Mayor Jenny Durkan has plans for the riot-ravaged city of Seattle- including reducing the police budget by 18% at a time when homicides are through the roof.
Seattle City Council members voted in favor of cutting police funding, eliminating many vacant positions within SPD and creating a manpower shortage at one of the city’s most dire chapters in recent history.
In an effort to cater to BLM and other anti-policing movements, the cuts still fall short of the 50% goal that local activists demanded.
According to the New York Post, parking enforcement officers, mental health workers and 911 dispatchers are being removed from SPD command.
“I believe we are laying the groundwork to make systemic and lasting changes to policing,” Durkan said in a statement last week. “We have rightly put forward a plan that seeks to ensure SPD has enough officers to meet 911 response and investigative needs throughout the city, while acknowledging and addressing the disproportionate impacts policing has had on communities of color, particularly Black communities. I applaud the City Council for taking a more deliberate and measured approach to the 2021 Seattle Police Department budget than occurred this summer which led to the resignation of former SPD Chief Carmen Best.”
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan plans to sign a new city budget that will reduce the police budget by 18% despite homicides reaching record highs not seen in a decade.https://t.co/FaqoGVDaef
— James A. Gagliano (@JamesAGagliano) December 1, 2020
Many officers within SPD are questioning whether or not to remain in the city.
On Monday, Seattle marked its 55th murder of the year. Prior to 2018, murders in the city rarely, if ever, topped over thirty per year.
In addition, 8,418 burglary incidents were also reported, a massive spike from previous years.
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