Portland police assembles new team dedicated to lowering gun violence
By SPENCER THOMAS
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PORTLAND, Oregon (KPTV) — In response to the striking wave of gun violence across Portland, the Portland Police Bureau has assembled a new team to help get control of the surge.
It’s called The Focused Intervention Team (FIT), it’s the departments first team specially dedicated to de-escalating, and lowering tensions in the community that may be leading to the gun violence crisis.
“We just went through 18 months of the worst gun violence the city has ever seen. We’ve never had this many homicides. We’ve never had this many people shot,” says Sergeant Kenneth Duilio, an acting lieutenant for FIT.
Sgt. Duilio says that FIT will be comprised of eight officers and two sergeants. “This is one of the most diverse teams that the bureau has had, both with officers of color and female officers, and they have all different experience levels. The number one thing this team will be doing will be responding to shootings in progress, trying to apprehend suspects and then responding to the actual crime scene, conducting the initial investigation, and trying to further that investigation as much as they can to then pass it on to the ECST-detectives.”
This will be the first uniformed team that police have had since the Gun Violence Reduction Team was defunded July 1, 2020. Sgt. Duilio says there is a difference between GVRT and FIT.
“One of the things that has been put in place from the onset of this team is the Community Oversight Group is called the FIT COG. The Focus Intervention Team Community Oversight Group, they’ve been involved in every aspect of this team from the very beginning.”
Friday marked day two of the 65-hour training all recruits must take part in, FOX 12 got an inside look at all eight members, working together to practice hands-on tactical emergency casualty care.
“This is a big, big problem, and implementing the Focused Intervention Team is just one part of hopefully a solution to reduce some of this gun violence,” said Sgt. Duilio
Training for FIT will conclude on January 15, and the team is set to take to the streets of Portland on January 19, 2022.
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