Seattle Chief of Police resigns Due Budget Cuts

[The Grand Nudger]

The problem is that I'm a dumbass? I doubt that very much.

If you think that we need someone to answer child choking calls, we have a job just for that, and those guys cost less than these cops, who aren't doing their own jobs very well to begin with.

Frankly, it would be a relief...to police officers..... to have alot of what we substitute them for taken off their plate.

[downbeatplumb]

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Here’s another one. The SPD covers about 143 square miles with about 1400 sworn officers. The proposed budget cuts will reduce that to about 1300.

This means that instead of a little less than ten cops per square mile, they’ll have a little more than nine.

Armageddon just waiting to happen.

Boru

The US seems to have infinite police. You are certainly much more heavly policed than a normal country.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The problem is that I'm a dumbass?  I doubt that very much.  

If you think that we need someone to answer child choking calls, we have a job just for that, and those guys cost less than these cops, who aren't doing their own jobs very well to begin with.

Frankly, it would be a relief...to police officers..... to have alot of what we substitute them for taken off their plate.

Okay, I just downgraded you from dumbass.

---

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Here’s another one. The SPD covers about 143 square miles with about 1400 sworn officers. The proposed budget cuts will reduce that to about 1300.

This means that instead of a little less than ten cops per square mile, they’ll have a little more than nine.

Armageddon just waiting to happen.

Boru

And those nine officers are on duty 24/7/365?

[The Grand Nudger]

They'll want to be "on duty" more or less the same amount of time as the 9.whatever officers would be, though scrutiny on OT pay is going to make that much more difficult going forward.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

24/7/365 then, with no days off, no weekends, no holidays, and nobody doing duty in the jails. Got it. You have been so helpful.

[The Grand Nudger]

They already attempt to bill that way, as much as they can get away with, at any rate. Amazing union. The biggest contributor to their hours was property development. There will be fewer cops working building sites at 3 in the am for 12 hours of ot and 8 hours of regular pay, or three hours per answered phone, while simultaneously claiming a vacation day.

It's expected that there will be fewer kneck kneelings and shootings as well - but not that more children will choke on their pacifiers.

[Aegon]

Heavy policing does next to nothing to deter crime. If it did, Chicago's $1.76 billion police force would have made the city the safest place on Earth by now. Police exist to react to crime. For a city to throw millions or even billions of dollars at police like they have in LA, Chicago, and NYC is an obvious misuse of funds. If you're actually interested in creating a safe city you need to invest in areas that make crime less likely. Food scarcity, quality of public education, drug addiction and abuse need to be prioritized. You need to invest in proactive solutions to crime, not reactive ones.

Here in DC it's clear the city government, and the police, could not give less of a shit about the poorer neighborhoods (which are almost all African-American, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence). They control the crime just enough to keep it from spilling in wealthier neighborhoods while addressing none of the root causes of poverty, and thus the root causes of crime. The data exists and it's public. In certain wards, the city invests less in public education, public transit, infrastructure, development and more in police. Even the quality of the goddamn drinking water is up to 3 times worse than where I live. This ain't rocket science. Cities are setting entire communities up for failure and then sending the police to beat them for it.

[The Grand Nudger]

Even if we imagined that heavy policing did deter crime, it wouldn't matter much to the SPD's situation. They're not bleeding money on what anyone would call heavy policing with a straight face. Seattle is over a barrel through the results of collective bargaining during a building boom - which is exactly what the city and the police dept offered as an explanation for where that money went, and why it went there - all while being scrutinized over our current focus of civil unrest.

If they believed that heavier policing and thus more expensive policing deterred crime, then maybe that's where they should have been putting that money, and they can still do so. Meanwhile, those recovered funds can be better used addressing those issues that police, and heavier policing, certainly don't solve.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The 9 police would be responsible for 884.6666666666667 people, on average.

[The Grand Nudger]

Which is what the 9.something police are already responsible for, Sama.