No one saw this, right? Who would have thunk!?
Seattle went on a downward spiral after George Floyd’s death. People set up an autonomous zone as Antifa tore apart the city at night.
Mayor Jenny Durkan dismissed the riots and autonomous zone. She even thought Seattle “could have the summer of love.”
A year later, Durkan wants the city to rebuild the police department since it saw six shootings last weekend.
Durkan said the Seattle Police Department lost 250 officers in the past 17 months. She has not completely stopped trying to cater to the far-left who hate police:
“We are creating meaningful alternatives,” Durkan said in reference to efforts in the city being made to redirect funding and manpower to community based groups. “But, as I said last year, the city has an obligation to still continue constitutional policing and respond to 911 calls.”It is a false choice between community-led solutions and police officers,” Durkan said. “We need both.”The mayor said she will be submitting a plan to hire more police officers and rebuild the depleted force.”Not unexpected, losing these number of officers, when city leaders talk about cutting the department by 50%,” Durkan said. “You will lose employees. Families need security. Workers, even police officers, need working conditions that support them. We cannot just cut. We need a plan.”
The King County Prosecutor’s Office said the county had 33% more shootings this year “compared to the same period between 2017 and 2020.”
The number of people shot rose by 61% in that same time period.
Maybe don’t demonize the police department? Durkan vetoed a law enforcement defunding resolution from the city council but did not stand by the officers.
Police officers quit due to a lack of support. Chief Carmen Best also quit.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser skirted the “defund the police” question last year. She told NPR her city council “doesn’t fund it a penny more than we need and certainly not a penny less.”
Well, in June 2021, Bowser said she wanted to “spend less money on police and nearly triple spending” on alternative programs.
It took a month for Bowser to change her mind. She asked the city council to add $11 million to the police budget:
Bowser authorized any overtime Metropolitan Police Department officers need. the news conference Wednesday, Bowser said overtime alone wouldn’t solve the problem. She asked the D.C. Council to approve the hiring of 170 new officers over the next two years.A police budget reduction of $15 million in fiscal year 2021 harmed police recruitment, she argued. MPD usually brings on about 250 new officers per year. This year, they’ve had only 42 uniformed hires.Bowser will seek D.C. Council approval of $11 million for the hiring and training of 20 more officers in fiscal year 2021 and 150 more officers in fiscal year 2022. It will go before the council for a vote on Tuesday.
Bowser made me laugh: “Last year, unfortunately, we saw a $15 million reduction in [the police] budget and because of that reduction we have not been able to keep the hiring pipeline in full effect.”
Yeah, you had something to do with that, Mayor.
Bowser also asked the federal government to reopen all of the courts so they can tackle the backlog of over 10,000 cases. The government needs to fill 12 vacancies on the D.C. Superior Court. Over “2,000 cases await charges by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The district has seen 111 people die in homicides this year. The department has only hired 42 new officers this year.
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