Leaders in Portland, Ore., are looking to combat the city’s rising homicide rate by resurrecting a police unit focused on gun violence. But after a year of growing tension within the department, they can’t find enough officers to join.

Since 14 job openings were announced in May, only four police personnel have applied to work with the new version of Portland’s Gun Violence Reduction Team, which was shut down last year amid long-running protests seeking racial justice and an overhaul of police practices. None have yet been assigned.

Portland officers say such positions, once considered prestigious, are now less desirable, given the increased scrutiny that accompanies them. The new unit has its own citizen-advisory board, instituted after the old unit was criticized by city leaders for racial profiling. A job description says qualifications include the ability to fight systemic racism.

“They’re demonizing and vilifying you, and then they want to put you in a unit where you’re under an even bigger microscope,” said Daryl Turner, head of the union that represents Portland’s officers.

Portland police have coped with frequent late-night street violence in the past year, as well as criticism from politicians and activists on the right and left.

Jami Resch, assistant chief of the Portland Police Bureau’s investigations branch, acknowledged that morale is down in the department. She said criticism of the old unit and uncertainty surrounding the new one and its relationship with the oversight committee have slowed applications. Once those roles are clarified, there will be more interest, she predicted.

Homicide rates rose 24% in a sample of 32 American cities in the first quarter of 2021, compared with the same period last year, according to a recent study by the Council on Criminal Justice, a think tank focusing on criminal-justice policy and research. The rates are far below peaks from the 1990s.

Jami Resch, assistant chief of the Portland Police Bureau’s investigations branch, predicted the gun-violence unit would attract more interest once roles are clarified.

Jami Resch, assistant chief of the Portland Police Bureau’s investigations branch, predicted the gun-violence unit would attract more interest once roles are clarified.

Photo: Beth Nakamura/Associated Press

But with 53 homicides so far this year, Portland is on pace to surpass its all-time high of 70 in 1987, according to Portland police officials. The trend is reversing Portland’s decadeslong history of having one of the lowest homicide rates among large cities.

Retirements and resignations are rising at departments across the country. There was an 18% increase in resignations and a 45% increase in retirements from April 2020 through March 2021, when compared with the same period a year earlier, according to a June survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

In addition, officers around the country have become more reluctant to take on tasks that could lead to controversy or criticism following last year’s Black Lives Matter protests over police treatment, according to police officials.

Federal officers were surrounded by smoke as they responded to a Black Lives Matter protest in Portland in July 2020.

Federal officers were surrounded by smoke as they responded to a Black Lives Matter protest in Portland in July 2020.

Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

Some politicians and police officials say that has contributed to the nationwide rise in homicides. Prior research showed that following nationwide protests, a police pullback measured by a decline in arrest rates played a role in a rise in murder rates in 2015, in a few cities including Baltimore and Chicago. But it wasn’t a factor in most major cities, said Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, who co-wrote a study on the topic.

Researchers say other possible reasons for the current surge in homicides include stress from the Covid-19 pandemic, the temporary shutdown of courts and anti-violence nonprofits, and frayed relations between law enforcement and Black communities after high-profile police killings, such as that of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Following calls to defund the police, the Portland City Council last summer voted to cut $15 million from the police department, including the 38-person gun-violence team, which they criticized for racial profiling. In 2019, 52% of the team’s stops were of Black people, who make up 5.8% of the city’s population.

After the team was disbanded, homicides rose. This spring, Portland police officials proposed creating a new team.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler unveiled the new version of the police unit in March.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler unveiled the new version of the police unit in March.

Photo: Sean Meagher/Associated Press

In March, Mayor Ted Wheeler announced the new police unit, called the Focused Initiative Team, and said it would focus on lowering tensions with residents, along with combating gun violence. The Democrat said an 11-member board made up of community members would oversee it.

An internal posting described jobs on the Focused Initiative Team as focusing on the Portlanders most likely to be involved in gun violence, like the old unit. But it included a new list of required qualifications, including the “ability to identify and dismantle institutional and systemic racism in the bureau’s responses to gun violence.”

“Martin Luther King couldn’t dismantle systematic racism. Now you want a cop to do it?” a veteran Portland officer said of the new unit. “Nobody wants to be part of something that’s set up for failure.”

Mr. Wheeler’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

How would you like to see police forces combat bias in their ranks? Join the conversation below.

Ms. Resch said the gun-violence team’s work in the past benefited minority communities, as shootings have disproportionately affected the 23% of Portland’s population that is nonwhite.

This year’s victims include Makayla Maree Harris, an 18-year-old who had just graduated high school. She was out with friends in downtown Portland on a Friday night last month when she was killed in a barrage of gunfire that also wounded six others. No arrests have been made.

Lionel Irving, a Portland nonprofit leader who is on the oversight committee for the new unit, said he is hopeful that it will focus more on taking down leaders of violent groups and less on the “stop-and-frisk” approach of the old unit.

Mr. Irving said he has seen during the past year how police presence waned in Portland neighborhoods as officers pulled back or were redeployed to patrol protests that started last summer and continued into this year.

“It created a sense of lawlessness,” said Mr. Irving, whose nonprofit Love Is Stronger tries to reduce violence and recidivism.

The veteran Portland officer said his colleagues “are incredibly hesitant to do anything proactive because either they have a complaint filed against them or every stop is a fight.”

Ms. Resch said that she doesn’t believe there was a police pullback. But she said that there was a dip in self-initiated activity such as investigative stops by officers because they were working protests and because there were fewer people on the street during the pandemic.

In the wake of George Floyd’s death in May 2020, protesters across the country called on officials to defund the police. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday examined what the phrase means and how it might work. Photo: Ragan Clark/Associated Press The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

Write to Zusha Elinson at zusha.elinson@wsj.com