Watching the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of white supremacist election deniers, I assumed I’d need to delay my column about Seattle policing. Among other things, new data visualizations from the University of Washington Communication Leadership program (published throughout this column) show that an overwhelming majority of Seattle police officers live outside of Seattle. It’s a fact with deep financial and cultural implications for the movement to defund the Seattle Police Department (SPD).
During a historic and shocking day in Washington D.C. in which a violent mob of Trump-supporting terrorists stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday as the Electoral College vote was scheduled to occur, local elected officials in Seattle and Washington State condemned today’s anti-democratic actions. The chaos spread to Washington State when a group of dozens of Trump supporters occupied the grounds of the Governor’s Mansion in Olympia.
