PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — After months of negotiations between multiple companies, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced Thursday the city will not be pursuing a gunshot detection technology contract for the time being.
Portland was considering contracting either ShotSpotter or Eagl to provide the service. The two companies both specialize in technology that spots suspected gunfire and automatically notifies police, but Eagl uses energy sensors while ShotSpotter uses microphones.
Critics of the tech claim it disproportionately targets communities of color — and say it costs about $70,000 to monitor one square mile.
Wheeler made the announcement during a press conference on Thursday during which he and other local leaders provided an update on Portland’s plans to prevent gun violence as we head into the summer.
As of our last count, there have been 37 homicides in the city so far this year — with 33 of them resulting from shootings. Police say there have been 439 total shooting incidents with 136 people injured. Wheeler pointed to a 28% reduction in the number of shootings in Portland as a hope that Safer Summer PDX and these community-based strategies are working.
“People are hearing the same thing today — what is changing from last year? The number of shooting incidents is down precipitously,” he said.
However, a record pace of gun-related homicides is still continuing.
“We’re not seeing the homicide rate go down to the same degree, we’re not happy about that and that’s the focus of what we’re working on today,” Wheeler said.
“This isn’t numbers, these are people,” added Sam Thompson, the outreach program manager for the Portland Office of Violence Prevention.
The mayor also discussed new collaborations with community-focused groups to run street-level violence intervention programs, including a gun violence reduction strategy he calls Portland Ceasefire.
Sierra Ellis, former interim manager of Portland’s Office of Violence Prevention, will serve as the program manager.
“Ceasefire’s success hinges on collaboration, coordination and trust from all of our partners. We acknowledge Portland’s gun violence problem did not arise overnight and its resolution will take time,” said Ellis.
“Portland Ceasefire works to unify the efforts of the community, law enforcement, and other government partners to engage directly with those at highest risk of carrying out or being victimized by gun violence,” said added Wheeler. “This subject matter expertise will be invaluable to guide us as we build and implement a comprehensive program tailored to Portland.”
There are four areas the city is working on — identifying who is at risk of being a victim or committing gun violence, finding them, providing services and support to them, and focusing enforcement on certain areas. Wheeler says that strategy helped reduce shootings in Old Town’s entertainment district.
“Shooting incidents within the district dropped from the highest frequency in Portland to zero,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler sees similar success in the Montavilla neighborhood, and plans expansions in the Hazelwood and Elliot neighborhoods as well.
“I think we have a lot of organizations within our city that are doing great work. But everybody is doing great work in their individual silos and I think with the creation of this ceasefire program, we are identifying who is doing the right work and putting them all within a space where we can collaborate,” Thompson said. “While we want to be urgent and act with urgency with these kind of things, we have to have patience because we didn’t get here overnight.”
Along with the Portland Ceasefire partnership, the city is investing $4.5 million over the next two years to fund Street Level Outreach workers through the Cure Violence model, which is a public health approach to reducing gun violence.