PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A string of break-ins across Southeast Portland are just the latest in a significant increase in businesses being robbed or burglarized.
According to Portland Police Bureau data taken from Oct. 2021- Oct. 2022, the number of burglaries in the city increased by over 1,000 from the previous year.
At Ritual Dyes, a Portland yarn shop, they’ve installed a gate on their front door in response to a break-in on Friday morning.
“I think we are feeling lucky that it wasn’t worse, nobody was there,” said Rachel Bratcher, who owns Ritual Dyes on Division Street. “It’s the first time it has happened to us.”
On Thursday evening, Urbanite was broken into and burglarized. Then, on Saturday morning, Ship John, a shop also located on Division Street, was also broken into.
“I do notice an uptick around the holidays because small businesses are a little bit more vulnerable,” Bratcher said.
Bratcher says she reached out to the owner of Ship John and noticed something familiar in the surveillance video.
“By looking at the footage, I could tell it appeared to be the same person just by what they were wearing and the time of entry,” she said.
Break-ins have increased significantly across Portland since 2018-19, when over 4,500 burglaries and over 1,000 robberies were reported, according to data from Oct. 2018 to Oct. 2019. Those numbers increased exponentially as over 6,400 burglaries and nearly 1,600 robberies took place in Portland from Oct. 2021 to Oct. 2022, PPB data shows.
In the Richmond Neighborhood along Division Street, data shows burglaries have doubled from 100 in 2018-2019 to over 200 in 2021-2022.
Bratcher added a gate to her door after last weekend, joining several neighbors in taking extra steps to protect their business. She hopes the surveillance could tip someone off.
“I think it’s really possible that someone might see them around or maybe just be aware that that might be a possibility that they’re coming into their business,” she said.