You should definitely call her.

Except we got back together, so there's a line.

@1 I do think gallows humor is needed in jobs where you're dealing with the worst of humanity on a regular basis, and I don't expect people outside of those professions to fully understand that

but

the other groups you have mentioned have not totally burned through every ounce of goodwill the community has for them through nonstop aggression and violence toward the people they are supposed to protect. This is why we're reading about this story from places like the BBC.

maybe it was a cop having a bad day and trying to cope with seeing something horrific. or maybe it's another testament to the incredible amount of disdain cops have for everyone, especially minorities, and more proof that even beyond questionable killings, there is a fundamental problem with how police approach policing.

@5 yes toby very clever - there is a worldwide concern over how SCC members abuse their constituents

@5 It's amazing how the mainstream media never reports on how the SCC progressives regularly shoot people at Council Meetings. Not to mention punching people giving public testimony. It's a coverup!

@8 okay well there is a process where upset voters can easily resolve their grievances with their representatives

meanwhile, OPA is toothless, SPOG is an enabler, and anyone in power who voices a modicum of concern over police behavior gets shouted down as being soft on crime

oh and on the rare occasions a cop does get fired, pretty much all they have to do is go to another jurisdiction and get hired again

Hannah oh Hannah...yes please do call her. I fear she'll go crazy if she can't forget Lacy!!

Srsly though - that is a cool track and as a proud Gen Xer I love all the wordplay! Speaking of which I wonder what my good friend @kristofarian thinks about it?

@13: i have concerns about police behavior and i didn't riot. there are at least a few more people in Seattle & Portland like me. not you, of course. you have no concerns.

everyone else with concerns is a rioter who utterly delegitimized the BLM movement, though.

I think that a complete turnover of the City Council might not be the worst thing in the world.

And judging from the pix I see of Portland (i.e., encampments that make ours look bush league), I have a hard time believing that their Mayor is turning any major fraction of the homeless into Persons Experiencing Jail.

“So, maybe armed agents of the state shouldn’t have a union!”

In 2020, the Council spent huge amounts of time virtue-signaling about defund. What they should have done — and I’m looking at you, CM Herbold, not merely because you represented me at the time, but because you were (and are) Chair of the Public Safety Committee— was determine if the East Precinct station had been closed by order of the SPD command heirarchy, or if SPOG-represented officers had simply walked off the job.

If the latter was true, then the City of Seattle should have started the process to de-certify SPOG as the bargaining unit for SPD officers. SPOG had the contractual obligation to supply labor to the East Precinct, and if SPOG failed to fulfill that obligation, Seattle might be able to get SPOG removed from Seattle.

Did anyone even try? No, of course not.

@13 it's not technically fall yet, hold off on the strawmen

@19 "... in the decade I have lived in Seattle I haven’t seen any incidents of concern surrounding SPD."

So SPD's long-documented history of use of excessive force is totally irrelevant because you never personally saw anyone get beaten up? And the excessive force that SPD used in beating down the 2020 protests turned you against the protestors? With allies like these...

@13, I'm right there with ya.

@15, "... though in the decade I have lived in Seattle I haven’t seen any incidents of concern surrounding SPD." I'm curious what your name number is and which precinct you relocated from?

@23, perhaps badge should replace "name" in that last comment

Hannah, if your fitness to be a "journalist" was judged by every asinine thing you say on a daily basis, and intentionally publish no less, you would never work as a "journalist" again.

Context matters. You amplify context when it serves your purpose, and you dismiss it when it doesn't.

Your pimping of twitter and your own asinine tweets is hypocritical and self-serving. At the end of the day, you're just another asshole like the rest of us.

And that goes for just about the entire TS writing staff.

@14 - frankly @Frankie
it was fawking indeed
EXQUISITE & book-
marked. thanks
for the Head
Zup!

& THANKS!
Hannah.

lacy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IB5EYuz3XM&t=6s

@
PiP
thnx!
for the
Reminder(s).

Whoosh! &
just. Like. That
she was a G O N E R.

@28 -- NO
you Idiot. Pip's
was Previous to
Yours. what Are you

fucking High?

@22 Oh, my sweet summer child. Take a look at the following selections from the SPD's Wikipedia page:

On 30 July 2013, Officer John Marion, threatened a reporter who was observing a number of policemen making an arrest. An internal investigation of Marion's behavior confirmed his actions. He was given a single day of unpaid suspension.

In January 2014, Detective David Blackmer plead guilty to stalking his mistress after she threatened to reveal their relationship to his wife. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail. An internal police investigation was then launched to determine whether he should be fired.

In July 2014, Officer Cynthia Whitlatch arrested William Wingate, a black pedestrian who had a golf club that he was using as a cane. She falsely claimed that Wingate had swung his cane at her and he was charged with obstruction and harassment and spent a night in jail. When video showed he had done nothing to provoke the officer, the police department apologized in January 2015. Whitlatch was later fired by Chief O'Toole.

In March 2015, Officer Peter Leutz was fired after an investigation found that he sent three women he met on duty over 100 text messages in pursuit of romantic relationships. In a written letter to Leutz, Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole wrote that he engaged in "serious and repeated abuse of authority, and an unsettling pattern of behavior, some of it directed at women who [he] knew from the outset, or learned early on, may have been especially vulnerable given turmoil in their personal lives."

In November 2016, Officer Adley Shepherd was fired after he punched a drunk, handcuffed woman who kicked him while he was putting her into the back of his police car. An arbitrator on the Disciplinary Review Board later attempted to reduce the firing to a 15-day suspension, but was overruled by a King County Superior Court judge. The case was again appealed to the Court of Appeals which upheld the previous ruling, writing that the arbitrator's decision to overturn Shepherd's firing "sends a message to officers that a violation of a clear and specific policy is not that serious if the officer is dealing with a difficult subject, losing patience, or passionate in believing that he or she did nothing wrong — however mistaken that belief may be."

In May 2018, Officer Matthew Kerby drove to a West Seattle house in search of a man who allegedly drove away from a minor collision. When he found that the man was not home, he falsely told a woman at the home that the man had been involved in a hit-and-run in which a woman involved might not survive. This led to a chain of events which culminated in the man's suicide in June of that year. Kerby was later suspended for six days without pay.

In July 2018, officers Kenneth Martin and Tabitha Sexton were fired after an October 2017 incident in which they shot 27 rounds into a fleeing car in Eastlake.

In October 2018, Sergeant Frank Poblocki was demoted to officer after he sat for 40 minutes outside the workplace of a man who cursed him and called him names. Witnesses say he referred to this behavior as community policing.

In February 2019, the city agreed to pay Alonzo Price-Holt $100,001, as well as $58,989 in attorney fees, to settle a federal lawsuit that alleged excessive use of force by Officer Zsolt Dornay. Footage from the holding cell shows Officer Dornay tackling Price-Holt, who had his hands handcuffed behind his back. Dornay was also given 30 days of unpaid leave as a result of the incident.

In June 2020, a Federal Judge in Seattle ordered local police to stop using tear gas, pepper spray, stun grenade, "rubber bullets", and other force against non-violent protestors, finding that the Seattle Police had used excessive force against demonstrators, violating their right to free speech.

In September 2021, the city of Seattle settled a lawsuit for $250,000 after officers entered the home of a 74-year-old man during a 2019 welfare check, held him at gunpoint, and forcefully arrested him.

I was already under the impression that most cities stagger their council elections including Seattle. Well, Seattle, most cities around here stagger their council elections. So it won't end your world any.

To add: Although, frankly, the way council seats are elected is dumb and bad, and we should probably be moving such elections to list systems, in which votes for a list are divvied up by the number of seats. You'd get better representation and diversity (in both culture and opinion) almost guaranteed. (Which, of course, nobody in government would want.)

@31 boatgeek: This decades long situation with the SPD and SPOG is beyond outrageous.
When are the corruption and excessive violence going to stop?

Regular SLOG commenter and retired police officer, Morty, while reading this SLOG article, must be shaking his head in despair. I'm amazed he hasn't yet expressed any views over the SPD and SPOG. Perhaps he's searching for the right words.
Morty has expressed concern multiple times, that largely because so many police officers are quitting or retiring there is such a serious shortage of personnel now. Many among the remaining short-staffed are overwhelmed and on the brink. Law enforcement agencies are currently so desperate for new recruits they'll hire people they wouldn't have dared to 10 years ago.
I can't help but wonder when LE agencies replace all human police officers with Terminator-style robocops due to a severe dearth of humanity and justice.

@38: Sadly, I believe I already cited them, raindrop dear. Give my comment @37 a reread.
However, if you want my opinion, I'd say that chiefly the level of corruption, systematic racism, and misogyny in dire need of accountability are currently among the top contributing factors driving decent law enforcement officers away.
Additionally, the SPOG is one of the most corrupt unions around, rewards its worst offenders, and is long overdue for an overhaul.

The local cops and local proto fascists are on here in full force with their braggadocio just like Mussolini in the old days of WW2. They do not learn a thing and forget easily why people spoke up and protested etc. about the murders and beatings etc. done by these U.S. police forces on a daily basis.
The callousness worded here is psychopathic.

I could go into a series of recorded examples and of course there are many unrecorded examples as well. The time in Texas not long ago when parents who were trying to stop their children from being murdered by a shooter because the police would not stop the murders the parents were brutally halted. Because they were brown people?

People beaten by police in protests here and bones broken. Because these latter day slavers truly hate the abolitionists of today.
Not a minuscule of concern for all the Black people shot in the back by police or strangled to death like George Floyd for example. None for the poor white people either. They really, really want a police state for,not them, but for the rest of the people. Pretty well all working class.
That young woman that was run over who was walking in a cross walk is zero to these pathetic cases of the human race.
This vp of the police union was known to talk shit with the likes of far right nazi lovers in the big media.

We will not go away. Telling the truth feels good. Knowledge is power so Bye bye.

"The callousness
worded here is
psychopathic."
--@Ivy

awesome
Post Ivy.
Thanks!

@40 Ivy R. Nightscales: +1 Bravo, Ivy! Right spot ON! Keep on telling it like it is, and rocking the house!

@41: You know I am among those speaking the truth, raindrop dear. If you doubt me, just ask Morty.
I'm almost quoting him word for word.
Does what I say actually scare you? Well, good. Maybe it will help wake you up.
Bad policing--not just in Seattle, but everywhere---should be worrisome to everybody seeking impartial, fair, ad just law enforcement from those paid to protect and serve.

@32 kristofarian: +1 Agreed.

@44: Awwww, shit! I meant "@43 kristofarian: +1 Agreed."
Sorry, K @32, for the unintentional mix-up.
Sometimes I think I need a couple glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon before posting.
For some odd reason, I have fewer typographical errors after consuming alcohol.

@21 - I like Portland as well. But they appear to be in the same boat re homelessness as us in Seattle. My point was just that they don't seem to be taking any draconian measures against the homeless either.

@40: “…forget easily why people spoke up and protested etc. about the murders and beatings etc. done by these U.S. police forces on a daily basis.
The callousness worded here is psychopathic.”

We know why the protests happened; many of us took part in them ourselves. What we want to know is why just those protests on Capitol Hill immediately turned violent, and degenerated into the CHAZ/CHOP, which produced violent deaths of young black men. It’s people who glorify the CHAZ/CHOP who demonstrate the callousness you decry.