According to the violent crime survey by the Major Cities Chiefs Association, there were 17 homicides in Portland in the first half of 2025 compared to 35 for the same period last year. That 51% decline is the largest drop in homicides among the 68 city and county police agencies represented in the survey. Aggravated assaults, rapes and robberies have also declined in Portland and nationwide, according to the survey.
Gun violence, however, continues to be a problem, with three firearm-related homicides recorded in Portland just last month. Ceasefire is one of the initiatives the city is pursuing to break the cycle of gun violence. Launched in 2023, it’s based on a national model that identifies individuals at high risk for gun violence and provides them with supportive services and intensive case management within their communities. Ceasefire director Sierra Ellis and Lt. Israel Hill, who supervises the Portland Police Bureau’s Focused Intervention Team and Enhanced Community Safety Team, join us to talk about Ceasefire and other strategies the city is pursuing to curb violent crimes.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Portland saw a more than 50% decline in homicides in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. It was the biggest drop among nearly 70 of the largest cities in the country. Other violent crimes have also declined in Portland and nationwide, according to this recent survey. For more on these declines and the city’s ongoing violence prevention strategies, I’m joined by Sierra Ellis and Israel Hill. Sierra Ellis is the local director of Ceasefire, that’s a national model focused on interrupting the cycle of gun violence. Lt. Israel Hill supervises the Portland Police Bureau’s Focused Intervention and Enhanced Community Safety Teams. Welcome to you both.
Lt. Israel Hill: Thank you.
Sierra Ellis: Thank you.
Miller: Sierra, first, can you give us the basics of how Portland Ceasefire works?
Ellis: Yeah. So Portland Ceasefire is, as you mentioned, a national model that is focused on reducing gun violence, specifically. And so there’s a lot of things that we do on a daily basis, but I’ll just keep it pretty simple and high level. We employ community-based organizations to help reduce violence in the city and also we coordinate with community members, law enforcement partners, and others for that accountability piece with Ceasefire.
Miller: How does somebody end up on your radar? Because my understanding is, this is very specific. There are individual people in the community who you identify as being at risk of either being perpetrators or victims of gun violence, and these aren’t models of, these are actual people. How do you identify them?
Ellis: There’s several different ways in how we identify a person, but the most common way is from a shooting incident. And from there, we review all shooting incidents in our shooting review, and those are the shooting incidents over the last seven days. And so that meeting is investigative in nature, but what’s important about that meeting is also referrals come from those shooting incidents.
So even though there’s the accountability piece for the individual who might be shooting, their friends or acquaintances who are around them during that time, we focus on them. And we want to provide them services because we don’t want them to end up dead, or making a mistake and retaliating on behalf of their friend.
So it is extremely important to get ahead of that, and refer them to our community-based organizations who have people with deep, deep connections in the community who know exactly what’s going on, sometimes faster than we do, and then we refer them to those organizations and they provide [a] tailored approach to this person’s success.
Miller: How are you able to to have a deep understanding of people’s connections, of who knows who? As you were talking, I was thinking about a bulletin board where there’s like yarn connecting people with pushpins and… I mean, how do you know who knows who, who’s friends with you, who has a beef with who?
Ellis: That’s a great question. It takes a lot of learning and building relationships with people and partnerships. That’s why this role is so critical because the next meeting that we do is the coordination meeting, and that is solely focused on a person’s individual plan. So, in that meeting, we discuss what school did they go to? Are they in school?
Miller: When you’re having these conversations, do you think that the people you’re talking about have any idea that you’re talking about them?
Ellis: I don’t think so. No.
Miller: So it’s a bunch of you and police as well, and Lt. Hill, might you be in the room as well?
Hill: For coordination team, yes, myself or someone from my team may be in the meeting for more of the sake of helping facilitate services, who may need what. And so it’s really a catered approach, like it’s case by case. What Sierra was probably going to get to here in a moment was just how much intentionality is put into each individual case and a lot of times, services that we… Like, when we refer a name, if we refer a name, services are specifically tailored for that individual. It’s not blanket, like if a person needs relocation or getting back in school or some sort of housing or maybe a referral for a job or whatever, it is specifically tailored for that individual.
Miller: Okay. So, and you’re saying this is a person who their cousin, say, was shot or… And we know this about them and we think that they may be at risk of perpetrating violence themselves, based on what we know. How do you reach out to them and who reaches out to them?
