- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, one of the longest-ruling dictators of the modern age, who was also one of the butchers of Yemen, died just a few days ago. The official US response was flags at half-mast on embassies and weepy pieces about what a great ruler he was.
There is an impulse on much of the left, born out of sheer desperation for alternatives, to see anything that goes against US-centric global dominance as positive and progressive. I've seen more than a few people I mostly like post about cleaning Mariupol of nazis in triumphant tones, or posting soviet flags when defending current Russia as a lone bastion against NATO hegemony. The fact that present-day Russia may well be the world's most conservative, religious and elite-dominated country after Saudi Arabia doesn't register for them.
But sometimes just because you are paranoid, it does not mean they are not out to get you. even the break-up pf communist Russia was started with the understanding that there would be a new Marshal Plan to bring the whole hemisphere into a big peaceful common prosperity. even post-Nazi Germany got some cash, after all! It was worth it to avoid a global conflagration, right? Right? By the time it became clear that was a pipe dream, the ball was already rolling. Then followed one of the most severe peacetime mortalities in history, and the life expectancy for russian males dropped to 57, while western "do gooders" carved up everything of value, then applauded Yeltsin, an unstable, bloodthristy thug, when he shelled the parliament and then went on to slaughter Chechnya.
NATO kept creeping East even though the enemy was no longer there. Just a big friendly group of pals, but no, of course you Ivans can't join, because, um, reasons.
So yeah, it's alright to avoid an angry, biting dog. But the people who have been kicking it every week until it goes psycho don't get a pass. Especially when just last month they were gleefuly going "Oh, your island nation wants to host a chinese base? It'd be a shame if we had to boil your cities from the face of the Earth."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/26/us-wont-rule-out-military-action-if-china-establishes-base-in-solomon-islands
Zelensky was elected with a never before seen margin because the whole game of cultural divide was already bleeding the country dry and keeping it poor and desperate. He reneged on that very early on, bringing the far-right elements that were not actively foaming at the mouth into government, felalting Bandera and such, and his approval rating were in the toilet before stupid Putin did him the favor of invading. At this point, 44% of the country's voters of the last election have had their parties outlawed. About half of those BEFORE the invasion.
Until evidence to the contrary, I really do believe western support of Ukraine is just the Soviet-Afghan War part 2; boosting a neighboring rival of a power you don't like with endless guns, nix all talk of diplomacy or peace, and then leave when the game is up, with the very worst, hardened, most violent faction of that place left in charge. First it was salafi fundamentalists, now it'll be bona-fide nazis. Zelenski will be in hot water again six months after Russia gives up and he gets caught in a scandal after the economy remains lovely, or will just move to the UK to be feasted by NGOs until his dying day. They'll be left holding the tiller.
"Oh there you go again, not all Ukrainians are Azov, they only got 4% in the vote, yadda yadda". Yeah, the hardcore wing tends to shrink when the main body of the movement learnes to wear a suit and say the quiet part quiet, then penetrates other parties. The US has its perception warped by having had a two-party system for so long, but trust me, here in Brazil the fash wave that lifted Bolsonaro in a tidal wave in under 2 years had even Labour parties like PDT accepting reactionary figures to surf the wave. After this, they1ll be flush with cash, weapons and prestige, andhave carte blanche to 'pacify' eastern Ukraine while the west grants them the same blind eye it afford to Turkey, Israel and KSA.
At this point, there are no real good options. Maybe building a time machine and going back 15 years, when US-Russia relations were somewhat decent in the wake of the war on 'Terror', and hammering out an actual treaty with spheres of influence, demilitarized zones, and enough integration to make it stick.
Ah yeah we have to just let Russia invade its former imperial possessions with impunity because the US is also bad, got it. Also, advocating for formalizing spheres of influence? Along with this talk of a time machine it seems you have fallen out of 1875 and the Great Game is afoot.
