For more than 40 years, the Valentine's Day Bandit has plastered Portland with hearts, some big and some small.

Giant banners have appeared hanging from the Portland Public Library, and small hearts can be found on hundreds of windows and cars around the city on Valentine's Day morning. It's been happening forever, and now the police want to know whodunnit!

In this post on Facebook, the Portland Police Department writes:

The Portland Police Department is seeking the public’s help in solving an ongoing mystery. For more than 40 years, the “Valentine’s Day Bandit” has been covering the city of Portland with paper hearts and in some cases flags or banners. They are suspected of spreading good will and happiness throughout the great city of Portland.

This seems to occur under the cover of darkness on the eve of Valentine’s Day. Portland PD is closer than ever to discovering the identity of this so called “bandit”. To date we have had several solid leads as well as descriptions of the possible culprit.

This year, the “bandit” was seen in the location of Central Fire Station, among many other locations. Strangely enough, even the flag atop the fire station has been replaced with a new banner with a red heart on it.

This brazen “bandit” was even daring enough to post their message at Police Headquarters. After an extensive investigation and follow up, Police may have some leads.

If anyone has any information that would assist us in our investigation, please let us know, as we would like to thank them for making Valentine’s Day a little brighter for Portlanders.

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