Comments

1

Aw, poor po-po - having to work a detail for hours and hours with nothing to do but sit on their asses.

Sounds like every cop's dream job, doesn't it?

OTOH, they don't get to participate in the weekly "Bashing The Heads of The Citizenry" detail, so I guess some of them might see it as a downside...

2

Life's a bitch and then you die... For $50 per hour or more plus the bennies on top there are a lot of unemployed folks who would not mind having the gig-- Suck it up princesses-- protecting property for the rich as a wage slave is like your #1 priority--

3

I image Jenny is gracious enough to bring out a tray of hot cocoa and biscotti for them on cold winter days.

4

"hours of boredom without relief."

This is called having a job. Welcome to the working world!

"You just sit there and stare and think about how shitty your life is for four or five hours,"

Maybe you could use that time to think about why your life is shitty and work to fix it. Sorry the down time forces to you have some introspection. I have a feeling your life would still be shitty without the mayor detail. Just a hunch.

I am hard-pressed to find a bigger group of perpetual crybabies than police. Get fucking over it and do your job or find something else to do.

5

I'm not sure why Rich felt the need to even write this article. Who would be happy about having to babysit a politician because some loons out there feel justified in terrorizing them in their home. To me this is more a commentary on how far civility has slid in this city and for that I lay the blame squarely on the council. SPD is vastly under resourced and those officers could be doing much more for the community being on patrol than sitting idle in front of Jenny's house. But it is what it is thanks to the council person from district 3 and the rest of her motley crew. My only question is will Rich write a similar article now that the same council members who egged on these dipshits now face threats of their own and are seeking police intervention.

7

@4 This sounds like the same kind of talk that ended up firing the Air Traffic Controllers when they dared go on strike for better working conditions, and the same kind of talk that has been used for years to malign teachers and their unions. I think it's dangerous. Also, when I play the "what would happen if there were no..." game with the police, I usually end up with it being better to have police than not.

That said, cops have it pretty good, from my point of view. They make great money in a job that has a lot of society credit (they do something perceived as "meaningful and important") without the danger level of commercial fishing or logging or roofing -- however, no job is without its downside.

Perhaps that officer's personal ennui comes from the fact that he signed up to bust bad guys and ended up sitting in his cruiser playing Kandy Krush for hours a day. There was an article here recently about how cops are presented as Crime Solvers/Crook Busters, but really, they protect the wealthy and their property from everyone else, while enforcing administrative minutia (traffic tickets, jaywalking, excessive noise, etc.). That could be difficult to come to terms with, if you were an idealist who entered Law Enforcement. I suspect many folks who enter Law Enforcement are idealists.

I think there are some real grievances to address in police work, starting with the scope of their duties. Offloading some of those more unpleasant duties, like working with the homeless, the mentally ill, and guarding rich folks homes, might go a long way toward happier cops who don't feel the need to go bashing protester heads to vent their frustrations with their personal Bullshit Job.

Sure, its fun to laugh at the 6-figure earning cop complaining about doomscrolling in his cruiser outside the Mayor's house, but telling him to suck-it-up-buttercup-yer-a-grownup isn't going help anything. Did it help you when you complained about your job?

8

I take it these cops have never heard of books. Five or six hours sitting in an SUV, reading a book while looking up and around every so often for good pay is a dream job.

9

@6: Seattle is below average for police to population ratio:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/is-the-seattle-police-department-understaffed-heres-what-the-data-shows/

10

@6 those in West Seattle may differ in opinion

https://westseattleblog.com/2021/01/police-staffing-shortfall-spotlighted-at-alki-community-council/

11

Oh no, people threw fireworks in her mansion’s yard and wrote mean things on the street! So much sympathy for “Mayor Teargas”, who’s violent thugs put multiple people in the hospital for being at protests. We may be paying the hundreds of thousands of dollars (likely well over $1M by my rough estimate) for her security detail, but at least she paid that $10k in graffiti removal! That’s a solid 0.1% of her home’s value, major investment right there!

13

@9 The US has 50% more police per capita than the global average. Seattle has about 15% more than the global average. A higher ratio of police does not correspond to more safety or freedom for a country.

Police per 100,000 population:

World: 165
Seattle: 185
Canada: 188
Norway: 188
India: 198
US: 238
Zimbabwe: 351
Russia: 515
Turkey: 524

Seattle is on par with Canada or Norway. That's not understaffed, that's right where you'd expect to be for one of America's richest and most liberal cities.

14

Cops bitching about an unpopular duty assignment: Shocker.

When I was a Division Admin Sgt., one of my jobs was making out daily details and filling mandatory duty assignments, usually referred to as "special assignment." Those could be anything from working a school zone, special assignments in areas experiencing a recent uptick in crime, perimeter control at an ongoing tactical situations, guarding some sensitive location or another or any number of things.

Guess what. Cops bitch about them, because it constrains them from their normal daily routine. Also, cops bitch about them because cops like to bitch. It's like a hobby. When I was in the Army, I heard a saying that went, "A bitchy troop is a happy troop." I have been applying it to cops for years. Cops bitch, that's what they do.

