As concerns mount over Portland’s homelessness issue spiraling out of control, members of the city’s police department uncovered a cache of loaded guns from a convicted felon’s tent, who was living on the streets with an open warrant.
"While speaking with a male in a tent, a gun was seen next to the male in plain view," a caption on a video posted Tuesday to Instagram by the Portland Police Bureau and the PPB’s Central Bike Squad states.
Police responded to a report of a disturbance in Old Town when they made the discovery. After spotting the first gun, police searched the tent and discovered two other loaded guns underneath the man’s belongings in the tent, according to the video.
The 63-year-old man’s identity has not been revealed. Police did say he is a convicted felon who had an active warrant for a parole violation in connection to a second-degree assault charge, KIRO reported.
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He was arrested and charged with three counts of unlawful possession of a firearm, failure to register as a sex offender stemming from a first-degree rape charge, a felony warrant parole violation and for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
"Pro tip: Don’t leave guns in your car," police posted to their caption of the video.
The incident comes as residents of the city have repeatedly voiced concern over the homeless population. Portland has a homeless population of more than 5,200, according to Fox research on the matter.
In one incident late last month, a Portland woman addressed Mayor Ted Wheeler and the Portland City Council, asking they take the issue of homelessness seriously.
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"You have to stop enabling this," Gillian Rose told city leaders. "I'm angry and I'm sad and I'm fed up, and I'm so sick of having politicians pander to a woke agenda that's been nothing short of an epic failure."
"You've made your point emphatically clear," Wheeler responded, brushing off the remarks with an apparent chuckle.
Rose is not alone in her concerns. Portlanders have reported moving from the city as homeless encampments are established outside their front doors and backyards. Additionally, businesses in the city, such as Cracker Barrel, have shut down or moved due to safety concerns.
"I would say the migration to the suburbs, I’ve seen quite a bit in the last two years," real estate broker Lauren Iaquinta said in August of families leaving the city. "Most people don’t want to have to worry about if they can leave their car parked in their driveway overnight without maybe having it broken into. It’s a pretty testy subject."
Crime in Portland has skyrocketed in the last few years, with a recent study finding violent crime in the city drastically rose over the last three years, most precipitously in 2020, when the city saw near-nightly protests and riots over the death of George Floyd.
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Researchers for the California Partnership for Safe Communities compiled crime data from the city, specifically examining homicides and non-fatal shootings from 2019 to 2021. The data found that there was a 144% increase in homicides from January 2019 to June 2021 while non-fatal shootings increase by 241% from January 2019 to December 2021.
The violent crimes began ticking up in 2019, with 36 homicides that year compared to 26 in 2018. The city had held a 20-year average of 28 homicides per year, with 2004 as the outlier at 29 homicides.
That average was soon obliterated when the data showed 2020 notched a 58% increase in homicides compared to the year prior, at 57 deaths, and 2021 recorded a 54% increase, at 88 homicides. The number of homicides in 2021 was a 238% increase from numbers recorded in 2018.
Fox News' Amy Nelson contributed to this report.
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