We have been tracking all 2021 homicides in Portland. There have been 84 and counting. Portland has now reached a point where homicides are over four times higher in 2021 than in 2009, 2013, or 2016.
Also, before August 2019, Portland counted negligent vehicular homicide as part of their overall homicide count. This means the homicide counts for 2020 and 2021 do not even include some deaths that would have been counted in previous years!
Previously, the deadliest year in Portland history was a wild spike in 1987. A staggering 45.8% of all homicides in the entire state or Oregon occurred in Portland that year. However, homicides were in a downward trend from 1987 to 2013. Things changed dramatically in mid-2020 when city officials conducted a stand down and allowed violent BLM and Antifa militants to riot for months. At the same time, a Soros-funded activist, Mike Schmidt, became district attorney. Schmidt openly bragged about dropping most of the charges pressed against rioters.
Portland homicides were actually down in the first half of 2020 but then exploded in the second half when everyone saw that laws were not being enforced. The super high homicide rate of the second half of 2020 has continued unabated through 2021.
The homicide rate for 2021 has already exceeded the previous second-place record set in 1993. Portland is now coming close to the all-time highest homicide rate set in 1987. Remember, the rates in 1993 and 1987 are also based on a more liberal standard of what constituted a homicide.
Homicides by year:
1971: 15 (384k people, 3.9 per 100k)
1987: 66 (450k people, 14.7 per 100k)
1993: 54 (498k people, 10.8 per 100k)
2008: 24
2009: 21
2010: 23 (about 584k people)
2011: 19 (forty-year low)
2012: 25
2013: 16 (forty-two year low, the lowest murder rate in modern history for Portland, about 607k people, 2.64 per 100k)
2014: 26
2015: 34
2016: 20
2017: 25
2018: 36
2019: 35
2020: 57 (about 659k people, 8.65 per 100k)*