I can't believe Rich made this a news story; it's not. It's a normal day in Copland. Must have been literally nothing else going on yesterday.

Oh, you know what else causes staffing to drop below minimum staffing levels? Officers calling in sick. It may be legitimate, as cops do get sick and injured like anyone anywhere, but that is still what causes minimum staffing to drop below, well, minimum allowed staffing. In fact, it's the only thing that causes it, not the necessity of staffing some required special assignment somewhere or another, especially a regularly scheduled one.

16

@13: Then write a letter to the Seattle Times.

17

@16 Why would I write a letter to the local real estate booster paper? The Blethens know what they want, and they hardly need my help with it, do they?

No, I save my comments for SLOG, just like you.

18

@13 - Meh, I'm not sure those figures mean much. Most western countries similar to ourselves have even more cops. I read an article the other day about how Germany has twice as many cops per-capita as the US...but a lot less prisons. France has 3 times as many.

Plus some countries have military auxiliaries they use as cops, some have added or less duties, some countries are more rural than others, more developed than others and so on. The best comparison of Seattle is to other US and maybe even Canadian cities. Based on that measure, my semi-pro opinion is that Seattle probably is understrength.

One way to know is by looking at response times to calls for service...and maybe clearance rates of offenses. If they're longer and less than other US cities, well, there ya go. Now, if they are longer and less, that could also theoretically be due to demoralization, some unofficial "job action" or laziness...but I doubt it. All cities have those same factors at work.

Anyway, further reducing the strength of Seattle PD through defunding probably isn't wise until they first find a way to reduce that call load...and/or increase those clearance rates. Obviously, adding mental health counselors and facilities will help that effort significantly, decriminalizing more classes of drugs also. But those things need to be done first, or at least be well on the way to being done.

19

Well, a lot of the SPD were active participants in terrorist attacks on DC, WA, and even Seattle, so ...

20

@18 To quote myself, "A higher ratio of police does not correspond to more safety or freedom for a country."

You list several things that need to be done "first" in Seattle-- decriminalize some more drugs, add mental health counselors and facilities, cure the Blue Flu, etc.

What you're saying, in a sort of roundabout way, is that all of these should be undertaken before spending more money on police officers.

21

ermahgerd, werst sererttle

22

Professor, those aren't opinions. If you take a minute and read the post it's all there. Since you are probably too busy making up new names to call me and other posters though here is an excerpt they pulled from Lisa Herbold's memo discussing the council's impending action to further reduce SPD's budget:

"SPD service levels will continue to decrease absent net new hires, meaningful changes to the list of police duties, an increase in overtime usage or a combination of these workload/staffing variables. The net change in deployable sworn personnel from December 2019 to December 2020 equates to a loss of 298,000 productive hours. The department and City cannot hire its way out of a police staffing shortage of this magnitude, and the remaining officers cannot be expected to completely fill this gap on overtime at the expense of employee wellness. As of today, alternative response models have not been established and emergency response duties have not been formally cut or redistributed to other entities."

23

another great excerpt:

"Despite efforts to address the staffing shortages in Patrol, SPD declared “priority call handling” status on 221 of 366 days last year, meaning the department delivered a reduced level of 911 services for at least part of the day because on-street resources from one or more precincts were depleted significantly below normal staffing. Under this circumstance, certain categories of callers are requested to re-contact SPD. They will be given an approximate time when routine services will be restored. Individual contacts are not logged. The 2020 level of priority call handling (in days) represents a 97% increase from 2018 and a 176% increase from 2017."

24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knik6QqDJJ0

26

Trained professionals dislike boring assignments? Shocking. Audiobooks and podcasts are a wonderful thing.

Sounds like any number of boring details we'd do in the Army, to include manning the telephone from the end of the workday (after working all day) until the next morning just in case anything crazy happened. Heaven help you if you were caught sleeping or reading/watching something for entertainment, since bored leaders would stop by to check on you -just enough- that it wasn't worth the risk. We would usually have the next day off to recover, but we sure as hell didn't get paid overtime for it.

27

@25 do you ever read what you post before hitting enter? It's laughable that you are trying to argue SPD is not understaffed right now but I'm kinda bored on a Tuesday so let's open up SCC Insight to see what Kevin had to say about the issue back in June of 2020.

First, he notes the dept SPD budget has grown faster than the overall city budget which I'm guessing is the core of your fat, lazy cop argument. However it should also be noted the city budget itself has grown faster than the general population so using your own logic I guess the entire city is mismanaged and full of lazy, good for nothing bureaucrats. I won't argue with you on that point.

However the very next chart shows that SPD staffing has actually not kept pace with the population growth and has been behind going back to the early 2000's. So while spending per officer is going up the actual number of offers per 100K residents has been going down.

Drilling further into spending per officer there are a couple of things driving increases . The city changed budgeting practices to allocate costs to various depts which lead to a jump in expense and while overtime costs are the other factor most of those are driven by special events like sports and (duh) protests.

