Reporter Gillian Flaccus had been watching coverage of rising gun violence in Portland, Oregon, just as police staffing numbers were dropping due to pandemic burnout and general disillusionment in the profession after calls to defund the police and months of social justice protests. But a hook revealed itself while she reported a different law enforcement story on the shortage of public defenders: One of the crime victim advocates mentioned police were so short-staffed that sex crimes weren’t being investigated and the cold case unit had basically been shut down.
Flaccus set about trying to tell the story of reduced police ranks and rising gun violence through the eyes of real people who had suffered in ways large and small. It took weeks, but she finally tracked down and gained the confidence of the parents of a cold case victim whose case was pushed aside by rising gun homicides.
“To us, it’s not a cold case,” said George Spaulding, who has his son’s signature tattooed on his arm. “We’re not dissatisfied with the police bureau because I think they’re doing the best they can. … They are just overwhelmed. It’s insane.”
AP journalist Gillian Flaccus shoots video of a traffic stop during a ride-along with Gresham, Ore., police.
AP / Craig Mitchelldyer
Flaccus also shot video, including a rare sit-down with Portland’s police chief, and convinced police in a Portland suburb that sees running gun battles to do a ride-along. She went out over several days, reporting in text and video, working closely with AP freelance photographer Craig Mitchelldyer to tell the story in all formats.
In Portland, Ore., July 20, 2022, Carolyn and George Spaulding hold a family photo showing their late son Brian. Brian Spaulding was killed in 2017 and the case remains open. “They are just overwhelmed. It’s insane, it’s totally insane,” George says of the police handling his son’s case.
AP Photo / Craig Mitchelldyer
Royal Harris talks to his grandson Carter, 2, at Woodlawn Park in Portland, Ore., July 20, 2022. Harris, who has lost friends and family to Portland’s gang violence, says he supports diverting resources from cold case units to the spiking gun violence in the city. “If the case has been cold for five years and you've got a case that’s two days old, which do you have the biggest capacity to find the answer for? I’m going to go with the new (one),” Harris says.
AP Photo / Craig Mitchelldyer
Gresham Police Sgt. Travis Garrison runs a check on a motorist in Gresham, Ore., July 21, 2022. Gresham, a Portland suburb, has seen an increase in fatal shootings and gun violence at the same time it has a shortage of officers. “Right now, because of the the spike in violent crime, we’re only able to investigate murders,” child abuse and sex crimes, Garrison said. “We’re triaging.” To address the situation, the department has shut down all of its specialized units except for the mental health unit and shifted all its detectives to work homicides.
AP Photo / Craig Mitchelldyer
Jeremiah King, who is transitioning out of homelessness, grimaces in pain as he shows the bandage over a recent gunshot wound as he sits on the street after his hospital release in Portland, Ore., July 27, 2022. King was shot while trying to protect a friend who was being attacked just a short walk from the city’s business district; his assailant has not been arrested. Three more people were injured and two killed by gunfire in the same area over a four-day span.
P Photo / Gillian Flaccus
Kimberly Washington, executive director of the Frankford Community Development Corporation, poses for a portrait on a street frequently used to discard cars in Philadelphia, July 14, 2022. The abandoned cars bring “trash in the areas, then you know other crimes, quality of life issues, drug dealing, shootings, killings,” said Washington, who has worked with community members to address the problem. “This starts to look like the place where this can all go down because no one cares.” Police officers normally assigned to a unit that deals with livability issues like graffiti, nuisance businesses and abandoned cars have been shifted to the city center and violent hot spots around Philadelphia, where the homicide rate reached a record high last year.
AP Photo / Matt Rourke
A car, its catalytic converter cut from the exhaust, sits abandoned in Philadelphia, July 14, 2022. Abandoned cars and other quality-of-life issues are not being addressed as police resources are diverted to violent crime.
AP Photo / Matt Rourke
Steve Richardson, right, a Los Angeles Community Action Network outreach worker and human rights organizer, who goes by the name General Dogon, speaks with homeless people in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, July 22, 2022. Los Angeles has reduced its homeless outreach teams 80% as police respond to an increase in violent crime, but the founder and executive director of LACAN says police should not be providing homeless services: “You can’t be the provider of services as well as the jailer,” said Pete White. “My hope ... is that those resources that go to the police department are actually pointed towards real solutions.”
AP Photo / Damian Dovarganes
Seeking to broaden the story, Flaccus reached out to colleagues Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia and Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles for help showing that these issues aren’t specific to Portland. The journalists also spoke to activists who argued that despite the drop in police staffing, the rising crime figures couldn’t be addressed by law enforcement alone.
Lauer and photographer Matt Rourke went out with a community activist frustrated by a backlog of 30,000 complaints to police about quality-of-life issues in some low-income areas because officers had been shifted to violent hot spots.
Mary Elledge, head of the greater Portland chapter of Parents of Murdered Children, looks at the name of her son, Rob, on a memorial in Oregon City, Ore., July 20, 2022. Elledge, whose son was murdered in 1986 and the case unresolved for months, is opposed to resources being taken from cold case units to address the current rise in homicides. “The unsolved cases are where I see so much sadness,” Elledge said of the families she works with. “When they don’t get an answer, it’s like nobody cares and they never find out what happened.”
AP Photo / Craig Mitchelldyer
Los Angeles, which is down more than 650 officers from its pre-pandemic staffing level, shuttered its animal cruelty unit and downsized its human trafficking, narcotics and gun details and reduced its homeless outreach teams by 80%.
Dazio, working with LA video journalist Eugene Garcia and photographer Damian Dovarganes, found that the problem had deeply impacted police outreach to people on the street. She also provided a critical counterpoint from homeless advocates.
Garcia artfully stitched together elements from Portland; Gresham, Oregon; Los Angeles; and Philadelphia to tell the story for video.
The package appeared in numerous news outlets across the country and both USA Today and ABC News used the video in its entirety.