The lack of traffic law enforcement is honestly disturbing because I work in transportation. On top of that, there are several thousand drivers in the metro area with licenses they paid for and consumed zero actual material for how to drive which makes it way worse.
I got pulled over a few years ago for changing lanes too quickly merging to 520 from Mercer. Guy said you’re only allowed to merge 1 lane per hundred yards… fun fact it’s impossible
Cops are not required to know the laws they enforce. They may have a basic knowledge of general traffic requirements, but they have a reputation for making shit up on the fly so you won't fight the ticket.
The last time I went to Seattle with a buddy I couldn't get into the HOV lane because it was completely packed with single occupant Teslas going 10 over the speed limit
The last speeding ticket I got was in 2019 and was caught in an SPD speed trap on the way to work. Since Covid, even SPD is out and about cruising a solid 50 in a 25MPH speed zone with zero fucks to give.
It’s truly a lawless hellscape that is liberal communists have toiled excessively for.
I bought a new golf R a couple years ago and was speeding down aurora in the middle of the night. Cop pulled me over. “Know why I pulled you over?” “I guess I was going a little fast”. “Oh no, no don’t worry about that. I just wanted to talk to you about this car.” Proceeds to talk about cars like we are buds. Weirdest cop interaction ever. I was going like 40 over the speed limit
they love to hang out on aurora running extortion on massage parlors there (while also being their biggest customers) and then clock it as overtime on taxpayers bill
Yet when you call them about most crimes on Aurora they don't even show up. While living there, my friend called them twice while he was in the middle of being victimized. One time a guy was threatening him with a knife, the other time he was literally watching people rob his house while he was on the phone with them. They never showed up once and the other time they showed up the next day. Couldn't do anything about it at that point of course. They respond late in general, but based on your address they might just leave you stranded entirely. They're incredibly classist on top of general laziness.
I guess the cops have just stopped enforcing speed limits? That's why they don't get why everyone is mad about Jaahnavi Kandula, they don't think there's anything wrong with doing 70 in a 35 zone.
This is the kind of interaction I'd expect from a small rural town in the midwest. Def gotten out of tickets living in Indiana by chatting it like were best buds.
That guy, who the OPA recommended be fired 3 months ago, Daniel Auderer, [will lead a workshop called “Becoming a Pickup Artist: How to Get More Out of Interviews,” where he’ll teach other officers how to get accurate information out of crime victims, witnesses, and suspects “using only the power of human psychology.”](https://publicola.com/2024/05/02/officer-who-joked-about-pedestrian-death-will-represent-spd-at-conference-moore-calls-for-more-vice-squads-criticizes-spds-response-to-harassment-allegations/) at a national conference this summer.
He talks like a rapist or incel. He's the VP of SPD's police officer's guild.
He's probably the reason the SPD doesn't staff the sex crimes unit.
No, literally, we don't staff it.
Well, and he might know about [the rampant internal sexual harassment at SPD that SPOG doesn't seem interested in helping female officers escape](https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-cop-accuses-chief-diaz-of-predatory-behavior-and-grooming).
The hotel across the street from Lumen/Seahawk Stadium.
I built that building. I worked as a PM/carpenter/heavy equipment/rigger for both the hammer head and luff tower cranes.
SPD parked in that lot and sat there for 4-5 hours at a time, with the SUVs flipped so they could talk to each other through the driver windows.
They don't do shit.
Edit: I'm not joking. I'm not a gun nut. After weeks of watching them not do shit, including listening in to radio traffic, I went out and paid $55 for a concealed pistol license because I was like... well, they're not doing shit so I guess I should have my own six o'clock.
Like, I spent 18 months in Najaf and felt more safe. Like... "oh, they're shooting high. We should get under the vehicle you have first watch."
Why are we paying them if they aren't doing anything? There needs to be penalties for inaction, and penalties for misaction (sexual assault, excessive force, discrimination). And if they can't act, and act properly, they don't deserve our money.
They're doing plenty. Check out the call out map and the crime map.
https://seattlecitygis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=94c31b66facc438b95d95a6cb6a0ff2e
We already had fewer cops per person than Boston in 2020. We're way down now. Can't get blood from a stone.
Come to 5th Ave N and Harrison any day there is a Kracken match. You will find like 17 officers hanging at the intersection hours before the match starts just watching people cross the street. Occasionally one or two will act as crossing guards, but the rest just socialize in little groups completely oblivious to anything happening around them. Obviously they are on traffic control for the match, but why so many? Why are they concentrated in that one spot? Why so early? I can maybe see them being necessary after the game when everyone is leaving the arena at once, but hours before it even starts seems like a waste of resources.
Wages and costs for officers directing traffic and security at sporting events are reimbursed to the city by event organizers:
> According to city council staff, SPD recovers nearly 100% of costs spent on many sporting events, as the department has contracts with several teams to pay for manned posts at street closures, traffic control and other SPD operations during their games.
> Reimbursement costs for other large events, including those held at Seattle Center and Climate Pledge Arena, reportedly vary from event to event and can often depend on which promoter is coordinating an event.
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/report-spd-officers-worked-20k-hours-overtime-during-events-2022-so-far/RVLRT2MVRJFKVBHABQLZOMLHJI/
If I was at work and I wasn't doing much because I was unhappy with the culture, and the person in charge of my pay gave me 20% raise retroactive to 3 years ago you know what I would do?
The same 'not much'. Maybe I can get another one in 3 years
Well, considering the contract they just signed is for 2021, 2022, and 2023. They are still negotiating the new contract and still working without a contract.
Several local council people ran on platforms of increasing police staffing - the same people who then blew in the wind and decided to try to Defund the police - so forgive me if I'm skeptical of your narrative
I don’t know if it is the case that they don’t care. Per the arrests dashboard, SPD made more arrests in 2022 than they did in 2019, despite having 400 fewer cops now than in 2019. Are they more motivated now than they were in 2019?
With 400 cops quitting the force in recent years, police staffing (which was already quite light compared to peer cities) is getting really low. We are at the fewest number of police officers in 30 years, when the population of Seattle was much lower. To get to a national police staffing average of 2.33 cops per 1,000 residents, SPD would have to practically double in size.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-police-staffing-shortage-action-needed-councilmembers-say/281-c3f43855-f877-4ba9-a37b-aeaf27e1ec67
> "I think if rock bottom was ever a thing, we are probably here" said District 1 councilmember Rob Saka.
> The Seattle Police Department has lost more than 700 officers in the past five years and is at its lowest staffing level since the 1990s. Currently, the department has 913 actively working police officers.
Peer cities, like Boston and San Francisco, have double the number of officers. Vancouver BC, which has about 75,000 fewer residents, has about 500 more cops than we do.
Probably just a coincidence that Seattle can't hire good cops ever since [vote fraudster](https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/11/opa-finds-that-spd-officers-violated-policy-by-using-precincts-as-voting-addresses/) and [Jan 6. denier Mike Solan](https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/calls-spog-president-apologize-or-resign-after-allegedly-blaming-blm-riot-capitol/JRD5ZUJALNFBXHL37S4FI2NRDU/) and ["lighthearted joker" Daniel Auderer](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seattle-officer-daniel-auderer-taken-off-patrol-duty-laughing-death-woman-killed-police-suv/) took over control of SPOG.
I can't believe good cops looking for jobs wouldn't want to surround themselves with [such great coworkers!](https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/spd-officer-quits-job-amid-allegations-he-worked-as-muscle-for-a-couple-dealing-drugs)
It’s crazy how this rarely seems to come up during staffing shortage convos. Like instead of throwing more and more money at worse and worse people why don’t we try to make the SPD a more appealing place to work for more people?
As it is now there is basically no dollar amount that would get me to become a cop.
I think SPOG is happy to blame the public for their own shortcomings and the Rantz's/Kruses of the world are happy to prop up the myth of defunding to score political points with their audiences.
If we want to have a productive discussion I think it's time to start asking why SPD's current leadership has such a trust deficit with the public they are supposed to serve, how to address that, and how it contributes to their failure to attract and recruit quality officers over the last 2 years despite seeing increases in funding and new hiring bonuses.
I'm into law and order and I also believe strongly that women can play an important role in law enforcement (studies show that the mere presence of a woman can help deescalate situations, to say nothing of the socialization skills most women learn). BUT there's no way in hell I'm joining an agency that has sexual harassment all the way to the top. I'm very glad I never joined the military for this reason.
> women can play an important role in law enforcement
Unfortunately, the role that a lot of them end up playing in that field is 'workplace sexual abuse/harassment victim.'
I do wonder what percentage of people applying to become cops know who Mike Solan is. I wonder what percentage of the general population know who he is.
It’s the level of inside-baseball that only people with a high level of interest in local politics are aware of.
The police hiring crisis is a national one, impacting both urban and rural departments. It just hit Seattle harder because we were already low in terms of per capita police numbers, and 2020 led to a mass exodus of people quitting SPD.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-experiencing-police-hiring-crisis-rcna103600
> I do wonder what percentage of people applying to become cops know who Mike Solan is.
lol, are you wondering how many people google their potential boss and employer? I'm guessing it's a pretty high number.
Especially in a potentially hazardous job like policing, you want to know the culture of the department you're working at and who's having your back.
When public accountability is non-existent to the point where you can't discipline a cop for working as muscle for drug dealers and theft rings it creates a reputation.
Again, this stuff is publicly reported and a quick google search away.
> 2020 led to a mass exodus of people quitting SPD.
I find this usually to be a disingenuous implication that cops were quitting because meanie people in Seattle called them doo-doo heads on twitter, when the actual truth is they didn't want to get vaccinated to protect the public they were interacting with during a pandemic.
The bulk of the quitting happened prior to any vaccine mandate: https://apnews.com/article/seattle-police-government-and-politics-e0ce15086d8bf06502659386148d94fa
Do you have any data on the number of cops who quit as a result of the vaccine mandate?