Of course what you don't mention is what has transpired since Kevin published his article back in June. Since then the attrition rate for SPD has shot through the roof as the council, activist groups and protestors have committed to defunding/abolishing the police (depending on who you ask) and officers have done what is their own best interest and retired or taken jobs with more stable agencies.

I'm not going to argue the merits of defunding as that is not the point here. The point is SPD has had record attrition since the council shot their mouths off last summer, the city has done nothing to remotely replace the services SPD was/is providing and now there is a massive service gap that won't be filled anytime soon by either King County Equity Now, the SPD or any other agency so citizens will have to continue to accept a lack of response and/or put up with increased criminal activity until the all knowing council reveals their grand plan to uproot the racist police agency and replace them with benevolent community programs. Given their past track record of success with homeless agencies, bike share, bridge maintenance, the city streetcar and safe injection sites I have full confidence they won't completely shit the bed.

28

@12: We voters in West Seattle collectively re-elected CM Herbold on, among other things, her promise to ensure a proper level of funding for SPD. The history here is SPD's SW Precinct, the city's latest, located in the working-class neighborhood of south West Seattle. With subsequent, surprise closure of the West Seattle Bridge, having a viable level of staffing in the SW Precinct became a major issue out here.

So, what did our recently re-elected CM Herbold do? Tried to defund SPD by 50%, an amount both wholly arbitrary and completely unrealistic. In the time between her announcement she'd try it, and her causing the departure of SPD's first female, BIPOC Chief, CM Herbold succeeded in panicking her hardest-working constituents into believing the SW Precinct would soon be closed.

Sneer at working-class families' safety concerns as mere "opinions" all you like, but decisions have consequences. CM Herbold's decision to break her promise, and place the interests of self-appointed activists (many of whom seem more than a little unhappy with the aforementioned departure of Chief Best) ahead of her own constituents' desire for adequate police protection, have driven much resentment and fear into our local politics. Try placing some of the blame with the persons who worked to earn it.

29

@18 "Most western countries similar to ourselves have even more cops. I read an article the other day about how Germany has twice as many cops per-capita as the US...but a lot less prisons. France has 3 times as many."

I always enjoy your insights on US policing Monty.

I lived in Europe (mostly Southern Germany and France) from 1990 until recently and I think your numbers showing Europe has as many, or more police than the US must be statistically inaccurate in some way. Without seeing the numbers it's hard to tell where.

I suspect this may be a counting error due to most European countries having only 10-11 different police groups per country whereas the US has upwards of 17985 agencies with overlapping jurisdictions, but that is just a guess.

https://usafacts.org/articles/police-departments-explained/

If you were to compare the SPD in Seattle to say the local police in Berlin (Landespolizei) then Berlin may have more 1:1 with SPD, but that discounts the Highway patrol, the Sheriff Office, ICE, Customs and a few dozen other overlapping agencies in the Seattle Area alone.

You can drive all day in Berlin, Lyon, or Germany and France themselves along with pretty much any other major European city and you'll be lucky to see a single police car all day. I currently have a 30 minute commute to work in the Seattle area and I typically pass upwards of 4-5 patrol cars in each direction each day. It's striking just how many police the US has compared to what I see not just in Southern or Eastern Europe but Africa and South America as well. China is probably the one exception I know of.

I don't recall the US being anything like this in the early 90's when I left and the crime rate was far higher then. I'm not sure if I was blind to their overwhelming presence, or I've simply grown accustomed to rarely seeing police in Europe beyond airports and train terminals.

Due to the cultural impact of the Vichy and Gestapo during WWII Europeans have a real phobia about people in military uniform so all military is kept stay small and sequestered. At no point will you see them out in public in uniform, let alone staffing civilian positions. The military troop levels we now see in DC are unimaginable in European since WWII. It's more of what I would expect after civil unrest in St. Petersberg or Bejing.

30

@29: "If you were to compare the SPD in Seattle to say the local police in Berlin (Landespolizei) then Berlin may have more 1:1 with SPD, but that discounts the Highway patrol, the Sheriff Office, ICE, Customs and a few dozen other overlapping agencies in the Seattle Area alone."

We have a lot of federal agencies creeping around in the shadows as well. And not all are there to keep tabs on the public. Recall the SPD's recent DOJ consent decree. There are more than a few FBI personnel lurking the streets. But they are watching SPD operations.

The USA probably resembles the later Soviet Union, with various agencies assigned to monitor other agencies. Under the guise of providing law enforcement expertise, but in reality to make sure we don't fall into the old days of Bull Connor. With local big shots running their cities the way they wanted, Federal authority and laws be damned. "Trust but verify." Actually a Russian saying that Reagan adopted.

33

Mayor Durkan is a big, mean lezzy and should provide her own private security detail. Hopefully some homeless folks will pull up in a Winnebago and fornicate on her lawn while the cops stream Adam-12 on their iPhones. Perhaps Sawant will run for Mayor so we can have some solid, socially progressive leadership in Seattle, rather than Durkan’s tortoise-like political equivocation and opportunism.


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