“I know that not only do I want change, but everyone wants change,” Hadar said during a City Council meeting last month. One bullet landed within feet of the fourth-grader. Hadar and her family dove for cover behind a metal equipment bin. Hadar had been playing with her father, brother and dog at a northeast Portland park when a group of people in ski masks started shooting. Nine-year-old Hadar Kedem recently told city leaders about a dangerously close call when she was caught in gunfire earlier this year. Police attribute much of the gunfire to gangs, fights and retaliation killings, but they are also affecting bystanders. So far this year, Portland has had more than 1,000 shootings, at least 314 people have been injured by bullets, and firearms have accounted for three-quarters of homicides. “I believe if the proper tools were in place for our law enforcement officers, this wouldn’t even have happened.” “Let’s please untie the hands of our law enforcement officers,” Vasquez’s brother-in-law, Don Osborn, said outside the business where Vasquez was slain. Now, the liberal Pacific Northwest city is implementing novel solutions aimed at improving safety, including adding traffic barrels to prevent drive-by shootings and suspending minor traffic stops so officers can focus on immediate threats.īut critics say Oregon’s largest city - where the population has grown by nearly 50%, to more than 650,000, over the past few decades - is flailing. Portland’s police department is struggling to keep up amid an acute staffing shortage and budget cuts. “People should be leery because this is a dangerous time,” said Lionel Irving Jr., a lifelong Portland resident and a gang outreach worker.

Unlike previous years, more bystanders are being caught in the crossfire - from people mourning at vigils and sitting in cars to children playing in a park. In a metropolis wracked by gang violence, fear and frustration have settled over Portland as stories like Vasquez’s make some wary to go out at night. And with more than two months remaining in the year, Portland will likely shatter its previous high mark. His killing in late September was one of the 67 homicides this year in Portland, which has surpassed its previous full-year record of 66 in 1987. Vasquez was struck by a stray bullet and died at the scene. The 34-year-old had been at the pizza bar only a short time when shots rang out. (AP) - It was nearly last call on a Friday when Jacob Eli Knight Vasquez went to get a drink across the street from the tavern where he worked in northwest Portland - an area with a thriving dining scene, where citygoers enjoy laid-back eateries, international cuisines and cozy cafés.

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