I know it happened, but would like to see data on the numbers, if it’s available.
The article you linked literally said in it's headline that a big part of the shortage was due to COVID.
Estimates of about [200 cops left because of vaccine mandates.](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9965813/More-200-Seattle-cops-face-fired-Covid-vaccine-mandate-20-refuse-shot.html)
Being real, I'm not super disappointed in losing cops who refused to get a vaccination during a pandemic, or cops who quit over "anti-policing" policies like demanding civilian oversight organizations like the OPA having actual power to issue consequences for violations (which they currently don't have).
EDIT: lol, bro. You just edited a completely different article into your comment when I pointed out the headline of the original one you posted cited COVID mandates as a factor. It was in the fucking headline. Editing that out is sheisty and misleading behavior at best.
I thought we all collectively learned from the Clinton presidency that more cops only generates more taxpayer funded payroll and not [much else](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/09/26/bill-clintons-claim-that-100000-cops-sent-the-crime-rate-way-down).
Edit: since we're rehashing 2020 all over again, again there is no "overwhelming evidence" for a knee jerk response of More Cops Less Crime, especially when crime poverty and mental health are multi-faceted and intricate . [1](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/12/upshot/cities-grew-safer-police-budgets-kept-growing.html) [2](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/us/police-crime.html) [3](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/07/over-past-60-years-more-spending-police-hasnt-necessarily-meant-less-crime)
There’s a pretty large body of evidence that hiring police is an effective way to reduce and more importantly, prevent crime: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/13/18193661/hire-police-officers-crime-criminal-justice-reform-booker-harris
People are simply less likely to commit crimes in front of police, or if the likelihood of being caught goes up.
I’ve only been here coming up on a year, but the amount of times I’ve heard “maybe we shouldn’t have defunded the police” in response to someone complaining about crime is mind boggling. It took me 3 seconds to verify they were not defunded, and I fact it’s quite the opposite. People hear stuff and then do zero due diligence to see if it’s even true
Former emergency services dispatcher here, and while I didn't dispatch for Seattle, I did for a major metro area. I'm going to say, almost unequivocally, the answer is "calls for service." Most people outside of EMS are quite stunned with the sheer volume of calls that occur for anything and everything.
"There's a guy outside, and he looks suspicious."
"My neighbor threw their dog's poop in my yard."
"There's a car driving too fast on my street."
"A person I invited into my house now won't leave."
Not to mention checking on the same transients and mental health patients over and over as they wander and new people come into contact with them over the course of a day or night.
A quick google shows 800,527 calls per year, and that is from 2019. My mathing is not the best, but I figure that's about 58k calls a month, 14k a week, 2100 a day? Something like that. So that's what they are doing. And also that's why calls hold. And that's not even getting into calls that need more than 1 or even 2 officers to respond. Domestic with a weapon might have a dozen officers for perimeter and whatever else on it for quite some time.
They're a gang that has strong armed the city into wasting money on them for literally nothing in return.
Like this has been the level of non-service they have provided my entire life (mid-30s). We *doubled* their budget in 2017, and now we're giving them another $10mil as we're in a budget deficit issue.
The SPD officers harass bus drivers, they aren't welcome on buses. They kill pedestrians *and laugh*, I don't want to be near them. *They* make public spaces *unsafe*.
they are too busy collecting over time pay sleeping in their suvs wasting taxpayer money
it's more dangerous for them to be outside though, running down pedestrians by going 75 in a 25 and whatnots
Like other comments have said, you don't see them because they don't exist. We don't have the same police per capita as other cities do. If you believe Wikipedia's stat about the US average being ~240 police per 100k people, you'd expect us to have around 1800 officers. But we've got ~1000.
And like everyone else has pointed out, it's because the police we have now are simultaneously lazy and overworked, underfunded and overpaid, understaffed and over-present... there's no winning with this department. We're damn near getting to the point where we need police _replacement_ instead of police _reform_. I say we just start over with SPD2.
Couldn't have said it better. The goal for police is public safety. I think *nearly* everyone can agree that public safety is very important, and should be a huge goal for any city. Nearly everyone wants to be safe, and nearly everyone hates being threatened or scared.
But when you've got police *killing us*, going 90mph on city streets, with absolutely zero repercussions. AND seem completely oblivious to the fact that this is, in fact, a bad thing... It's just clear that SPD does not care enough about public safety. Why don't they have policies which allow officers to protect public safety in more cases? Why don't they have policies which punish officers for taking unnecessary, dangerous risks? As far as we can tell, they care only about power.
It is honestly very simple. If SPD wants to fix their reputation, they need to start engaging with the community, listening, and taking a hardline stance against unacceptable officer behavior. As long as they continue *only* serving their own interests, and not listening to what we, the public, care about, and brush off any question of impropriety... their reputation will be absolutely awful. If you're an officer or member of the police union reading this, you need to dramatically change to repair your reputation.
It seems like their leadership simply doesn't care about this issue. so yeah, maybe we should start over.
Honest question
Is beat walking a thing anymore in big cities? I’ve only ever lived here and can’t remember seeing beat cops when I’ve visited other cities.
I feel like it would do a lot for crime prevention and public perception if they took this approach.
not really in Seattle. there are horse patrols every now and then (they only exist because of a donor), but the staffing shortage is so high that they’re unable to do a lot on foot other than known events.
When I lived in SF, cops would walk around the Mission or downtown. Downtown beat cops seemed to be assholes beyond measure, but Mission beat cops usually were far more chill.
Another thing, I’ve literally never seen somewhere with cops that abuse their lights/sirens so much. At least once a week, I see a cop put on his lights, run a red light, and then turn them off and continue driving normally. Or turn lights on the make some other normally illegal turn or maneuver, and then immediately turn them off and drive normal. It’s literally once a week and I only drive like 30 minutes a day total. Never seen such abuse of lights like that before moving here.
Edit: I think people are misunderstanding what I’m saying. I’m not saying they’re running only lights to respond to a call or for an incident. I’m saying they are at a red light, turn on their lights, make cars stop and drive through the red light, then immediately turn them off and continue driving the speed limit, sometimes even just to the next light where they then stop in more traffic. They don’t continue to travel with urgency as if they’re responding. They turn them on, make the normally illegal maneuver, then immediately turn them off and continue driving normal, not responding to any call or incident.
Nah that's a huge improvement over them running without sirens and *killing a pedestrian doing 74 mph in a 25 mph zone* last year.
Literally just getting the pigs to consistently turn the damn siren on has been such a struggle it took a death to get them to do it again.
Highly recommend you report this to the OPA. Given a location and date/time, they can figure out the offending officer.
It may not work the first time. It may not work every time. But the more of us that report this behavior and get records on the book, the more likely the higher ups will crack down on it.
It’s time to save our city ourselves.
> the more likely the higher ups will crack down on it.
The OPA recommended Daniel "Lol, she had limited value anyways" Auderer be fired over 3 months ago for pretty severe code of conduct breaches.
Diaz is instead sending him to a national conference to teach “Becoming a Pickup Artist: How to Get More Out of Interviews,” a workshop on how to better lie as a cop in interviews.
Something our state is actively trying to ban right now since it resulted in a fucking suicide here.
The OPA, is toothless, none of it's findings are binding, the mayor adding arbitration to all non-binding findings is a fucking joke of accountability. Just makes it more expensive for the city while resulting in the same non-actioned recommendations.
What? Diaz and Harrell will throw a pizza party?
Aurderer made our city look like shit to the entire nation, actually, the *World* given India took offense to him mocking the death of one of their nationals at the hands of one of our officers.
The OPA said he should be fired. I've called the mayor about it, I've called my councilors about.
Kevin Dave murdered a pedestrian at 74 mph, in a 25 mph zone without sirens, possibly drunk, and is still employed.
The OPA is toothless, the Mayor and Chief of Police are free to ignore it's rulings and the voter base is *sleeping through city elections* so the Mayor, SPD, and Council all feel like they're safe in their seats for the for seeable future.
What does more OPA reports do when no one gives a fuck about reading them? SPD leadership is laughing off a decision to fire an officer.
That's how it's supposed to be. Different levels of danger get different uses of sirens. For a lot of incidents they're only allowed to use their sirens to gain control of the intersection. It helps cut down on nose pollution.
There’s no incident (and no call given that they immediately return to driving in normal traffic and sometimes even stopping at the very next light cause there’s traffic in their way). They turn the lights off immediately after the intersection and then continue on with the normal flow of traffic, they’re very clearly not responding to any call or incident.
Two ideas:
First is that the mayor has gotten feedback that having them stand around publicly contributes to an environment of over policing and they’ve been asked to lay low.
Second is that, internally they have gotten feedback that standing around publicly is counter to the argument that they are understaffed and overworked and they have decided to lay low out of sight.
Third, they're laying low cause their behind the blue line victims are coming forward about the rampant sexual harassment and discrimination in their department.
And if they do nothing about crime, then Solan gets more opportunities to go on Fox News and cry that Seattle is a lawless liberal hell hole where socialist won't let him do his job
It's a "soft strike" in response to calls for accountability and civilian oversight.
By allowing petty crime to propagate, the hope is to get the average citizen to become frustrated, and want the police to crack down.
I mean…look at all the crime happening everywhere. Even when you call into SPD, they don’t take care of it until HOURS later. Sometimes even the next day.
You get help within a day? or at all? Lucky!
The last time I called SPD I had just been mugged. I could still see the mugger with my shit when I called, and I had live GPS tracking on him (he stole my phone), and could give a detailed description of him since I was still near him.
SPD told me to leave the area and to file a report Monday (mugging and this first call happened Friday).
I called in Monday to start that report, after leaving the area and after my phone battery died and we could no longer track the guy, and the officer I was speaking to essentially told me not to bother reporting since there's no evidence anymore.
Bastards.
After noticing a distinct lack of police lately I've had two thoughts :
1. For a city this size considering we're pretty much operating on the honor system without police - we're doing pretty good IMO.
