The more pressing question is whether crime rates and police budgets are even related? "I think the mayor is on the right track, but Seattle is in a huge crisis. Conservative politicians, media figures, and public officials are all explaining what theyconsider to be spikes in crime and increasing homicide rates as the inevitable consequence of the defund the police movement. SEATTLE HOMICIDES ROSE PRECIPITOUSLY IN 2020 AS LIBERAL LEADERS DEMANDED POLICE BE DEFUNDED, Bruce Harrell speaks during the mayoral race as his wife, Joanne Harrell applauds, Nov. 2, 2021, in Seattle. When we take policing away, we are actually filling that void with alternatives that we know are going to help.. But we've been here before. The only investors who wont let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureyou. For decades, Austin has spent so many dollars policing homelessness, jailing the homeless, and paying for emergency rooms and 911 calls instead of reinvesting those same dollars to finally start reducing homelessness, said Casar, the local councilmember. Seattle had a $401.8 million police budget in 2020 and a $363 million budget in 2021; in 2022 . In Austin, the Texas Municipal Police Association (TMPA) created highway billboards saying Warning! pic.twitter.com/TROQgn59TP, Patrick McHenry (@PatrickMcHenry) May 13, 2021, First things first: Is there really a surge in crime? And in the cities that have done it, theres no correlation with [rising crime rates].. voted Seattle had a $401.8 million police budget in 2020 and a $363 million budget in 2021; in 2022, the City Council voted on a budget that gave the department $355.5 million. Seattle residents Victoria Beach, Eli Hoshor and Jonathan Choe said police shortages have left their city in dire straits in the aftermath of officials' anti-law enforcement rhetoric. The goal remains to defund the police, theyre just doing it in less externally aggressive ways. The Seattle Times priced the mistake at $5 million. We cant just keep throwing money at police and expect them to change their ways and culture, which is sexist and racist, she said. Staffing shortages have robbed the Seattle Police Department of the ability to keep up with even basic tasks. well after public opinion had turned against the idea, Seattle has struggled intensely to combat a rise in crime amid officer shortages and strained resources. Donate now. All rights reserved. The SPD numbered 1,348 sworn personnel in 2020, and only 1,137 in June of 2022, a staffing crisis spurred by the exodus and retirement of over 400 SPD officers. Danny Westneat takes an opinionated look at the Puget Sound region's news, people and politics. The big picture is quite clear that we cant recruit enough people to be cops in this city, mostly because of the political climate we still find ourselves in, Solan explained on the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. By adjusting the police budget even just a little bit, we are going to be able to house and help hundreds of people with these two hotels and I hope well be able to buy more., Austin has started redirecting certain 911 calls to mental health professionals a move meant to provide help to those crises instead of a potentially deadly response by police, Casar said: We know that we can solve the mental health crisis with treatment and care, not with handcuffs and jail.. "The mayor laid out the vision and the hope for what he wants going forward, but he's very sparse on details and an exact plan to execute this and what that would actually look like," he added. Through various community levies the Downtown Seattle Associationa non-profit representing over 1,700 businesses, nonprofits and downtown residences with the goal of creating a healthy, vibrant downtown for allspent $564,000 on private security between June 2020 and Aug. 2021. Defund the police may exist as a slogan, but it does not exist as a policy-at least in the 50 . To suggest a permanent cut for staffing does not reinforce the defund reality is transparent gaslighting. June 06, 2022, A Seattle police officer temporarily detains a man March 10, 2022. And conservative politicians and law enforcement officials, hypnotized by their own versions of a police Twitter account, seized the opportunity to create a new panic rooted in a false causality: Defunding the police, they argue, has caused a surge in crime. The Seattle City Council Which is to say, there are no neat narratives about even the existence of an epidemic of wrongdoing. This past week the city announced it is refunding 100,000 parking tickets and voiding another 100,000 because of an oversight namely that the parking enforcement officers, who are civilians, were not regranted the authority to write tickets after they were switched out of the Police Department last fall. This #NationalPoliceWeek please join me in standing up to defend our brave men & women in blue. Socialist Kshama Sawant voted no, but only because she didnt think there were no taxes against Seattleites and more cuts to the SPD. Robberies in the. Then get The Morning Bell, an early morning edition of the days most important political news, conservative commentary and original reporting from a team committed to following the truth no matter where it leads. The redirected funds are also meant to benefit the crime victims who have been traditionally neglected and mistreated by law enforcement, advocates said. While party infighting was dominating headlines, local activists were campaigning to make the catchphrase a reality in cities across the US. And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. Robberies are up 30% in 2022. Required fields are marked *, , saw an ambitious commitment to cut the Seattle Police Department (SPD) budget. (Genna Martin/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images). One year its the Ferguson effect. This