After a weekend of late-night violence in the CHOP, today Mayor Jenny Durkan and SPD Chief Carmen Best signaled that their hands-off approach to the protest area on Capitol Hill is changing, and “it’s time for people to go home.” It’s been nearly a month since George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, surrounded by other officers who stood by and did nothing. The ensuing weeks here in Seattle — the protests, the violent police response, the looting and destruction, the abandoning of the East Precinct, and the occupation of a small section in the heart of Capitol …
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Quick notes from today
It was a messy day in Seattle politics, with a heated meeting of the Community Police Commission (CPC), a nearly five-hour City Council meeting, a march to City Hall, and various protest leaders jockeying to speak with the Mayor and police chief. Here are my take-aways.
Continue readingMayor, SPD Chief, SFD Chief meet with protesters, hold press conference on protests
This afternoon Mayor Durkan, SPD Chief Best, and SFD Chief Skoggins were scheduled to hold a press conference at 4:15 to discuss the ongoing demonstrations in response to last week’s police killing of George Floyd. However, that play went awry when thousands of protesters showed up at the location at 4pm and demanded to speak with the Mayor. After consulting in private with the organizers of the march, Durkan, Best and Skoggins went outside and addressed the crowd. Q13 has video of the event. Durkan promised the demonstrators that she would meet with their representatives, as well as with the …
Continue readingInterview with Council member Morales: on protests, police, oppression, and sweeps
Editor’s note: last Friday morning I was asked by the Council’s communications staff whether I wanted to speak with Council member Tammy Morales about her proposed legislation restricting the removal of homeless encampments, because in the aftermath of last Wednesday’s committee hearing she felt that there was more that needed to be said. I agreed to speak with her, and the interview was scheduled for midday today (Sunday). Obviously a lot has transpired between then and now, and after thanking her for still doing the interview in the midst of so much else happening, I gave her the option to …
Continue readingSpat over LEAD budget appears to be sorted out
Over the past month an ongoing disagreement over the budget for the LEAD program flared up again, as Erica Barnett has been reporting for the last several weeks, but as of late last week it seems to be getting resolved.
Continue readingMayor, SDOT Director announce steps toward “Vision Zero” goal
This morning, Mayor Jenny Durkan and SDOT Director Sam Zimbabwe announced five steps that the city will be taking in 2020 and 2021 to move closer to the “Vision Zero” goal of no traffic fatalities, which has stalled out in recent years.
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Mayor, SPD Chief announce extra holiday police patrols
This morning at a press conference at SPD’s West Precinct, Mayor Jenny Durkan and Police Chief Carmen Best announced that beginning November 30th, SPD will be conducting extra “holiday patrols” in nine major retail locations of the city, in order to make shoppers and retailers feel safer.
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City’s “prolific offenders” task force issues report, Mayor proposes response
You will likely recall that last February a group self-published a report on “prolific offenders” who cause problems for local communities and businesses, and who cycle through the criminal justice system. As I wrote at the time, that report had plenty of methodological issues and other flaws that limited its usefulness, since the authors didn’t have access to most of the relevant government, law-enforcement, and human-services records. However, in the aftermath of that report, Mayor Durkan commissioned her own task force to look into the issue of prolific offenders. That group published their report last week, concurrent with a budget …
Continue readingUnderstanding “Broken Windows” Theory
Last May, Mayor Durkan stirred the proverbial hornets’ nest when she announced that the city would be adding “emphasis patrols” of police officers to seven neighborhoods around Seattle, paired with increased efforts by other city departments to clean up graffiti, fix broken streetlights, clean up garbage, and generally beautify those areas. What set many people off was the apparent link between that effort and “broken windows” theory, a controversial approach to reducing crime in urban areas. In fact, when pressed on the issued she doubled down, by specifically referencing it in an interview with the Seattle Times editorial board. “Broken …
Continue readingThe war of words over police accountability heats up in City Hall
Last week, when it became known that Mayor Durkan had hired an outside consultant firm to develop a Court-ordered methodology for assessing the city’s police accountability regime, there was near-instant backlash from 24 community groups as well as the Community Police Commission. Today, three City Council members jumped on that bandwagon.
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