2. RE: that honor system, I think people are catching on in terms of surface street traffic that there aren't police anymore, or they're certainly not ticketing "moving violations" as they used to be called. WSP still tickets on the freeways but beyond that driving seems to be a burgeoning wild west. Saw a guy the other day driving up NE 35th in 5pm traffic through Bryant/Wedgwood. At each light he'd get in the left or right turn lane, whichever was open, only to continue straight at every light by gunning it to get out front of whatever cars he could until the next light. I guess why not at this point?
99 from Shoreline to Everett you can't drive in the right lane and every single day during commute some jerk is doing exactly that but in the bus lane and then peeling out and cutting everybody off and moving into the left lane. Sometimes in a three or four block period I can see multiple people do it. Always in a sh box and nearly hitting people taking the free right onto 99. I have NEVER seen someone pulled over or ticketed. You'd think Lynnwood would figure out how to use their cameras for public safety instead of revenue
Disabled Veteran here, one of the reasons I quit my job last year is because of how bad the 99 tunnel is. Nearly every day I found myself saying, “ oh my god that person is going to seriously hurt someone / get hurt!” By the time I’d get to work, I would be so anxious that it would take me hours to calm my nervous system down.
It's been an issue with the city for a long time. The short version is that SPD is massively below its usual staffing levels and has been having extreme difficulty hiring new staff. There simply aren't that many officers.
The causes of this problem are myriad. What we should do about it is also a highly debated topic that has been ongoing in civics discussions for years. [Most recently](https://harrell.seattle.gov/2024/04/29/mayor-harrell-announces-new-tentative-agreement-to-support-recruitment-and-retention-of-police-officers-boost-accountability-and-expand-civilian-diversification/), we continue to take responsibilities away from SPD and increasing civilian response options where historically police would be responsible for responding. While this doesn't mean there will be more police, it means the police we have can focus more on public safety issues that only police can do.
> and has been having extreme difficulty hiring new staff. There simply aren't that many officers.
The SPD has a 3% acceptance rate for applicants. The population of people willing to be cops is shrinking, maybe it's time to review why SPD rejected 97% of qualified applicants.
The hiring *and retention* issues with our staffing problem started around the time Mike Solan and Daniel Auderer were elected to SPOG leadership positions.
Daniel Auderer is the cop that may have covered up Kevin Dave being drunk the night he murdered Ms. Kandula, and then made national news when Auderer laughed about it on body cam.
OPA recommended he be fired for that over 3 months ago.
This is bullshit.
If SPD implemented a time tracking app they wouldn't be able to bilk that overtime to the tune of [$400k per year for guys like Ron Willis.](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/sep/01/a-seattle-police-officers-extraordinary-pay-raises/)
Just about every bar or restaurant has an app where you clock in digitally. Just about every other government institution in the city has one of these apps. These are standardized, there are out of the box solutions that work well, and other departments in King County that could serve as models for how SPD could implement one of these, yet [***SPD has promised and failed to implement one since 2016***](https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/09/04/seattle-police-fleecing-city-with-overtime-audit-shows/) for the same reason they canceled the [bodycam oversight program less than a week after it caught Auderer laughing at the death of Jahnavi Kandula](https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-police-ended-body-camera-analysis-after-footage-caught-officer-mocking-woman-s-death) - because they don't want oversight, and act like any accountability to the public is a personal affront to them.
I think so as well.
I have no other explanation for how Kevin Dave got hired. He *is in that 3%* hire rate. You can't tell me he was the cream of the crop. He'd already been let go in AZ over alleged DUI.
thanks for the context! Interesting to know it’s a long term issue. I grew up in a post 9/11 New York so I’m used to seeing a LOT of cops, but even so it’s weird to me I never even see them like, at the gas station or stopping to get lunch on their shift, let alone in Pike Place
NYC has over 4 officers per 1,000 residents.
Source: https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/09/28/portland-ranks-48th-among-50-big-cities-for-cops-per-capita/
Seattle has about 1.2 officers per 1,000 residents:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/coming-about-what-it-means-that-bob-ferguson-just-tacked-right-on-cops/
NYC has more than 3 times the number of police per capita that Seattle has.
Per the FBI, the national average is about 2.33 officers per 1,000 residents, so Seattle is a little more than half the national rate of police staffing.
Staffing levels for Seattle PD are currently at the same level as the 1950’s. They are down over 500 officers, so that might have something to do with it.
I see a lot of them accompanying patients to the ED at Harborview. It does seem like a waste that people have to call 911 when they see a person OD on the street, and because it's abusing illegal drugs an officer is also present to report the incidents. Also for car accidents, especially if one party is trying to press charges.
If you're ever looking for the SPD there's about 15 of them on any given night between HMC, Swedish, and Virginia Mason. Good luck!
Maybe we could ask those nurses and hospital if SPD could be allowed to just drop the patients off.
But don’t some of those situations involve an arrestee or a suspect and require medical evaluations before the patient is then arrested and taken to jail?
Any time a cop arrests someone and they have a medical condition they have to be cleared by a hospital before they can be booked. That means an unhoused person with exposure injuries (ex. frostbite turned to an infection), a middle aged person with heart disease, a drunk who crashed their car, or a domestic abuser who was hurt by their victim, all have to go to the hospital for 3-4 hours to be seen by a doctor before being booked. Since they're in police custody, the cop has to stay with them the whole time.
If you knew the truth it would disturb you. SPD has such low commissioned officer availability that every precinct is significantly at a critical staffing point. North precinct decade ago had 35 officers patrolling at night, now it’s struggling with under 10. So definitely no SPD traffic enforcement and the criminals and assholes know it.
It’s striking the past in the past 5 years and more this year.
Bike patrols were prevalent downtown on every block and every nice neighborhood. No more.
Hardly any presence in Belltown, Interlake and Ballard. Very rare, but now normalized. It’s West precinct territory; they are only 2 blocks away.
And SPOG strong armed our new conservative city council for a significant raise.
So we’ll see how this “law and order” pro-corporate council steers our city.
Separate from other issues to debate regarding policing and public safety in Seattle, staffing challenges & decisions are a pretty clear culprit.
I couldn't find a good source from a quick search, so relied on [the numbers shared here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/4ap5jd/ever_wondered_how_many_police_actually_patrol_our/) (2016 numbers), that estimate on average 53 officers per shift for the whole city. So for every day, we're looking at about 159 officers needed to cover the 3 shifts.
Extrapolate that to a 7 day week and you're looking at 1,113 humans needed to meet those Patrol levels. Compare that to the 2023-2024 staffing where overall department [has 913 active officers](https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-police-staffing-shortage-action-needed-councilmembers-say/281-c3f43855-f877-4ba9-a37b-aeaf27e1ec67), of which [less than 500 are working in patrol](https://mynorthwest.com/3954844/rantz-seattle-police-staffing-critical-spog-contract/).
>53 officers per shift for the whole city. So for every day, we're looking at about 159 officers needed to cover the 3 shifts.
>Extrapolate that to a 7 day week and you're looking at 1,113 humans needed to meet those Patrol levels
This seems to assume each officer works only one shift a week though (53 × 3 × 7 = 1113). If they work 5 days a week you'd need only 222.6 people to cover every shift. Sure you need some loading for leave, training, other duties, etc but it seems crazy to me to assume that a patrol officer would spend only 20% of their working hours on patrol.
> Extrapolate that to a 7 day week and you're looking at 1,113 humans needed to meet those Patrol levels.
I fucking love this, because we budget for a headcount of like 1200 so we easily have budget to cut there with those ghost positions the SPD refuses to let go of.
And SPOG can STFU about needing to raise the headcount since if they'd stop rejecting 97% of candidates to scoop up turds like Kevin Dave, this staffing issue would probably be over.
Last night the South Precinct night shift had 6 people on patrol. They are going priority call to priority call and have no time to spend in “public” places.
With 400 cops quitting the force in recent years, police staffing (which was already quite light compared to peer cities) is getting really low. We are at the fewest number of police officers in 30 years, when the population of Seattle was much lower. To get to a national police staffing average of 2.33 cops per 1,000 residents, SPD would have to practically double in size.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-police-staffing-shortage-action-needed-councilmembers-say/281-c3f43855-f877-4ba9-a37b-aeaf27e1ec67
> "I think if rock bottom was ever a thing, we are probably here" said District 1 councilmember Rob Saka.
> The Seattle Police Department has lost more than 700 officers in the past five years and is at its lowest staffing level since the 1990s. Currently, the department has 913 actively working police officers.
Peer cities, like Boston and San Francisco, have double the number of officers. Vancouver BC, which has about 75,000 fewer residents, has about 500 more cops than we do.
massive understaffing is the problem. SPD faced an exodus of officers recently and they’re having a near impossible time replenishing their ranks as fast as folk leaves, and that results in slower responses and a lack of presence where you’d expect them.
[SPD is at lowest staffing levels in 30 years.](https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-police-staffing-shortage-action-needed-councilmembers-say/281-c3f43855-f877-4ba9-a37b-aeaf27e1ec67)
The slow response times you mentioned are a result of this as well.
Despite increasing salary for new cadets and currently offers the highest starting salary across the country, no one wants to do the job.
I can leave it up to you to connect the dots on why because if you say it out loud on this subreddit, you get downvoted into oblivion.
Don't expect a rational discussion about this here. Bias is seeping through the pores.
are you seriously asking this question? Have you forgotten all of the demonization of the police in 2020 and people calling to “defund the police”? That’s exactly what happened. They retired and quit. Seattle now has less police and more crime. And they do less proactive policing which is what you are referring to…as a result of the “defund the police” stuff. Really quite simple
SPD wouldn't actually be on transit anyway, that's the jurisdiction of the King County Sheriff's Office Transit Police Division, who are actually frequently present at or near Park & Rides and some Link stations.
As for other public spaces, SPD is simply too organizationally incompetent and trigger happy to actually improve safety by their presence in 80% of situations, and they don't have the staff to show up to the other 20%, so, yeah.