year, as Fox News TV host Tucker Carlson said on his show in March, its the conviction that when you defund the police, people die.. Seattles efforts to defund its police department and transfer its duties to other city agencies resulted in $5 million worth of wrongful parking tickets and other administrative dysfunction, according to The Seattle Times. Of course, the rational part of my brain knows that, statistically speaking, because of my socioeconomic status, its unlikely that Ill be the victim of a crime, especially a violent one. One Seattle City Council member, Alex Pedersen, summed up about the ticket fiasco: This reinforces that rearranging our public safety systems is complicated, and can result in unintended consequences unless implemented with the utmost care.. The City Council initially cut the police budget by about 17%, never reaching the 50% goal. Among the. Theyre slowly dismantling the department. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Justice Statistics are the main federal agencies that collect data about crime trends. The dynamics suddenly changed last summer during massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations after video emerged of a Minneapolis officer pressing his knee on George Floyds neck for almost nine minutes. Did de-policing cause the increase in homicide rates? (Photo: John Moore/Getty Images). Your email address will not be published. Were still crunching our data, but so far we count 10,256 impounds authorized by the Seattle PEOs [parking enforcement officers], said Chuck Labertew, president of Lincoln Towing, which has the sole contract for city-initiated towing. And we need to be given the confidence to go forth and conduct policing to hold criminals accountable. This graphic demonstrates just how wrong & dangerous efforts to defund the police are. All rights reserved. Seattles recent return to SPD budget boosting and away from activist-inspired alternatives like The Solidary Budget, which demands 50% divestment from the SPD to markedly reinvest in communitiesto progressive activists signifies a deeply embedded contradiction in the citys political orientation. Its a $5 million mistake or it would be if thats hopefully the end of it. Legal Statement. Whats going to happen here is that were going to get sued, I can guarantee it, said Chuck Labertew, president of Lincoln Towing, which has the sole contract for city-initiated towing, according to The Seattle Times. James Argento-McCurdy, Volunteer Reporter|October 12, 2022. election Seattle police have been able to investigate and refer for prosecution far fewer sexual assault cases in the past year compared to 2019, police officers told local news station Seattle is one of the most progressive cities in the United States, and this is the same with San Francisco and Los Angeles and Portland. And some of these cities are now demonstrating the impacts of their new budgets. @laureldugg After defund the police became the rallying cry of protests last summer, Democratic leaders spent months criticizing the slogan and worrying about its impact on elections. Unions have launched aggressive PR campaigns to counter the movement. Harrells election proved that, even in seemingly progressive cities, Defund fervor was rapidly extinguishing. [We need to] get to the root of the problems causing the crime rate., Seattles recent return to SPD budget boosting and away from activist-inspired alternatives like. The defund-the-police correlation to crime implicitly connects Black Lives Matter protesters and other activists to the problem. The resulting 2022 budget was less than what the city authorized for police in both 2020 and 2021. Nelson wasnt lying or overstating the situation. Councilmember Kshama Sawant, a socialist who supported the 50% defunding, said it was particularly disappointing for the city to maintain high rates of police spending in a budget that made cuts to affordable housing, parks, libraries and transportation. It turns out that during the seven-month period when the meter readers lacked the right commission to do their jobs, they also authorized more than 10,000 tows of cars and trucks from city streets. After City Council rebalanced the budget in Aug. 2020, defunding the SPD by $3 million and directing $17 million towards alternative police responses, a complete reconfiguration of Seattles public safety system seemed feasibleand potentially likely. They were one of the first cities to really defund, and even prior to George Floyd, the Seattle Police Department was always quite frankly under attack," retired Sgt. But theres another wrinkle, which like most of the defund the police efforts so far, could snowball more in an unintended direction. Taylor Penley is a production assistant with Fox News. While Seattle was ostensibly in the process of reimagining its public safety apparatus, crime rose, 911 response times lagged and homelessness spiked. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. It took so many days of marching and an unprecedented uprising to even get this little bit.. Inexpensive, too! It means setting up a system that can assess, accurately, safely and often instantly, whether to dispatch to volatile street scenes some social help, or uniformed officers with guns. Other city leaders said their cuts were due to the Covid-19 economic crisis and not the protests, and in 26 major cities, lawmakers continued to increase police budgets. Fox News recently analyzed data from seven major cities and found that this year, violent crimes have increased up to 40% over 2021. But Herbold, who helped lead the charge to defund in 2020 and pushed for firing white officers because of their skin color, snapped at Nelson. Homicides skyrocketed by 24% while motor vehicle thefts climbed by 30% in the city last year.
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