4 ms·

This is a staggering misrepresentation of what Councilmember Juarez wrote. (I will point out by way of potential bias that CM Juarez is the councilmember for m

This is a staggering misrepresentation of what Councilmember Juarez wrote. (I will point out by way of potential bias that CM Juarez is the councilmember for my district and I voted for her in the last election.) Seattle PD is the problem in a lot of ways. We've made one simple ask of them: stop arbitrarily shooting people. They have failed in that task, and every time we, the voters, try to hold them accountable, we are told that "the Mayor doesn't supervise the police department" or "Office of Police Accountability has no authority" or "the consent decree prohibits us from passing that ordinance." CM Juarez, who is a person of color I might add, is correct that the actual statistics say that being a person of darker colored skin around a Seattle PD officer is a risky endeavor. So adding more badges and guns to the street won't do much.

adamredwoods 5y ago
Harrell, from his state of the city in Feb, is attempting to find solutions: https://harrell.seattle.gov/2022/02/15/mayor-bruce-harrell-state-of-the-city-tuesday-february-15-2022/ https://harrell.seattle.gov/2022/02/15/mayor-bruce-harrell-s... >> My administration is reaching out to members of the criminal defense bar, many of whom are my friends, to let them know that when we make arrests, we will make sure constitutional rights are protected; alternative forms other than arrest are explored; treatment plans are in place and that a militarized or racialized approach will not be tolerated. >> Part of that plan requires more officers. The depleted staffing we see today does not allow us to react to emergencies and crime with the response times our residents deserve. It does not allow us to staff the specialty teams we need for issues like domestic violence or DUI or financial crimes targeting the elderly. It does not allow us to conduct the thorough investigations we expect to make sustainable change. I always thought i-940 was good policy to help address police issues, but it seems stalled / falling short? https://www.seattle.gov/community-police-commission/give-community-a-say-in-police-training-and-reform https://www.seattle.gov/community-police-commission/give-com... >> We witnessed this system fail last year. After 60 percent of Washington voters approved Initiative 940 requiring independent investigations of police killings, the rules for how independent investigations would work were ultimately decided by the WSCJTC. What they approved did not meet community expectations. That is one of the reasons why that issue has still not been settled, and the Governor has had to create yet another commission to advise him how to properly implement independent investigations.
ianbicking 5y ago
I wish the movement had approached this differently. We need a professional, competent police force. The problems with police are largely about a lack of professionalism and consistently applied professional standards. Professional police do a better job. They act consistently (a big part of what "professional" means) and that builds trust which makes them capable of operating in these communities they are consistently failing. The police force keeps growing because we DO need them to do their job, and they keep getting worse at their jobs, so we keep adding more of them. I really like the Peelian Principles [1], I wish that sort of thinking was also part of the conversation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles#The_nine_principles_of_policing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles#The_nine_pr...
endominus 5y ago
This is an interesting issue, and often a great example of using statistics to mislead. "Stop arbitrarily shooting people" is a tragic thing to have to ask a police force; any loss of life is tragic. But I find that many communications about the numbers involved to be somewhat manipulative. Chiefly, the numbers of people being shot (or choked or beaten to death or otherwise killed). A few sources put that number at around 1000 people per year in the US. Which is terrible [0]. However, filtering that data to just "unarmed" people reduces it to around 54 [1]. Filtering again by race shows 12 unarmed black men dead in 2019 by police killings. USA Today [2] reports that Mapping Police Violence records 25 such killings, but I couldn't find any way to filter their site by unarmed cases. These are still tragedies, certainly. The police should not cause any innocent to fear for their life. But compare these numbers with the homicide rate in Seattle alone [3]. There were as many murders per year there as there as total unjustified police killings in the entire country. Much of which, historically, has been black-on-black violence. It is in the top 90th percentile for crime in the USA. Those numbers actually climbed to 53 and 40 in 2020 and 2021 respectively according to the report in the GP's article! I am reminded of the polls going around, when Defund the Police was in full swing, that indicated that most people - even black people in high-crime areas who were most likely, statistically, to be shot - actually wanted greater police presence, not less. Because the issue with many high-crime areas is that when the police leave, violent crimes go up, not down. For illumination [4]: "In the end, the homicide rate in the CHAZ turned out to be 1,216 per 100,000—nearly 50 times greater than Chicago’s." Every victim there, let's not forget, was black. edit: removed a duplication in sources. [0]: https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police... [2]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/23/fact-check-how-many-unarmed-black-men-did-police-kill-2019/5322455002 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/23/fac... [3]: https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Seattle-Washington.html https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Seattle-Washington.htm... [4]: https://www.city-journal.org/end-of-chaz https://www.city-journal.org/end-of-chaz