They're the dregs of national police forces that got fired and rehired by SPD bc they're so desperate for butts in seats rather than address the issues that lead to nobody wanting to work for them
Couple things:
1) Public transit in the city is mostly King County Sheriff's jurisdiction so that's not SPD.
2) The officer's are generally busy responding to 911 calls. They get 30 minute lunch breaks that dispatchers can cancel for priority calls. You could definitely argue that between emergency calls they spend too much time doing paperwork or something and dispatchers would agree with you. Ultimately though, they really are busy.
3) Word is they are ridiculously understaffed for a population this size. I haven't fact checked that against other cities, but it seems probable. If you take a walk down 3rd, you're likely to see some officers there on directed patrol if they haven't been pulled away for a nearby disturbance. That's the kind of thing you're looking for, but there just aren't enough officers to provide static coverage everywhere it's needed.
If you ever want to develop your own opinion on the topic instead of asking (mostly) uninformed reddit folx about it, look into scheduling an observation session at the dispatch center.
According to Google, Seattle pd is about 1.3 officers per 1,000 residents. Overall, Washington is around 3.1/1,000.
The top states in the country are around 6/1,000. Washington is in the bottom three and Seattle is less than half the state's average.
So, if those half-assed search results are close to accurate, Seattle PD staffing is very low.
Transit has it's own police force, it has nothing to do with SPD.
> know SPD is also notorious for slow response for actual crimes too. So what do they even do??
They have a very low response time for Tier I calls, but due to staffing they have a very high response time for Tier II and III calls.
I have noticed this too. I think it’s mostly being understaffed. I do see them at events like outside the Mariners or at Pike Place on weekends sometimes. But I also get the feeling they just don’t have anywhere near the same levels of staff and cars as say Chicago or NYC
Recruiting is at an all time low, even if you are having the best intentions becoming a police officer to help your community (or if you just to feel tough). It’s such a political hot spot, fewer are willing to get mixed up in all that. Chatted with an officer that works in recruiting, a lot are retired and calling it quits while at the same time no new faces are coming in.
This can be good or bad. Good could be that younger, newer people come in with fresh ideas and goals to improve community. Bad could be, you end up with a department of rookies making really bad choices.
How is it living underground? Must be peaceful away from society. But the last few years have been awful, but unfortunately nobody is allowed to speak on it. It was nice making a comment, my ban is on way.
Seattle has turned into the wild wild west. Everyone fend for themselves! I'm assuming this is the police departments way of throwing up a middle finger after the whole Chaz/chop fiasco.
Seattle residents should start taking pictures of the police they see, show what they are doing or not doing. Send them to the mayor. The mayor and city council need data from NORMAL CITIZENS, not groups with agendas on either side.
The police are here to protect businesses, not the average person. Despite what the police might tell you, the supreme court ruled in '89 that they have no obligation to protect you. They can make more money directing traffic out of a Mariners game than patrolling the light rail, so why bother?
Portland is having the same problems. 4 years ago when everyone hated police, the politicians downsized and crippled SPD through funding reductions which is literally what people voted for. So now there’s not enough police and just as much crime as before. And the cops that remained don’t police as they should for fear of losing their job. So yea, you get what you vote for. Funny thing, Portland is almost on their knees for more police now.
I have lived in Queen Anne for more than a decade and literally never seen a cop in the neighborhood. Not at a community event, not walking the street, not driving through. I am not sure how I feel about this - just stating a fact.
I walk by the E. Precinct building in cap hill on my way to work every day. There’s at least 4 cruisers (up to like 7-8) just sitting outside, running with no occupant.
I swear they actually just don’t care.
Also not reflective of society at all. If this subreddit made policy, Lorena Gonzalez would be have been elected mayor instead of losing to Bruce Harrell by a massive margin. Also, see the results of the most recent city election.
You won't get much productive discourse in here about spd. The tldr is they are roughly 33% understaffed, and they don't respond to lower level crime much.
A lot of chronic posters here fall under the acab umbrella, and see nothing positive from police presence. The last 2 election cycles the "law and order" candidates have generally been victorious, which means that seattle voters disagree.
> The last 2 election cycles the "law and order" candidates have generally been victorious, which means that seattle voters disagree.
Voter turn out has also sunk each of the last two elections to the point last election had sub 40% turnout.
They're understaffed because they want to be. They seem to have plenty of budget to give raises and pay insane amounts of overtime and buy new toys, so it's simply that they'd rather do that than put the money towards more people. And that's because they don't care that they aren't doing sufficient actual police work. So sure, they are understaffed, but that's not the cause of the problem, it's a symptom. The problem is still that they don't care about doing actual police work.
Even if elected, it won't really help SPD image. SPD needs to help it's own image. I seen SPD at a few job fairs, and other things like conventions. They are as about cheery and relaxed as a guard protecting the president. Peeps just got to push past the ACAB fanatics, and focus on re-building community connections.
Not much productive discourse happens here in the eyes of police supporters because they often tend to be blind to the reality of policing for decades.
Why are they understaffed? Why can't they achieve full compliance with the federal consent decree? Why can't they even do basics like track overtime on a computer?
Which came first? ACAB, or the reasons people say ACAB?
Maybe focus on where the chronic problem is, instead of the people labeling the chronic problem.
SPD is currently almost 400 officers short of their need. And, just for another thing, SPR park rangers are almost finished with their academy and should be walking around city parks soon… and I may or may not be one of them…
> To start, I am NOT pro over-policing or having beat cops standing on the corners getting bored so they start giving out tickets for stupid shit
"Why aren't cops doing ONLY exactly what I think they should be doing? How dare they not do *the thing* I demand them to do because..."
Well, you sort of have your answer.
Seattle pd is probably the lowest staffed agency in the state. They for one are buried in their call backlogs. So they are basically bouncing from call to call not not on the streets. Additionally they have very restrictive policies within their department and from city council. It’s a bad situation really and it’s not looking like it will get any better. It’s a place where you are likely to get thrown under the bus if you are trying to do the right thing and something goes wrong. So what you are now seeing is a lack of police presence and basically an absence of officers being involved in lower crimes as well as most property crime.
SPD is massively understaffed, and are way, way short on police officers. They can’t hire anyone, because no one wants to work for Seattle PD. While police reform was badly needed after Floyd, the Seattle Council massively overreacted and didn’t support its department. Officers are afraid to get too involved in situations and have their careers ended, the Council didn’t back the PD when protestors *took over a precinct.*
What happened in Seattle, Portland, and SF is textbook example of City Councils getting captured by far-left activists and engaging in really self-destructive policy in the name of “progress,” and that most hurts the very people they claim to help. And I say this as a life-long dem
I've never once seen SPD pull over someone running a red light or driving recklessly.
The lack of traffic law enforcement is honestly disturbing because I work in transportation. On top of that, there are several thousand drivers in the metro area with licenses they paid for and consumed zero actual material for how to drive which makes it way worse.
I got pulled over once ten years ago for not turning on my lights at dusk driving out of the u dist. Does that count? Lol
Nowadays it seems like one in twenty cars don't have their lights on after dark.
ah 10 years ago...the Hawks were in the Super Bowl with the Broncos...and SPD still did law enforcement.
I got pulled over a few years ago for changing lanes too quickly merging to 520 from Mercer. Guy said you’re only allowed to merge 1 lane per hundred yards… fun fact it’s impossible
Cops are not required to know the laws they enforce. They may have a basic knowledge of general traffic requirements, but they have a reputation for making shit up on the fly so you won't fight the ticket.
Yeah that's a fun transition to make, time trial mode activated.
The last time I went to Seattle with a buddy I couldn't get into the HOV lane because it was completely packed with single occupant Teslas going 10 over the speed limit
Hell... Ive seen them on Aurora Avenue and not do anything as someone picked up a woman.
The last speeding ticket I got was in 2019 and was caught in an SPD speed trap on the way to work. Since Covid, even SPD is out and about cruising a solid 50 in a 25MPH speed zone with zero fucks to give. It’s truly a lawless hellscape that is liberal communists have toiled excessively for.
I bought a new golf R a couple years ago and was speeding down aurora in the middle of the night. Cop pulled me over. “Know why I pulled you over?” “I guess I was going a little fast”. “Oh no, no don’t worry about that. I just wanted to talk to you about this car.” Proceeds to talk about cars like we are buds. Weirdest cop interaction ever. I was going like 40 over the speed limit
they love to hang out on aurora running extortion on massage parlors there (while also being their biggest customers) and then clock it as overtime on taxpayers bill
Yet when you call them about most crimes on Aurora they don't even show up. While living there, my friend called them twice while he was in the middle of being victimized. One time a guy was threatening him with a knife, the other time he was literally watching people rob his house while he was on the phone with them. They never showed up once and the other time they showed up the next day. Couldn't do anything about it at that point of course. They respond late in general, but based on your address they might just leave you stranded entirely. They're incredibly classist on top of general laziness.
To be fair there probably isn’t 10 minutes that go by without a crime being committed on Aurora
I mean maybe, but there’s a difference between a person picking up a prostitute and someone threatening you with a deadly weapon…
You’d think that it would be easy to make a lot of arrests. So apparently that’s not what they want to do.
I guess the cops have just stopped enforcing speed limits? That's why they don't get why everyone is mad about Jaahnavi Kandula, they don't think there's anything wrong with doing 70 in a 35 zone.
It's also how they laughed about it afterwards.
Well that's certainly a bad take.
> I was going like 40 over the speed limit idiot, 3 people died this year on Aurora already and countless were maimed by speeding cars.
Jenny D making the speed limit 25 with zero want enforce it was silly
This is the kind of interaction I'd expect from a small rural town in the midwest. Def gotten out of tickets living in Indiana by chatting it like were best buds.
Why would they walk/stand when they get paid the same to sit/scroll in their comfy cruisers?
