Violence escalates in Portland: Police ask public for help
Christmas Shooting victim identified as Jaron Weeks.
Portland homicides higher this year than in almost three decades and more than 850 shootings as of December, more than double the number reported in 2019.
“The number of bullets that must have been flying around our neighborhoods, city streets, sidewalks – it’s awful,” said Portland Police Bureau (PPB) Lieutenant Greg Pashley. According to Pashley, at least 225 people were shot in 2020, with more than 50 homicides KGW local news reported.
A frontline special police task force was earlier disbanded because activists claimed it was inherently racist.
PPB’s [Portland Police Bureau] gun violence reduction team was disbanded in the summer following the criticism of advocates who said that the gun violence reduction team was stopping people of color disproportionately to others.
24 December Officer Jennifer Pierce. was injured when a person hit her with a stolen pickup truck in the gas station lot in the 3900 block of Southeast Powell Boulevard on December 24, 2020, is Officer Pierce, a 15-year veteran, suffered a fractured pelvis and is still in the hospital.
On December 21, 2020, at about 11:16 p.m., Portland Police responded to reports of shots heard in the area on Northeast 7th Avenue and Northeast Alberta Street and in the neighborhood to the north and west. Portland Police officers heard the shots as well and spread out in the area to investigate. Police encountered a person in that area suffering from what appeared to be gunshot wounds.