Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell shared a grim milestone on Saturday: since the beginning of the year, there have been more than 1,000 shootings in the city.
The chief addressed this statistic in statements made on Twitter, calling Portland's gun violence "a terrible problem." He said these shootings are traumatic for the entire community.
This is a substantial jump compared to years past. KATU News did some digging to compare these numbers to previous years.
According to Portland Police Bureau shooting statistics: by this time last year, there were more than 600 recorded shootings, and by this time in 2019, there were around 300.
In all of 2019, there were more than 380 shootings.
In 2020, that number jumped to nearly 900 shootings for the year.
Chief Lovell says the Enhanced Community Safety Team is working to investigate these cases. He says they're also working on building the Focused Intervention Team.
According to Lovell, their goal is to de-escalate and lower tensions in the community that are feeding gun violence. He also is asking for anyone with information on a shooting to come forward to help investigators.