• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

What a 'defund the police' plan in Seattle might look like

Brainster said:
Here's some news from Minneapolis on one of the unintended consequences there:


I can't imagine how that's going to improve race relations in the city.
Click to expand...

I talked to my best friend from college yesterday who grew up in Minneapolis, and just moved away from there last year for a job.

He said" everything around my whole house is burned down, there's not a food store or gas station within 5 miles."

"Oh I said, that's terrible. Are they going to rebuild?"

"No," he replied "they're all poor man."

"Oh," I said, "that's sad."
 
So when we talk about defunding SPD, there are a number of areas that the Council is looking at eliminating in addition to firing officers.

The programs that they have talked about sending the money to have no real experience or plan to deal with any of the services being cut, except to help people navigate their way through getting a lawyer.

In short, the plan is to reduce services to those people who are victims of crime, with a large amount of money going to help those who are perpetrators of crime with programs given huge amounts of money with no plan or accountability on how they will spend it.


Here are some of the cuts that Seattle is looking at. Note that the department investigating sexual assaults has also been reported to be cut as well.

https://westseattleblog.com/2020/07...-councilmember-explains-her-change-on-police/
Cuts could come from many places in SPD’s budget, and should include the following actions:
• Freeze hiring. Any planned hiring, including for individuals in the training pipeline, should be cancelled.
• Eliminate funds for recruitment and retention, including bonuses for new hires.
• Remove the Office of Collaborative Policing, including Navigation Team. While some programs of this office, along with their administrative infrastructure, should be eliminated altogether, others could be moved to a civilian-controlled city agency.
o Eliminate: Navigation Team, Community Outreach Administration [homeless outreach services]
• Transfer out of SPD control: Crisis Intervention Response, Community Service Officers
• Eliminate spending on new equipment
• Eliminate Data-driven policing
• Eliminate spending on North Precinct Capital Project
• Eliminate Professional Services -Including:
§ Photo Enforcement
§ Sworn Hiring in HR
§ Recruitment and Retention
§ Community Outreach
§ Implicit Bias Training
§ Communications
• Cut SPD’s spending on Homeland Security (a misnamed unit that is mostly assigned to large events like Bumbershoot)
• Eliminate SWAT Team funding
• End contracts with private firms that defend SPD and the City against police misconduct lawsuits
• Eliminate SPD’s travel and training budget
• End overtime pay, including for Emphasis Patrols
• Reduce patrol staffing, with corresponding reduction in administrative staffing
Click to expand...
 
uke2se said:
However, there are times that a crazy person is acting out without being armed. Maybe armed police isn't necessary then. That's what "defund the police" means.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that the problem isn't whether they are armed or not, but rather a lack of training in how to handle mentally unhinged and unstable individuals. Cutting police budgets does not exactly sound like something that will result in more well trained and experienced police that are better at handling delicate situations like this.
 
Arcade22 said:
I'm pretty sure that the problem isn't whether they are armed or not, but rather a lack of training in how to handle mentally unhinged and unstable individuals. Cutting police budgets does not exactly sound like something that will result in more well trained and experienced police that are better at handling delicate situations like this.
Click to expand...
The point is not that existing police be trained to handle delicate situations like this, the point is that delicate situations like this should not be handled by police at all.
 
Arcade22 said:
I'm pretty sure that the problem isn't whether they are armed or not, but rather a lack of training in how to handle mentally unhinged and unstable individuals. Cutting police budgets does not exactly sound like something that will result in more well trained and experienced police that are better at handling delicate situations like this.
Click to expand...

You are correct. For Seattle in fact training is one of the things on the Council members elimination list in their 50% reduction plan.

Including eliminating deescalation training, anti bias training, and community outreach programs.
 
arthwollipot said:
The point is not that existing police be trained to handle delicate situations like this, the point is that delicate situations like this should not be handled by police at all.
Click to expand...

So exactly in which country does the police not respond to mentally disturbed and unhinged individuals who cause public alarm? From what I've seen on a Australian "real cops" show i seriously doubt the police would not be the first instance to respond to those kind of things.
 
Arcade22 said:
I'm pretty sure that the problem isn't whether they are armed or not, but rather a lack of training in how to handle mentally unhinged and unstable individuals. Cutting police budgets does not exactly sound like something that will result in more well trained and experienced police that are better at handling delicate situations like this.
Click to expand...

The problem is that there is no disincentive for the cops to just use violence in these situations. They won't be prosecuted, they won't be fired, they won't be jailed, they won't personally be sued.

Why try to thread the needle of trying to calm down someone during a mental crisis when you can just grab a taser or gun and wrap things up quickly?
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
The problem is that there is no disincentive for the cops to just use violence in these situations. They won't be prosecuted, they won't be fired, they won't be jailed, they won't personally be sued.

Why try to thread the needle of trying to calm down someone during a mental crisis when you can just grab a taser or gun and wrap things up quickly?
Click to expand...

That's not a serious comment, or even close to reality.

Which is unfortunate, because it is an important issue that you are referencing.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Cops shot an autistic man's caregiver because they missed when trying to hit the disabled man who was playing with toy cars in the street.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Charles_Kinsey

Who's being unserious here?
Click to expand...

Well it is natural for cops to just shoot the black guy. That is also why they refused to give him medical treatment and tried to arrest him for messing up their shot.

Next people will question why cops need to sick a dog on some possibly suicidal teen. That is proper treatment for mental illness in copland.

http://watchdogsarasota.heraldtribune.com/2015/12/26/scarred-come-get-ur-bite/
 
Police attitudes in the US is that they quickly and firmly assert authority, and noncompliance results in escalating force until the subject submits.

This may work for someone with a rational mind that acts out of a sense of self-preservation, but people experiencing episodes of mental illness often do not respond rationally. Which is why so many mentally ill people end up getting shot by the police.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Police attitudes in the US is that they quickly and firmly assert authority, and noncompliance results in escalating force until the subject submits.

This may work for someone with a rational mind that acts out of a sense of self-preservation, but people experiencing episodes of mental illness often do not respond rationally. Which is why so many mentally ill people end up getting shot by the police.
Click to expand...

Plus setting dogs on teens is damn funny. Always good for a laugh.
 
HoverBoarder said:
You are correct. For Seattle in fact training is one of the things on the Council members elimination list in their 50% reduction plan.

Including eliminating deescalation training, anti bias training, and community outreach programs.
Click to expand...

Of course the police are claiming they'll eliminate the stuff that matters most to the public. That's how they do business around here. It's as if the schools said they'd eliminate math & reading if there were program cuts.

They do this sort of thing all the time, like over the consent decree with the feds. A number of cops tried to sue over having to be less violent, and when that didn't work, they quit responding to crimes like burglaries & robberies, or slow-walked them.
 
Arcade22 said:
So exactly in which country does the police not respond to mentally disturbed and unhinged individuals who cause public alarm? From what I've seen on a Australian "real cops" show i seriously doubt the police would not be the first instance to respond to those kind of things.
Click to expand...
Just because a situation is, doesn't mean that situation should be. I happen to know a person who has provided training to Australian police on mental health issues, and I can say that this training is woefully inadequate.

Thing is, police are called upon to provide assistance in too many wildly different situations. You don't take forty subjects in school, yet police are expected to maintain their skills and knowledge in so many different areas simultaneously.

Take some of those situations and hand them over to another group - a specialist group - and the police can concentrate on being good police without having to also simultaneously concentrate on being good social workers, and good mental health crisis intervention agents, and good housing providers, and good security guards... and so on.

And if you're really worried that the person having a mental health crisis may become a danger to themselves and others, send your mental health professional with police backup, but make sure the police are there only as backup in case an emergency happens.
 
deadrose said:
Of course the police are claiming they'll eliminate the stuff that matters most to the public. That's how they do business around here. It's as if the schools said they'd eliminate math & reading if there were program cuts.

They do this sort of thing all the time, like over the consent decree with the feds. A number of cops tried to sue over having to be less violent, and when that didn't work, they quit responding to crimes like burglaries & robberies, or slow-walked them.
Click to expand...

No, that pledge to remove all training including deescalation training, anti-bias training, and community training is a quote from Council Member Lisa Herbold during the 7/15 budget meeting.

She is the one claiming to eliminate what you termed "the stuff that matters most to the public."

If that bothers you, you could send her a message, and she will make sure not to listen to you, like she does not listen to all of the rest of her constituents.
 
Last edited:
arthwollipot said:
Just because a situation is, doesn't mean that situation should be.
Click to expand...

Of course i know that.

I happen to know a person who has provided training to Australian police on mental health issues, and I can say that this training is woefully inadequate.
Click to expand...

And presumably you are calling for the police budget to be cut by 50% as a response? Because that's how you improve the quality of training?

Thing is, police are called upon to provide assistance in too many wildly different situations. You don't take forty subjects in school, yet police are expected to maintain their skills and knowledge in so many different areas simultaneously.

