6703

I love how they were able to use the existing legislation to support its removal. Where there is a will, there’s a way!

Indeed.

6704

So many cops are just evil. Way too many :(

6705

So the City Council in Seattle voted to reduce the Police force by 100 officers a few days ago, and pay for the highest level of management (including the Chief) by 40%. So the chief just resigned. Which is probably for the best, as she lied regularly to the media to spin events for her and her department. She also either had no control over the officers, or was commanding them to do illegal things during the protests and then lying about it.

I supported her promotion to chief- there was a whole kerfuffle in her getting the job in the first place two years ago- and I hoped a female African-American that knew the dept from withing could help solve its problems with racism and use of force. But she turned out to be just another ‘cops’ first duty is to protect other cops’ asshole.

6706

From things I’ve read, the Seattle police chief was actually a pretty good force for reform in the SPD, which had a long history of bad stuff, and she was actually improving the department.

I guess we’ll get to see what the actual impact of this will be in Seattle though, and whether it’s actually a benefit.

(also, didn’t one of the guys on the city council who led this charge to reduce the police, actually run on a platform of ADDING cops to the streets?)

6707
6708

I can’t point to anything she did in the two years a she was in charge (and the year she was acting chief before that) that moved things in the right direction, and I follow this stuff. And her cops’ actions during the protests the last few months have been disgraceful, so as I said above, she either hasn’t made any real change, or she has no control over the dept, or both.

6709

In the first year as Chief, she got the department mostly in compliance with all of the changes required by the Feds.

The SPD has a long history of bullshit, and I’m not sure that it’s fair to lay the blame on Best.

Regardless, we’ll see what happens now… because I kind of think it ain’t gonna be anything you want. You’re likely to see a bunch of minority officers get fired, and I have no idea who you’re gonna get to replace Best…seems like that’s a pretty shit job that no one’s gonna want, especially now.

6710

This kind of goes back to my original objection to “defund the police” as a goal. When the activists said that, the serious ones meant defund the crazy surplus military equipment, and defund the way we use cops to do what amounts to social work. Draw that down and fund the actual social programs for those jurisdictions. But, when you keep it vague and don’t have a good plan, you get what just happened in Seattle. An across-the-board budget cut with little guidance which translates into quick layoffs. And because people don’t understand how unions work, they’re shocked when the people with the least seniority get chosen to go, instead of some careful, performance-based layoff plan.

6711

Yeah. But contra to what you’re saying, the biggest thing she’s done (as the article you linked to explains a bit of) is back and approve a contract with the SPOG that contravenes accountability legislation passed the year before by the council.

As I said, I supported her, and no, I didn’t expect her to ‘fix’ the dept in her relatively short time there, but her actions over the last few months have been terrible. I have no faith in her (and even less in the Mayor, but that’s another story). What really needed to happen was the City Council to go in with a plan to reorganize emergency and crime response and responsibilities in this city. We may be in the baby steps of that, but it doesn’t seem to be going the right way so far.

Edit: or what Telefrog said above me while I was typing, heh.

6712

Ya, I know someone in Seattle who has done work with the SPD in the past for Homeless outreach and gang outreach, but at the same time was always critical of the crazy crap that SPD constantly did, like beating up some old man who was using a golf club as a cane, because he wouldn’t drop it (because he couldn’t stand without it).

But they’re not real happy with what’s going on right now with the SPD and the current defunding moves, because they think it’ll likely make things worse.

6713

They’ve lost Al Sharpton

6714

If you lose Al Sharpton do you truly lose?

6715

Or were the real Nazis the fascists you punched along the way?

6716

And nothing of value was lost.

6717

I always get the VO from Sins of a Solar Empire saying, “Nothing of value was found” in these situations. It amuses me so.

Man, that game. I should reinstall.

6718

Cops say he shot at them. Which seems unlikely, but the world is a weird place.
Sadly for the cops I trust them as far as I can throw their AFV.

6719

Yeah, don’t trust the APD. They were (are? not sure now with Barr and Trump) under a DOJ consent decree in part because they shot a lot of people for no good reason from 2010-2014+. Plus, at least given my experience, they’re rude as fuck and got some really dumb officers.

6720



Edit: Also apparently the PPB fucked up a 75-year-old Nam vet tonight? Like fucked him up something huge.
This guy:

6721

Just one example of the stellar kinds of people recruited to lead police unions:

6722

Chief Best and Mayor Durkan are 100% responsible for failing to reign in the police department which:

And plenty more. Good riddance.