After two shootings left two people dead in Portland Wednesday night, the City of Portland is now on track to surpass last year's record-breaking homicide total.
One shooting was at a 7-11 gas station on NE Glenn Widing Dr, the other at an apartment complex on SE 37th Avenue near Gladstone.
Both shootings left one person dead.
According to data from the Portland Police Bureau (PPB), with Wednesday's killings, Portland has now seen 88 homicides in 2022.
That's the same number as last year's total, which set a violent record for the city.
Additionally, the PPB's homicide totals don't include officer-involved shootings - which would increase the totals even further.
“It’s discouraging. I mean I never thought even with the defunding and disbandment of GVRT (Gun Violence Reduction Team) , that we would ever see this level of violence," said Lieutenant Ken Duilio, head of PPB's Focused Intervention Team.
Duilio says almost every type of shooting has gone up in Portland since the summer of 2020: gang-related, domestic violence, etc.
Even technical aspects of shootings, like the number of bullets used, have gone up.
“In the 10 years that I worked the gang enforcement team and GVRT, I went to hundreds of shootings, and the most casings at any scene that I responded to was fifty-something. It’s very common now to go to shootings that have between 50 to 100, sometimes over 100,” stated Duilio.
Lt. Duilio says part of the problem is that people retaliate for shootings by shooting, and therefore create a cycle of violence.
KATU asked him what the PPB is doing to get ahead of this trend.
“It’s all hands on deck, and we’re taking every shooting we can. We even have officers outside of our unit, that work the precincts that have other primary duties and responsibilities, that are doing their part on trying to get ahead of this gun violence,” he said.
But, according to Duilio, ongoing staffing shortages at the Bureau significantly limit what they can do.
Unfortunately we’re still in the middle of a serious staffing shortage, and the Police Bureau is hiring officers. It’s gonna take a while to train them up. But we need to continue that- it gets back to that long-term approach, this needs to be a long term commitment from everybody. Officers will make a difference. We are severely understaffed, and it affects our ability to effectively reduce this gun violence.