Ellis: So two different ways, multiple different ways. So if there’s an incident, and I’m looking at an individual and I’m like, okay, hey, this person needs help. I’ll, once our meeting is over and we decide on who the organization is best fit for this person, I will directly refer them and then they, per their contract, are supposed to reach out to that person no later than 48 hours.
Miller: This organization, who has a relationship with the Ceasefire program.
Ellis: Exactly.
Miller: They’ve been vetted and these are people you trust of the actual work, the legwork?
Ellis: Yep. We contract with them to do the work. And so from there, they might have a person on their team who might know the individual’s mom or their dad or whoever. Whatever piece of information we can get from the actual incident and the person to make that one connection so they start to develop trust with that organization or individual. That is what we’re focused on. We want them to fully trust that person to help bring them along, so they don’t commit any more violent acts or become a victim of gun violence.
So that’s why it’s extremely critical to know who’s who, who the players are, who can do the mediations, because you can’t just have anyone out there. And I think why we’re so successful is, on the service side specifically ‒ I’m talking about services as why we’re so successful ‒ is because we have built those relationships. We have been very intentional.
Miller: Well, how often when… And I understand it’s not just a stranger going up to people and it seems like it’s not also a police officer. So these are people who have the highest likelihood of finding a receptive audience. But still, how often, the first time that the target, the person you want to help, the first time that they are addressed, how often do they say, ‘yeah, fine, I would happily take you up on your offer and I will accept these services right now’?
Ellis: I think it takes time. It’s a relationship. And so like any relationship, you can expect someone to not automatically engage. And so that’s what we call the relentless pursuit model.
Miller: Relentless pursuit.
Ellis: Yeah, we just keep going.
Miller: Over and over and over. Don’t take no for an answer, in terms of violence prevention.
Ellis: Yeah, there’s many times that ‒ I’m not going to use profanity ‒ but there’s many times you’re like, go away, I don’t want to, I’m not ready.
Miller: Do they, why do you think they’re saying that? I mean, and I’m curious what they see as…
Ellis: Because I think at that point they’re angry, right? If they are victims, especially, they want to retaliate.
Miller: Do they see you as part of the criminal justice system that they may be mistrustful of or is it, I mean, I’m wondering how much they are angry at you as well?
Ellis: I’m not a credible messenger for that person. So I am referring them to someone who is a credible messenger. And so no, they do not see them as a part of a system, because once they’re really involved in the program, they can see a light. I did a custom notification, and this is another part of how I engage with folks, on an individual. And when I did that custom notification, it opened my eyes to the struggle of this specific person because everyone is different, everyone has different needs.
Miller: What is custom notification?
Ellis: It’s a one-on-one conversation with them.
Miller: Okay. So that’s, so you were almost like you were a case manager, of a kind, for one person.
Ellis: Yeah, I went to their house and talked to them about their risk level and really just laid it out to them because like you said, a lot of people are not like, ‘oh, there’s 30 people sitting behind in a meeting and talking about me’. And so that’s kind of what I say to them. I’m like, ‘hey, like you were in this situation. We want to provide you with services and help so you do not make another bad decision where it can potentially end your life’, because in 2021, 2022, we saw record highs of gun violence. And so that is our number one goal, is to save lives.
Miller: Lt. Hill, what role, in addition to sitting at that table for some of those meetings, what role does law enforcement play in the Ceasefire program?
Hill: So within the Ceasefire model, there’s a model called the Gun Violence Reduction Strategy. And so, Sierra was talking to you about custom notifications. That’s like our direct communication part of it, but there is also an enforcement part in there, right, like the entire model is again specific to the person, but our focus is on the enforcement side of it, obviously. But also there’s some engagement in there, too. So starting with enforcement, it’s not a broad approach, it is very specific again on the individual.
Let’s say an individual should fail to respond to suggestions for improvement or is in that relentless pursuit category. At that point, if they continue to implicate themselves in violence ‒ specifically gun violence ‒ or if they continue to just participate in that, whether they’re in the periphery or if they are actually taking matters into their own hands and we have evidence to believe that they have tried to take a life or maybe taken a life, then the enforcement side of things, that’s where we come in.
Miller: At that point it’s no longer crime prevention, it’s crime response.
