When Samuel D. Howard Jr. lost his 18-year-old daughter to gun violence, he convinced his other children and a nephew who was like a son to him to get counseling to work through their collective grief.
Then tragedy struck once more.
Less than a year and a half after his daughter Shai’India Harris died, the nephew, 19-year-old Keion Cordell Howard, was shot and killed on Dec. 4 in North Portland.
“I’m in pain. I’m struggling,” the elder Howard said.
“The kids were just now healing and then this happened. It’s just so soon.”
The 39-year-old Howard is one of hundreds of family members and friends directly affected by the surge in gun violence that pushed Portland’s homicides to at least 92 in 2021, far surpassing the most violent year on record when 70 people were killed in homicides in 1987.
Howard said his seven other children are “hurt, confused and broken” – including his 23-year-old daughter who drove Keion Howard to the apartment complex where he was shot. She cradled him in her arms before he died.
Like Keion Howard, more than three-quarters of homicide victims last year died in shootings, according to an analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
He also was among a disproportionate number of people of color -- more than half of the total – killed in homicides in 2021. Black people far outnumbered all other victims of color.
Read more: Who has died in Portland’s historic wave of violence
The intense pace of shootings continued through the end of the year, with five people killed by gunfire in Portland in less than a week at the end of December. During the first weekend of the new year, three more people were shot and killed in the city.
Officers on the bureau’s long-awaited Focused Intervention Team, aimed at addressing gun violence, are now in training and expected to hit the streets on Jan. 19.
The bureau also is considering a controversial new ShotSpotter technology to pick up the sounds of shootings in neighborhoods with the goal of spurring quicker responses and arrests.
Gang-related arguments, drug rip-offs or disputes among people living on the streets led to many of the deadly shootings, according to police and prosecutors. Gang members calling out their rivals on music videos and social media also have incited some of the shootings, investigators said.
Keion Howard had gotten into an argument with someone as he stepped out of the car by apartments on North Anchor Way.
The other man fired at Howard and the 19-year-old dove back into the car but had been shot in the stomach, his uncle said. He died soon after in the car.
The family believes the killing is linked to the July 2020 shooting of Shai’India Harris. Her ex-boyfriend, Kceon Colbert, faces charges of second-degree murder constituting domestic violence and unlawful use of a weapon in her death.
Keion Howard had introduced Colbert to his cousin and carried guilt for that, the elder Howard said.
After Keion Howard was shot, a rap music video circulated on Snapchat with some people boasting about his killing, according to Sam Howard. The family suspects the shooter was someone defending Colbert, who investigators say had gang affiliations. Keion Howard also had gang ties, police and family members said.
Detectives haven’t released details about the circumstances of Howard’s death or said if they believe gang associations played a role in the killing.
Travis Gamble, head of the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice’s gang supervision unit for parole and probation officers, said that gang affiliations are almost beside the point.
“In a community this small, if you take someone away from someone, everybody knows who was taken. Everybody knows who they were taken from,” he said.
“And so you see this thing is set in motion where it’s not even about Crips or Bloods or Hoovers,” he said. “At some point, it’s not even about that anymore. It’s about pain and loss. Not being able to deal with it.
“I’ve heard it said that hurt people hurt people. … They set out to hurt someone else to try to deal with the pain that’s there,” Gamble said, “and that’s a cold cycle.”
At Keion Howard’s funeral at Highland Christian Center, guest pastor Treniel Washington stood on the purple-carpeted pulpit above what he called “this baby in the casket” and bluntly addressed those gathered.
He urged young people to be bold and “walk away” from associations that continually cause them pain. He told the adults to consider how their decisions affect their kids.
“We’re losing our children today in the streets because no one is counseling them in their decisions,” Washington said. “Kids gang-banging, pimping, drug-dealing … we reap what we sow.”
VICTIMS RANGE IN AGE FROM 3 MONTHS TO 77
Police have made no arrests in Keion Howard’s death.
His homicide is one of 52 last year with no arrests or prime suspects. In 36 of the other homicides, people have been arrested or the cases are under review by prosecutors.
