Data Shows Shootings Remain Steady at Dawson Park as Mayor Offers Reassurances

In the wake of Friday’s widely publicized Dawson Park shooting, Mayor Ted Wheeler held a press conference today, flanked by top police brass, providing reassurances.

“While it may ring hollow right now, it’s important to note that the city’s gun violence is showing significant improvement year over year,” he said. “The various policies and programs that we put into place, the funding that we’ve allocated towards reducing gun violence—it’s paying off.”

But not in Dawson Park, according to data compiled by the Portland Police Bureau and shared with reporters.

In the past two years, there have been seven shootings at the park. That’s around the same rate as it’s been the past six years, in which there have been 18 shootings. On Friday, two people were injured and 87 bullet casings were collected in the aftermath.

As WW previously reported in 2022, Dawson Park is also a historic gathering place for Portland’s Black community, adding to the pressure on the city to ensure the safety of the park’s visitors and neighbors as crime in the park has increased in recent years.

And while city officials say that increased patrols and outreach programs are reducing violence, parents at Arc-En-Ciel preschool, across the street from the park, scoff at such remarks and are afraid for their toddlers.

“I honestly cannot remember ever seeing a single police officer at or around Dawson Park,” Jeremey Duke, a parent whose son goes to Arc-En-Ciel, wrote in a statement to local news outlets. “While reading the local coverage of the incident, I read that PPB had ‘stepped up patrols’ of this park. I audibly scoffed.”

Duke was picking up his son on Friday when the shooting took place. In his statement, he said that he was in front of the vehicle from which the rounds of bullets were fired. He got out of his car and was ushered inside, where he found his child safe.

He is furious about the lack of police patrol and “flagrant abuses” of the park, he is afraid for his child and school staff, and he is sad that Dawson Park can’t live up to its potential as a community and family-friendly space.

“I would like to see a plan; a documented and publicized list of specific actions that are going to be taken, and a timeline on which we think these tasks will be accomplished,” Duke asks of city officials. “I am no longer content simply hoping for the best.”

At the press conference, PPB Chief Bob Day said police had been in the park several days a week, and that “additional resources” invested in nearby neighborhoods had resulted in arrests.

“We have done some intentional spotty missions and made some arrests for drug dealings,” he says. “We’re also just getting out talking to people, connecting with the community.”

Before wrapping up the press conference, Wheeler jumped back to the microphone to say that while he believes his administration and the city are doing everything they can, there is a “political reality” to the issue, with a new city administration on the horizon, and that community members need to vet political candidates.

“I’m asking people during the very busy, crowded election cycle: Pay attention to who is running and ask tough questions about whether or not they will continue the agenda that we have now led for years,” he says.