Issue 14: Council Turns Pro-Cop
City Council moves forward with budget amendments that increase SPD’s spending authority
Midyear budget adjustments will be brought to a vote on Monday, September 13.
Last Month, the mayor asked City Council to give the Seattle Police Department permission to spend $13.75M of the department’s $15.3M in salary savings. The requests were incorporated into city council’s midyear budget adjustments, CB 120112, which has made its way through and out of the Finance and Housing committee. It has already undergone multiple amendments that have worsened the legislation.
Budget Amendment 10 authorizes a new full-time position in SPD. “If this amendment passes, the Council expects that this position will be included and funded in the Mayor’s 2022 Proposed Budget.”
Budget Amendment 8 and its two amendments (1 and 2) increase SPD’s spending authority. They move money around within the department and explicitly release $8.05M for SPD’s use (via lifting three provisos). The amendments also take about $5M away from the SPD. The net result is in the cop’s favor: a $2.8M increase to the SPD’s 2021 spending authority.
The legislation is very specific about what SPD’s dollars may be spent on. Some of the spending, such as the “Early Intervention System,” is known to not work. Other spending is earmarked for unarmed officers. In reality, the cops will spend their dollars however they want: last year they billed for overtime they weren’t supposed to and were never held accountable.
Budget amendments 8 and 10 expand SPD’s spending authority and are therefore pro-cop. Community cannot end police violence if the police department continues to be funded as usual. The call to defund SPD didn’t stop just because community started getting funding structures put in place.
For more evidence debunking SPD’s false claims about why they need more money, see bit.ly/SPDSavings2Community. This page also has a suggested email template you can use to send to council members.
What you can do
Only you know where your time will be best spent. Emailing your council members and engaging organizations you are a part of to speak up against the SPD are both useful approaches.
Another thing a few district 6 people will be doing is contacting Dan Strauss and asking him to hold a 15-30 minute meeting. We plan to identify simply as a group of D6 residents concerned about council not following through on its commitment to defund the SPD.
Are you in district 6? Get in touch with me if you want to join.
-Peter (he/him), shellito@gmail.com or via signal
Educational Resources
Check out this free virtual event September 21st, at 5 p.m. (PT) / 8 p.m. (ET), with Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, activist and creative Nikkita Oliver, and Marguerite Casey Foundation CEO Carmen Rojas. They will be discussing the fight for Black liberation and the role philanthropy can play in supporting how we get there.
Dr. Taylor is the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation which “examines the historical and modern moments and movements that have exposed the deep, structurally unequal roots of police violence and larger systems of mass incarceration.”
The Consent Decree
This blog post from ACLU WA provides a great explanation of exactly why the consent decree does not prohibit the city from divesting from the SPD.
SPD Consent Decree Allows for Divestment/Reinvestment Approach | ACLU of Washington
“The consent decree does not make any part of the budget untouchable nor does it mandate particular staffing or the existence of certain units and there is nothing in the Consent Decree to indicate that the units must be SPD units. Indeed, the 9/21/12 Order approving the Agreement expressly approved “re-organizing” government agencies or entities with functions related to SPD, so long as that would be consistent with the Decree. In other words, the budget question is a separate one from whether the City has complied with the Decree and fulfilled its specified purposes.”
Evidence that cops don't stop violence
Interrupting Criminalization
IC published this useful resource reminding readers that Cops Don’t Stop Violence. The following are excerpts from it:
“Cops Cause Violence. Ultimately, police are violence workers. Their response to violence is more violence or the threat of violence. This means more police, police contact, and police resources automatically.”
Research shows that increasing community-based organizations reduces homicides without increasing police violence. “Every 10 additional organizations focusing on crime and community life in a city with 100,000 residents leads to a 9 percent reduction in the murder rate, a 6 percent reduction in the violent crime rate, and a 4 percent reduction in the property crime rate.”
Even within what is defined as crime, cops focus on certain types of “crimes” while ignoring other criminalized activity — such as tax evasion, financial fraud, and drug use and distribution by wealthy people and white college students.
Crime rates usually only reflect violations of the law that:
people have reported to police;
that police choose to report; and
that resulted in an arrest.
Chicago Tribune
Some people blame calls to “defund the police” for a spike in homicides. This article in the Chicago Tribune shows that there are also rising in cities that have increased spending on cops. Homicides up, but 'defunding the police' not to blame.
American Public Health Association
Here is a 2018 research article about Addressing Law Enforcement Violence as a Public Health Issue.
SPD themselves
SPD recently commissioned a report that shows they disproportionately harm, harass, and traumatize Black and Indigenous people:
Native people were stopped nearly nine times as frequently as white people, and Black people were stopped over five times as frequently as white people
White people were less likely than Native people or Black people to be arrested at a stop
Black people were subjected to force at a per capita rate more than seven times the per capita rate for white people
A second report commissioned by SPD strengthened the argument for defunding SPD by 50%. They found:
80% of SPD calls are for non-criminal activity and only 6% are for felonies of any kind
Two-thirds of all SPD officer time is spent responding to non-criminal events
50% of SPD calls could be answered with an “alternative non-sworn response”
Primary results
Great news! Both Nikkita Oliver and Nicole Thomas-Kennedy led their primary races for Seattle City Council Position 9 and City Attorney, respectively. Now we need to get them through the general election and into office! Check out their websites to get involved.
Like this newsletter and want more like it? Join our google group! There tend to be just a few messages each week. You can find more ways to connect with people and get support for your own abolitionist ideas. Just look over our organizing principles here and click through to the “request to join” link.