WV-It's all about saving money!
Getting shot and going directly to the morgue, is cheaper than going to the ICU with Covid, and then going to the morgue!

BiBi's GONE?
Best News I've heard
since trumpf LOST the Election.
again. yipee. may he enjoy his sentences

'... cops who've had it up to here with all these black lives mattering. [!] A cop job would give a non-violent prisoner a golden opportunity; a chance to begin life again with health insurance, a pension, and high wages."

well Hell Yes.
no Violent ones
('less we can somehow
Harness that -- it Is 2021 ffs)
but yeah who Better? brilliant, Chas.

oh, and it's a ONE year waiting
period for all fresh Recruits.

You never fail us with your jaw-dropping ideas Charles. Tonight they're a blend of amusing and pathetic.

How many miles you think she gets on that robot before someone runs off with it or smashes it with a large chunk of debris?

Chauvin and his lawyers have some balls, that's for sure. I hope the sentencing is twice as long (as the 30 being asked for) for having the nerve to ask for probation. Better yet, give him life in prison with no chance of parole and he can whine for the rest of his life.

Seattle does prefer it's criminals over its cops, so there is actually some logic to Charles' suggestion.

@10 --Billionaires
and their psycopants
are working on it Tirelesly
cheerfully insidiously 24/7/365.25.

The "crisis" in SPD staffing is pure SPD PR department spin.

According to the IACP, not exactly a left-leaning source, normal turnover rates for a large metro police departments in the US range from ~12-25%.

SPD has ~1300 sworn officers. 270 of them leaving in 17 months would be a turnover rate of around 15%, which is below average for the sector. Seattle's retention of officers in this supposed "crisis" is better than other cities.

The trick the SPD is playing here is to pretend that normal turnover for the department would be zero, which is absurd for any kind of employment and doubly so for high-stress occupations.

There's no crisis here, other than the crisis in critical thinking that strikes a lot of local journalists when a police department's Media Relations team hands them a press release.

@5:

It worked on you, so...

@12, First, I didn't see anywhere in that report you link to where it talks about an average turnover rate for large metro police departments. It talks about the attrition of new recruits during their first 18 months, mostly for individual departments or states. I admit I didn't read it thoroughly, but then I didn't link to it, so can you please point out where this document lists the average yearly attrition for large departments?

This is really beside the point anyhow, Seattle's attrition rate is really what matters. In 2019, Seattle lost 92 officers, 109 in 2018, and 79 in 2017, so an average of somewhere in the 90's or about 6.6% per year over the past three years. This was already shrinking the department. Last year Seattle lost 194 officers and so far this year, they've lost 84 during the first five months and look to continue this trend, quite a few of those 100 officers burning through their vacation and sick leave will leave when they finish doing so. Depending on how you view this, a shrinking department might be a good thing or a bad thing, but it's definitely not just PR spin.

Buh bye, Bibi!

Remember, if we just keep repurposing armed police officers, who are at most only needed (their own stats) for 3% of 9-1-1 calls, with unarmed social workers and unarmed peace officers (like when you get a ticket for parking), there won't be a problem.

@15 Page 7, in the section titled "Turnover", subheading "External factors" you'll find a bulleted list summarizing studies in several states. Only the first sentence in the first item on the list refers to new recruits (first 18 months), the rest of the stats in there are overall turnover rates.

As far as attrition in the SPD workforce goes, it exists, but it's hardly anomalous. Police ranks are declining in cities across the US and that decline can be explained by the same factor that's driving declines in numbers of nurses and teachers across the US. To wit: the age distribution in this country is shifting upwards, so as older workers retire there just aren't as many young workers to replace them.

The "unprecedented staffing crisis" spin just doesn't hold up when you look at the numbers. All we're seeing in the SPD is some entirely ordinary police department turnover coupled with a gradual generational demographic shift.

@17: Your obsession for proving there is not an urgency/crisis in staffing at SPD is what's more interesting here.

@18 Glad to hear I'm keeping you entertained, raindrop. You're welcome!

@19: If only

@21 God damn but I love you sometimes. You're merely "interested," right? Like no different if you were just sitting under your rhododendrons watching some bugs crawl around.

