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In my neighborhood in Seattle I've seen a tweaked-out individual literally just walking down the street spray-painting cars at around 6pm on a weekday. I calle

In my neighborhood in Seattle I've seen a tweaked-out individual literally just walking down the street spray-painting cars at around 6pm on a weekday. I called the police and they told me all officers were busy on more urgent/violent calls and wouldn't be able to respond. This was before COVID and the department is even more short-staffed now.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vkou 5y ago
Short-staffed? SPD has one of the largest police presences, per-capita, of any American metro area, (while Seattle has middling crime statistics). They aren't short-staffed, as much as they are deliberately avoiding doing any work. They were also engaged in a lot of overtime grift over the past decade, which the city started to crack down on in 2019.
- qvrjuec 5y ago
  I don't think your understanding is correct, see this article: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/is-the-seattle-police-department-understaffed-heres-what-the-data-shows/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/is-the-seattl... This was also written in late 2020. There are now 1,080 deployable officers, down from 1,325 as seen here: https://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/about-the-department/department-fact-sheet https://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/about-the-department...
- xeromal 5y ago
  And that's what this "security" force would solve.
  - vkou 5y ago
    The problem with police today is that there is no single problem with them. They are near-useless for solving crime. They are useless for preventing it. They are bad at dealing with situations that don't require a thug with a gun. Sometimes, they can't follow the law, while trying to enforce it. Other times, they enforce something that is not the law. Sometimes, they ignore dangerous, illegal behaviour. Sometimes, they employ incredibly excessive force to deal with not-dangerous, maybe-illegal behaviour. When they screw up, regardless of how badly they screwed up, it's nearly impossible to hold them accountable for it. Yes, you can cherry-pick one of those problems, and claim that uber-for-mob-justice will solve it. Will it make any of these other problems worse? Better? Worse for people who can't pay, better for people who can? I don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but I am not particularly impressed by this.
    - xeromal 5y ago
      > Oh? They are going to figure out who stole my catalytic converter, and arrest the fence who bought it? I think the idea is to try to catch it in the act. The LAPD is notorious for being slow. I was in a hit and run accident where my car was completely totaled and I was in a daze and it took them an hour to come and I'm pretty sure the only reason they actually came was because a bystander was mad and claimed there was injuries after waiting with me for a while. If they wont' come to an accident in a good time, I doubt they come to a break in. lol
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  For comparison's sake, New York City and Chicago have about 4x more officers per capita than Seattle
  - vkou 5y ago
    The NYC counts are bloated because they include a whole bunch of 'police' that have nothing to do with boots-on-the-street policing. Financial regulators and port inspectors, for instance, are included in those counts.
crimandnakatoya 5y ago
Ha, that's nothing. Two years ago, I walked up to a police officer in Seattle and pointed out an individual who was splayed face-first on the sidewalk a half-block away, in front of a food truck where a line of customers was patiently stepping over them. The officer shrugged and walked off in the opposite direction. I think that was the moment that I decided it was time for a change of scenery.
nobody9999 5y ago
>In my neighborhood in Seattle I've seen a tweaked-out individual literally just walking down the street spray-painting cars at around 6pm on a weekday. Despite the damage to the cars, that sounds more like a mental health problem than a crime problem. Which is one of the big problems we have with current policing models. We throw folks trained to use deadly force at issues that are better suited to mental health professionals trained in de-escalation. I get it that many folks don't really care about their fellow humans except as threats/enemies/potential rivals for mates and resources. And I also get that, as in your example, many folks don't care about the well-being of other people (as in your example, a 'tweaker'. How do you know that? Were they shooting meth as they spray-painted the cars?), especially if they engage in anti-social behaviors. In fact, many folks would support it if we just killed/imprisoned anyone who makes them uncomfortable or unhappy. The issues that we lump into a black box called "mental illness" are poorly understood and even more poorly addressed in our society. Even worse, more often than not we dump the "mental illness" black box into a larger black box called "criminals". As Hubert Humphrey put it[0]: The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped. I posit that our current policies and practices fail that moral test. Those who are most distressed/needy/lost are usually abused, shunned and thrown away by our society, rather than nurtured, helped and hopefully brought into society as productive members. Why is it generally the former rather than the latter? I'd say that it was a culture of selfishness, greed and a lack of empathy buried under several layers of soft-soaping like "personal responsibility", "pulling oneself up by the bootstraps", "poverty is a moral failing" and a bunch of other tropes. Sentient life is precious. We should treat it that way, IMNSHO. But we don't. And more's the pity. [0] https://www.columbian.com/news/2016/nov/11/letter-quote-from-humphrey-not-gandhi/ https://www.columbian.com/news/2016/nov/11/letter-quote-from...
- Cyberdog 5y ago
  > Despite the damage to the cars, that sounds more like a mental health problem than a crime problem. In the long term, I agree with you. In the short term, it would be nice if the people who we are forced to pay for the task of preventing antisocial behavior would stop the person who is causing tens of thousands of dollars in property damage, since broadly speaking nobody else has the right to do so. To put it another way, how much more damage does this person need to do before you consider it a crime problem?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

vkou 5y ago

Short-staffed? SPD has one of the largest police presences, per-capita, of any American metro area, (while Seattle has middling crime statistics). They aren't short-staffed, as much as they are deliberately avoiding doing any work. They were also engaged in a lot of overtime grift over the past decade, which the city started to crack down on in 2019.

