#defund spd

[ohwaitwhatdamn]

Messages from my fridge

[ssunvulcan1981]

Dekaranger: Netanyahu Strikes Back

[anarchotahdigism]

Here in Seattle, only one city councilor voted to stop sending SPD to train with the IOF or having the IOF come here to train This after the council refused to defund SPD despite massive protests 2020-2021 during the BLM Uprising This was also after SPD officer Kevin Dave, rushing to an overdose scene in the hopes of arresting the victim to gain info on dealers (per SPD policy), struck and killed Jaahnavi Kalandula with his vehicle without stopping. It took 20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive by which time she'd died. SPD then lied and said that Dave had stopped to perform CPR on her. In truth, people nearby attempted to render aid. Then Detective Daniel Auderer, Vice President of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, was caught on camera laughing about the killing and saying that SPD should just officer $11,000 to her family since she was young and that that was what he estimated her life was worth. He was reassigned to desk duty and that was it. There's been very little support outside the Asian community for protests & riots because this city is fucking racist as hell. Seattle City Council promised to defund SPD, didn't, and their lies didn't harm their re-election efforts at all. This is the same police department that had at least six officers involved in the 1/06 Capitol insurrection coup attempt and has gone out of its way to protect those involved. This is the same PD that assaulted hundreds of thousands of BLM protesters for months, denied medical aid to the injured (likely resulting in multiple deaths), directly targeted press (including international press), repeatedly defied the federal oversight placed upon it for years of violence, wore Proud Boy colors during the protests, and has executed people all without consequence. All cops are bastards. All cops are white supremacists. All cops are violent protectors of capitalism. All cops are enemies of humanity.

I appreciate the sentiment with the "the cops are trained by the idf" people keep pointing out which don't get me wrong is pretty bad and you should point it out but also the cops in the US would still be bad even if they weren't trained by the idf like please don't forget that.

[endquire]

[seattlereddit]

Derailing the defund: How SPD manipulated the media narrative around the 2020 protests

https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/154x9e5/derailing_the_defund_how_spd_manipulated_the/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[they-them-van]

so, amidst all the shitty cop stories coming out in the U.S. right now (especially in Seattle, my hometown), a lot of cops are getting praised for stuff they shouldn’t be. like the cops kneeling - that’s great and all, but until you stop gassing and injuring protesters it doesn’t mean a whole lot. i would invite you to look up copaganda, because we’re seeing a lot of it in this moment.

but also - there are cops being commended for doing the absolute bare minimum during this time. in Seattle this weekend someone drove a car into a protest and shot a protester. i’ve seen and heard people praising the officer who arrested that person. praising a police officer. for arresting someone who committed an act of violence. without killing that person.

what?

to explain the pure insanity of this, i came up with a simple metaphor. imagine you have a teacher. and that teacher is shit at their job. they’re constantly teaching everyone incorrect facts, most kids in their class can’t even do simple math. and then one day, one of those kids passes a big test. 

you wouldn’t applaud that teacher for doing the absolute bare fucking minimum. for simply not fucking up the job they signed up for. cops shouldn’t get praise for protecting people. that’s their goddamn job. and i’m sure there are truly good cops out there. that’s great, and i respect them. but nobody should have that power. nobody should have the fucking power to take away the lives of those they have been charged to protect, based on racism, plain and simple, and then get away with it. 

this isn’t an issue of bad apples - the issue is that the orchard was built with slave labor, and the apples were then weaponized against those who enabled their growth in many ways. “bad apples” are symptomatic of a diseased orchard.

defund SPD, and please if you have anything to add, whether it’s resources or more information or anything, add it. if i fucked this up, tell me. it’s time to start a conversation.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeLx0UBq_-FmE6YQPgG2aGSmNOI7_LCjpGiNGH4HSq2nWpGSA/viewform

[abrujadiary]

IT’S NOT OVER.

[they-call-me-smile]

Black lives matter.

[seriousbusinessforhumans]

On Tuesday morning, Councilmember Herbold postponed, potentially for several weeks, consideration of a bill that would cut another $5.4 million from the Seattle Police Department’s 2021 budget.

This particular $5.4 million cut, which is on top of the cuts that the Council made to SPD’s 2020 budget last August and in the department’s 2021 budget last fall, has a long and inglorious history relating to SPD’s use, and abuse, of overtime.

