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

Brainster said:
We have already seen what the response from the defunders will be. They'll point out that murders are up virtually everywhere (appears to be true), that the Seattle cops are conflating protest graffiti with violent crime (absurd) and they'll point out that use of force complaints are down (they will be, just look at Baltimore for that).

The Hill points out that the cuts (at least for 2020) are not quite as dramatic as the political theater would have us believe:



Still the cuts were enough that Seattle's Black female police chief resigned in protest.
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In fairness, the cuts would also be to her own salary.
In this climate, a black woman police chief can write her own ticket in any municipality in the Nation.
Politics would not surprise me.
 
Puppycow said:
Falsifiable prediction: This is going to be a disaster for Seattle.

BTW, here's what Gallup says about the opinions of black Americans:
Black Americans Want Police to Retain Local Presence


Only 19% want less police presence.
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People never seem to dig very far into these studies:

Although Black Americans seem about as comfortable as Americans overall with the amount of police presence where they live, they differ markedly in their perceptions of how their local police might treat them if they were to interact.

Fewer than one in five Black Americans feel very confident that the police in their area would treat them with courtesy and respect. While similar to the 24% of Asian Americans saying the same, it is markedly lower than the 40% of Hispanic Americans and the 56% of White Americans who feel this way. This could either stem from Black Americans' own negative experiences with the police or from their familiarity with people who have had negative encounters with law enforcement.
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Turns out BLM is protesting against bad policing - you know, that thing that they've been saying the entire time that they've been protesting. Various police departments reacting by filling entire blocks with tear gas, beating up on the elderly, and so forth has been very effective in proving that they're absolutely correct.

Again.

Also notable, BLM is a youth organization. Mama White may well remember the bad old days when cops just were never around, but it's 17 YO Jamal who keeps getting harassed, beaten, and screamed at by police. Guess which one despises the local police?
 
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Mumbles said:
Turns out BLM is protesting against bad policing - you know, that thing that they've been saying the entire time that they've been protesting. Various police departments reacting by filling entire blocks with tear gas, beating up on the elderly, and so forth has been very effective in proving that they're absolutely correct.

Again.
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That old man was a crack ANTIFA operative bent on destroying law and order after all! And anyway broken skulls are what you get when you don't follow police orders to disperse, just ask John Lewis.

Imagine how if we treated every time the police needlessly broke someones skull as a serious event, the cops could never get anything done.
 
Distracted1 said:
......
In this climate, a black woman police chief can write her own ticket in any municipality in the Nation.
.....
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She's worked there 28 years. If she has the kind of deal most cops have, she retires with a pension for life equal to a large part of her salary plus inflation adjustments. I doubt she'll want to take on somebody else's headaches. She's more likely to become a visiting professor somewhere and hit the speaking circuit.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Is there evidence of this? Did I miss some polling data that shows what the people of Seattle actually feel about this?

Even according to national polling shared, black respondents are less opposed to defunding than white respondents. Claiming that the black community in Seattle is opposed to this policy based on national polling is absurd.

I see no evidence that whites are forcing a policy that the black community opposes.
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I've got no idea what the black community in Seattle feels. But the point is, it doesn't matter. Seattle will either fund or defund the police according to what its white residents want, regardless of what its black residents want. Maybe they want the same thing, maybe they don't, but it won't make a difference either way.
 
Some perspective on where Seattle police money goes:
Seattle Police Department (SPD): 1,326 highly compensated SPD employees made six-figures or more while 364 employees earned over $200,000 last year. Review the entire payroll posted at OpenTheBooks.com.

Twenty SPD employees out-earned police chief Carmen Best ($289,420). The five highest paid included Ron Morgan Willis (patrol officer - $414,543); William Edward Jr (sergeant - $360,277); Steven Kim (officer - $332,274); Eric Zerr (sergeant - $331,413); and Brian Miles (sergeant - $328,338).
Other high earners included assistant chief of collaborative policing Adrian Diaz ($241,802), who seeks to foster positive relationships between the department and the community; hostage negotiation officer James Garner ($273,917); and bomb squad sergeant Daniel Miller ($279,266).

SPD employees earning six figures last year cost taxpayers a total of $237 million and included 1,052 officers, 172 sergeants, 61 lieutenants, and 23 captains. At the police academy, nineteen instructors made between $167,000 and $247,796. The high earner was Sergeant Linda Cook – and she was the only female of the nineteen instructors listed.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/adaman...police-department-is-in-trouble/#717cb5c1cb1a

I don't begrudge anybody earning a good living. But I suspect there are a lot of people who work as hard as these and do as good a job for a lot less cash. I wonder how much Seattle would have to pay some social workers and drug counselors to go out with the cops when appropriate.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
According to national polling, defunding the cops is very unpopular, and yet these localities seem to be responding to local pressure to do just that.
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Yes, they are responding to local pressure. It's just not particularly clear that the pressure is representative of the views of either the majority of residents or of the black communities in those localities.

In Seattle and Portland, for example, the protesters are relatively small compared to the populations, and include a rather large number of young white people. I'm not so comfortable assuming that their desires are what is wanted by the people they are claiming to speak for.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Yes, they are responding to local pressure. It's just not particularly clear that the pressure is representative of the views of either the majority of residents or of the black communities in those localities.

In Seattle and Portland, for example, the protesters are relatively small compared to the populations, and include a rather large number of young white people. I'm not so comfortable assuming that their desires are what is wanted by the people they are claiming to speak for.
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The cops aren't doing themselves any favors by busting up old navy vets or shooting people in the face.

