Seattle City Council voted Monday to move forward with a controversial proposal that begin the process of defending the police department.
The 7-1 vote comes despite objections from the city’s police officer, the mayor and the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild.
The plan would eventually remove funding to the department, but not the 50% that some sought. Seattle currently has about 1,400 police officers, and the current plan would see about 100 cuts.
Councilor Kshama Sawant was the only “no” vote because she felt the proposals did not go far enough while Debora Juarez recalled them, according to MyNorthWest.com.
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The council passed a final set of amendments before the vote on Monday, which included reducing the police department by a maximum of 100 officers through dismissal and reprimand, as well as cutting the $ 285,000 annual salary of the Police Chief Carmen Best and other top officers. Best is the city’s first Black police officer and the pay cut would put her salary well below her White predecessor.
The council’s plan also blames officers of a team that is dismantling homeless camps.
The move to defuse the city’s Navigation team, and to divert the money to homeless outreach services such as REACH, will “dramatically limit the city’s ability to tackle unauthorized camping,” wrote Jason Johnson, Seattle’s interim director Human Services Department, in a letter to the council last week.
Some councilors have said the initial cuts are a first step toward more sweeping reduction and a rethinking of law enforcement in Seattle.
“It’s important to show community members that we hear them, that we are working towards the same goal,” Councilor Teresa Mosqueda said last week.
Mayor Jenny Durkan and Best have urged the council to carry out their talks on police budgets, saying the issue could be taken seriously when the 2021 city budget is considered. They also argued that dismissals would be disproportionately directed at officers, often hired from minority communities, and would inadvertently lead to lawsuits.
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Durkan has already saved about $ 20 million on the police budget this year, in large part due to pressure on spending due to reduced revenues due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last month, the mayor outlined a plan to reduce the police budget by about $ 75 million next year by relocating parking lots, the 911 call center and other areas of the department.
As a U.S. attorney in Seattle, Durkan previously conducted a Justice Department investigation that found officials too quick to use force, leading to a 2012 decree agreeing with the federal government. Reviews by an independent monitor have determined that the changes under the consent decision have led to a drop in how often police use violence. But critics have said the department’s actions in recent protests show that not enough progress has been made.
Reducing funding for police departments has been championed by Protestants in Seattle and other cities around the country following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In that case, a White police officer nodded for a few minutes at the back of Floyd’s neck until he died. Floyd was black.
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Protests, some of which began quietly but became violent, were reported throughout the country, including in Portland and St. Louis. Louis.
On Sunday night, vandals in Seattle targeted several stores in the city’s First Hill, and broke glass doors at a Chase Bank and Key Bank branch. Vandals also targeted a boarded-up Starbucks and several other businesses in the area, local media reported.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
