The Portland Police Bureau, or PPB, said calls for service initially decreased following Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s school closure order in March, but calls have begun increasing in the past few weeks.
“Our calls for service, what we’re seeing is that they’re trending back up and we’re almost at what we would consider a kind of normal level for this time of year for a lot of our call types,” Police Chief Jami Resch said in a press briefing Friday.
PPB said it is responding to 11 more civil calls per day than during the same time period last year. The agency said the increase is likely from calls reporting people who are not obeying social distancing orders.
It said it’s also seen an increase in burglary, vandalism and disturbance calls as well as welfare and unwanted person checks compared to the previous year.
The agency said there have been fewer calls related to traffic crashes, but an increase in calls related to speeding.
PPB also said although reports of domestic violence have remained basically unchanged compared to the same time last year, there has been an increase in domestic violence arrests.
“During the most recent eight week period there have been an average of 13 additional arrests per week when compared to the same time last year,” a report from PPB reads.
PPB had noted a similar uptick in its April 15 trend report, suggesting people were no longer complying with the state mandated stay-at-home order as diligently as they previously had been.