“Ms. Durkan has a dark history with the men and women of the Seattle Police Department (SPD). In 2011, she was one of the federal assassins sent by former Attorney General Eric Holder to obliterate what had been one of the best and most emulated police departments in America.”
I could have titled this article, “Jenny Durkan Hates Cops!” But I’m not a bomb-thrower kind of guy. Although, over the years, I have had a few articles explode in my face. It seems some of Seattle’s tolerant progressives forgot to get to the security of a safe space before reading an opposing political opinion.
Anyway, I don’t know that Ms. Durkan hates cops because I don’t know her mind, I only know her actions. Like those that caused the hurt she helped heap on Seattle’s cops beginning back in 2011. Such actions sure weren’t those of someone who loves police officers.
Another Seattle mayoral choice is slithering toward the electorate. Jenny Durkan, President Obama’s former United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington and a Seattle native, will be one of two contenders vying to take the reins of the Emerald City. The other is urban planner and community activist Cary Moon. So, who’s the liberal and who’s the conservative? Hah! Not in a town subjugated for decades by a single political party. Seattleites’ choices for the Wizard of Oz are “left,” “far left,” and “has left reality.”
And just because you don’t like how police work is done doesn’t mean police work isn’t being done properly.
As Seattle Times political reporter Daniel Beekman puts it, “Whatever happens in the Nov. 7 general election, it looks like Seattle will remain a national laboratory of sorts for policies backed by the labor movement.” And that’s not the only laboratory that will endure. Seattle’s political “lab rats,” otherwise known as police officers, are about to find themselves liberated from the apparently ethically challenged Ed Murray frying pan only to be cast into the anti-cop Jenny Durkan fire.
Ms. Durkan has a dark history with the men and women of the Seattle Police Department (SPD). In 2011, she was one of the federal assassins sent by former Attorney General Eric Holder to obliterate what had been one of the best and most emulated police departments in America. Just because you say police reform is needed doesn’t mean police reform is needed—especially if a leftist political ideologue is the one saying it. And just because you don’t like how police work is done doesn’t mean police work isn’t being done properly.
On September 11, 2017, Ms. Durkan unveiled what she describes as her “equal justice” platform. There is something disingenuous about a social justice warrior using the phrase equal justice. She may say equal justice, but anyone want to bet she means social justice? Progressives conflate the two phrases to obfuscate the issue.
This is simple: social justice treats people according to their victim-identity-group and blames society for an individual’s evil actions; equal justice treats individuals according to their actions and holds them accountable for their bad behavior. As defined by the left, the two concepts are mutually exclusive.
Further branching out lexically, the jennyforseattle.com campaign website issued a press released titled, “Durkan Outlines Plans to Build a Progressive Justice System and Deliver on Police Reforms.” Well, at least she’s honest here, using the term progressive justice. In other position papers, she also employs the convoluted phrase restorative justice. But it doesn’t matter. Equal justice cannot coexist with either the social, progressive, or restorative forms of fake justice.
Back in 2011, unfairly and dishonestly, she took part in gravely insulting the exceptional men and women of what was a great police department. I remember; I was there.
If the SPD thinks it had it bad under mayors like Nickels, McGinn, and Murray, just wait for the liberal nightmare that’s about to rain down on them if the much more competent anti-cop, Ms. Durkan, becomes mayor. Ms. Durkan is not simply a far-left ideologue; she is a smart, capable, accomplished woman with an openly progressive, anti-police plan. Liberals, progressives, and even socialists don’t have to hide who they are or what they believe in Seattle. In fact, there’s an admitted socialist on the city council.
Let’s reflect on what Ms. Durkan means to the men and women of the SPD. Back in 2011, unfairly and dishonestly, she took part in gravely insulting the exceptional men and women of what was a great police department. I remember; I was there. She and her DOJ comrades came to town not to investigate if SPD officers were violating suspect’s constitutional rights when using force but rather to validate their predetermined conclusion that SPD officers were physically abusing suspects.
Think about how long it takes the government to do anything. How is it, in this case, they conducted their “investigation” and arrived at their conclusions so quickly? Not surprisingly, this federal cabal found SPD officers guilty. Well, of course they did. The Obama DOJ never found a police department they investigated not guilty; why change with the SPD? What was surprising was the audacity of their conclusions.
The DOJ alleged SPD officers violated suspects’ rights when using force nearly 20% of the time. This number is ludicrous, so it was no surprise when skeptics, including those from the city and police department leadership (too little, too late), called for the DOJ to release the methodology they used in their study. The DOJ refused, and to my knowledge has never released how they got this percentage (pulled it out of their… hat, flipped a coin?).