adamredwoods 5y ago

Harrell, from his state of the city in Feb, is attempting to find solutions: https://harrell.seattle.gov/2022/02/15/mayor-bruce-harrell-state-of-the-city-tuesday-february-15-2022/ https://harrell.seattle.gov/2022/02/15/mayor-bruce-harrell-s... >> My administration is reaching out to members of the criminal defense bar, many of whom are my friends, to let them know that when we make arrests, we will make sure constitutional rights are protected; alternative forms other than arrest are explored; treatment plans are in place and that a militarized or racialized approach will not be tolerated. >> Part of that plan requires more officers. The depleted staffing we see today does not allow us to react to emergencies and crime with the response times our residents deserve. It does not allow us to staff the specialty teams we need for issues like domestic violence or DUI or financial crimes targeting the elderly. It does not allow us to conduct the thorough investigations we expect to make sustainable change. I always thought i-940 was good policy to help address police issues, but it seems stalled / falling short? https://www.seattle.gov/community-police-commission/give-community-a-say-in-police-training-and-reform https://www.seattle.gov/community-police-commission/give-com... >> We witnessed this system fail last year. After 60 percent of Washington voters approved Initiative 940 requiring independent investigations of police killings, the rules for how independent investigations would work were ultimately decided by the WSCJTC. What they approved did not meet community expectations. That is one of the reasons why that issue has still not been settled, and the Governor has had to create yet another commission to advise him how to properly implement independent investigations.

ianbicking 5y ago

I wish the movement had approached this differently. We need a professional, competent police force. The problems with police are largely about a lack of professionalism and consistently applied professional standards. Professional police do a better job. They act consistently (a big part of what "professional" means) and that builds trust which makes them capable of operating in these communities they are consistently failing. The police force keeps growing because we DO need them to do their job, and they keep getting worse at their jobs, so we keep adding more of them. I really like the Peelian Principles [1], I wish that sort of thinking was also part of the conversation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles#The_nine_principles_of_policing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles#The_nine_pr...

endominus 5y ago

This is an interesting issue, and often a great example of using statistics to mislead. "Stop arbitrarily shooting people" is a tragic thing to have to ask a police force; any loss of life is tragic. But I find that many communications about the numbers involved to be somewhat manipulative. Chiefly, the numbers of people being shot (or choked or beaten to death or otherwise killed). A few sources put that number at around 1000 people per year in the US. Which is terrible [0]. However, filtering that data to just "unarmed" people reduces it to around 54 [1]. Filtering again by race shows 12 unarmed black men dead in 2019 by police killings. USA Today [2] reports that Mapping Police Violence records 25 such killings, but I couldn't find any way to filter their site by unarmed cases. These are still tragedies, certainly. The police should not cause any innocent to fear for their life. But compare these numbers with the homicide rate in Seattle alone [3]. There were as many murders per year there as there as total unjustified police killings in the entire country. Much of which, historically, has been black-on-black violence. It is in the top 90th percentile for crime in the USA. Those numbers actually climbed to 53 and 40 in 2020 and 2021 respectively according to the report in the GP's article! I am reminded of the polls going around, when Defund the Police was in full swing, that indicated that most people - even black people in high-crime areas who were most likely, statistically, to be shot - actually wanted greater police presence, not less. Because the issue with many high-crime areas is that when the police leave, violent crimes go up, not down. For illumination [4]: "In the end, the homicide rate in the CHAZ turned out to be 1,216 per 100,000—nearly 50 times greater than Chicago’s." Every victim there, let's not forget, was black. edit: removed a duplication in sources. [0]: https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police... [2]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/23/fact-check-how-many-unarmed-black-men-did-police-kill-2019/5322455002 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/23/fac... [3]: https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Seattle-Washington.html https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Seattle-Washington.htm... [4]: https://www.city-journal.org/end-of-chaz https://www.city-journal.org/end-of-chaz