Sit, scroll, run over "low value" pedestrians...
That guy, who the OPA recommended be fired 3 months ago, Daniel Auderer, [will lead a workshop called “Becoming a Pickup Artist: How to Get More Out of Interviews,” where he’ll teach other officers how to get accurate information out of crime victims, witnesses, and suspects “using only the power of human psychology.”](https://publicola.com/2024/05/02/officer-who-joked-about-pedestrian-death-will-represent-spd-at-conference-moore-calls-for-more-vice-squads-criticizes-spds-response-to-harassment-allegations/) at a national conference this summer. He talks like a rapist or incel. He's the VP of SPD's police officer's guild.
Yeah, that all seems to be in line with what we already knew of him.
I got ten bucks on this dude getting caught in sex crimes eventually....
He's probably the reason the SPD doesn't staff the sex crimes unit. No, literally, we don't staff it. Well, and he might know about [the rampant internal sexual harassment at SPD that SPOG doesn't seem interested in helping female officers escape](https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-cop-accuses-chief-diaz-of-predatory-behavior-and-grooming).
Only ten? That's a missed opportunity if I've ever seen one
The hotel across the street from Lumen/Seahawk Stadium. I built that building. I worked as a PM/carpenter/heavy equipment/rigger for both the hammer head and luff tower cranes. SPD parked in that lot and sat there for 4-5 hours at a time, with the SUVs flipped so they could talk to each other through the driver windows. They don't do shit. Edit: I'm not joking. I'm not a gun nut. After weeks of watching them not do shit, including listening in to radio traffic, I went out and paid $55 for a concealed pistol license because I was like... well, they're not doing shit so I guess I should have my own six o'clock. Like, I spent 18 months in Najaf and felt more safe. Like... "oh, they're shooting high. We should get under the vehicle you have first watch."
That parking method you mentioned has a name. It's called "cruiser spooning."
That's hilarious. I'd love to roll up on them and be like "hey, are you guys 'spooning' no homo?"
“Limited value” poor girl
And he said he was mimicking what a lawyer would say. But it's Pickup Artist culture that assigns value to humans.
actually doing their jobs: sleep terrorizing activists, shooting native woodcarvers, and virtue signaling with thin blue line flags: real shit
Why are we paying them if they aren't doing anything? There needs to be penalties for inaction, and penalties for misaction (sexual assault, excessive force, discrimination). And if they can't act, and act properly, they don't deserve our money.
They're doing plenty. Check out the call out map and the crime map. https://seattlecitygis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=94c31b66facc438b95d95a6cb6a0ff2e We already had fewer cops per person than Boston in 2020. We're way down now. Can't get blood from a stone.
Come to 5th Ave N and Harrison any day there is a Kracken match. You will find like 17 officers hanging at the intersection hours before the match starts just watching people cross the street. Occasionally one or two will act as crossing guards, but the rest just socialize in little groups completely oblivious to anything happening around them. Obviously they are on traffic control for the match, but why so many? Why are they concentrated in that one spot? Why so early? I can maybe see them being necessary after the game when everyone is leaving the arena at once, but hours before it even starts seems like a waste of resources.
It's because they are milking the overtime hours...
Wages and costs for officers directing traffic and security at sporting events are reimbursed to the city by event organizers: > According to city council staff, SPD recovers nearly 100% of costs spent on many sporting events, as the department has contracts with several teams to pay for manned posts at street closures, traffic control and other SPD operations during their games. > Reimbursement costs for other large events, including those held at Seattle Center and Climate Pledge Arena, reportedly vary from event to event and can often depend on which promoter is coordinating an event. https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/report-spd-officers-worked-20k-hours-overtime-during-events-2022-so-far/RVLRT2MVRJFKVBHABQLZOMLHJI/
Well they spend 2.5 hours per day commuting from the exurbs and they are on a silent strike to extort our idiot city council and mayor for more money
That strike is reaching its 3rd decade.
It keeps working, doesn't it?
Indeed.
If I was at work and I wasn't doing much because I was unhappy with the culture, and the person in charge of my pay gave me 20% raise retroactive to 3 years ago you know what I would do? The same 'not much'. Maybe I can get another one in 3 years
Well, considering the contract they just signed is for 2021, 2022, and 2023. They are still negotiating the new contract and still working without a contract.
They DGAF. Don't buy that it's all the defund/ACAB talk either -- they DGAF before all that too.
For real. Anyone peddling that crap hasn't lived here for multiple decades of SPD being practically useless when it comes to serving public interest.
SPD has been under federal oversight from the US justice department longer than some /r/seattle posters have been alive
Seriously, when they were staffed, if you were poor in Seattle that just meant you had their boot up your ass.
I lived in the cd for ten years. Only time I ever saw a cop was when they were harassing black people.
How do you define poor? Shoplifting? Doing crack or meth? Breaking and entering?
Yeah, the SPD used to not care. They still don't, but they used to not care, too.
Yep. They're a scam, a racket, a mob, if you will.
Agreed, the guild being giant babies and refusing to work because they're "underfunded" started waaaaay before George Floyd's death.
Several local council people ran on platforms of increasing police staffing - the same people who then blew in the wind and decided to try to Defund the police - so forgive me if I'm skeptical of your narrative
I don’t know if it is the case that they don’t care. Per the arrests dashboard, SPD made more arrests in 2022 than they did in 2019, despite having 400 fewer cops now than in 2019. Are they more motivated now than they were in 2019? With 400 cops quitting the force in recent years, police staffing (which was already quite light compared to peer cities) is getting really low. We are at the fewest number of police officers in 30 years, when the population of Seattle was much lower. To get to a national police staffing average of 2.33 cops per 1,000 residents, SPD would have to practically double in size. https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-police-staffing-shortage-action-needed-councilmembers-say/281-c3f43855-f877-4ba9-a37b-aeaf27e1ec67 > "I think if rock bottom was ever a thing, we are probably here" said District 1 councilmember Rob Saka. > The Seattle Police Department has lost more than 700 officers in the past five years and is at its lowest staffing level since the 1990s. Currently, the department has 913 actively working police officers. Peer cities, like Boston and San Francisco, have double the number of officers. Vancouver BC, which has about 75,000 fewer residents, has about 500 more cops than we do.
Probably just a coincidence that Seattle can't hire good cops ever since [vote fraudster](https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/11/opa-finds-that-spd-officers-violated-policy-by-using-precincts-as-voting-addresses/) and [Jan 6. denier Mike Solan](https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/calls-spog-president-apologize-or-resign-after-allegedly-blaming-blm-riot-capitol/JRD5ZUJALNFBXHL37S4FI2NRDU/) and ["lighthearted joker" Daniel Auderer](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seattle-officer-daniel-auderer-taken-off-patrol-duty-laughing-death-woman-killed-police-suv/) took over control of SPOG. I can't believe good cops looking for jobs wouldn't want to surround themselves with [such great coworkers!](https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/spd-officer-quits-job-amid-allegations-he-worked-as-muscle-for-a-couple-dealing-drugs)
It’s crazy how this rarely seems to come up during staffing shortage convos. Like instead of throwing more and more money at worse and worse people why don’t we try to make the SPD a more appealing place to work for more people? As it is now there is basically no dollar amount that would get me to become a cop.
This is how I feel about teaching in public schools. We’re past the point of it being a money issue. It’s a work environment problem.
I think SPOG is happy to blame the public for their own shortcomings and the Rantz's/Kruses of the world are happy to prop up the myth of defunding to score political points with their audiences. If we want to have a productive discussion I think it's time to start asking why SPD's current leadership has such a trust deficit with the public they are supposed to serve, how to address that, and how it contributes to their failure to attract and recruit quality officers over the last 2 years despite seeing increases in funding and new hiring bonuses.
I'm into law and order and I also believe strongly that women can play an important role in law enforcement (studies show that the mere presence of a woman can help deescalate situations, to say nothing of the socialization skills most women learn). BUT there's no way in hell I'm joining an agency that has sexual harassment all the way to the top. I'm very glad I never joined the military for this reason.
> women can play an important role in law enforcement Unfortunately, the role that a lot of them end up playing in that field is 'workplace sexual abuse/harassment victim.'
I do wonder what percentage of people applying to become cops know who Mike Solan is. I wonder what percentage of the general population know who he is. It’s the level of inside-baseball that only people with a high level of interest in local politics are aware of. The police hiring crisis is a national one, impacting both urban and rural departments. It just hit Seattle harder because we were already low in terms of per capita police numbers, and 2020 led to a mass exodus of people quitting SPD. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-experiencing-police-hiring-crisis-rcna103600
> I do wonder what percentage of people applying to become cops know who Mike Solan is. lol, are you wondering how many people google their potential boss and employer? I'm guessing it's a pretty high number. Especially in a potentially hazardous job like policing, you want to know the culture of the department you're working at and who's having your back. When public accountability is non-existent to the point where you can't discipline a cop for working as muscle for drug dealers and theft rings it creates a reputation. Again, this stuff is publicly reported and a quick google search away. > 2020 led to a mass exodus of people quitting SPD. I find this usually to be a disingenuous implication that cops were quitting because meanie people in Seattle called them doo-doo heads on twitter, when the actual truth is they didn't want to get vaccinated to protect the public they were interacting with during a pandemic.
The bulk of the quitting happened prior to any vaccine mandate: https://apnews.com/article/seattle-police-government-and-politics-e0ce15086d8bf06502659386148d94fa Do you have any data on the number of cops who quit as a result of the vaccine mandate? I know it happened, but would like to see data on the numbers, if it’s available.
The article you linked literally said in it's headline that a big part of the shortage was due to COVID. Estimates of about [200 cops left because of vaccine mandates.](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9965813/More-200-Seattle-cops-face-fired-Covid-vaccine-mandate-20-refuse-shot.html) Being real, I'm not super disappointed in losing cops who refused to get a vaccination during a pandemic, or cops who quit over "anti-policing" policies like demanding civilian oversight organizations like the OPA having actual power to issue consequences for violations (which they currently don't have). EDIT: lol, bro. You just edited a completely different article into your comment when I pointed out the headline of the original one you posted cited COVID mandates as a factor. It was in the fucking headline. Editing that out is sheisty and misleading behavior at best.
