Comments

2
Sawant will get defensive and snarky again claiming higher ground.
3
Nice words. Very little substance. I did like "True partnership is about dialogue and relationship." That could be in a Dan Savage post.

Time for words is over though, we need action.
4
... and slog is where we'll find that action. Or just a bunch of dejected McGinn whiners. One of the two. I forget.
5
Will the criminals listen?
6
The SPOG is going to eat him for breakfast.
7
How come the Stranger doesn't want to talk about how Murray is going to save the Gigabit Seattle project? McGinn sold everyone on this, but ultimately Gigabit Squared dropped the ball and cant deliver what they promised for lack of experience and funding and their $52,000 debt to the city will soon be sold into collections. Their plans to do this in Chicago have also failed and they're now 2 for 2 .

http://murray.seattle.gov/an-update-on-t…
8
@7, The Stranger did a couple stories ago. (?) If your page down button is missing click here http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
9
@7 OMG, Murray has his mayor's blog up !

Scrolling through it, I find this fun fact. It explains so much!

http://murray.seattle.gov/
In the process, he unearthed a few fun and little-known facts about the Mayor, including that he is a distant cousin of President Bartlet actor Martin Sheen. We suppose that makes him the distant-cousin-once-removed of Charlie Sheen as well.

#winning?
10
Ooh, ooh, @8 just SPANKED @7. How embarrassing for @7. lol
11
I tire of obfuscation and buzzwords. i would really like to see an official memo as follows:

"Hey, you guys with the badges and guns (and the assholes with the same I know some of you put up with or tolerate):

"You're here to serve and protect your fellow citizens. (Yeah, I know, many of you don't actually live in Seattle, but when you pin on that badge, you belong to this city and you better well fucking act like it.)

"You work for the people who live here, That would be all of them. Not just the ones of your color/gender/social status/whatever - ALL of them.

"I don't want to hear the word "civilian" out of your mouths or in your written reports while you're on the job. YOU are a civilian. You are not in the military; you are paid to enforce the same laws every other resident of this City has to obey. You are not exempt from ANY of those laws, except the traffic laws that let you go Code Three.

"Yes, many of your fellow citizens are assholes. That does not mean that the law doesn't apply to them; it just means you're going to run into problems enforcing it, and you'd better figure out damned quick how to do that without breaking the law yourself. Yes, that sucks, and yes we'd have an assistant District Attorney in the car with you if we could (but as it is, we can't afford to even give you a partner - cars are cheaper than personnel - so deal.)

"In the worst circumstances possible, you will have to draw your sidearm and seriously injure or kill someone, In slightly less bad situations, you may have to fire a Taser and injure - and in the worst possible case - kill someone. Or you may have to use your baton or your hands. You will use none of these methods except to protect yourself or others from immediate harm.

"You do not have to be courteous, but you WILL be civil.

"In return - you do your job, you do it within both the spirit and the letter of the law, and we'll back you up until Doomsday. Fuck up on either of those, and we'll hang you out to dry. You serve this City at the need of its citizens and your superior officers - and the citizens come first.

"That is all."

12
Seattlish: "Murray has set up some high stakes with the new chief of police — and he may actually have a chance of finding someone who’s right for the job with all of these awesome people helping him." http://seattlish.com/post/72736395946/th…
13
@11: much better letter.

@4: Slog isn't whining about McGinn. I'm sure you wish they would so you'd be right, but you're wrong.
14
@12 (Yawn...) It's kind of the same old same old gang, with a few new faces (hs students?--good!), but at least he's cobbled up a diverse group, which I hope serves him and the City well.
Norm Stamper was the best Chief the city has had in recent history, and was prematurely done in by Paul Schell's arrogance over the WTO. I wish they would at least have him as an advisor.
15
I agree. We're never going to see a chief of the quality of Stamper again. Regardless of who is mayor, Seattle is the place chiefs go to get fired. And regarding buzzwords, every asshole in Seattle gripes about people who use buzzwords and are "passive aggressive". We had a mayor who didn't use buzzwords and definitely wasn't passive aggressive. His name was McGinn.
16
Most cops don't live in Seattle?
17
If McGinn had written a letter like this to the officers in 2012 he would still be mayor in 2014.
18
Thank goodness our mayor finally understands the difference between the line cops and the managers who fail to manage them.

Murray didn't say his speech will end all Seattle's problems. He clearly defined a solution and sold it to the line. I wish him luck.

@6 -- What will a Murray breakfast look like for SPOG? Do you mean the new president they haven't elected yet will write a strongly-worded letter?

SPOG is more likely to patiently watch Murray and complain only when his new staff tries to violate their contracts -- in other words, they'll do what any responsible union would.
19
the memo we want to see is this:
1. Seattle officially acknowledges it engaged in illegal force against the following 200 citizens [insert names].
2. The officers involved were the following 60 officers [insert names].
3. the sgts. and OPA officials and their supervisors who failed to find this illegal force are [insert names].
4. All of the above SPD employees who deserve it will be fired. Some of them will be demoted. Some retrained. In sum, we have to can about 10 senior level people who allowed this pattern of illegal force and covered it up and about 30 officers who are repeat offenders or who lied in their OPA investigation will be fired. (actual numbers are estimates).
5. SPD will reach out and compensate the victims justly instead of fighting them in court, calling them liars, trying to smear them and retaliating against them.

how do you reform something when you don't even take the first step and officially admit there is a problem? the other steps flow from that first step. so far, SPD is officially in denial that there is a problem and THAT is what we need to see changed.

Please wait...

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