Hill: Then it’s investigation, intelligence, information. And it’s very specific, right, hence our focused intervention team. And so we just wanna make sure that we have what we need and we have a specific focus on a person or individual that would be driving gun violence in the city. And so we just make sure that it’s the impact of the intent. Very intentional, again based on information, intelligence or investigation.
Ellis: I would also say that the focus intervention team has these relationships, too, in the community that are absolutely critical to the reductions that we’ve seen too.
Miller: So what do you mean by that? What do you see? I mean, what kind of relationships do you see that they’re actually making a difference right now?
Hill: So for me, I’ll give you a quick example, on a model that I use. So the focus intervention team is a team that is engaging high risk individuals, driving gun violence, but it’s not just about the enforcement.
Miller: Is this the replacement, one of the replacements for the gang enforcement team?
Hill: We’re not replacing them, but this is the team that is now responsible for responding to gun violence.
Miller: Okay, not the replacement, but it’s like, it’s a new response…
Hill: Yeah, we’re responsible for responding to gun violence, right. And so we just wanna make sure that we are impactful. So that again, that’s the trust building. But I often tell my team every enforcement action starts with a level of engagement, but all engagement is not for the purpose of enforcement. So the trust building that Sierra is speaking of is like, there are times where we get invited to organized planned community engagement events, right? It’s important that we show up to those and be sometimes a sounding board, sometimes be a listening ear to community concerns.
We are also in partnership with the FICOG ‒ our Focused Intervention, Community Oversight Group, first of its kind ‒ but we also speak to them weekly and biweekly or even month to month on actions that we’re taking, if there was a traffic stop, why and how. And we really kind of get into the nuts and bolts of the stop, to the best of our ability, for anything that’s not currently under investigation.
So some of the conversation is high level, but a lot of what we do is also community engagement and building trust and being accessible to the community. The focused intervention team is very outward facing, so we do a lot of what the community asks. Or we may respond to any number of things, but it’s not always a shooting. A lot of times it’s community engagement opportunities to share or even sometimes if it’s unplanned, like if we just see kids playing at a basketball hoop, like the job is to get out and engage or on a playground if and when appropriate. So it’s just really about an engagement opportunity, not just enforcement and I think the bureau has really done a good job of responding to the asks of the community.
Miller: Crime has declined nationwide in recent years. So even if Portland’s homicide decline, for example, is the biggest out of 70 or so big cities and counties, the overall trend is the same. I imagine it makes it harder to say when crime goes up or down, it’s because of what we’re doing here locally. So how do you think about national trends and where Portland fits in?
Hill: Yeah, so nationally, if you look at any number of studies there have been, there’s been a national decline in gun violence anywhere from 15% to like 26%, but in Portland specifically, I actually have some numbers for you. We’re sitting right around 55%. So let’s just say if we talk about this year from January to July of 2025, 350 verified non-suicide related shooting incidents. We’re just talking about the injury shootings, the non-injury shootings, property struck, everything except for a suicide. We’re down 31.6% compared year to date. Last year we were at 512 non-suicidal shooting incidents reported.
This next one is actually really important: 68 non-fatal injury shootings, down 35% from 2024 where we sat at 105. And so even more than year to date ‒ these are January to July ‒ but a number that really, really sticks out to me that is even larger than what is happening nationally, is here in Portland, January to July, 15 firearm related incidents were down from 33 last year. So 15 this year, 33 last year, and even as far as going from January to August, now we are at 17 firearm-related homicides versus 38 last year, which puts us down about 55%, which is huge.
Miller: How do you explain that?
Hill: So a lot of things, I’m glad you asked. So there’s the enforcement aspect, there is the high-visibility aspect. That’s still law enforcement. It’s not always about taking someone to jail. Sometimes it’s just being a deterrent, right? Just getting out, engaging with folks, being a deterrent, making sure people are safe. But also having meaningful, thoughtful, intentional conversations with people. That’s big for the Portland Police Bureau as far as changing the dynamic between police and the community that we serve.
That’s one of our chief’s goals, we wanna make sure that we’re engaging and enforcing. But also the other people that are involved in the Ceasefire model, whether it be a CBO ‒ community-based organization ‒ or any community partnerships that we have, even faith-based leaders, educators in the school system, pastors, there are people that invite us into their spaces just to educate them and receive information from them for us to take back.
And so it is truly a partnership between the city of Portland as a whole, all its entities, not just Portland police.
