Skip to main contentCalls of "shots fired" to police are down in Portland. And several gang outreach workers doubt Mayor Sam Adams' crackdown on illegal guns will work.
"It's a waste," says Michael Johnson, a former Columbia Villa Crip who now does outreach work. "It's not affecting the necessary people, and it's not keeping any guns out of anybody's hands."
But the mayor is forging ahead this week with his plan to curb gangland violence by targeting illegal guns.
Adams—who stepped up his gang fight after African-American leaders called him out last summer as absent on the issue—will put his five-point gun plan before the City Council on Thursday, Nov. 18.
It's his first major legislative effort on law enforcement since taking over the Police Bureau last May and installing Mike Reese to replace Rosie Sizer as chief.
Adams' proposed ordinance would penalize gun owners who endanger children or fail to report stolen guns. It would also set a 7 pm curfew for minors who have broken gun laws, create zones where gun offenders are excluded and set a 30-day jail sentence for gun-law violators who carry a loaded weapon in public.
Adams says illegal guns are "swamping the city," citing anecdotal evidence from police and his own gang experts.
"It used to be guns were pretty rare. Now everybody has them," Adams says. "When you look back over two decades, it's been no work on guns.… The city has sat on its hands and ignored it."
The mayor's plan copies and expands on programs in crime-ridden cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia. But the numbers tell a more ambiguous story about the extent of Portland's gun problem.
Statistics from the Portland Police Bureau show a steep rise in gang-related shootings. But shots-fired calls have been dropping steadily over the past five years—raising questions about Adams' claims of a city awash in firearms.
In 2005, the year Adams took office as a city commissioner, there were 1,821 calls combined of shots fired or shootings, according to the Police Bureau. By last year those calls had dropped 23 percent, to 1,411. As of Nov. 10, the number stood at 1,289 for this year—on pace for about 1,500 calls by year's end.
Not surprisingly, gun-rights advocates have criticized Adams' plan. Kevin Starrett, head of the Oregon Firearms Federation, says the ordinance appears to be mainly a political gesture.
"This isn't even a gun-control debate," Starrett says. "There's nothing substantive here. There's nothing that really addresses the problem. The problem is, people are committing crimes. Are they gonna start obeying these laws?"
More remarkably, Starrett's sentiment is echoed in the Portland neighborhoods hardest hit by gun violence. Several gang outreach workers tell WW they're concerned Adams' plan is little more than a diversion and fails to address the root of gang conflict.
Johnson, the former Columbia Villa Crip, says he'd rather see resources go toward contacting families and teaching them the warning signs of gang involvement.
David Miller is a gang outreach worker and campus monitor at Benson High School, where the city's most recent gang shooting occurred Oct. 21. A student survived being shot on the school's front steps while a volleyball game went on inside, and a 14-year-old Crips affiliate has been arrested in relation to the shooting.
Miller, too, fears Adams' ordinance won't be effective.
"When they want guns, these kids know where to find them," he says. "The right approach is to free up some money, get these kids jobs and get them off the street."
LaMarcus Branch, 38, comes from one of Portland's most notorious criminal families and was a cousin of perhaps its most famous gangster—Anthony "Lil Smurf" Branch Jr., shot dead at age 20 outside a Northeast strip club in 1997.
Freed from prison last March after serving 14 years for robbery and assault, Branch volunteers as an outreach worker to help the young generation. He wonders whether Adams' gun ordinance can accomplish the same goal.
"With the young kids today," Branch says, "it could be more of a challenge."
Adams says his gun ordinance will cost the city almost nothing, merely giving police new tools to fight gangs. He says the effort will not take resources away from the "soft" side of gang outreach, like contacting families and providing alternatives for youth.
"There's been a lot of efforts on that and very little effort around guns," Adams says. "It's that omission that this addresses."
City Council will take up the ordinance at 3 pm Thursday, Nov. 18.
WWeek 2015