Take some of those situations and hand them over to another group - a specialist group - and the police can concentrate on being good police without having to also simultaneously concentrate on being good social workers, and good mental health crisis intervention agents, and good housing providers, and good security guards... and so on.
Click to expand...

There's nothing preventing police having specialist training in how to handle situations like this. Obviously every police officer should have some degree of training, but there's no need for them to be a expert on everything. Police are supposed to be a jack of all trades and be able to respond to emergencies.

And if you're really worried that the person having a mental health crisis may become a danger to themselves and others, send your mental health professional with police backup, but make sure the police are there only as backup in case an emergency happens.
Click to expand...

Given that they are cutting police funding I'm expecting it go like this: the "mental health crisis response" people are not going to risk their lives while responding to incidents and they will wait for police unless they are certain there's no need for police support. Since the police has suffered devastating loss of funding there are less police around leading to increased response times, meaning that they would be forced to wait for a long time for police to show up.

Notably this also applies to other emergency response like ambulances and fire fighters who won't do anything without police backup if there's any indication of potential threats to them.
 
Last edited:
Meanwhile, Minneapolis has moved ahead with its proposed defund the police plan.

We've already seen what the response will be--hiring of private security guards. But in a particularly delicious bit of hypocrisy, three of the city councilmembers who voted in favor of defunding are currently being protected by private security guards:

The City of Minneapolis is spending $4,500 a day for private security for three council members who have received threats following the police killing of George Floyd, FOX 9 has learned.

A city spokesperson said the private security details have cost taxpayers $63,000 over the past three weeks.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's probably right-wingers (or maybe just property owners) making the threats, but guess what? Cops are there to protect you from right-wing goons and everyday criminals and left-wing anarchists.

I keep thinking about Baltimore and the immediate (and persistent) roughly 50% increase in homicides that followed the Freddie Gray riots. When we think of homicides usually, the cops are only there in the aftermath--to collect evidence from the crime scene and to try to nab the perp. But it turns out that cops prevent a lot of homicides as well, and not in the sense that they shoot the gun out of the killer's hand. Their presence in the community is a constant warning to those who would break the law, that you might have to suffer the consequences of your action. If society diminishes that possibility, isn't it likely that criminals reassess the risk/reward tradeoff?
 
Last edited:
Arcade22 said:
And presumably you are calling for the police budget to be cut by 50% as a response? Because that's how you improve the quality of training?
Click to expand...
No, I improve the quality of training by simply not training them in what they don't need to be trained in. Don't spend the money training the police, spend the money on mental health crisis services instead.

Services which, I should add, are pretty badly underfunded in most places.

Arcade22 said:
There's nothing preventing police having specialist training in how to handle situations like this. Obviously every police officer should have some degree of training, but there's no need for them to be a expert on everything. Police are supposed to be a jack of all trades and be able to respond to emergencies.
Click to expand...
Jack of all trades, master of none. Why not make them master of one trade, and other people masters of the other trades?

Arcade22 said:
Given that they are cutting police funding I'm expecting it go like this: the "mental health crisis response" people are not going to risk their lives while responding to incidents and they will wait for police unless they are certain there's no need for police support. Since the police has suffered devastating loss of funding there are less police around leading to increased response times, meaning that they would be forced to wait for a long time for police to show up.

Notably this also applies to other emergency response like ambulances and fire fighters who won't do anything without police backup if there's any indication of potential threats to them.
Click to expand...
In a majority of cases, there is no risk to those responders. You're talking like every person undergoing a mental health crisis is necessarily a danger to themselves or to others. Most people requiring mental health crisis services are a danger to no-one and do not require an armed response by someone poorly trained in mental health who is sure to misinterpret the situation and assume, the way you do, that someone undergoing a mental health crisis is necessarily dangerous. In that case, the "when all you have is a hammer" analogy applies and someone dies.

Also, ambulances and fire fighters attend situations without police backup all the time.
 
arthwollipot said:
No, I improve the quality of training by simply not training them in what they don't need to be trained in. Don't spend the money training the police, spend the money on mental health crisis services instead.

Services which, I should add, are pretty badly underfunded in most places.
Click to expand...

After watching the documentary, Seattle is Dying, my immediate reaction was that SPD spends way, way, too much time and manpower dealing with mentally ill people. There was one clip of a homeless guy raging with a bicycle as 5-7 cops try to negotiate with him. And they were reduced to being mental health professionals, as it appears they were not permitted to use physical force to restrain him. According to the video, the confrontation went on for hours.

Now, would I rather have mental health pros handling the situation? Yes, obviously, but given the violent and threatening behavior the homeless guy displayed, I think at least a few cops needed to be there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom