Comments

1

The notion that a municipal department should need a defense is its own propaganda.

https://stopdefunding.com

3

@2 these snakes who write for the stranger likely don't think the anarchist golem they keep fellating on a near daily basis will ever boomerang on them in any serious way. But I bet if antifa ever shows up at Mudede's or Dan Savage's or Keck's house, they'll do what durkan did and sell their idiot pals down the river.

4

@3 Hook me up with your dealer man

5

The left will eat the left. But they may have to swallow a few more times than they anticipated.

6

The police union must be furious. They paid good money to buy Carmen Best and Mayor Durkan and this is the defense they get?

Well done Nathalie. Honestly and Police accountability will win you no friends with the Prosecutor's office, but you have my respect.

7

Why is The Stranger (deliberately?) ignoring these stories about the suspects wanted for the shootings in CHAZ/CHOP.
It has been days now.
I they just don't fit your "progressive narrative".

Murder charge filed in killing of 19-year-old at CHOP as search for suspect continues
Posted on Wednesday, August 5, 2020 - 4:58 pm by jseattle

https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/08/murder-charge-filed-in-killing-of-19-year-old-at-chop-as-search-for-suspect-continues/

Police release new information in 11th and Pike shooting outside CHOP
Posted on Tuesday, August 4, 2020 - 4:26 pm by jseattle
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/08/police-release-new-information-in-11th-and-pike-shooting-outside-chop/

8

Framing the issue around the bad behavior of cops reinforces the narrative that there are just a few (or a lot of) bad apples, which in turn supports the idea of police reform by replacing those individuals.

But it's not bad apples. It's a systemic problem, requiring a systemic solution. That certain specific cops are good or bad is irrelevant when it's the system that needs an overhaul.

9

Go Nathalie! Finally, finally someone taking the baton from Dominic Holden.

12

While "the left is destroying itself" may be, the right is destroying everything. Here's what I think about the police, defund. Around 1.5 years ago and another few months before that myself and neighbors each called 911 about some incidents. We're still waiting for the SPD to show up. We just wound up handling the situations ourselves. I live in Queen Anne. Hatred and fury is rampant as hell up here. Not. Seafas and others (even those IRL) have bought the lies of "hate radio" and pundits for so long, you actually do believe you're thinking for yourselves. I'm as "far left" as basically you can get but I sure ain't "radical". You have fallen for the dogwhistles of your right wing thinking by proxy people (The Rufos and the Rantzes etc.) and believe what is not largely true. You have been made to dust off every right wing descriptor in the book, radical left, anarchist, socialist, communist, Marxist. You've even to taken to an organization that does not exist: "antifa". You're either fascist or you're not. That's it. Some prefer to not ascribe to fascism in society. But you have and by what I just read, you indeed are a fascist and a lemming.

13

i like radical anti-police nathalie. nice piece. well said.

14

@9 it’s super hard for a gal to take a baton from a man who clutches it like his precious even years after he’s left town and moved onto other jobs. Signed, Someone Who Worked With That Micromanaging Baton Clutcher Forever in Hempfest & Dancesafe & Local Labor Circles and Got Nothing Except Told I Wasn’t Ready Yet and Gaslit or Edited Beyond Recognition Every Time I Gave My Own Interviews to the Stranger.

15

@12 ya wanna see the hatred and fear rampant in Queen Anne then get off the privileged top of the hill, just take a little walk down Queen Anne Ave to as far as Mercer St BECAUSE THAT IS ALSO QUEEN ANNE NEIGHBORHOOD. Not just the tippy top if the hill where you live and the fancier houses are. Speaking of lemmings how about you get the whole upper part of the hill to come on down and visit your poor bumpkin cousins down here? I’d say that we don’t bite but if you try to get on a bus at Mercer and Queen Anne Ave there’s a pretty good chance of getting stabbed for no reason. I dare you to enjoy a burger at our neighborhood Dick’s without a stranger chasing you away for “murdering their friend!” Come help me tell this guy changing his clothes on my porch to get his Jump Bike off the hood of my landlord’s car. Seriously please come on down the hill every once and a while and remember that this is your neighborhood too and please have as much pride and care for it as folks up the hill do too. Help us navigate and mitigate the hatred and fear down here. We’re gonna need so much more of that help especially if SPD ain’t really taking calls out here anymore.

