Is our beloved Rose City flourishing or wilting? People are often asking if Portland is a safe place to visit anymore, or if they should reconsider moving here. The homicides in PDX have gone down 23% since this time last year. 2022 was our absolute worst year crime-wise, there were off-the-chart crime numbers involving firearms and so much gun violence, there were more car accidents than one could count, and the number of unsolved homicides was scary. This wasn’t just happening in Portland either, this was a nationwide problem, and people were going off the rails with crimes. There was a 200% growth in homicides, and a 230% increase in gun violence or the actual gun-involved homicides that started in 2020 that led up to July 2022. People believed or still believe that we were the greatest growth in gun violence in the United States, not only that but we increased at a higher rate than the rest of the nation. A 23% decrease in homicides and crime overall is not something to celebrate, however, it is also not something we should sweep under the rug, it’s not something that doesn’t deserve recognition.
Specific places have higher crime rates than others, Marcell Frazier who is the Director of the Office of Violence Prevention mentioned in an interview with Dave Miller from OPB that he and his team are doing some safety work in specific areas. Hazelwood is one of the many areas where crime is known to happen, from petty theft to devastating unsolved deaths. There are other places just as bad, but I have been keeping track of the homicides and counting them along with keeping track of where they happen. It’s come to my attention that not only do most of them take place in Hazelwood, but also more often than not no one was arrested for the crime leaving the families of the victims to fall into immense grief and feelings of injustice.