A local professor, not a law enforcement apologist, was disturbed by their lack of adherence to the scientific method, which gathers objective facts and arrives at an unbiased conclusion. So, Seattle University assistant professor of criminal justice and former DOJ statistician, Matthew J. Hickman, conducted his own study for which he did share his methodology.
He arrived at a much more lucid result: Hickman told komonews.com, “We found it closer to something like 3 and a half percent, and we believe it’s even lower than that… the use of force [by SPD officers] in Seattle is an extremely rare event, and the use of excessive force is even more rare.”
Professor Hickman penned a guest article for the Seattle Times. In it he wrote, “The city of Seattle should call DOJ’s bluff and settle for nothing less than a formal apology.” Instead, a flaccid city political establishment wilted, unwilling to go against their liberal betters from D.C. Since then, the SPD’s men and women have suffered under the oppression of a fake consent decree they don’t deserve. They are victims of a progressive political establishment that sees cops as at best necessary evils and at worst fodder for their next sociopolitical experiment.
According to a Seattle PI article, a 2010 SPD report on officers’ use of force between 2006 and 2009 showed that “less than 3 percent of overall arrests involved force, and less than 1 percent of those force cases ended with major injuries.” This report was issued immediately prior to Ms. Durkan and the DOJ initiating legal action against the SPD specifically for excessive force.
They used high-profile use-of-force controversies, even though most of them had been ruled justified actions, to create a fake “crisis.” Wasn’t it a Democrat who said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste?” And if you don’t have a good crisis, just make one up.
But Ms. Durkan and her comrades obviously didn’t care about insulting and then punishing innocent, honorable public servants. The Good Law Enforcement Eradication Team was on a sacred mission, preparing the progressive altar on which the next police department would be sacrificed. Ms. Durkan exudes progressive policy and social justice politics. Her Equal Justice and Opportunity Agenda paper is packed with progressive propaganda.
There’s nothing wrong with fixing something that’s broken. But what happens when you try to “fix” something that isn’t broken? You break it!
I retired sooner than I might have without Ms. Durkan’s efforts. I cannot forget that this woman took part in the political fraud perpetrated against Seattle’s police officers. And her perspective on cops hasn’t changed. A page on her website is dedicated to her version of “Police Reform and Accountability.” There’s nothing wrong with fixing something that’s broken. But what happens when you try to “fix” something that isn’t broken? You break it!
Where’s my evidence that this was a bogus consent decree, aside from the DOJ refusing to release how they obtained their results? Well, in response to a Seattle Police Officers Guild newspaper (The Guardian) interview question about the DOJ’s fake findings, Merrick Bobb, the federal monitor, uttered this Orwellian statement:
“Whatever the correct figure might be [20% or < 3.5%], it’s not relevant to our task today… the settlement agreement embodies best practice in policing and that it’s to the SPD’s and Seattle’s benefit it be implemented regardless of what led up to it.”
Regardless of what led up to it? Mr. Bobb doesn’t even pretend to defend the DOJ’s results. So, Jenny Durkan was complicit in implementing a DOJ consent decree based on lies. In good leftist fashion, the ends justi… well, you know. She cared little, if at all, about how these fake accusations would affect the dedicated men and women who risk their safety, health, and lives every day serving and protecting the people of Seattle.
Then again, as I mentioned previously, Ms. Durkan is smart, and she’s also politically calculating. Just look at how she decided to maintain a political association with the sex-abuse-scandal-entangled (now former) Seattle mayor Ed Murray despite four men having come forward to accuse the mayor of sexual crimes against them when they were young boys. It took a fifth victim, Murray’s cousin, to come forward before Durkan even took Murray’s endorsement off her campaign website. Under heavy pressure, Murray resigned on September 13, 2017.
I believe in innocence before guilt, but isn’t it Democrats who say the benefit of the doubt should be given to the sexual assault victims? Didn’t Hillary Clinton tweet, “Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported?” You’d think this hypocrisy would make even liberals cringe.
Does Ms. Durkan believe sexual crime victims are to be heard, believed, and supported, unless they accuse Democrats? I could be wrong, but I’d assume Ms. Durkan sides with her fellow Democrats on this issue, but she obviously gave no similar benefit of the doubt to Murray’s alleged sexual assault victims.
While Seattle’s cops are not likely to fare much better if Cary Moon beats Jenny Durkan to become mayor, which is not likely, at least Ms. Moon had the good sense to call for Mayor Murray to step down months ago.
Of course, Mayor Murray didn’t endorse Ms. Moon; he endorsed Ms. Durkan. So, I guess we’ll never know if Ms. Moon would have stayed in Murray’s corner had he endorsed her instead. But, there is one important thing the cops know for sure: Jenny Durkan is no friend of police officers.