16

@12: "You've even to taken to an organization that does not exist: "antifa". You're either fascist or you're not. That's it."

OK, antifa doesn't exist. Fine. But, neither do fascists. They were all killed off in Word War II. The "fascists" now is just an insult (like what GermanSausage barks all the time), nothing more.

Now lets all get a life and start to be nice to one another for a change.

17

Mercer ave. Let me whip out my Mapquest real fast to find out where that is. It's a faint memory to me, but I seem to have gone to record and book stores, restaurants and basketball games somewhere near there. In what sense do you think I live at "the top" of it? There are many facets. That Dick's I do remember and I do not recall ever, even in the last year even feeling anything other than the normal goings on that has always been sometimes janky. I also hear there is some online bookselling outfit that has set up a little outpost along the country road of Mercer. Also from my frequenting that area there is little to no chance of getting stabbed. Why are the right so enamored with the notion that everywhere you go you are going to get, stabbed, shot, mugged, raped. Urban issues do exist, yes. I bartended, even women bartend down there into the wee hours. You just keep your eyes open when you must. But speaking of "the top of Queen Anne" your very own Republican volunteer happened to haunt that area for victims in the 70s. Yes, I am going to inexplicably bring Ted Bundy into this. Your kind welcomed him in with open arms even going back that far to represent you the Rs did not vet the famous serial killer. Anything can happen anywhere in a city or a forest or wherever. Just be aware and don't jump to talking point hysterics when you are trying to make a case for the non-existent radical, far left, anarchist, socialist, commie, Marxist, looting "Democrat" party monolith you're being told exists. Again, fascists and lemmings.

20

Yes, your response was to be expected to be not exactly that but the exact that. Names. Let's go over that. You and "your kind" have spent decades in the pursuit of yes, a form of totalitarian control of mind and language. No mind being free to think for itself. No human being worth but what fealty you can extract from them. This is about you. Not your neighbor. Not someone down on their luck for whatever what reason. You follow and then project what you are most comfortable with upon who you are told to disregard and disrespect. It grows and festers.

Back in the 90s where I grew up a bumper sticker was it was quite common to get behind a usually SUV or Hummer or something that had the dueling "banjos" of "Imagine no Democrats" and "Remember Columbine" at the same time. I do not know how you can square that circle without being an incurious hypocrite which the outcome of which shows in your risibility to think that what one, such as myself, confronts you with. You have been indoctrinated and again, from what I have seen is a factor you have been inculcated to deny. Which is great, but the hatred you have inside you appears to be a projected yearning to to compensate with what you to be authority.

Look, you're the ones with the guns. You're the ones with the belief in rigidity. You can "call names" and then feign that you were called those names first. You can easily skate past that what you say is nonsense and couch it in an artificial appeal to authority. You. It's really easy to observe this. You can keep coming and coming. But at the end you are still a fascist and a lemming trained to believe what you are told whilst also maintaining so as fundamentally free.

You're not. You're trapped in a decades long, generations long trap of closing your mind to make you powerless. Again, you're either fascist or you are not fascist.

23

"The police union must be furious."

On the contrary, the police union must be thrilled. Member's OT is going through the roof. They'll be buying a lot of speed boats and the like with all this extra money.

I expect that when the close the books on this year, the top ten most compensated employees will all be cops. If we keep it up for two years - especially if they cut officer positions with no real plan - their monthly pension payments will go through the roof. They'll be all set for a pretty swank retirement.

28

I am glad they are pushing back against the “Defund the Police” Russian propaganda.

29

It’s amazing that everything from the activists and council is gospel truth rooted in science but anything questioning or pushing back is propaganda. Apparently even The NY Times is in on the conspiracy to uphold racist oppression now. Isn’t all this the very definition of gaslighting?

30

The tea party left has risen to counter the tea party right. Propaganda thrives in these ideological bubbles. We live in a post-truth world and a deeply stupid country. I used to be proud of Seattle leading the way toward a better world. Now it is just embarrassing and sad.

31

The police need a 20% increase in funding. The McDonalds at 3d and Pine should be closed and replaced by a satellite Police station.

33

The "Seattle" police should all move in with Best in her non-Seattle, Snohomish home. They can launch their chem weapons at each other outside of Seattle city limits. Leave the rest of us alone so that we can breath again.