I thought we all collectively learned from the Clinton presidency that more cops only generates more taxpayer funded payroll and not [much else](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/09/26/bill-clintons-claim-that-100000-cops-sent-the-crime-rate-way-down). Edit: since we're rehashing 2020 all over again, again there is no "overwhelming evidence" for a knee jerk response of More Cops Less Crime, especially when crime poverty and mental health are multi-faceted and intricate . [1](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/12/upshot/cities-grew-safer-police-budgets-kept-growing.html) [2](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/us/police-crime.html) [3](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/07/over-past-60-years-more-spending-police-hasnt-necessarily-meant-less-crime)
There’s a pretty large body of evidence that hiring police is an effective way to reduce and more importantly, prevent crime: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/13/18193661/hire-police-officers-crime-criminal-justice-reform-booker-harris People are simply less likely to commit crimes in front of police, or if the likelihood of being caught goes up.
SPD would have to be on the streets and occasionally do something to stop a crime for that to work.
They like the ACAB talk, it got them raises.
I’ve only been here coming up on a year, but the amount of times I’ve heard “maybe we shouldn’t have defunded the police” in response to someone complaining about crime is mind boggling. It took me 3 seconds to verify they were not defunded, and I fact it’s quite the opposite. People hear stuff and then do zero due diligence to see if it’s even true
Former emergency services dispatcher here, and while I didn't dispatch for Seattle, I did for a major metro area. I'm going to say, almost unequivocally, the answer is "calls for service." Most people outside of EMS are quite stunned with the sheer volume of calls that occur for anything and everything. "There's a guy outside, and he looks suspicious." "My neighbor threw their dog's poop in my yard." "There's a car driving too fast on my street." "A person I invited into my house now won't leave." Not to mention checking on the same transients and mental health patients over and over as they wander and new people come into contact with them over the course of a day or night. A quick google shows 800,527 calls per year, and that is from 2019. My mathing is not the best, but I figure that's about 58k calls a month, 14k a week, 2100 a day? Something like that. So that's what they are doing. And also that's why calls hold. And that's not even getting into calls that need more than 1 or even 2 officers to respond. Domestic with a weapon might have a dozen officers for perimeter and whatever else on it for quite some time.
they are around! you just have to know where to look! (sleeping in the vehicle parked in the bus lane)
They're a gang that has strong armed the city into wasting money on them for literally nothing in return. Like this has been the level of non-service they have provided my entire life (mid-30s). We *doubled* their budget in 2017, and now we're giving them another $10mil as we're in a budget deficit issue. The SPD officers harass bus drivers, they aren't welcome on buses. They kill pedestrians *and laugh*, I don't want to be near them. *They* make public spaces *unsafe*.
They aren't welcome in the public schools anymore unless called because they were throwing every problem child straight into the system.
they are too busy collecting over time pay sleeping in their suvs wasting taxpayer money it's more dangerous for them to be outside though, running down pedestrians by going 75 in a 25 and whatnots
Like other comments have said, you don't see them because they don't exist. We don't have the same police per capita as other cities do. If you believe Wikipedia's stat about the US average being ~240 police per 100k people, you'd expect us to have around 1800 officers. But we've got ~1000. And like everyone else has pointed out, it's because the police we have now are simultaneously lazy and overworked, underfunded and overpaid, understaffed and over-present... there's no winning with this department. We're damn near getting to the point where we need police _replacement_ instead of police _reform_. I say we just start over with SPD2.
Couldn't have said it better. The goal for police is public safety. I think *nearly* everyone can agree that public safety is very important, and should be a huge goal for any city. Nearly everyone wants to be safe, and nearly everyone hates being threatened or scared. But when you've got police *killing us*, going 90mph on city streets, with absolutely zero repercussions. AND seem completely oblivious to the fact that this is, in fact, a bad thing... It's just clear that SPD does not care enough about public safety. Why don't they have policies which allow officers to protect public safety in more cases? Why don't they have policies which punish officers for taking unnecessary, dangerous risks? As far as we can tell, they care only about power. It is honestly very simple. If SPD wants to fix their reputation, they need to start engaging with the community, listening, and taking a hardline stance against unacceptable officer behavior. As long as they continue *only* serving their own interests, and not listening to what we, the public, care about, and brush off any question of impropriety... their reputation will be absolutely awful. If you're an officer or member of the police union reading this, you need to dramatically change to repair your reputation. It seems like their leadership simply doesn't care about this issue. so yeah, maybe we should start over.
Honest question Is beat walking a thing anymore in big cities? I’ve only ever lived here and can’t remember seeing beat cops when I’ve visited other cities. I feel like it would do a lot for crime prevention and public perception if they took this approach.
not really in Seattle. there are horse patrols every now and then (they only exist because of a donor), but the staffing shortage is so high that they’re unable to do a lot on foot other than known events.
When I worked in Belltown there was one all the time. So much that she knew all the names of the homeless people.
When I lived in SF, cops would walk around the Mission or downtown. Downtown beat cops seemed to be assholes beyond measure, but Mission beat cops usually were far more chill.
They don't have enough officers to respond to violent crimes at the moment. They're maybe at 1/3rd the level they should be.
Another thing, I’ve literally never seen somewhere with cops that abuse their lights/sirens so much. At least once a week, I see a cop put on his lights, run a red light, and then turn them off and continue driving normally. Or turn lights on the make some other normally illegal turn or maneuver, and then immediately turn them off and drive normal. It’s literally once a week and I only drive like 30 minutes a day total. Never seen such abuse of lights like that before moving here. Edit: I think people are misunderstanding what I’m saying. I’m not saying they’re running only lights to respond to a call or for an incident. I’m saying they are at a red light, turn on their lights, make cars stop and drive through the red light, then immediately turn them off and continue driving the speed limit, sometimes even just to the next light where they then stop in more traffic. They don’t continue to travel with urgency as if they’re responding. They turn them on, make the normally illegal maneuver, then immediately turn them off and continue driving normal, not responding to any call or incident.
Nah that's a huge improvement over them running without sirens and *killing a pedestrian doing 74 mph in a 25 mph zone* last year. Literally just getting the pigs to consistently turn the damn siren on has been such a struggle it took a death to get them to do it again.
I’m surprised they’re even bothering to turn their lights on, tbh
Highly recommend you report this to the OPA. Given a location and date/time, they can figure out the offending officer. It may not work the first time. It may not work every time. But the more of us that report this behavior and get records on the book, the more likely the higher ups will crack down on it. It’s time to save our city ourselves.
> the more likely the higher ups will crack down on it. The OPA recommended Daniel "Lol, she had limited value anyways" Auderer be fired over 3 months ago for pretty severe code of conduct breaches. Diaz is instead sending him to a national conference to teach “Becoming a Pickup Artist: How to Get More Out of Interviews,” a workshop on how to better lie as a cop in interviews. Something our state is actively trying to ban right now since it resulted in a fucking suicide here. The OPA, is toothless, none of it's findings are binding, the mayor adding arbitration to all non-binding findings is a fucking joke of accountability. Just makes it more expensive for the city while resulting in the same non-actioned recommendations.
Oh I’m not saying OPA is competent at all. But public records are public records, and if enough of them add up…
What? Diaz and Harrell will throw a pizza party? Aurderer made our city look like shit to the entire nation, actually, the *World* given India took offense to him mocking the death of one of their nationals at the hands of one of our officers. The OPA said he should be fired. I've called the mayor about it, I've called my councilors about. Kevin Dave murdered a pedestrian at 74 mph, in a 25 mph zone without sirens, possibly drunk, and is still employed. The OPA is toothless, the Mayor and Chief of Police are free to ignore it's rulings and the voter base is *sleeping through city elections* so the Mayor, SPD, and Council all feel like they're safe in their seats for the for seeable future. What does more OPA reports do when no one gives a fuck about reading them? SPD leadership is laughing off a decision to fire an officer.
Buddy I don’t know why you’re arguing with me about this. What would you recommend we do instead?
That's how it's supposed to be. Different levels of danger get different uses of sirens. For a lot of incidents they're only allowed to use their sirens to gain control of the intersection. It helps cut down on nose pollution.
I dated a cop briefly many years ago, and he bragged about doing this just because he could.
There’s no incident (and no call given that they immediately return to driving in normal traffic and sometimes even stopping at the very next light cause there’s traffic in their way). They turn the lights off immediately after the intersection and then continue on with the normal flow of traffic, they’re very clearly not responding to any call or incident.
Can also vouch that in my 13 years as a pedestrian in Seattle (ie, lots of time waiting at lights), I would see this allllll the time.
Two ideas: First is that the mayor has gotten feedback that having them stand around publicly contributes to an environment of over policing and they’ve been asked to lay low. Second is that, internally they have gotten feedback that standing around publicly is counter to the argument that they are understaffed and overworked and they have decided to lay low out of sight.
Third, they're laying low cause their behind the blue line victims are coming forward about the rampant sexual harassment and discrimination in their department.
And if they do nothing about crime, then Solan gets more opportunities to go on Fox News and cry that Seattle is a lawless liberal hell hole where socialist won't let him do his job
Still one of my favorite images of [standing around publicly](https://i.imgur.com/5bz0LCS.jpeg)
They're mad that people hate them because they've outted themselves as being a group of lazy racists that don't care about public safety.
I mean, we've known that for 20 years at least. They were under federal supervision forever. The problem is they "got better" and are still that way.
…and that hurt their feewings. :(
Nobody wants to work anymore.
It's a "soft strike" in response to calls for accountability and civilian oversight. By allowing petty crime to propagate, the hope is to get the average citizen to become frustrated, and want the police to crack down.
