Is this the start, or the total plan? Time will tell
Seattle City Council approves plan to defund police department, slashes jobs and salaries
The Seattle City Council voted Monday to move forward with a controversial proposal that would begin the process of defunding the police department.
The 7-1 vote comes despite objections from the city’s police chief, mayor and the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild.
The plan would ultimately slash funding to the department but not the 50% some had sought. Seattle currently has around 1,400 police officers, and the current plan would see about 100 cut. It was also cut the police department’s $400 million budget by about $3 million, according to KOMO.
Councilmember Kshama Sawant was the sole “no” vote because she felt the proposals didn’t go far enough, while Debora Juarez abstained, according to MyNorthWest.com.
The council reviewed a final set of amendments Monday before the vote, which included reducing the police department by up to 100 officers through layoffs and attrition as well as cutting the $285,000 annual salary of the Police Chief Carmen Best and other top officers. Best is the city’s first Black police chief and the pay cut would put her salary well below her White predecessor.
What happens now? That’s a 7% reduction of the police force in a city that has been seeing ever-increasing crime, both violent and property, over the years. It’s also see a huge homeless population increase, and the city voted to disband the unit that gets rid of homeless encampments. How many citizens and businesses take the opportunity to leave? And what will this do to the property values? What will this do to the crime rate?
Some council members have said the initial cuts are a first step to more sweeping reductions and a rethinking of law enforcement in Seattle.
You just have to know that a goodly chunk of Seattle residents, who vote mostly Democratic Party and consider themselves Progressives (nice Fascists), approve of all this in theory, but, in practice, they want their own neighborhoods and businesses protected. And will be uninterested in losing that protection. The police will surely protect the more upscale areas first, and the lower middle class and lower class areas will be the first to suffer.
As for Chief Best, who really hasn’t done a whole lot over the months to stop the Crazy in Seattle these past months, well, she resigned
Carmen Best, the Seattle police chief, emailed her resignation notice to police officers in the department late Monday hours after the City Council made good on its promise to approve sweeping proposals that would cut about 100 officers and slash the department’s budget.
Best’s email, which was obtained by Jason Rantz, a radio host in the city, said that her retirement will be effective Sept. 2.
It seems she’s mostly upset over the reduction of her pay.
Anyhow, you have to wonder if the department will suddenly find itself with a large amount of resignations, with the overall departures exceeding that 100 number. The cops know they don’t have the backing of the city, and will be called on to do more work from the layoffs which causes an exploding crime rate.
