Gang Violence Drives Surging Portland Homicide Rate From Early 2019 to Mid-2021, Study Finds

Maxine Bernstein / Oregonlive.com (TNS)

Portland’s homicide rate jumped 207% from January 2019 through June 2021, the largest increase compared to five comparable cities, Minneapolis, Atlanta, San Francisco, Denver and Nashville, according to a new study.

The California Partnership for Safe Communities, a consulting firm that works to help cities reduce violence, found that just under half of the Portland homicides involved gang or what reviewers called group members as either victims or suspects.

But when filtered for killings from gun violence, the data showed more than half of the fatal shootings in that period involved gang or group members.

The study defined groups loosely as a variety of subsets of gangs, such as sets and crews active in Portland and Oregon. They didn’t name the groups or gangs.

The city-commissioned study found about 70% of all homicide and non-fatal shooting victims and suspects had prior and often extensive criminal justice system involvement: They had been arrested before they either fell victim to or were charged in a nonfatal shooting or homicide. Victims had committed an average of nine criminal offenses, and suspects had an average of seven criminal convictions.

And Black teen and adult men continued to be disproportionately affected by nonfatal shootings and homicides, representing 47% of victims and suspects, while making up only 6% of the city’s population, the report said.

That compares to white people, who represented 37% of victims and suspects, while making up 75% of the city’s population, according to the report.

The report defined violence involving gangs or groups as group-on-group conflicts but also when a person’s association with a gang or group increased their risk of harm.

California Partnership also studied nonfatal shootings from January 2019 through December 2021 and found that a very small but high-risk population has driven a significant portion of the city’s gun violence.

During the study period, 227 people who were involved in a gang or group were directly involved in a fatal or a nonfatal shooting.

Most of the homicides resulted from ongoing personal disputes, followed closely by ongoing gang or group conflicts.

While overall about 0.1% of Portland’s population was involved in a homicide or nonfatal shooting, about 18% of Portland’s population estimated to be in a gang or group were involved in a homicide or nonfatal shooting, the report said.

The Police Bureau, according to the report, identified 30 gangs or gang sets, representing about 1,000 to 1,5000 people active in the city and considered at significant risk of involvement in violence. The report does not identify the gangs.

In September 2017, Portland police announced the bureau was ending its more than 20-year-old practice of designating people as gang members or gang associates in response to strong community concerns about the labels that have disproportionately affected minorities. A year later, a city audit found the bureau still kept an informal list of active gang members despite purging a more formal director of designated gang members. In 2020, the Police Bureau discovered nearly 100 reports that still contained alleged gang designation of people in its electronic records system and said they were being removed.

California Partnership recommended that the city’s violence intervention strategy focus on people most involved in shootings — gang or group members – and urged the city to work with probation and parole officers on risk assessments for them.

Those most involved in the violence are men ages 18 to 34 who are well-known to the criminal justice system, have been charged with felonies and were or are currently on probation, involved in a gang and previously have been shot or connected to a recent shooting or homicide victim.

“If the goal of public safety strategies is to reduce gun violence in the near term, invest in and focus on the people that are at highest risk now,” the report said.

This is the second study the city hired California Partnership for Safe Communities to conduct. The city paid $122,000 for the research and drafting of the report.

The consulting firm previously reviewed homicides and shootings in the city from January 2015 to May 2019. The partnership’s website said it works to help cities reduce violence and improve police-community trust.

Portland’s increase in its homicide rate was about double the increase in the homicide rate reported in Minneapolis, which experienced a 104 % increase in its homicide rate between 2019 and mid-2021, according to the study.

The report cited some data restrictions due to limited police staffing that limited the Portland Police Bureau’s ability “to pull and review detailed reports that would have been necessary for a thorough evaluation of all gun violence incidents for this project.’’

It also noted about 40 cases were not reviewed due to the retirement of detectives handling them, though the report didn’t explain why their reports wouldn’t be available.

Stephanie Howard, community safety director in Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office, said the report will help inform how the city uses its resources for short-term and long-term gun violence prevention efforts.

Under the umbrella of the city’s Community Safety Division, a three-member “ceasefire” team of civilian staff appointed by the mayor has been asked to coordinate efforts by the city’s Office of Violence Prevention with the Police Bureau’s response to shootings and investigation of gun crimes. The Office of Violence Prevention oversees youth and family outreach workers.

The city responded to a record of more than 90 homicides last year. So far this year, there have been 48, down from the 57 at this time last year. In 2021, there were a total of 1,327 shootings. As of Thursday, there were 729 shootings in the city this year.