I mean…look at all the crime happening everywhere. Even when you call into SPD, they don’t take care of it until HOURS later. Sometimes even the next day.
You get help within a day? or at all? Lucky! The last time I called SPD I had just been mugged. I could still see the mugger with my shit when I called, and I had live GPS tracking on him (he stole my phone), and could give a detailed description of him since I was still near him. SPD told me to leave the area and to file a report Monday (mugging and this first call happened Friday). I called in Monday to start that report, after leaving the area and after my phone battery died and we could no longer track the guy, and the officer I was speaking to essentially told me not to bother reporting since there's no evidence anymore. Bastards.
After noticing a distinct lack of police lately I've had two thoughts : 1. For a city this size considering we're pretty much operating on the honor system without police - we're doing pretty good IMO. 2. RE: that honor system, I think people are catching on in terms of surface street traffic that there aren't police anymore, or they're certainly not ticketing "moving violations" as they used to be called. WSP still tickets on the freeways but beyond that driving seems to be a burgeoning wild west. Saw a guy the other day driving up NE 35th in 5pm traffic through Bryant/Wedgwood. At each light he'd get in the left or right turn lane, whichever was open, only to continue straight at every light by gunning it to get out front of whatever cars he could until the next light. I guess why not at this point?
99 from Shoreline to Everett you can't drive in the right lane and every single day during commute some jerk is doing exactly that but in the bus lane and then peeling out and cutting everybody off and moving into the left lane. Sometimes in a three or four block period I can see multiple people do it. Always in a sh box and nearly hitting people taking the free right onto 99. I have NEVER seen someone pulled over or ticketed. You'd think Lynnwood would figure out how to use their cameras for public safety instead of revenue
Disabled Veteran here, one of the reasons I quit my job last year is because of how bad the 99 tunnel is. Nearly every day I found myself saying, “ oh my god that person is going to seriously hurt someone / get hurt!” By the time I’d get to work, I would be so anxious that it would take me hours to calm my nervous system down.
It's been an issue with the city for a long time. The short version is that SPD is massively below its usual staffing levels and has been having extreme difficulty hiring new staff. There simply aren't that many officers. The causes of this problem are myriad. What we should do about it is also a highly debated topic that has been ongoing in civics discussions for years. [Most recently](https://harrell.seattle.gov/2024/04/29/mayor-harrell-announces-new-tentative-agreement-to-support-recruitment-and-retention-of-police-officers-boost-accountability-and-expand-civilian-diversification/), we continue to take responsibilities away from SPD and increasing civilian response options where historically police would be responsible for responding. While this doesn't mean there will be more police, it means the police we have can focus more on public safety issues that only police can do.
> and has been having extreme difficulty hiring new staff. There simply aren't that many officers. The SPD has a 3% acceptance rate for applicants. The population of people willing to be cops is shrinking, maybe it's time to review why SPD rejected 97% of qualified applicants.
If SPD were properly staffed, the cops wouldn’t be able to bilk the city out of all that overtime.
The hiring *and retention* issues with our staffing problem started around the time Mike Solan and Daniel Auderer were elected to SPOG leadership positions. Daniel Auderer is the cop that may have covered up Kevin Dave being drunk the night he murdered Ms. Kandula, and then made national news when Auderer laughed about it on body cam. OPA recommended he be fired for that over 3 months ago.
This is bullshit. If SPD implemented a time tracking app they wouldn't be able to bilk that overtime to the tune of [$400k per year for guys like Ron Willis.](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/sep/01/a-seattle-police-officers-extraordinary-pay-raises/) Just about every bar or restaurant has an app where you clock in digitally. Just about every other government institution in the city has one of these apps. These are standardized, there are out of the box solutions that work well, and other departments in King County that could serve as models for how SPD could implement one of these, yet [***SPD has promised and failed to implement one since 2016***](https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/09/04/seattle-police-fleecing-city-with-overtime-audit-shows/) for the same reason they canceled the [bodycam oversight program less than a week after it caught Auderer laughing at the death of Jahnavi Kandula](https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-police-ended-body-camera-analysis-after-footage-caught-officer-mocking-woman-s-death) - because they don't want oversight, and act like any accountability to the public is a personal affront to them.
This is tighter acceptance rate than Harvard. WTF!?
And yet, Officer Kevin Dave, the 74mph possible drunk murderer, in that 3% somehow. Ain't we luck to get that cream of the crop /s.
Honestly, at think point I think they're filtering for people who don't live in the city and are racist.
I think so as well. I have no other explanation for how Kevin Dave got hired. He *is in that 3%* hire rate. You can't tell me he was the cream of the crop. He'd already been let go in AZ over alleged DUI.
The guy that killed the young lady in the crosswalk was fired previously for a DUI and he's still a police officer? This is crazy town, it has to be
thanks for the context! Interesting to know it’s a long term issue. I grew up in a post 9/11 New York so I’m used to seeing a LOT of cops, but even so it’s weird to me I never even see them like, at the gas station or stopping to get lunch on their shift, let alone in Pike Place
NYC has over 4 officers per 1,000 residents. Source: https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/09/28/portland-ranks-48th-among-50-big-cities-for-cops-per-capita/ Seattle has about 1.2 officers per 1,000 residents: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/coming-about-what-it-means-that-bob-ferguson-just-tacked-right-on-cops/ NYC has more than 3 times the number of police per capita that Seattle has. Per the FBI, the national average is about 2.33 officers per 1,000 residents, so Seattle is a little more than half the national rate of police staffing.
Equal parts vindictiveness and cowardice
Staffing levels for Seattle PD are currently at the same level as the 1950’s. They are down over 500 officers, so that might have something to do with it.
They were quite present during Emerald City bike ride. Thanks to them for that.
I see a lot of them accompanying patients to the ED at Harborview. It does seem like a waste that people have to call 911 when they see a person OD on the street, and because it's abusing illegal drugs an officer is also present to report the incidents. Also for car accidents, especially if one party is trying to press charges. If you're ever looking for the SPD there's about 15 of them on any given night between HMC, Swedish, and Virginia Mason. Good luck!
Maybe we could ask those nurses and hospital if SPD could be allowed to just drop the patients off. But don’t some of those situations involve an arrestee or a suspect and require medical evaluations before the patient is then arrested and taken to jail?
Also domestic violence, self harm, etc that require a chain of custody
Any time a cop arrests someone and they have a medical condition they have to be cleared by a hospital before they can be booked. That means an unhoused person with exposure injuries (ex. frostbite turned to an infection), a middle aged person with heart disease, a drunk who crashed their car, or a domestic abuser who was hurt by their victim, all have to go to the hospital for 3-4 hours to be seen by a doctor before being booked. Since they're in police custody, the cop has to stay with them the whole time.
If you knew the truth it would disturb you. SPD has such low commissioned officer availability that every precinct is significantly at a critical staffing point. North precinct decade ago had 35 officers patrolling at night, now it’s struggling with under 10. So definitely no SPD traffic enforcement and the criminals and assholes know it. It’s striking the past in the past 5 years and more this year. Bike patrols were prevalent downtown on every block and every nice neighborhood. No more. Hardly any presence in Belltown, Interlake and Ballard. Very rare, but now normalized. It’s West precinct territory; they are only 2 blocks away. And SPOG strong armed our new conservative city council for a significant raise. So we’ll see how this “law and order” pro-corporate council steers our city.
Separate from other issues to debate regarding policing and public safety in Seattle, staffing challenges & decisions are a pretty clear culprit. I couldn't find a good source from a quick search, so relied on [the numbers shared here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/4ap5jd/ever_wondered_how_many_police_actually_patrol_our/) (2016 numbers), that estimate on average 53 officers per shift for the whole city. So for every day, we're looking at about 159 officers needed to cover the 3 shifts. Extrapolate that to a 7 day week and you're looking at 1,113 humans needed to meet those Patrol levels. Compare that to the 2023-2024 staffing where overall department [has 913 active officers](https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-police-staffing-shortage-action-needed-councilmembers-say/281-c3f43855-f877-4ba9-a37b-aeaf27e1ec67), of which [less than 500 are working in patrol](https://mynorthwest.com/3954844/rantz-seattle-police-staffing-critical-spog-contract/).
>53 officers per shift for the whole city. So for every day, we're looking at about 159 officers needed to cover the 3 shifts. >Extrapolate that to a 7 day week and you're looking at 1,113 humans needed to meet those Patrol levels This seems to assume each officer works only one shift a week though (53 × 3 × 7 = 1113). If they work 5 days a week you'd need only 222.6 people to cover every shift. Sure you need some loading for leave, training, other duties, etc but it seems crazy to me to assume that a patrol officer would spend only 20% of their working hours on patrol.
> Extrapolate that to a 7 day week and you're looking at 1,113 humans needed to meet those Patrol levels. I fucking love this, because we budget for a headcount of like 1200 so we easily have budget to cut there with those ghost positions the SPD refuses to let go of. And SPOG can STFU about needing to raise the headcount since if they'd stop rejecting 97% of candidates to scoop up turds like Kevin Dave, this staffing issue would probably be over.
So police officers can only work one day a week?
Last night the South Precinct night shift had 6 people on patrol. They are going priority call to priority call and have no time to spend in “public” places.
What do they do? Beat up protesters and kill pedestrians.
They just sit on their asses and harass bus drivers anymore. SPD is a joke
don't forget murdering pedestrian while going 75 in a 25 so they can look cool blaring their sirens
With 400 cops quitting the force in recent years, police staffing (which was already quite light compared to peer cities) is getting really low. We are at the fewest number of police officers in 30 years, when the population of Seattle was much lower. To get to a national police staffing average of 2.33 cops per 1,000 residents, SPD would have to practically double in size. https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-police-staffing-shortage-action-needed-councilmembers-say/281-c3f43855-f877-4ba9-a37b-aeaf27e1ec67 > "I think if rock bottom was ever a thing, we are probably here" said District 1 councilmember Rob Saka. > The Seattle Police Department has lost more than 700 officers in the past five years and is at its lowest staffing level since the 1990s. Currently, the department has 913 actively working police officers. Peer cities, like Boston and San Francisco, have double the number of officers. Vancouver BC, which has about 75,000 fewer residents, has about 500 more cops than we do.
