Portland police battle staffing crisis: Only four people have applied to fill 14 vacancies on newly-resurrected anti-gun violence squad because officers are fearful of angry woke mobs that forced its disbandment during BLM riots last summer

A gun violence unit in Portland, Oregon is having trouble recruiting new officers after it was dismantled during last year's calls to defund the police and brought back when gun violence shot up this year.

Since May, only four people have applied to 14 spots on the Portland Police Department's new Focused Intervention Team. 

The original Gun Violence Reduction Team was shut down after the Portland City Council voted to cut $15million from the police budget and eliminate 84 sworn positions last June.   

The Portland Police Department had its budget cut by $15M last year

The city has seen increased levels of violence since last year's Black Lives Matters protests. Above, police march through tear gas during the 100th night of protests in September 2020

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell told KPTV that he's not sure how he's going to fill the remaining positions on the new anti-gun violence team.

'I'm not 100 percent sure yet where those officers will come from,' Lovell said. 'We're to the point now, staffing-wise, where being able to do this means greatly impacting our ability to do something else.' 

Last year's cuts included the gun violence team, which was singled out because 52 percent of its stops in 2019 were of Black people, who make up just 5.8 percent of the city's population, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

More than 662,000 people live in Portland.  

Homicides in Portland have reached near-record numbers last seen in the early 1990s. Above, a protester waves an American flag in July 2020 during a Black Lives Matter protest

Homicides in Portland have risen steadily over the couple of years. There have been 48 homicides so far this year, on track to beat last year's 55, the highest number in 26 years

Homicides in the city shot up from five to 15 in the next month. 

Fifty-five people were killed in Portland last year, the highest number since 1994 and just 15 short of a peak of 70 in 1987, according to The Oregonian.

As of July 14, there had been 48 homicides and 600 shootings so far this year, KPTV reports  

Portland saw longer and more intense protests than other cities following the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, which sparked nationwide Black Lives Matter protests calling for the redirection of funds from police departments and into social services.

After months of daily unrest, including violence against officers, some argue that police have tired out.

'I have never seen the police bureau so stressed, personal-strength-wise, never,' said Oregon Association Chiefs of Police President Jim Ferraris told the Wall Street Journal.

Lionel Irving, a Portland nonprofit leader who is on the oversight committee for the new Focused Intervention Team, told the Journal that safety suffered as police were redirected from neighborhoods and into Black Lives Matter protest areas.

'It created a sense of lawlessness,' he said.  

The Washington, DC, think tank Police Executive Research Forum recorded an 18 percent increase in police resignations and a 45 percent increase in retirements from April 2020 to March 2021.

In August 2020, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best resigned hours after the city council voted to strip the police department of some resources, including cutting around 100 jobs, NPR reported.