Tense hospital scene after shooting increases alarm over Portland’s gun violence ‘crisis’
Updated 8:36 PM;
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A flood of Portland police cars responded late Monday to break up a report of a gang fight at the doors to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center’s emergency department, where four people with gunshot wounds had just arrived.
The scene was reminiscent of scenarios two decades ago when officers, street outreach workers and pastors routinely headed to the hospital to cool tensions between rival gangs.
Those days are back, say police, former gang members and community leaders.
The city is on track to shatter its record annual homicide count of 70 in 1987. So far this year, 33 people have died in homicides and about 130 have been wounded in more than 400 shootings. Four people have been killed in the city since a week ago Sunday.
City Council votes stymie police responses and alternatives May 19 2021
Next year s budget will be reviewed on June 17 and take effect on July 1, the start of the next fiscal year.
Even though shootings and visible homelessness are increasing in Portland, the City Council rebuffed pleas from both the Portland police union and police critics when it tentatively approved a $5.7 billion budget for the next fiscal year on Thursday, May 13.
As a result, city residents will not immediately see a beefed-up response to gun violence or alternatives to police responses to 9-1-1 calls.
Before the unanimous vote on the total budget, Portland Police Association President Daryl Turner urged the council to increase funding for the Portland Police Bureau and to reinstate the Gun Violence Reduction Team that was abolished last year. In a morning press release, he blamed the record increase in shootings and killings on the team being abolished.
Portland police have responded to four shooting homicides and 14 gunshot injuries this month alone. The agency has also recovered 231 shell casings throughout the city and received 40 reports of shootings since the beginning of the month.
The president of Portland, Oregon’s police union said in a blistering new statement that the city is on the brink of war.
“We need to talk about the elephant in the room: gun violence. We are on the precipice of a gang war,” said Daryl Turner, head of the Portland Police Association.
Police in the state’s largest city had responded to 357 shootings as of May 9, an increase of over 100 percent from the same time period the year prior.
Portland dealt with a jump in violence in 2020, with both shootings and murders skyrocketing, along with near-nightly riots that regularly diverted attention from 911 calls.
Portland-based attorney James Buchal on the federal government dropping nearly half of all Portland riot cases.
Portland, Oregon, Mayor Ted Wheeler said Saturday he was grateful for the White House’s support after President Biden reversed a Trump administration order that allowed federal agents to intervene in the city s riots last summer. Thankful for the support of the current administration, the embattled mayor, who narrowly won reelection, pointedly wrote on Twitter.
The anti-rioting executive order was among several Biden reversed Friday through his own executive orders.
Trump actions canceled by Biden included the former president s July order to create a garden of monuments to American Heroes in response to damage to statues across the U.S.