"Response times are obviously a function of massive understaffing - but what if it were really due to these couple of isolated incidents of officers getting food or something?"

If only we had some sort of non-police response force that could respond to the less violent calls that could take the pressure off the police.

But the spog won't let that happen because that would threaten their six figure salaries.

If the cops didn't respond at all, then the jails would be empty just as your fellow writer Hannah would love to see. The Stranger 'reporters' are getting more irrelevant by the day...

Police refusing to respond to domestic violence calls should be a terminating offense. Maybe someday SPD will have sufficient officers on payroll to make this policy a reality.

Meanwhile, let’s bask in the irony of the Stranger here leading with two incidents of SPD officers refusing to respond to domestic violence calls. In the most recent elections, the Stranger twice endorsed a candidate for City Attorney who’d promised never to prosecute any domestic violence cases at all, ever, no matter how many police officers had responded.

I hope someone sues the police union out of existence. once that happens, then the rotten officers in the SPD can be fired instead of protected.

@8: The best chance for eliminating SPOG seems to have been at the start of the CHAZ/CHOP Charlie-Foxtrot. Did anyone with proper authority in the SPD chain of command order closure of the East Precinct, or did the officers simply abandon their posts? If the latter, the city could explore decertification of SPOG as a bargaining unit, for SPOG’s failure to provide contractually-obligated labor to the East Precinct.

One person who could have conducted this investigation was the Chair of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee (and my representative on the Council at that time), CM Herbold. She could have issued subpoenas to everyone involved, and obtained evidence, admissible in court, as to any failures by SPOG or SPOG-represented SPD officers.

Instead, she vomited this miserable piece of utter garbage: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/06/30/44008034/we-must-end-the-conditions-in-chop-that-are-leading-to-violence-and-death

Not sure why I read comments anymore, as this seems to be the bulletin board for the passionately dispassionate, and underinformed. It might be worth adding that there is a way to get rid of SPOG, but, I don't see the direct connection. Especially given the data about Assistant Chief Mahaffey being given authority, as the incident commander at the scene, to opt to evacuate the East Precinct, allowing citizens to begin the CHAZ/CHOP escapade.
The bigger question for me, Hannah, is... how does Seattle compare to the national averages?
I mean, if your cases reported are the limit of SPD's fuckups, are we better or worse than the rest of the nation? I know enough twisty plot lines where some data gets expunged, or never logged.
But honestly, is this a national issue that can not be addressed locally?
I sincerely hope not. I hope that bringing this information to the public gets them to get and stay involved in what our public servants are doing.
For my own rant, following the trend here, I'd want to ensure that our gun-supplied municipal employees earning ~6 figures to have required more education than "Proof of high school graduation or a certified GED. See WAC 139-07-02 (1)(b)(ii)" (copied straight out of https://www.seattle.gov/police/police-jobs/how-to-apply/qualifications#education).
But, I digress.
Keep up the good work, Hannah.

This is a good public service.

SPOG is not a union; it is a criminal cartel that holds acts with almost complete immunity and has nearly no oversight. OPA ALWAYS rules that officers were behaving appropriately, whether it involved murdering people of color or blowing off domestic calls. Cops rarely prevent or solve crimes. SPOG should be sued and disbanded as a criminal enterprise under WA's RICO act.

I’ve had to call the police several times this year (such are the joys of living right off Broadway at this particular moment). I have no idea what’s going on with their non-emergency reporting, but you call the number they provide only to get a recording directing you to an online reporting form. I’ve tried that route twice and they never contacted me back.

I also called 911 to report a man chasing me down the stairs of the light rail station with a metal rod, who had also grabbed a woman’s butt. I gave the dispatcher my contact info, and police never contacted me, so I have no idea if that guy was ever caught. And most recently, I called 911 for a probably not urgent issue because it still needed addressing (person using the area under my porch as a stolen goods hiding place) and I didn’t trust the online reporting. When I told the 911 dispatcher it probably wasn’t urgent, she transferred me to an actual human being who apparently exists to deal with non-urgent calls, who for some reason you can’t actually get to if you call the non-urgent number.

The system seems really unorganized, is what I’m getting at. Plus, I called this in at 11am and a cop didn’t arrive until 6am the next morning. He even seemed surprised when he learned I’d called so early.