Seattle was on the verge of taking one of the most radical steps of late toward large-scale police reform of any city in the US just last month. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May, and widespread police brutality and anti-racist protests, a veto-proof majority of council members voiced their support for defunding the police, slashing 50% of the department’s budget. But since then, they’ve faced a series of logistical roadblocks and clashed with other city leaders, and ultimately all but one of them have walked back their statements. The council instead voted for a much smaller round of cuts, including reducing the salaries of Carmen Best, who is Seattle’s chief of police, and members of her command staff as well as trimming about 100 of the department’s 1,400 police officers. Mere hours after the vote, Best, the first African American leader of the department who has held the position for only two years, announced her retirement.“The idea of letting, after we worked so incredibly hard to make sure that our department was diverse, that reflects the community that we serve, to just turn that all on a dime and hack it off without having a plan in place to move forward, it’s highly distressful to me,” she said during a news conference last week. “It goes against my principles and my conviction and I really couldn’t do it.”Best’s retirement will be effective 2 September. The Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan has appointed the deputy chief, Adrian Diaz, as the interim chief, but has said that in light of these cuts she would not start a national search for a replacement this year.“I think we have to make it through the budget season, we have to see what the council is willing to do for this department in the long run, because right now nobody would know what job they’re applying for,” she said during the news conference. The series of events have created much uncertainty over the future of Seattle’s police department.


All data is taken from the source: https://www.theguardian.com/
Article Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/22/seattle-police-department-defund-reform


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