35

What the hell Nathalie? I worked for Stranger Distro for 25 years before getting laid off in March. Last year my old Toyota truck was stolen. The Stranger rented a van (thank you Kevin and Tim) so that I could do my downtown, Cap Hill, and U-District routes. And then the SPD found my truck. Thank god. I would not have been able to afford a replacement. Poor people need the police more than rich people. I used my truck to deliver your work to every Stranger box and pedestal from the waterfront to First Hill. You're welcome.

36

The most effective and efficient way to defund police is heavy reliance on cameras, facial recognition and technological countermeasures. Bad for privacy so not likely to be used by cities, but since mugshots are public records it won't belong before private enterprise takes over. You can point your camera outside and get the name and arrest details of anyone with a past. Crap, that was a segue...

37

@11--

Since you appear to fancy yourself some kind of learned pseudo intellectual conservative "thinker," let me help you out.

Throes is the word you are looking for, as in death throes, not throws! Spellcheck? Yeah...right.

Second--no one wants your 5-year old big screen or that rusty boat you have in your front yard. The police are here to protect Bezos, Gates, and their ilk from the soon to be swollen ranks of jobless, health-careless, and homeless.

Perhaps build a real community instead? Because if the stuff hits the fan, the masters will feed your modest middle class ambitions to the flames rather quickly to save their own guilded mansions, luxury yachts, and portfolios.

39

Don't you worry about Ms. Best financially. By cracking down on Seattle protestors, she has already punched her ticket to the conservative speaking engagement circuit for the next ten years minimum.

41

@37 "gilded."

Let's pretend you did it on purpose, out of dry wit and self-deprecation.

42

@40 Most of us still remember the last time Bezos left in a huff. We're not too worried.

44

So much journalism everywhere and not a drop about the violent antifa thugs clashing with grandmothers in Portland. This is what passes for coverage when you journalism on The Stranger. You know propaganda when you get it in your eye!

45

@44 Cry harder, chud.

46

@43 Seafas, "Actually, we fancy ourself a genuine learned intellectual conservative thinker..."

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, hooo, let me catch my breath... ha, ha, ha, LOL, ha, ha, ha... LOL... please stop... please... ah... whooo... let me wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes... oh wow, you can't make this stuff up. Hilarious. Do you have a channel on Funny or Die?

50

@48: Well, tbf, Bill Kristol and George F. Will - and I can enumerate more - fit that description and were never Trumpers.

56

I'm absolutely in tears at the realization that raindrop's daily pratfall parade has been an effort to emulate George Will, of all people.

My God, nobody tell him.

57

@53 Kind of off-topic here, but that's a perfect description of Ronald Reagan.

58

@52: Frustrated voters and a failed democratic candidate was far more of a direct line to Trump's victory, than is defined by an aggregation of historical musings.

59

@56

Is he, though? In spite of being slow to recognize what the GOP has been about, Will has committed to voting for Biden, and I'm assuming for other Democrats. Other never Trumpers, particularly those behind the Lincoln Project, though they are Bushies, also recognize this, and IIRC, Rick Wilson has said that he wants Biden to have the opportunity to fix what the Trumpies have damaged, and as far as I can tell, they are not trying to undermine the Democrats at all.

But does anyone seriously believe raindrop isn't going to support Trump. His MO is to acknowledge the faults of the Republicans in some way that mitigates the harm they've caused, then "both sides" the issue by bringing in one or both of the Clintons. George Will, at least doesn't appear to be so two-faced.

60

@52 blip, that is so perfectly spot-on and succinct.

I can answer your concluding question though - they have not and will not. That's what makes them stupid and/or disingenuous assholes.

61

@59: "But does anyone seriously believe raindrop isn't going to support Trump."

I do. I will seriously vote for Biden. I've said so repeatedly and chastised those who will not vote for POTUS this election (like EmmaLiz).

63

How can you be proud of the polive if you refuse to improve it at every occasion? If we are the richest country in the world, public safety should reflect as well as investment in our collective infrastructure. It is not mutually exclusive if the rich pay taxes and reinvest it in our country instead of swimming in Scrooge McSmaug pools of glittering treasure in an offshore vault, all of it meaningless without consumers at their most productive and affluent. I'm tired of surfing through history, it is time to do better because we know better.

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires, seek discipline and find your liberty

64

@25: Down, Muffy, down.

65

Worst needs to lose the fake eye lashes and makeup. Looks like an over age stripper.