qvrjuec 5y ago
I don't think your understanding is correct, see this article: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/is-the-seattle-police-department-understaffed-heres-what-the-data-shows/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/is-the-seattl... This was also written in late 2020. There are now 1,080 deployable officers, down from 1,325 as seen here: https://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/about-the-department/department-fact-sheet https://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/about-the-department...
xeromal 5y ago
And that's what this "security" force would solve.
- vkou 5y ago
  The problem with police today is that there is no single problem with them. They are near-useless for solving crime. They are useless for preventing it. They are bad at dealing with situations that don't require a thug with a gun. Sometimes, they can't follow the law, while trying to enforce it. Other times, they enforce something that is not the law. Sometimes, they ignore dangerous, illegal behaviour. Sometimes, they employ incredibly excessive force to deal with not-dangerous, maybe-illegal behaviour. When they screw up, regardless of how badly they screwed up, it's nearly impossible to hold them accountable for it. Yes, you can cherry-pick one of those problems, and claim that uber-for-mob-justice will solve it. Will it make any of these other problems worse? Better? Worse for people who can't pay, better for people who can? I don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but I am not particularly impressed by this.
  - xeromal 5y ago
    > Oh? They are going to figure out who stole my catalytic converter, and arrest the fence who bought it? I think the idea is to try to catch it in the act. The LAPD is notorious for being slow. I was in a hit and run accident where my car was completely totaled and I was in a daze and it took them an hour to come and I'm pretty sure the only reason they actually came was because a bystander was mad and claimed there was injuries after waiting with me for a while. If they wont' come to an accident in a good time, I doubt they come to a break in. lol
Rebelgecko 5y ago
For comparison's sake, New York City and Chicago have about 4x more officers per capita than Seattle
- vkou 5y ago
  The NYC counts are bloated because they include a whole bunch of 'police' that have nothing to do with boots-on-the-street policing. Financial regulators and port inspectors, for instance, are included in those counts.

crimandnakatoya 5y ago

Ha, that's nothing. Two years ago, I walked up to a police officer in Seattle and pointed out an individual who was splayed face-first on the sidewalk a half-block away, in front of a food truck where a line of customers was patiently stepping over them. The officer shrugged and walked off in the opposite direction. I think that was the moment that I decided it was time for a change of scenery.

nobody9999 5y ago

>In my neighborhood in Seattle I've seen a tweaked-out individual literally just walking down the street spray-painting cars at around 6pm on a weekday. Despite the damage to the cars, that sounds more like a mental health problem than a crime problem. Which is one of the big problems we have with current policing models. We throw folks trained to use deadly force at issues that are better suited to mental health professionals trained in de-escalation. I get it that many folks don't really care about their fellow humans except as threats/enemies/potential rivals for mates and resources. And I also get that, as in your example, many folks don't care about the well-being of other people (as in your example, a 'tweaker'. How do you know that? Were they shooting meth as they spray-painted the cars?), especially if they engage in anti-social behaviors. In fact, many folks would support it if we just killed/imprisoned anyone who makes them uncomfortable or unhappy. The issues that we lump into a black box called "mental illness" are poorly understood and even more poorly addressed in our society. Even worse, more often than not we dump the "mental illness" black box into a larger black box called "criminals". As Hubert Humphrey put it[0]: The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped. I posit that our current policies and practices fail that moral test. Those who are most distressed/needy/lost are usually abused, shunned and thrown away by our society, rather than nurtured, helped and hopefully brought into society as productive members. Why is it generally the former rather than the latter? I'd say that it was a culture of selfishness, greed and a lack of empathy buried under several layers of soft-soaping like "personal responsibility", "pulling oneself up by the bootstraps", "poverty is a moral failing" and a bunch of other tropes. Sentient life is precious. We should treat it that way, IMNSHO. But we don't. And more's the pity. [0] https://www.columbian.com/news/2016/nov/11/letter-quote-from-humphrey-not-gandhi/ https://www.columbian.com/news/2016/nov/11/letter-quote-from...

Cyberdog 5y ago
> Despite the damage to the cars, that sounds more like a mental health problem than a crime problem. In the long term, I agree with you. In the short term, it would be nice if the people who we are forced to pay for the task of preventing antisocial behavior would stop the person who is causing tens of thousands of dollars in property damage, since broadly speaking nobody else has the right to do so. To put it another way, how much more damage does this person need to do before you consider it a crime problem?