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May 16, 2022 03:34
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May 10, 2024 16:02
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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I feel like it's impossible for some people to understand that America can absolutely be bad and do imperialist things, but also that we don't have a monopoly on imperialism and other countries can do it too.
These people are, as my mother used to say, "more Catholic than the pope" except replace catholic with leftist. Anything America supports must be reflexively fought against because America Bad. Even if you work yourself into supporting an invasion of a country for having the temerity to be a sovereign state!
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May 16, 2022 03:40
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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That isn't what I'm arguing for, I'm bringing up hypotheticals. No, Russia should not be arming Donbas because I don't believe in proxy armament in general, but my point is, when Russia arms Donbas, it's construed as Russian imperialism, but America arming Ukraine is... not American imperialism. That doesn't work as a thought process.
Also, America is encouraging Ukraine to disengage from any peace talks, didn't encourage them from getting rid of NATO ambitions despite that destabilizing the region before the invasion kicked off, etc. That's a far cry from a "stop resisting" metaphor you should really stop using as it's kinda gross. Ukraine could've de-escalated the situation and didn't. Russia very obviously could've de-escalated the situation and didn't. I've already made my position clear, of two Ukraines, so implying that I'm arguing for total capitulation from Ukraine is puzzling me.
We didn't arm Ukraine until Russia stole their land and created two puppet governments in Donbas followed by uniformed invasion. Helping a nation defend itself is not imperialistic. Invading that nation is, hth.
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May 16, 2022 03:50
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Why is the US helping exactly
Because realistically the US is the only government that could provide that level of meaningful support to keep Ukraine from being turned into Novorossiya and generally speaking that is a good thing. Or are you advocating that we should let an aggressive nation invade its neighbors at will with impunity as Russia has been doing with Georgia, Ukraine, Abkhazia?
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May 16, 2022 03:55
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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This is only true if you don't consider aggression against brown people to be aggression
That isn't an answer to the question I was asking? That's just further rationalization for why it's good
You asked why it was the US helping. I told you why. If you don't like that answer, too bad. It's still the answer. Not to mention Ukraine begged for help from anyone who would give it, because they face an existential threat to their continued existence as a nation and people.
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May 16, 2022 03:58
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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How is the US the only government that could do this? There are no other countries that could do so?
What other countries can summon $32 billion dollars in military aid on a whim without bankrupting themselves? And then do that level of spending multiple times? China maybe? The EU as a collective? Good luck tho, Germany barely had anything to send at all. This is the result of relying on the American military umbrella for most of the last 50 years.
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May 16, 2022 04:01
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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The EU is militarily toothless as evidenced by their best economic power being so militarily useless they could only sent 5000 helmets instead of guns and armor. They still haven't sent the Marders either. The EU wouldn't be able to do this.
And China supports Russia in this. So Ukraine gets help from America or it ceases to exist.
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May 16, 2022 04:05
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Luckily, Russia is getting to find out exactly why the US doesn't have universal healthcare.
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May 16, 2022 04:07
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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I'm sorry I keep expecting people to give more thoughtful responses than "the US did it because Ukraine needed it"
If you consider that a sufficient answer to describe US intent, you should be able to explain why it matters here when it doesn't matter elsewhere, especially in light of the US's active participation in imperial violence in places that are not Ukraine
You're not giving anything worth responding to and even then the answers you are getting are still correct and valid even if you don't like them because you can't whataboutism your way out of it
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May 16, 2022 04:08
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Please refer me to the post where I condoned the Russian invasion or said that Russia's invasion was not destabilizing the region.
You condone the invasion by proxy when you use Putin's talking points to argue against supporting Ukraine, which youve done throughout the thread. If you're against supporting Ukraine's defense against aggression seeking to genocide the Ukrainian people then you can't claim to not condone the actions later.
