Mass Exodus of Seattle Police Officers Over City Leadership
It's usually a three-way dance of New York vs San Francisco vs Chicago over which is the most leftist city in America. But lately, Seattle is making a play for the crown (see Seattle Spent More Money Defending Their Gun Tax Than They Collected From It… and Seattle University: Students Demand Dean Resign Because ‘Humanities is Racist’). It looks like they may have a Seattle police problem, too. In that tons of officers would rather quit than deal with the city leaders.
Records indicate the department has seen 41 departures through the first five months of the year, putting them on pace to exceed last year’s 79 officer separations.“There are lots of people walking out the door,” an officer explained. “This is a mass exodus. We’re losing people left and right. Why stick around when the City Council doesn’t appreciate you? [These officers are] fleeing the ‘Seattle mentality.’”
Police spoke anonymously to the reporter. For obvious reasons.
“I was being ordered to do less police work,” he explained. “They would tell me … not to look for problems. A lot of this comes from there’s more risk with officers being proactive. I got into the job to help people, to make a difference … being a reactionary police department to wait until I was alerted to a problem wasn’t doing Seattle justice.”“If I was a supervisor in this department and I had a group of young officers, I wouldn’t necessarily be telling them to go out and proactively work,” Stuckey admitted. “I would say do your jobs and if you see something, act on it; if you get dispatched, act on it. I wouldn’t say go look out for hand-to-hand exchanges. That would jeopardize your career and there’d be no support [from the city].”
I've heard similar complaints from friends on the job in NYC. Every day they go out to do their job with the gut feeling that, if it came down to it, Bill de Blasio would throw them under the bus if he felt he could pander to the left. Policing in urban centers is hugely important. Purely for the number of people they have to protect.
Yet every officer knows their life can be ruined if elected officials feel they can score political points for doing so.
Police offers want to protect and serve. But it looks like the left is actively telling the police to stand down, while their cities erupt in homelessness, violence, and drug problems rise. Basically the perfect formula for more leftist programs which will do nothing. Except give politicians more excuses to raise taxes for even more public programs which will do nothing. Which will give politicians more excuses to raise taxes for even more public programs which will do nothing.
You sensing a pattern here?