That’s a clearance rate – homicides resolved typically by an arrest or suspect identified -- of about 41%. Nationally, the clearance rate for murder in 2020, the year with the latest figures from the FBI, was 54%. Portland’s rate that year was 47%.
The four other homicides were fatal shootings by police, the most recent on Dec. 6 when an officer killed a suspected carjacker who had driven onto Interstate 5 in North Portland, crashed and then tried to drive off in another stolen car during an alleged crime spree. Grand juries have found no criminal wrongdoing by officers in two of the shootings. The other two remain under review.
Those killed in Portland last year ranged in age from a 3-month-old boy whose father faces murder charges in his death to a 77-year-old woman killed in a hit-and-run rampage that also injured at least seven others. The driver faces charges of second-degree murder, as well as second-degree assault, attempted murder and attempted first-degree murder.
At least 10 homicides involved people living on the street settling grievances, police said -- more often with guns instead of knives, as was more common in the past.
The proliferation of guns – often by people seeking protection on the streets – has fueled a record 1,288 shootings throughout the city last year, with 385 people either wounded or killed.
Police also are now investigating the deaths of three people in a July 4 apartment fire as homicides. Fire investigators ruled the fire an arson. They have said they suspect fireworks ignited trash in a plastic dumpster in the carport below the west side of Heidi Manor in Northeast Portland.
The fire quickly spread to the central stairs and skywalk exits. Police are trying to identify who may have started the four-alarm fire.
This week, police said they had added the deaths of two men last spring to the list of 2021 homicides -- both appeared to be involved in fights. One man was found dead on a sidewalk in April and the other’s family contacted police he had died from an apparent altercation.
The 2021 homicides began on the second day of the year, peaked with 12 in one month in June but continued steadily throughout the year to end in December with 10 more homicides, the second-highest monthly toll.
Nowhere has the impact of the violence been felt greater than among Portland’s Black residents. Thirty-five, or 38%, of the homicide victims were Black. Black people or people identifying as Black in combination with another race make up 8% of Multnomah County’s population, according to the most recent census data.
‘I’VE DONE TOO MANY OF THESE’
A new group – the Coalition of African and African American Pastors – gathered for two days in December to find the best ways to help members of their communities acknowledge and recover from the trauma of the homicides.
They also recognized the need for their own care as they confront so many deaths among their congregants.
Senior Pastor Shon Neyland officiated at the funerals for both Keion Howard and Shai’India Harris, looking out at some of the same family members.
“I’ve done too many of these in my three years at Highland Christian Center,” he said.
Emmanuel Church’s Bishop C.T. Wells recalled officiating at about a dozen funerals for people who lost their lives to violence last year. He expressed deep frustration at the ongoing toll and wondered aloud how pastors can become more relevant and effective in intervening in the lives of people at risk.
“How can we restore some civility in our communities? Wells asked. “It’s all devastating.”
The 15 to 20 pastors agreed they need to take their message to the streets and prisons, connect with youths involved in gangs or those who reach for guns to resolve disputes and provide one-on-one mentorship.
They spoke of offering “healing spaces,” not necessarily churches, for people of color to assemble and feel safe, the importance of erasing any stigma about mental health counseling and a need to rebuild the Black community in Portland that has been separated by gentrification. They called for greater support for students in schools at an earlier age.
The group invited counselor Guy Wheeler to speak about his work at a nonprofit he started in Florida to help people overcome addictions and criminal behavior. Wheeler also worked to create a county drug court in Fort Lauderdale.
“You’ve all got major gang problems here and you all don’t have gangs coming to your church,” he told the pastors. “We have not taken care of the streets. You must go to the streets.”
He told the pastors to gather seven to 10 of their male parishioners and train them to connect with the people causing the harm. They must contact families to identify role models who can mentor younger relatives and seek out businesspeople who can teach their skills to apprentices, he said. They also must go into prisons to interrupt the deadly cycle, he said.
“If gangs can come together, are you telling me we as believers, we can’t get together?” Wheeler asked.