100% chance that these protests would have been over a month ago had the cops managed to exercise even a tiny amount of restraint.
 
Bob001 said:
Some perspective on where Seattle police money goes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adaman...police-department-is-in-trouble/#717cb5c1cb1a

I don't begrudge anybody earning a good living. But I suspect there are a lot of people who work as hard as these and do as good a job for a lot less cash. I wonder how much Seattle would have to pay some social workers and drug counselors to go out with the cops when appropriate.
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Might be worth noting:
A police spokesperson responded to our request for comment:

“Compensation for our officers is set through the collective bargaining process pursuant to state law. It should be noted that compensation reported for 2019 includes retroactive compensation for 2015-2018 due to the union contract having expired.”
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ponderingturtle said:
But do you have any idea how funny it is when you shoot someone in the face with a baton round?
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Sorta. I once shot a kid right between the eyes with a paintball gun, and it scared the beejesus out of him. Though he was wearing a protective mask, and it was a paintball course.

Doesn't have quite the same satisfying *crack* that I imagine inflicting a TBI does, I suppose.
 
Lupus said:
What the leaders of BLM and Antifa are actually after.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpbKitmD4HI&disable_polymer=true
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Well, that had nothing to do with anything.

What BLM wants will vary depending on which BLM you're discussing - by design, the various local chapters are autonomous in order to respond to the local situation. As far as I can tell, white supremacist militias that local cops wink and grin at are more of a problem in the northwest than on the east coast - where BLMNY and BLMDC is strongly fighting "stop and frisk" techniques and over-policing on subways.

Since it's not a real group, the only real thing "antifa wants" is to uproot "-fa" before it grows and multiplies.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Might be worth noting:
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That would typically include cost of living, if it wasn't already paid, and whatever other bumps they agreed on, which in the current environment would be slim. I'd be very surprised if the difference is as much as 10 percent for the whole four years.
 
Brainster said:
Still the cuts were enough that Seattle's Black female police chief resigned in protest.
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She explains her reasons:

Outgoing Seattle police chief says it's not about money, but 'lack of respect' for officers

Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best on Tuesday announced her resignation, saying that she was not leaving because of pay cuts to her department, but because of the “lack of respect” toward her fellow officers.

Best’s resignation comes amid the City Council’s decision to reduce the department by as many as 100 officers through layoffs and attrition.

In response to a reporter who asked if her decision was motivated by protesters who appeared at her home earlier this month, or the City Council’s decision, Best said it "is not about the money, and it certainly isn’t about the demonstrators."

“I mean, be real, I have a lot thicker skin than that," Best said. "It really is about the overarching lack of respect for the officers, the men and women who work so hard, day in and day out."

She added: “The idea that we’ve worked so incredibly hard to make sure our department was diverse, that (it) reflects the community that we serve, to just turn that all on a dime and hack it off, without having a plan in place to move forward, is highly distressful for me.”

Best, the city's first Black police chief, said in a letter to the department that her retirement will be effective Sept. 2.

"I am confident the department will make it through these difficult times," Best said in the letter. "You truly are the best police department in the country, and please trust me when I say, the vast majority of people in Seattle support you and appreciate you.”
In an email to police, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said she accepted Best's decision "with a very heavy heart."

"I regret deeply that she concluded that the best way to serve the city and help the department was a change in leadership, in the hope that would change the dynamics to move forward with the City Council," Durkan wrote.

A military veteran, Best joined the department in 1992 and had worked in a wide variety of roles, including patrol, media relations, narcotics, operations, and as deputy chief. The mayor picked Best in July of 2018 to lead the department. She had been serving as interim chief.
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The cuts may make the SPD less diverse, not more, if anyone cares about diversity of the police force.
 
Puppycow said:
She explains her reasons:

Outgoing Seattle police chief says it's not about money, but 'lack of respect' for officers
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Real tough knowing that there are people who don't respect you in any way, huh?

Shoulda thought of that before showing that they don't respect black people, then.

The cuts may make the SPD less diverse, not more, if anyone cares about diversity of the police force.
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Don't, until cop culture changes. Or at least, until black cops stop treating black people even worse than white cops do.

Till then...Buh-bye!
 
Mumbles said:
Well, that had nothing to do with anything.

What BLM wants will vary depending on which BLM you're discussing - by design, the various local chapters are autonomous in order to respond to the local situation. As far as I can tell, white supremacist militias that local cops wink and grin at are more of a problem in the northwest than on the east coast - where BLMNY and BLMDC is strongly fighting "stop and frisk" techniques and over-policing on subways.

Since it's not a real group, the only real thing "antifa wants" is to uproot "-fa" before it grows and multiplies.
Click to expand...

Which group loots stores, kills people who say "all lives matter" and riots? It's BLM.
That's quite rude to say the militia's are white supremacist I'm not sure what you after here but their main interest is a sense of security within turmoil. If you look at the political stances of the main ones they are patriotic and libertarian.
Talk about who police wink and grin at, the state police are ordered by someone above to leave BLM alone in liberal states. How did you think CHOP held out as long as it did? The police were told to stand down.
For antifa firstly their goals matter to them more than who they oppose, which is anarcho-communism. If you named a neo-nazi group, "Peace and Love Org", does that make them suddenly only be about Peace and Love?
You must have not watched the video.
 
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