I wouldn’t have written about this issue again so soon if I hadn’t received the email below. Or if I thought this officer’s views were an anomaly. They’re not. And this city serves as an apt microcosm of what’s happening to law enforcement officers nationally.
Last month I attended my annual LEOSA qualification course. There, I met and chatted in line with many active and retired officers. I was saddened and amazed at what the active officers were saying about how they were being treated by the city. Not only have things not gotten any better since I retired, they’ve gotten worse.
The title of this piece is taken from a meme and photo, circulating on Facebook, showing just how bad things are for cops in the City of Seattle. The meme is adapted from 1971, when Seattle was experiencing a significant aerospace manufacturing and workforce reduction crisis at Boeing. The original photograph was of a billboard put up near SeaTac International Airport, giving final instructions to the last “Person Leaving Seattle….”
Okay, enough with the history lesson. So, how about a metaphor? I recently wrote about the Seattle Police Department hemorrhaging cops and finding it difficult to introduce a transfusion of fresh blood.
In that article I mentioned that after almost four years without one, officers overwhelmingly approved a contract. This is a contract that has taken the better part of the last four years to negotiate with the city. It is supported by Mayor Jenny Durkan (no traditional ally of Seattle’s cops), Chief Carmen Best (who has been actively promoting it), the Management Association (lieutenants and captains), and the command staff (deputy chief and assistant chiefs).
Even with this bipartisan support, far left radical city officials, apparently intent on municipal suicide, are balking at the hard-won contract. The eight-member, all-civilian Seattle Police Commission voted unanimously to recommend the city council reject the contract. City Councilwoman Lorena González agrees with them.
Now, while feigning intellectual contemplation, González wants an outside attorney to “review” (second-guess) the contract. There you go: the further left one goes, the more about everything one knows than anyone else.
Last I checked, Mayor Durkan is an attorney, the city had its assigned attorneys, and the police guild had its attorneys approve the contract. Nope, not good enough for Councilwoman González. I suppose she’ll be damned before the great men and women of the SPD get a raise. At least, she’s going to make it even more difficult than it already has been.
Back to my allusion regarding some city officials and their municipal suicidal tendencies. Making cops leave their jobs and qualified candidates not want to work in your city is suicide for any community (well, except for the criminals; they’re lovin’ it).
This media company, OpsLens, focuses on providing its readers and viewers with content provided by people who’ve actually done what they write about—they’ve been there, done that. Contributors write through the lens of experience. Hence the motto: Experience Matters.
It is in this spirit I share an email I received this morning about the many issues hampering the SPD’s ability to safely, effectively, and efficiently carry out its mission. It’s written by an officer who is currently on the receiving end of the anti-cop treatment being dished out by many in the city he or she has served for so long. The officer didn’t intend these words for public consumption, but I hope you find its rawness instructive. I wish every Seattle resident, and people living in every other leftist-infected jurisdiction, could read this officer’s words. The officer hasn’t always felt this way and doesn’t want to now.
Obviously, due to the city’s history of retaliation against officers with whose private, political opinions they disagree, which I’ve personally experienced, and many current officers rightly fear, I’m withholding the officer’s name.
However, I can vouch for this distinguished veteran’s professionalism, knowledge, and experience. He or she is a great cop and, I know, does not write these words lightly. She or he just wants to be able to do the job the way it’s supposed to be done, in a way that fights crime, rather than ignores it, and keeps people safe.
It’s not like this “exodus” [of police officers] sprung out of nowhere. The hints and warning signs were all over, they chose to ignore them. Instead “gagging” officers and punishing the outspoken ones, with the help of their “gestapo” disguised as the “office of professional accountability”.
Then a few months back, pushed by their over confidence blinded by their self-righteousness audacity and fueled with their contempt for knuckle dragging police officers, the mask came off [and] the name changed to “office of police accountability.”
There by implying police officers have been enjoying unaccountability for far too long… Game over “you evil mofos!” (cops).
The “leftist gestapo” lit their purification torches and started burning all of us satanic witches and sorcerers at their social justice stakes.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the knuckle draggers [cops] were doing their best to repel the hordes without a single simple thank you.
Emphasize the negatives is the strategy, those bozos can’t do anything right [except] their chants. Well as the saying goes, one can only take so much for so long until that last “straw” is added, one cannot take it anymore and the “structure” collapses.
The last straw was added by no other than city council activist Lorena Gonzalez, pushed by 8 volunteer cop hating activists also known and masquerading as cpc or community police commission. Typical pompous name for an uninformed motley crew with no real mandate nor any practical knowledge of a police officer’s job.
The damage is done, and you cannot undo it!
Officers are, and will continue, leaving this sunken ship, and no amount of money will stop this exodus.
This failure, disaster could have been avoided with a simple thank you and some show of appreciation for the extremely difficult, if not impossible, job police officers have been and continue to provide. No, their thank you: 4 years without a contract nor pay raise.
A job not a single one of those sjw [social justice warriors] activists is capable of doing. But hey, their far superior intellect fools them into believing they’re fighting for equity with dignity and empathy for the down trodden. Congratulations you have strayed onto the road to hell, enjoy!
And what about this alleged attorney? Lorena Gonzalez is having to hire outside counsel to review and understand our state and city labor laws, seriously?
Congratulations. You [city leaders] “won!”
My 2cents.