Gamble, the Multnomah County gang program supervisor who also leads the department’s African American Programs to provide support for people leaving prison, said he’s worked for nearly 31 years in the criminal justice system in Portland and hasn’t seen this level of pain and trauma in the city.
He works with a “whole generation of kids (who) don’t feel connected to anything,” many of whom lack fathers in their lives, he said.
“These young men are not monsters, or animals. … It’s taken time to wear them down,” Gamble said. “Everything about them is just about surviving.”
With the current level of violence, Gamble and the pastors present said city residents should expect police to be part of the solution.
“We don’t have the luxury of choosing one thing,” Gamble said. “There’s a place for the church. There’s a place for law enforcement, even though people don’t want to hear that. There’s a place for the schools.”
Bishop Wells agreed.
“We can’t defund the police,’’ he said. “We just need better policing.”
‘LOOKING TO ME FOR ANSWERS’
Officer Whitney B. Anderson said she put in for the Police Bureau’s new Focused Intervention Team because she’s frustrated by what she’s seen on patrol and where she lives in Portland.
“I myself have been on the floor of my home when I heard bullets falling in my neighborhood,” Anderson said.
“My neighbors are looking to me for answers and support,” she said. “And I was frustrated I didn’t have those answers or wasn’t able to provide the support that I felt was my duty to provide as a police officer.”
Anderson, who is Black, joined the bureau in April 2019.
“It’s incredibly tragic for me to see what’s been happening in our city -- to be interacting with victims on a weekly or daily basis,” she said. “Sometimes it’s heartbreaking and for me to not have an answer for them has been mentally exhausting.”
The team’s two sergeants and 10 officers are expected to start working Tuesdays through Saturdays in 2 p.m.-to-midnight shifts, the times when most of the gun violence occurs.
Seven members of the team are people of color, including Black, Asian, Latino members. Three women are on the team. Police made the selections with input from residents on the Community Oversight Group, the new committee formed to monitor the team.
Sgt. Jim Townley, a co-leader of the team, said the officers will go to shooting scenes to help with initial investigations, try to identify those responsible and do other directed patrols to remove guns from the streets.
They expect to get help from the bureau’s air patrol unit and its 2003 Cessna 182, equipped with a thermal-imaging camera that can detect an object being thrown by a person running. The officer on the plane can point police on the ground to the evidence or a fleeing suspect. The plane has been flying about 1,200 hours a year.
The bureau also is exploring future use of a new technology called ShotSpotter that would alert police when gunshots are fired in particular areas and theoretically allow them to respond more quickly. The acoustic sensors are typically put on rooftops of buildings – government or private structures – or utility poles.
Police Capt. James Crooker said he would like some officers, perhaps with a member of the Community Oversight group, to visit another city that uses the technology to learn more.
Funding might be available through the $208 million in American Rescue Plan COVID-19 stimulus money the city received, he said. He estimated the cost of ShotSpotter could be about $250,000 the first year, but annual costs would depend on how many square miles the acoustic sensors cover.
Some community members here and outside of Portland already have expressed concerns about the technology infringing on people’s privacy rights, possibly picking up stray conversations. They’ve also questioned how police would respond any faster to ShotSpotter notifications when officers already struggle to handle all the 911 calls they get.
A member of the Community Oversight Group noted a report out of the Chicago Office of Inspector General that found the system didn’t help with criminal investigations there from Jan. 1, 2020, through May 31, 2021. Chicago responses to ShotSpotter alerts were “seldom” shown to lead to stops of value and rarely produced “evidence of a gun-related crime,” according to the report.
Crooker acknowledged the oversight group, city attorney’s office and mayor’s office all would have to carefully vet the technology before police would buy into it.
Gang outreach worker Lionel Irving Jr. said he’s eager to see the team’s officers start their work. He serves on the oversight group with seven other residents.
He said he wants them to know “how excited the streets guys are -- the older guys are -- about having you guys come back on the scene because they’re tired of burying their kids.”
“We’re looking forward to it,” Irving said, “and doing it the right way.”
-- Maxine Bernstein
Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212
Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
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