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I’m sure everyone knows it but it’s in almost all cities that had a very prominent defund the police movement. In Seattle and other Washington cities like Olymp

I’m sure everyone knows it but it’s in almost all cities that had a very prominent defund the police movement. In Seattle and other Washington cities like Olympia they just don’t have a police force that is capable or even allowed to act. In Olympia for example a homeless person constantly goes to the same area and pisses and shits on the sidewalk. He stood in front of a glass window of a salon and shit in front of everyone and the business called the police only to be told that because they were just a tenant at the shopping center that the police would not come out. They made a rule (I dont know if law) that only the property owner can call the police now, and becaus the person shitting wasn’t inside the store, the property owner had to make the call. Like seriously? Property owners are banding together to hire essentially a private police force to patrol now because the government won’t police. Apparently only the businesses care about safety because the city councils do nothing and voters dont change anything.

mywittyname 5y ago
> it’s in almost all cities that had a very prominent defund the police movement. In Seattle and other Washington cities like Olympia they just don’t have a police force that is capable or even allowed to act. Or police are actively making the cities worse places to live as a way of punishing people with these attitudes. I guess we'll find out when departments slip up and put into writing policies that were previously said behind closed doors.
softwarebeware 5y ago
> In Seattle and other Washington cities like Olympia they just don’t have a police force that is capable or even allowed to act. You may want to check into this a bit more. As with anything it's much more complicated than that. For example, have the Seattle "police" been defunded? In late 2020, the Seattle City Council cut less than $10M off the specific police budget, with funds specifically allocated for adding 125 officers. Meanwhile they budgeted $100M MORE for additional community safety initiatives (see https://crosscut.com/news/2020/11/seattle-cuts-doesnt-defund-police-budget-2021 https://crosscut.com/news/2020/11/seattle-cuts-doesnt-defund...). Every time there was discussion of anything like "police reform" the past two years in Seattle, the Seattle Times ran an article with a headline like "Seattle City Council defunds police" and you would read the article and find that nothing had even changed, but that the council had just issued a statement of support for the idea of reform. This is the kind of spin/propaganda that is happening.
- smaryjerry 5y ago
  It’s not that the police actually get defunded but that doesn’t help, it’s the general attitude of cities that supported the defund movement. Every law and decision made by these places encourages being soft on crime and criminals regardless of what they do with the budget. You could hire 125 more officers but tie their hands together so they can’t prosecute crime under $900 in damage or can’t charge criminals for possession of drugs unless they consumed them. Both of which Washington now reflects. All of the small crime just leads to people graduating to larger crime more often. We’re seeing a horrible uptick in all kinds of crime here.

mywittyname 5y ago

> it’s in almost all cities that had a very prominent defund the police movement. In Seattle and other Washington cities like Olympia they just don’t have a police force that is capable or even allowed to act. Or police are actively making the cities worse places to live as a way of punishing people with these attitudes. I guess we'll find out when departments slip up and put into writing policies that were previously said behind closed doors.

softwarebeware 5y ago

> In Seattle and other Washington cities like Olympia they just don’t have a police force that is capable or even allowed to act. You may want to check into this a bit more. As with anything it's much more complicated than that. For example, have the Seattle "police" been defunded? In late 2020, the Seattle City Council cut less than $10M off the specific police budget, with funds specifically allocated for adding 125 officers. Meanwhile they budgeted $100M MORE for additional community safety initiatives (see https://crosscut.com/news/2020/11/seattle-cuts-doesnt-defund-police-budget-2021 https://crosscut.com/news/2020/11/seattle-cuts-doesnt-defund...). Every time there was discussion of anything like "police reform" the past two years in Seattle, the Seattle Times ran an article with a headline like "Seattle City Council defunds police" and you would read the article and find that nothing had even changed, but that the council had just issued a statement of support for the idea of reform. This is the kind of spin/propaganda that is happening.

smaryjerry 5y ago
It’s not that the police actually get defunded but that doesn’t help, it’s the general attitude of cities that supported the defund movement. Every law and decision made by these places encourages being soft on crime and criminals regardless of what they do with the budget. You could hire 125 more officers but tie their hands together so they can’t prosecute crime under $900 in damage or can’t charge criminals for possession of drugs unless they consumed them. Both of which Washington now reflects. All of the small crime just leads to people graduating to larger crime more often. We’re seeing a horrible uptick in all kinds of crime here.