PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — On Friday, the Portland Police Bureau’s Strategic Services Division released a report that shows statistics on shooting incidents from 2022 and compares year-over-year data.
According to the statistics, there were 1,306 shooting incidents in 2022 and 94 gun-related-homicide victims — a 6% increase from the previous year’s numbers. In 2021, PPB reported 1,315 shooting incidents and 89 homicide victims.
Portland police said that the number of homicide victims in 2022 increased by 61% in comparison to the average number gathered from 2019, 2020 and 2021’s homicide victims.
Overall, shooting incidents in 2022 were up 48% from the past three years. The month with the most shooting incidents was March, with 147 shootings. March 2022 was also the worst month for shootings in the past three years.
Other major West Coast cities like Seattle saw a spike in shooting deaths in 2022 as well — but not on the same scale as Portland.
As of November 2022, the Seattle Police Department’s crime dashboard depicted 151 shootings, 38 of which were fatal. In 2021, SPD reported 126 shootings and 31 fatal shootings.
For Portland, the latest gun violence report also reveals a surge in firearm-related homicides. Of the 94 shooting deaths, PPB said that 76 of the victims died by firearms. This is a 12% increase in homicides by firearms from 2021.
KOIN 6 News has continued to report on PPB’s attempts to hire more police officers amidst all of the shooting incidents, which injured about 400 people.
“The police bureau continues to work with partners to reduce the number of shootings,” PPB said. “Solving crimes related to shootings takes help from the community, including witnesses and bystanders to come forward and provide information to police. This can be very difficult for people to do, but is often necessary to start the process of holding shooters accountable, and interrupt the cycle of violence in our neighborhood streets.”