Seattle Cops Making Baaaaaank

There's a lot of money in teargassing civilians.

The Seattle City Council approved on Monday what are ideally the first steps in a major financial overhaul of the police department. It's not the straight-up “defunding" that activists want, but it's a start. The budget plan will remove about 100 police officers from the force — 32 will probably receive layoff notices but the remaining reductions will occur through attrition.

The department's SWAT team will see cuts, and the council will redirect funds from the Navigation team, which clears out homeless camps, to community programs that can help the homeless more constructively than just shouting, “Don't be homeless!"

There's also discussion of moving the 911 call center and parking enforcement out of police jurisdiction, as well as creating a public-safety department that could handle certain tasks without shooting anyone.

The City Council is considering deeper cuts that would eventually reduce the police budget by 50 percent next year — far more than the measly 20 percent cut that Chief Carmen Best and Mayor Jenny Durkan had proposed. But some council members worry about moving too fast. They've probably seen the Seattle PD's Twitter feed that's filled with photos of moderate property damage. Without the police, our capitalist society might collapse ... oh, and don't forget all the rapes. That would also be bad, but seriously, people would just go wild breaking Nordstrom windows.

[ Seattle Times / New York Times ]

 Follow Stephen Robinson on  Twitter.  

 Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .

Yr Wonkette is 100 percent ad-free and entirely supported entirely by reader donations. That's you! Please click the clickie, if you are able!