66

SPD cops don't live in Seattle. Neither do the all the people who placed fake signatures on their petition. They are trying to gas light the city and getting away with it. F—k the rascist pigs.

67

66 is an idiot that pulls "facts" out of his ass.

69

That’s a great idea! While we’re at it, please defund our education system (my six year old doesn’t really need to to be taught what people’s sexual preferences are), DSHS (well, we all know how f’d and biased they are), The County (because they just all spend their time taking coffee breaks anyway), The Mental Health system (the mentally ill all live in the streets of Seattle now anyway), the drug rehab system (druggies don’t want to work at minimum wage shithole jobs when they make more sitting near a stop sign), yeah, this is awesome!!! Oh and don’t forget to defund the social workers that’ll be picking up where the police left off. We all know how well balanced and “put together” most of them are... but let’s keep funding the Politicians, they all just make our lives so much better.

70

Nicely written. Didn’t realize the private elite high schools were back in session

71

Question to all you Cop Defenders: If thousands, nay, tens of thousands of peaceful protesters exercising their Constitutionally-guaranteed right to peaceably assemble to petition their government for redress of grievances can be held accountable for the actions of a handful who commit acts of property damage, then why can't an entire police department be held accountable for the violent actions of a handful of officers who shoot, strangle and kill innocent civilians?

72

Nobody's saying the police departments shouldn't be held accountable, so your comparison is inherently flawed.

The question is how to implement reforms. Should it be done as with any other municipal concern through a normal and established process or haphazardly through large arbitrary percentages and reallocations?

73

@16:

That's why we call them "neo-fascists" you boot-licking cretin...

@72:

Flawed, how? This is precisely the argument a lot of folks on the pro-cop side are articulating, remember those "few bad apples" they keep talking about (cit ref literally every RW troll on this thread)? Surely even your short-term memory isn't that damaged that you've forgotten all about it?

74

@72.

Holding police accountable is the first and most pressing reform. People may not be saying they shouldn't be held accountable, but their actions enable that outcome regardless of the painstaking nuances of their intent.

75

So what I just read was not propaganda from you? Also where is your comprehensive plan to re-imagine the police force? It's not really their job to do that. They work for us.

76

It's correct the police accountable through disciplinary action. It is incorrect to assume you're holding police accountable solely by punitively slashing budgets and jeopardizing existing programs, expectations (such as the Navigation Team).

Essentially, you're saying the homeless should suffer because of police brutality.

77

@76

I don't pay the homeless taxes to keep my community safe.

You hold police accountable by raising awareness about the lack of accountability for excessive force, outright abusive murder (George Floyd), and not prosecuring cases without immense public outcry (Ahmaud Arbery after , Breonna Taylor pending). While the local general fund has room for cuts, police departments are increasingly funded by the federal appropriations. Kind of ironic when the people who have their taxes cut the most by feds get the most protection from people being paid by those they police.

Holding people accountable is simple; look at Justice, she is blind for a reason. Because nobody who is on the stand, the law should apply equally. It doesn't, but you can be cynical about it or you can raise awareness by threatening funding because in America nothing changes without a cost.

78

No matter*
Autocorrect not my friend today.

79

I'm so appreciative that we, as a city, are able to tear-gassed and beaten by such a caring a diverse police force. #cheifblessed

80

@69

Republican'ts have been defunding those for decades. Where you been? I've heard of crawling out of the woodwork, but man, you're the crowning example.

81

So long, Best. Hope you enjoy your Snohomish paradise.

82

If police funding remains as high as it currently is, and if the services that have been repeatedly cut to fund the massive increases in the police budget continue to be cut, there is no chance of either

1) Anything being done to end institutional police racism;
2) Anything being done to actually end the type of violent crime the pro-police people claim the police are needed for- the type of crime that residents of the neighborhoods police prey on never actually TRY to reduce, since the point of their presence in those neighborhoods is never actually to try and reduce crime, but simply, instead, to intimidate the people in those neighborhoods for the sake of intimidating them.

Police violence doesn't protect people from violent crime. Decriminalizing drugs, treating drug use as a social health issue rather than a criminal justice issue, and funding community economic revival programs to help repair the continuing damage done by the legacy of redlining and "benign neglect" would.

Why stay with the police industrial complex/prison industrial complex when neither complex does anything to address the things it supposedly there to address.?

Why not just admit the status quo has been a comprehensive failure and try something else?


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