million from the police bureau and $5
million from other city funds directly to communities of color,
reinvesting $12 million,” Wheeler said back in June. “We are going to
dissolve the Gun Violence Reduction Team.”
In response to the jump in gun violence and decline of police
funding, the Portland Police Bureau is left with no other option but to
ask churches and local organizations to step in so some people may not
feel the need to act out in violence.
Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said it has to be a team effort.
“We have come together to do our best to stop the spread of a deadly
disease. Violence is also a disease that kills and our community is
suffering the consequences,” Lovell stated. “The disparate impacts of
violence on our communities of color are shocking.”
However, Wheeler said his decision to disband the Gun Violence
Reduction Team didn’t actually impact the city’s tragic rise in gun
violence.
As of now, Police Chief Lovell has been forced to assign additional detectives as investigators into shootings.
