I went to Portland for a week last year. I saw 6 different instances of a violent, obviously mentally ill, presumably homeless person physically attack a random person (once at a restaurant, twice at a tram station, thrice on the street, all broad daylight). That was more instances that I had seen in 5 years in Philadelphia, a city jokingly referred to as Killadelphia.
Portland might not have a lot of gang violence (which is what really gets numbers up), but not violent isn't how I would describe the city.
I've lived in the vicinity of Portland for almost 50 years and haven't seen as much violence as you did in one week. You must have been hanging in really rough area of town, or just got very unlucky.
I spent 1.5 days in downtown PDX (roughly around the Portland City Grill) recently and my experiences roughly match the OP.
It was shockingly bad. Crazy, violent people "everywhere". Tents covering the sidewalks. There wasn't a parking garage around where there weren't piles of human excrement.
This was staying in Downtown and the "Lloyd District" I suppose it was called. Leaving those areas did seem a bit better, but it was still pretty bad. In the same time frame I was in downtown Newark, Trenton, Baltimore, Detroit, NYC. Portland was by far the worst of the bunch.
>but not violent isn't how I would describe the city.
It depends on where you are in the city. I live in Portland and I don't think I've someone get attacked in the entire time I've lived here. But I also live in an area that is less popular with the mentally ill and drug addicted
Portland might not have a lot of gang violence (which is what really gets numbers up), but not violent isn't how I would describe the city.