by Paul Faruq Kiefer
(This article originally appeared on PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
A month has passed since the Seattle Police Department (SPD) moved its mobile precinct to the intersection of Third Avenue and Pine Street in downtown Seattle, scattering an open-air market for drugs and stolen merchandise that had recently been the scene of two murders.
Continue reading A Month After ‘Operation New Day’ Crackdown, Impacts on Crime Remain Unclearby Paul Faruq Kiefer
(This article originally appeared on PubliCola and has been reprinted with permission.)
When the only work release facility for women in King County closed last November, it sparked no public outcry — in fact, Washington’s Department of Corrections (DOC) didn’t even announce it was closing. But for women from King County awaiting their transfer from prison to a work release facility, the closure of the Helen B. Ratcliff House in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood presented a new hurdle.
Continue reading Closure of King County’s Only Work Release for Women Raises Gender Equity Questionsby Paul Faruq Kiefer
(This article was originally published on PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
The Seattle City Council is backpedaling its plans to add diversion to the Seattle City Attorney’s list of mandatory responsibilities.
Earlier this year, City Council President Lorena González said she would propose legislation to require the city attorney to send some misdemeanor cases to diversion programs instead of filing charges. Instead, on Thursday, Dec. 9, González introduced a pared-down bill that would require the city attorney to notify the Council 90 days before making any changes to, or eliminating, the office’s diversion programs and provide quarterly reports to the Council about the effectiveness of any diversion programs.
Continue reading Council Changes Course, Won’t Require City Attorney to Run Diversion Programsby Paul Faruq Kiefer
(This article originally appeared on PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
After a grueling 13-hour mediation on the night of Monday, Nov. 29, the family of Charleena Lyles reached a $3.5 million settlement with the City of Seattle and two Seattle police officers, ending a four-year-long wrongful death lawsuit that began when the officers shot and killed Lyles in her Magnuson Park home in June 2017.
“This has been a horrible case. Shameful,” said Karen Koehler, the lead attorney representing Lyles’ family, during a press conference at the Stritmatter law firm on Tuesday afternoon. On a television behind her, Lyles’ eldest daughter — watching from her aunt’s house in California, seated in front of a Christmas tree — leaned off-screen to cry.
Continue reading Family of Charleena Lyles Reaches Settlement With City of Seattle for 2017 Shootingby Paul Faruq Kiefer
(This article previously appeared on PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
Starting Jan. 1, King County will have a new interim sheriff: Patti Cole-Tindall, previously an undersheriff in the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO), will assume the role until County Executive Dow Constantine appoints a permanent sheriff in mid-2022.
Last year, county voters approved a charter amendment that sets up a process for appointing, rather than electing, the King County sheriff. Tindall will be King County’s first appointed sheriff in more than two decades.
Continue reading Patti Cole-Tindall Announced as Interim King County Sheriffby Paul Faruq Kiefer
(This article originally appeared on PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
The Seattle City Council voted Thursday, Nov. 19, to leave Mayor Jenny Durkan’s proposal for the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) 2022 budget largely untouched, and, in the process, put an internal messaging battle — whether to attempt to make peace with SPD or repurpose dollars from the department’s budget in the future — in the spotlight.
The council’s decision to leave Durkan’s budget largely untouched was overshadowed by a dramatic last-minute press release from interim Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz, who inaccurately claimed that Council President Lorena González had proposed eliminating more than 100 officers’ jobs. In reality, González’s amendment would have eliminated 101 positions that SPD doesn’t expect to fill in 2022. While Durkan’s budget has already redistributed the unspent salaries for other purposes in 2022, the amendment would have allowed the council to repurpose more than $17 million in future years.
Continue reading In Reversal, Council Keeps Durkan’s Expanded Police Budget Mostly Intactby Paul Faruq Kiefer
(This article originally appeared on PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
The Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) staffing goals for 2022 are extremely ambitious and could leave the department with millions in unspent salaries, according to a staff presentation to the City Council’s Budget Committee on Friday, Oct. 15.
More than 300 sworn officers have left the department since January 2020. In 2022, SPD hopes to begin replenishing its ranks, starting with the restoration of 31 paid positions that the council eliminated last year. That proposal would leave SPD with a total of 1,357 funded officer positions, but the department can’t realistically fill all of those positions in a year; instead, SPD estimates that it would end 2022 with 134 vacancies.
Continue reading SPD’s 2022 Budget Proposal Relies on Optimistic Hiring Projectionsby Paul Faruq Kiefer
(This article originally appeared on PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
On the evening of Thursday, Sept. 23, a coalition of Seattle City employee unions reached a tentative agreement with the City of Seattle about the enforcement of the City’s new mandatory vaccination policy. The agreement, which outlines rules for vaccination exemptions and offers paid time off for vaccinated employees, now needs the approval of both the unions’ membership and the City Council. Union members will vote on the agreement this weekend.
On Friday, Sept. 24, both Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and City labor leadership heralded the agreement as a key victory in the City’s fight to control the spread of COVID-19. Karen Estevenin, the executive director of PROTEC17, which represents employees across multiple City departments, told PubliCola the union coalition didn’t object to the vaccine mandate itself but wanted to give City employees a hand in shaping how the mandate will play out in their workplace.
“One of the key benefits of having a union is that workers have a voice on policy changes that affect their workplaces and their livelihoods,” she said. “By negotiating the terms of the vaccine mandate, we wanted to ensure that this was a fair, transparent, and equitable policy for all City employees.”
Continue reading City Reaches Agreement With Unions on Vaccine Mandates; SPOG Agreement Still to Comeby Paul Faruq Kiefer
(This article originally appeared on PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
On the morning of Thursday, Sept. 18, a Seattle Municipal Court judge approved a motion by Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes to quash all outstanding warrants for misdemeanor prostitution, including some issued well over a decade ago.
Continue reading Court Approves City Attorney’s Motion To Clear Outstanding Prostitution Warrantsby Paul Kiefer
(This article originally appeared on PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
The last time the City of Seattle launched a new department — Seattle Information Technology, which brought IT staff from across the city under one roof — the consolidation took years. “In contrast, we had about eight months,” said Chris Lombard, who leads the City’s newest department: the Community Safety and Communications Center (CSCC), which began work at the beginning of June.
In some ways, creating the CSCC involved fewer moving parts than the infamously messy set-up of the massive citywide IT department. When plans to move the parking enforcement unit to the CSCC fell through this spring, Lombard was left overseeing a single, crucial service: Seattle’s 911 call center. The center, historically a civilian unit inside the Seattle Police Department, will play a key role in the City’s efforts to shift away from a police-centric approach to public safety, and the City’s decision to house the 911 call center in the new department was one of the first concrete steps in that effort.
Continue reading Seattle’s Newest Department Aims to Change the City’s Response to Crisis Calls
