New SPD Chief Contradicts Conservative Politicians
The main problem with police hiring is not hurt feelings
Don’t Fall For the Head Fake
During the last campaign, I frequently heard how Seattle’s Police Department shortage stems mainly from mean politicians who have hurt cops’ feelings. These folks said that if we instead were to start saying silly things like Councilmember Bob Kettle’s recent claim that, “Seattle Police Department is the best force in the entire country,” –we wouldn’t have a police shortage.
This frivolous “analysis” was, of course, peddled by power brokers to distract the public and pretend that their agenda was “moderate,” so they could actually usher in an anti-tax council that would warm Newt Gingrich’s grinchy heart.
In any case, newly appointed interim Chief Sue Rahr went on KUOW’s Soundside and, during her interview, noted that her investigations already indicate that hurt feelings are not a core driver of the hiring challenge.
She said the obvious–that all hiring issues are multifactorial–and then suggested her current theory is that the primary issues are bureaucratic.
a lot of people believe that Seattle has a hard time recruiting officers because of the reputation that Seattle doesn’t love our cops . . . we often focus on the wrong problem, or we focus on a small problem where there is a bigger problem lurking below the surface. I believe, and I think this will be validated–I think the biggest problem is that we have bureaucratic hurdles that make it hard for people to apply…A lot of people ascribe the problem to, “oh Seattle has a bad reputation, nobody wants to come and work for Seattle.’ I believe that is an element of the decision for some people. My experience, and what we’ve learned from interviewing recruits is, “I just went to the website, I took the test, I checked the boxes, and SPD wasn’t on the list.”
There are other obvious obstacles, of course.
The (Real) Great Resignation
The most important issue is that there is an acute shortage of officers nationally, and that has left thousands of departments far behind their hiring targets, with retirements and mid-career quits up and recruiting down. Seattle can do its best to juice recruitment, but it cannot change the structural decline in the profession.
“Every department is having the same problem statewide,” said Barbara Serrano, Gov. Jay Inslee’s policy advisor on public safety issues. While it may be more acute in Seattle, the problem tends to plague big cities more than small towns, all over the country.
Seattle’s force is down 28% since 2020, or more like a third since 2017. It’s true that this is among the biggest drops in the country, although some of that can be attributed to the fact that Washington State has seen significant declines compared to its peers and Seattle is Washington’s big city.
But it’s not way worse than a good chunk of other big cities, and it seems to have little to do with our (formerly!) deep-blue political hue. A quick search reveals that Tulsa is off by 17%, Memphis by 23%, Cleveland is down 27%, and Atlanta is 30% short of its authorized level.
Crime and Covid
In 2020 there was a crime spike all over the country, one that coincided with lots of other antisocial behavior, as we all know. Given that some kinds of crime rates are higher in cities, and a lot of people live in cities, cities are where a lot of crime ends up happening. Combine that with things like wanting to avoid Covid when it was more frequently lethal, or vaccine mandates for anti-vax cops, or the much ballyhooed hurt feelings mentioned above, it’s not surprising that the discipline saw a net exodus and that it was most intense in cities.
Now that crime has started to ease up nationally, this may rekindle recruiting. Here in Seattle, crime dropped significantly last year (yes, with progressives still in charge of the council!) and looks like it is following the national trend.
Here’s a quick look at Seattle’s officer count in comparison to violent crime rates
(Chart made by Guy Oron at Real Change News)
Compensation
Until recently, Seattle police pay had lagged behind a fistful of other Washington departments, partly because our police union was holding out for a council that would offer a raise without any meaningful improvements on governance or accountability. So compensation may have been a factor in recruiting slippage. However, SPD was also offering generous bonuses ($30,000), so pay probably wasn’t the predominant issue. Whatever the case, they now have a bunch of back pay and the highest salaries in the state.
Corrosive Workplace
It’s also worth noting that the department is under federal scrutiny for bad behavior, brought a more recent round of shame to our city through an international scandal, and is facing a series of lawsuits related to being a hostile workplace for women and people of color. When Police Chief Adrian Diaz was forced out because of multiple claims of sexual harassment and creating this toxic workplace, the ultimate boss of the force, Mayor Harrell, fell all over himself on behalf of Diaz in the most brotastic speech he could muster. While all this may or may not be attracting enough public attention to actually affect recruiting rates, it surely must impact retention rates.
City Hall’s Uninspiring Start
Most of us would like a successful, responsive, well-staffed police force. But bargaining away accountability for violations of human and civil rights, brushing off broad outcry from women and underrepresented groups in the department, and continuing to slow walk police alternates so the police can do the jobs they were hired to do in a timely fashion instead of playing social-worker-with-a-sidearm who shows up an hour after calls come in because the workload is too high–doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the people in charge have any idea what they are doing.
Except the interim Police Chief Sue Rahr, who is known as a reformer. Let’s hope Harrell hiring her is a harbinger of something more positive than the current clown show at City Hall.
Afterward:
Bob Kettle Says the Seattle Police Department is the Best in the Country. Never mind that:
The justice department has singled out Seattle Police as among the most problematic in the country, and we are still under the consent decree.
SPD had more of its cops than any other department identified at the January 6th insurrection, and the police union leader blamed January 6th on BLM protestors.
A world-renowned crowd control expert testified that SPD’s crowd control measures were the worst he had seen in a democratic state. (Note, he’s not talking about the Democratic party–he means the free world). SPD had to pay $10M to the protestors that the expert said the cops “brutalized”
SPD hired a cop who was fired from his previous job and had a known history of reckless driving, who then ran over and killed a young woman in a crosswalk. Then the head of the police union and his second in charge laughed about this death and were caught on bodycams, igniting an international scandal.
None of these folks have faced real accountability.
The city council just signaled its disinterest in accountability when it gave away all their negotiating leverage when it comes to getting accountability and governance into place
The Chief just resigned in disgrace while bedeviled by sexual harassment claims and and lawsuits alleging he presided over a racist and sexist culture.
The Mayor fell all over himself publicly praising this Chief resigning under this cloud of allegations from his own staff (hostile work environment, anyone?)
And this is just some of the recent stuff.