But we really began a strategic, collaborative effort in the city to make sure that these numbers stay the way they are, because we know, as you pointed out, they do ebb and flow and so there may be a time where numbers increase, right? But that’s when we have to lean into the model. What are we doing right, what’s not working, and be open to those conversations to continue to change to just create a safer city and safer streets in the city of Portland.
Miller: Sierra, in terms of data collection, is there any way to have a kind of comparison group? So you can say, these people were folded into the Ceasefire program ‒ Ceasefire services ‒ these people weren’t, and here is the outcome, that is the difference in outcomes.
Ellis: We don’t necessarily have a comparison such as that, but I think something that’s incredibly important to highlight is how many folks we have referred this year versus last year and we are ahead of those referrals versus shooting incidents. So we have referred more people to services than shooting incidents that they have been in the city of Portland. And so that is a key metric that we like to focus on.
Miller: Because you feel like you can get ahead of the problem that way if it’s, unless it’s not the reverse ratio.
Ellis: Yes, before an incident occurs, we want to make sure that we are ahead of those incidents and that we are reducing that likelihood of retaliation.
Miller: Lt. Hill, we’ve been talking about a very person-focused approach, that’s the heart of the Ceasefire model. I’m wondering about place focuses. There was a stabbing recently outside the Central Library downtown. Last month, there was a fatal shooting there. How do you respond to areas where there is, that there can be patterns of violence as opposed to people who you feel might be likely to do violent acts?
Hill: Yeah, so a lot of what we are leaning towards now, our strategic services division is absolutely phenomenal and they have what they call micro-locations, and it will kind of allow us to go where the numbers are telling us. Like not just kind of indiscriminately showing up in different places, but if we see that there is an area that has been impacted by crime, or a high vice area or an area riddled by gun violence.
It’s the numbers, the raw numbers will take us to that area if we’re keeping up with the data that the city generates and we’re able to come up with specific plans for that area so that we’re not in an area where there are issues with our houseless community, but we’re showing up in a different capacity. Our SVO is also out in East Precinct, right, that deter…
Ellis: Stolen vehicle operations.
Miller: Thank you for doing my job. I appreciate that.
Hill: So our SVOs, or our… I’m trying to think of a good way to say it, right? Our street, they take care of our, like a lot of the theft, the stolen cars that happened in our street missions, right? They take care of a lot of the stolen cars that happen in the city, a lot of that crime, they go to those areas of stolen vehicle operations. They go to those areas and they mitigate crime, whether it be a stolen vehicle or whatever, based on what the need is in that area. So they’re able to go to a specific area, and we have curtailed certain missions specific to the area to resolve certain crimes. And so that is the goal behind going where the data takes you.
Miller: Before we say goodbye, one of the biggest national issues in recent weeks in terms of crime and policing is the Trump administration’s takeover of law enforcement in Washington DC and his many statements that he wants to do the same thing in other cities. Lt. Hill, what do you think that would mean in Portland?
Hill: Well, we have specific policies that kind of guide what we do as far as how we work with our federal partners and as far as anything immigration-wise, we’re not really sure what that plan will look like in the future. As of now, we don’t aid in immigration services. We are, if there’s a life safety issue where there is something occurring, we would go there and take care of the life safety issue, but we are not… We don’t necessarily aid our federal partners in deportation or immigration as of now.
And so it remains to be seen what the state will have to move to in the future, but as of now we have policies, being a sanctuary state in a sanctuary city, we do not engage in aiding our federal partners. But we also have partnerships with everyone locally and statewide. So we maintain those partnerships, but our policies are very specific as far as what we do and don’t do as far as making sure that our Portlanders feel like they exist and can live here as well.
Miller: I was thinking more about federal troops policing in Portland. Is that something you want to see?
Ellis: Like they did that before, right? Like they came… That was the thing that happened during 2020.
Miller: During 2020.
Ellis: And so I think the city handled that pretty well in how they addressed that issue. And so I think that’s important to look back on. We have that history to say, ‘hey, this is what we did and we’re not going to do it again.’
Miller: Sierra Ellis and Israel Hill, thanks very much.
Ellis: Thank you so much.
Hill: Thank you.
Miller: Sierra Ellis is director of Ceasefire in the city of Portland. Israel Hill is lieutenant and the supervisor of the Focus Intervention and Enhanced Community Safety Teams for the Portland Police Bureau.
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