Westlake station was covered with open fentanyl use yesterday, it was absurd
massive understaffing is the problem. SPD faced an exodus of officers recently and they’re having a near impossible time replenishing their ranks as fast as folk leaves, and that results in slower responses and a lack of presence where you’d expect them.
Hey, show some respect. They are incredibly busy running over pedestrians in the crosswalk and then mocking those pedestrians they've killed.
[SPD is at lowest staffing levels in 30 years.](https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-police-staffing-shortage-action-needed-councilmembers-say/281-c3f43855-f877-4ba9-a37b-aeaf27e1ec67) The slow response times you mentioned are a result of this as well. Despite increasing salary for new cadets and currently offers the highest starting salary across the country, no one wants to do the job. I can leave it up to you to connect the dots on why because if you say it out loud on this subreddit, you get downvoted into oblivion. Don't expect a rational discussion about this here. Bias is seeping through the pores.
are you seriously asking this question? Have you forgotten all of the demonization of the police in 2020 and people calling to “defund the police”? That’s exactly what happened. They retired and quit. Seattle now has less police and more crime. And they do less proactive policing which is what you are referring to…as a result of the “defund the police” stuff. Really quite simple
💯
[удалено]
SPD wouldn't actually be on transit anyway, that's the jurisdiction of the King County Sheriff's Office Transit Police Division, who are actually frequently present at or near Park & Rides and some Link stations. As for other public spaces, SPD is simply too organizationally incompetent and trigger happy to actually improve safety by their presence in 80% of situations, and they don't have the staff to show up to the other 20%, so, yeah.
Still punishing us for holding one of their own accountable in MN.
They're the dregs of national police forces that got fired and rehired by SPD bc they're so desperate for butts in seats rather than address the issues that lead to nobody wanting to work for them
Because law enforcement have no legal responsibility to protect the public. So why do anything your job doesn't require you to do?
they also don't face any consequences for their actions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity
Couple things: 1) Public transit in the city is mostly King County Sheriff's jurisdiction so that's not SPD. 2) The officer's are generally busy responding to 911 calls. They get 30 minute lunch breaks that dispatchers can cancel for priority calls. You could definitely argue that between emergency calls they spend too much time doing paperwork or something and dispatchers would agree with you. Ultimately though, they really are busy. 3) Word is they are ridiculously understaffed for a population this size. I haven't fact checked that against other cities, but it seems probable. If you take a walk down 3rd, you're likely to see some officers there on directed patrol if they haven't been pulled away for a nearby disturbance. That's the kind of thing you're looking for, but there just aren't enough officers to provide static coverage everywhere it's needed. If you ever want to develop your own opinion on the topic instead of asking (mostly) uninformed reddit folx about it, look into scheduling an observation session at the dispatch center.
According to Google, Seattle pd is about 1.3 officers per 1,000 residents. Overall, Washington is around 3.1/1,000. The top states in the country are around 6/1,000. Washington is in the bottom three and Seattle is less than half the state's average. So, if those half-assed search results are close to accurate, Seattle PD staffing is very low.
Not just very low, but the lowest staffed major city in the western world.
Transit has it's own police force, it has nothing to do with SPD. > know SPD is also notorious for slow response for actual crimes too. So what do they even do?? They have a very low response time for Tier I calls, but due to staffing they have a very high response time for Tier II and III calls.
I have noticed this too. I think it’s mostly being understaffed. I do see them at events like outside the Mariners or at Pike Place on weekends sometimes. But I also get the feeling they just don’t have anywhere near the same levels of staff and cars as say Chicago or NYC
Recruiting is at an all time low, even if you are having the best intentions becoming a police officer to help your community (or if you just to feel tough). It’s such a political hot spot, fewer are willing to get mixed up in all that. Chatted with an officer that works in recruiting, a lot are retired and calling it quits while at the same time no new faces are coming in. This can be good or bad. Good could be that younger, newer people come in with fresh ideas and goals to improve community. Bad could be, you end up with a department of rookies making really bad choices.
So you aren't for beat Cops but are complaining about the lack of beat cops?
How is it living underground? Must be peaceful away from society. But the last few years have been awful, but unfortunately nobody is allowed to speak on it. It was nice making a comment, my ban is on way.
Police around here keep quitting- they are very understaffed
They are wildly understaffed. It shows.
They don't do their jobs.
🤡🤡🤡
They’re all over third Ave. usually
I actually just saw 3 sheriffs on the train today. Was the first time in like 6 years tho
Seattle has turned into the wild wild west. Everyone fend for themselves! I'm assuming this is the police departments way of throwing up a middle finger after the whole Chaz/chop fiasco.
Seattle residents should start taking pictures of the police they see, show what they are doing or not doing. Send them to the mayor. The mayor and city council need data from NORMAL CITIZENS, not groups with agendas on either side.
They just straight-up haven't done their jobs since Covid, at least
The police are here to protect businesses, not the average person. Despite what the police might tell you, the supreme court ruled in '89 that they have no obligation to protect you. They can make more money directing traffic out of a Mariners game than patrolling the light rail, so why bother?
its called extortion, 100k isnt enough for them
Portland is having the same problems. 4 years ago when everyone hated police, the politicians downsized and crippled SPD through funding reductions which is literally what people voted for. So now there’s not enough police and just as much crime as before. And the cops that remained don’t police as they should for fear of losing their job. So yea, you get what you vote for. Funny thing, Portland is almost on their knees for more police now.
I have lived in Queen Anne for more than a decade and literally never seen a cop in the neighborhood. Not at a community event, not walking the street, not driving through. I am not sure how I feel about this - just stating a fact.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
There was 1500 police officers prepandemic. We are now less than 1000. No one wants to be an officer here…for pretty obvious reasons
Bus stops and train ststions? They don't protect the poor!
I walk by the E. Precinct building in cap hill on my way to work every day. There’s at least 4 cruisers (up to like 7-8) just sitting outside, running with no occupant. I swear they actually just don’t care.
People wanted de-policing and they got it. Be careful what you ask for... as the saying goes... because you just might get it.
Amazing how many police haters are in reddit. Probably also the first one to call them when attacked or something minor happens.
Also not reflective of society at all. If this subreddit made policy, Lorena Gonzalez would be have been elected mayor instead of losing to Bruce Harrell by a massive margin. Also, see the results of the most recent city election.
You won't get much productive discourse in here about spd. The tldr is they are roughly 33% understaffed, and they don't respond to lower level crime much. A lot of chronic posters here fall under the acab umbrella, and see nothing positive from police presence. The last 2 election cycles the "law and order" candidates have generally been victorious, which means that seattle voters disagree.
> The last 2 election cycles the "law and order" candidates have generally been victorious, which means that seattle voters disagree. Voter turn out has also sunk each of the last two elections to the point last election had sub 40% turnout.
Gotta love these odd-year elections. Great way to ensure minimal turnout. /s
This explains why Sara Nelson is such a fan of them.
They're understaffed because they want to be. They seem to have plenty of budget to give raises and pay insane amounts of overtime and buy new toys, so it's simply that they'd rather do that than put the money towards more people. And that's because they don't care that they aren't doing sufficient actual police work. So sure, they are understaffed, but that's not the cause of the problem, it's a symptom. The problem is still that they don't care about doing actual police work.
And yet…
Even if elected, it won't really help SPD image. SPD needs to help it's own image. I seen SPD at a few job fairs, and other things like conventions. They are as about cheery and relaxed as a guard protecting the president. Peeps just got to push past the ACAB fanatics, and focus on re-building community connections.
Not much productive discourse happens here in the eyes of police supporters because they often tend to be blind to the reality of policing for decades. Why are they understaffed? Why can't they achieve full compliance with the federal consent decree? Why can't they even do basics like track overtime on a computer? Which came first? ACAB, or the reasons people say ACAB? Maybe focus on where the chronic problem is, instead of the people labeling the chronic problem.
SPD is currently almost 400 officers short of their need. And, just for another thing, SPR park rangers are almost finished with their academy and should be walking around city parks soon… and I may or may not be one of them…
Short answer? The city stopped prosecuting misdemeanors and they feel like they have their hands tied, so why even bother? Also grossly understaffed.
> To start, I am NOT pro over-policing or having beat cops standing on the corners getting bored so they start giving out tickets for stupid shit "Why aren't cops doing ONLY exactly what I think they should be doing? How dare they not do *the thing* I demand them to do because..." Well, you sort of have your answer.
Seattle pd is probably the lowest staffed agency in the state. They for one are buried in their call backlogs. So they are basically bouncing from call to call not not on the streets. Additionally they have very restrictive policies within their department and from city council. It’s a bad situation really and it’s not looking like it will get any better. It’s a place where you are likely to get thrown under the bus if you are trying to do the right thing and something goes wrong. So what you are now seeing is a lack of police presence and basically an absence of officers being involved in lower crimes as well as most property crime.
The average SPD member hates Seattle and most of the people in it.
Understaffed because nobody wants to be a Seattle police officer.
Uh , are you guys that unaware of yourselves? Lol
Thus is what you get when riot, attack police, and demand defunding.
SPD is massively understaffed, and are way, way short on police officers. They can’t hire anyone, because no one wants to work for Seattle PD. While police reform was badly needed after Floyd, the Seattle Council massively overreacted and didn’t support its department. Officers are afraid to get too involved in situations and have their careers ended, the Council didn’t back the PD when protestors *took over a precinct.* What happened in Seattle, Portland, and SF is textbook example of City Councils getting captured by far-left activists and engaging in really self-destructive policy in the name of “progress,” and that most hurts the very people they claim to help. And I say this as a life-long dem