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May 16, 2022 04:26
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Again responding to "why is the US helping" with "the US is helping because they're the only ones that can help" is not an answer. The US could have stopped Saudi Arabia from committing genocide in Yemen but instead we actively helped them do it. Was it because Saudi asked for help and the US just helps anybody who asks regardless of the situation? I kinda doubt it. You can call it whataboutism if you want but to me it just looks like you're actively avoiding pattern recognition
I don't think "Ukraine asked" is a sufficient explanation. I'm not sure what the point of showing the world the Russian army sucks is, either. I'm also not sure why defunding Nazification makes sense here given the US's historic support of fascism abroad. None of it actually posits any kind of intent either, which it feels like both of you are eliding
Is this a joke or are you seriously suggesting this, because if it's the latter, it is completely unmoored from reality because "western leftists" have zero material control over the US response to the war
"Yes 911, my home has been invaded by armed men and they're shooting my family, send help"
"Sorry, asking for help isn't a good enough reason. *click*"
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May 16, 2022 04:29
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Literally what we've done to Yemen, Palestine, and Ethiopia but go off.
Miss me with that whataboutism poo poo
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May 16, 2022 04:49
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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I never said they didn't help. I said the scale at which they could help is not one that can match the United States. Nothing in those articles indicates that they are able to conjure $35+ billion dollars multiple times like the US.
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May 16, 2022 04:50
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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That's not whataboutism, it is explaining the point that was made. That asking for help is insufficient. That the existence of a humanitarian crisis is insufficient. When you're arguing from ethical principles, you're arguing nonsense, because the United States never has and never will intervene in a nation's affairs for ethical reasons. The United States intervenes when it benefits the United States. Regardless of whether you believe whether US military involvement in Ukraine is justifiable on ethical grounds, that is absolutely not why the United States is there.
Of course it isnt and I never argued that was the sole reason why we are helping. It absolutely serves US core foreign policy and national security interests for there to be a weak Russia that can't continue doing what it has been doing. My point is that there is an overlap this time between interest serving actions and the ethically, morally right thing to do. And it being hypocritical with regards to Yemen etc doesn't make it any less ethically or morally right to do, along with being the only country which has a reasonable and easy ability to supply financial and military aid at scale that nobody else that is morally and ethically aligned (see, EU/NATO) is able to match. Hypocrisy doesn't negate that.
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May 16, 2022 05:11
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Even in this scenario, you're the one arguing that billions of dollars in arms should be handed to Saddam Hussain, lol.
I know I've disagreed with you earlier but on this we agree, this is the right take imo
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May 16, 2022 05:16
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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If the alternative is having continents fall to war and nuke spin in their siles whenever one power steps onto another's turf, by design or accident? Yes, formalize spheres of power. My enture subcontinent had their governments knocked over in favor of military juntas backing the same country, but hey, there's no Great Game afoot! Everyone is free to chase their national self-determination!
Pretending they don't exist is pointless and serves only to let some people believe they don't live in an empire.
Do the Solomon Islands get to host a chinese military base? How is that any different from Putin not wanting NATO nukes within 10 minutes of Moscow?
Same poo poo, different flag.
E: okay I understand now, gimme a bit to think about it and reply
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May 16, 2022 05:34
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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The thing you don't seem to be able to quite get hold of is that the US isn't doing "hypocrisy" here except as it relates to the language it uses to spin its involvement in the war to the public, which is irrelevant when you're trying to figure out what the US is actually doing. It's doing exactly what it always does in Ukraine, it has not changed its behavior
If the US running guns for Ukraine happens to dovetail with the correct ethical, moral course, that's just simple coincidence, and if conditions shift in such a way that US interests no longer align with the correct ethical, moral course, the US is not going to make any effort to adjust to follow it because ethics and morals were never actually a US consideration in the first place. They would not "disregard" the ethical, moral course or any other similar verb, because it was always entirely orthogonal
That.. Was exactly my point? I specifically said IN THIS CASE that ethics and morals aligned with US interests. I'm not sure what you're driving at because what I posted and what you're talking about here seem to align. If US interests shifted overnight to, say, pro-Russia interests (in the event of a Trump 2024 victory for example), I would expect that aid to stop overnight. I'm not naive or stupid, I specifically limited what I was talking about to this circumstance.