And talking to them.

well Sumbuddy's gotta
Push the Boundaries
why not Chas?

ynotu?

@3: Why would you replace the violent criminals in the SPD with the non-violent criminals in prison?

No violent criminal would take the job. The violent criminals in prison were willing to hurt someone to achieve something else illegal. To qualify for the SPD, hurting people itself needs to be its own reward.

What about SPD morale? If you want effective government robotslave, I assume you want an effective police dept. Attrition is up, not down. Morale is down, not up. You can point to stats to quibble about attrition rates, but morale is harder to measure but reports are certainly that it's going down. Are these problems to you? If yes, then you should show a decorum of support for this vital municipal expenditure.

It certainly isn't a stretch to conclude that given the political turbulence over the past year, being a police officer is an occupation at risk of attracting good people. SPD is now seen as a pariah. That's our ultimate concern, no matter how policing in America evolves.

@20 Mudeded, that's hilarious! The fact he's such a good troll is what makes his writing so entertaining. It does make it a little hard to know when he's actually being serious, which kinda complicates his integrity as a journalist a bit. Its hard to get mad when you always feel he's half kidding though.

@25 I rather doubt higher police morale is worth the price of continuing to allow officers to abuse citizens without consequences.

And if morale is really the problem, then hey, why not try to improve morale instead of pretending entirely ordinary turnover rates are a crisis? How on earth is that charade supposed to help anyone's morale?

Gosh I dunno raindrop, if I and my colleagues were taken off the kinds of assignments where we didn't have the skills and training necessary for positive outcomes, I suspect my morale would improve considerably. Wouldn't yours? Is there some particular reason morale couldn't be improved on a smaller police force?

Or hell, just don't think about it at all, and go on gulping down those SPD Public Affairs Office press releases without chewing them first. Seems there's little I can do about anyone's appetite for that.

@24 – “Why would you replace the violent criminals in the SPD with the non-violent criminals in [from] prison?”

I dunno.
less heads-cracking
fewer Massive lawsuits
a Happier Citizenry. why
Wouldn’t we?

“No violent criminal would take the job.”

I Rest my case.

“To qualify for the SPD, hurting people itself needs to be its own reward.”

Yeah, no, we got Better things to Do than be constantly and perpetually Bailing out OUR Po-po – they’re too Expensive. let ‘em join the Foreign Legion. or Blackwater or Startroopers if they got a Chip on their shoulder or they can just beat the shite outta each other on Pay-per-View. what Idiot wouldn’t be Proud to Pay to see to idiots other than himself beat the shit outta each other? hell, strip 'em down, lube 'em up and you'll have Most of 'em eating out of your hand...

I know Charles wrote this in sarcastically but the sad truth is that it will be the reality for portions of the city as number of officers available to patrol continues to shrink and the SPD becomes more and more a reactive agency. As evidenced by CHOP, vigilante groups, gangs and organized crime will more than willingly step into the vacuum created by the police pull back and institute their own forms of patrol. The silver lining is it will end up decreasing the caseload for the DA's office and courts as like Judge Dredd "they are the law" and prefer to dispense their own justice.

Well, well, if it isn't the old "yes of course I knew it was an Onion article but that doesn't mean it isn't sort of true in a convoluted way that I will now explain to you at length."

God yes buckle me up and let's have it again champ, I live for this.

@28: " Is there some particular reason morale couldn't be improved on a smaller police force?"

No, but the size of the police force should be determined by meeting the needs for public safety, not by political ideology and messaging.

@32 Mmm, oh yes, and perhaps the public ought to have some say in what exactly its needs are and whether armed police officers ought to be dispatched to meet all of them, or alternately perhaps have more appropriate responses to low-threat situations handled by professionals with qualifications a bit more relevant than "knows seven ways to hold a nightstick?"

Nah, screw that, sounds like too much work. Let's just have the SPD media relations team tell us what our safety needs are and how we want them met.

@31 let me guess. You now have a study that says the violence in CHOP last year had nothing to do with the East Precint being abandoned.