Shattered glass lined the sidewalks. Downtown Portland was recovering from nightly riots five days after George Floyd’s police death. I was downtown with friends, helping businesses recover from the latest bout of violence. Officers with the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) were taking reports from damaged businesses.
More than three years later, Portland police are still struggling to respond to crime. The PPB is dealing with high response times, high crime rates, and low staffing levels, according to a Manhattan Institute report released Sept. 14.
“Portland, Oregon, is in the middle of a public safety crisis,” the report reads. “What sets Portland apart are the limits on its capacity to respond to these issues with the traditional tools of the criminal justice system and, in particular, its capacity to use the police.”
The PPB took more than 20 minutes to respond to high-priority calls, more than 50 minutes to respond to medium-priority calls, and more than one and a half hours to respond to low-priority calls as of July, according to the report.
“Like other major cities, Portland, Oregon, has experienced a surge in crime and disorder over the past three years,” the report reads. “Unlike other major cities, Portland is uniquely ill-equipped to deal with this problem, because its police department is uniquely understaffed.”
The city’s shootings spiked after Floyd’s death, reaching a 26-year record in 2020 and setting all-time homicide records in 2021 and 2022. Portland followed the “defund the police” movement, slashing $15 million from the PPB’s budget