For many years, the police department dramatically overran its overtime budget, and came back to the City Council after the fact at the end of every year to ask for more money — too late for the Council to make cuts to any other areas in SPD’s budget to offset the overrun. The Council grudgingly, resentfully, approved the additional funding every year because it had no choice: the money had already been spent.

In 2016, the City Auditor published a report on SPD’s lack of internal controls over overtime, with several recommendations. Some of those recommendations have been addressed by SPD, and in the intervening years up until last year the department had made significant progress in getting its overtime under control and to be more predictable.

However, 2020 was a problematic year, for several reasons. First, COVID quarantines of SPD officers — often with little advance notice — created challenges for the department to make predictable staffing schedules, and the department needed to call in officers on overtime to fill out some shifts. Second, the nightly protests created demand for police officers to work additional shifts. Third, toward the end of the year the unprecedented number of officer departures from the force once again created challenges for SPD to cover all shifts. That said, there’s a good argument that some of this is self-inflicted: many have argued that SPD over-staffed protests throughout the summer, which tended to escalate tensions with protestors rather than ensure public safety. However, hindsight is 20/20 and at the time SPD thought it was doing the right thing in calling in additional officers to be prepared for the worst (since September, SPD has changed its policy for protests and demonstrations toward lower staffing levels, at the urging of the OPA, OIG and CPC).

In June, July and August, the Mayor and the Council debated and negotiated a “rebalanced” 2020 budget, incorporating cuts to SPD to address both the dramatic fall-off in city revenues and he demands from activists to “defund” SPD. On June 23rd, Mayor Durkan submitted to the Council her proposed rebalanced budget, which included an $8.6 million cut in SPD’s overtime line-item from $29.8 million to $21.2 million. The Council accepted that cut, and added several of its own: to travel, training, and other ancillary expenses, but also to SPD’s staffing budget. In passing its rebalanced 2020 budget, the Council attached a resolution spelling out promises for additional cuts to SPD’s budget in 2021. The resolution also included this, which the Councilmembers added to ensure that SPD wouldn’t return to its old ways of overtime mismanagement to circumvent the Council’s budget cuts:

The City Council will not support any budget amendments to increase the SPD’s budget to offset overtime expenditures above the funds budgeted in 2020 or 2021.

There are a couple of problems with this approach, at least in how the Mayor and Council went about it....

Prior to last week, there was little sign that the Council would entertain SPD’s request to hold on to the money. But now, after Robart’s rebuke, things may have changed. At the end of the day, the DOJ and the police monitor will probably have the final say: if they recommend that SPD hold on to the money to ensure appropriate staffing levels, the Council will almost certainly go along with it. And it might serve the Council’s interest to do so, as it gives them an alibi for backing away from their promise to defund SPD by another $5.4 million.

[mjelwin]

Fuck work

[jace-beleren]

If anyone sees this stupid picture floating around F*cebook and wants to take a crack at it, feel free to borrow my words. Keep up the pressure, don’t relent, and don’t settle.

[tattooed-alchemist]

Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now are making a big ask. Their plan to reduce the Seattle Police Department budget is bound to be an uphill battle, even when a pandemic doesn’t bar in-person meetings. But the groups tried to do just that during a Community Teach In. With speakers and slides, they took 500 people through the history and goals of the movement. As with so much these days, it was done over Zoom and Facebook.

More than just advocacy in the time of Covid or ending militarized policing, the alliance of groups is trying to remake the budget process. Their advocacy for a “just budget” goes beyond public input and demands public participation. The groups are trying to dismantle racism, violence, and bureaucracy all at the same time.

It is a heavy lift. The exclusive pipeline of mayoral budget submission to City Council approval is the hallmark of our “strong mayor” structure of government. To unprepared ears, a participatory alternative sounds like cacophony. “We at a place where there are many people speaking in our movement,” says Nikkita Oliver, attorney, activist, former Mayoral candidate, and opening speaker at the Community Teach In. The key is “understanding that the movement is about the many voices and many solutions coming together for one abolitionist vision.”

[lozara]

[ducks-in-the-pond]

Don't let it happen. This is the biggest civil rights movement in history, keep it going. Keep fighting.

[seattlereddit]

@BrettHamil started / going (p.s. the SPD was never, ever defunded and their budget has only ever gone up)

https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/15252a4/bretthamil_started_going_ps_the_spd_was_never/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr