3 ms·

It's possible that what you're saying is true, but that doesn't change the basic facts from my original comment. Members of the Seattle City Council espouse th

It's possible that what you're saying is true, but that doesn't change the basic facts from my original comment. Members of the Seattle City Council espouse the "Defund the police" idea and they are acting on it - to wit, they have decreased the SPD budget at least three years in a row. They have caused the dissolution of the Navigation team and caused a recent police chief to resign by cutting her salary. I suspect a contributing reason to SPD losing and not being able to recruit people is the openly hostile attitude of city leadership towards law enforcement. Ineffective criminal justice in the city likely contributes as well.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
First, when it was proposed to eliminate some of the open head count for the police, it was soundly defeated by a SCC vote. They aren’t going to defund the police so explicitly, even if their support has a lacking. Second, if you haven’t noticed, everyone is having trouble hiring right now. The negative vibes for the job are definitely significant, but this is also part of a more broad labor shortage.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  Seattle City Council members explicitly defunded the police by reducing the funding of the police for three years in a row. Some Seattle City Council members explicitly advocate for things like "Defund the police" - e.g. Kshama Sawant. https://twitter.com/search?q=defund%20(from%3Acmkshama)&src=typed_query https://twitter.com/search?q=defund%20(from%3Acmkshama)&src=...
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    I wouldn't trust anything Sawant says, she has issues.
swearwolf 5y ago
I don’t know if this is true in Seattle, but in Portland we’re having a huge problem hiring police officers despite having the budget to do it. The reason is the police culture. It’s well known that our police force tolerates a lot of bad behavior, including open racism, and nobody wants to work there because of it. It also doesn’t help that because of that behavior, lots of people in the city hate the police.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

First, when it was proposed to eliminate some of the open head count for the police, it was soundly defeated by a SCC vote. They aren’t going to defund the police so explicitly, even if their support has a lacking. Second, if you haven’t noticed, everyone is having trouble hiring right now. The negative vibes for the job are definitely significant, but this is also part of a more broad labor shortage.

ALittleLight 5y ago
Seattle City Council members explicitly defunded the police by reducing the funding of the police for three years in a row. Some Seattle City Council members explicitly advocate for things like "Defund the police" - e.g. Kshama Sawant. https://twitter.com/search?q=defund%20(from%3Acmkshama)&src=typed_query https://twitter.com/search?q=defund%20(from%3Acmkshama)&src=...
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  I wouldn't trust anything Sawant says, she has issues.

swearwolf 5y ago

I don’t know if this is true in Seattle, but in Portland we’re having a huge problem hiring police officers despite having the budget to do it. The reason is the police culture. It’s well known that our police force tolerates a lot of bad behavior, including open racism, and nobody wants to work there because of it. It also doesn’t help that because of that behavior, lots of people in the city hate the police.