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May 16, 2022 06:58
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Woo! Cawthorn got primaried!
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/17/madison-cawthorn-gop-primary-results-polls-close-in-north-carolina.html
CNBC posted:
Rep. Madison Cawthorn, the scandal-prone freshman lawmaker backed by former President Donald Trump, conceded defeat in his Republican primary election, Cawthorns spokesman told reporters Tuesday night.
Cawthorn called State Sen. Chuck Edwards to concede the race, the spokesman said, according to NBC News. Edwards had been endorsed by U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
NBC has yet to project a winner in Cawthorns congressional district.
Congratulations to @ChuckEdwards4NC on securing the nomination tonight, Cawthorn said in a tweet. Its time for the NC-11 GOP to rally behind the Republican ticket to defeat the Democrats nominee this November.
North Carolina voters on Tuesday had already decided who will compete in one of this years critical U.S. Senate races: Rep. Ted Budd will win the Republican Senate primary in the race to fill the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr, NBC projected.
Budd is backed both by Trump and the influential conservative group Club for Growth. He will face off in the general election against Cheri Beasley, the former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, who NBC projected would handily clinch the Democratic nomination.
The swing-state contest is one of a handful that will determine whether Democrats keep their majority in the Senate split 50-50 by party.
Cawthorn is one of 13 U.S. House members from North Carolina. Now 26 years old, Cawthorn was the youngest member of Congress when he was elected in 2020. His seat, which was previously held by ex-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, is a safe Republican district.
Nevertheless, the first-term lawmakers reelection bid became one of the states most-watched primary races, thanks to a wide range of scandals and missteps that spurred harsh criticism even from some Republicans.
The controversies swirling around Cawthorn include: making claims about other lawmakers doing illicit drugs and inviting him to orgies; driving with a revoked license; bringing a loaded handgun to an airport; being eyed by ethics watchdogs over suspicions about possible insider trading related to a meme cryptocurrency; calling Ukraines president a thug amid an invasion by Russia; and others.
Tillis came out swinging against Cawthorn. He endorsed Edwards, a top rival in the GOP primary. A political action committee affiliated with Tillis reportedly spent more than $300,000 on ads attacking Cawthorn. And after the watchdogs raised concerns of possible insider trading, Tillis openly called for a congressional ethics investigation into Cawthorn.
Trump, meanwhile, defended Cawthorn in a social media post over the weekend.
Recently, he made some foolish mistakes, which I dont believe hell make again, Trump said of Cawthorn, adding, Lets give Madison a second chance!
Asked by NBC News about Trumps post, Tillis replied, Technically, this is the sixth or seventh chance.
He hasnt learned from a mistake hes made over the last year, the senator said of Cawthorn.
I don't know anything about the guy that won the primary. Chances are, he's worse than Cawthorn.
E: gently caress, beaten. But I posted an article!
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May 18, 2022 07:44
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Politicians used to know how to do the right thing for the country...
Bud Dwyer was not guilty of what he was accused of, he wouldn't be exonerated until after his death unfortunately. I can't imagine what that must have felt like, to know you're not guilty of something but nobody believes it so you dome yourself out of desperation on Pennsylvania TV.
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May 19, 2022 00:29
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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I was misinformed then, I apologize!
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May 19, 2022 06:04
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Has this ever happened? Has there been a rampage style mass shooting that ended this way?
IIRC the Parkland shooter tried to blend in with escaping kids and was recognized that way
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May 25, 2022 20:50
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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There will never be any gun legislation because the ruling class wasn't even able to do anything about 1/6, a literal attack on the fabric of their power structure, so nobody should expect these mass shootings to ever stop or to do anything except speed up and get worse.
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May 26, 2022 19:42
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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The only thing Beto did that got any respect from me is when he outright said he would take away people's guns and didn't beat around the bush
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May 26, 2022 19:50
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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I also want ratte
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May 27, 2022 06:24
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Many want many things. Speak to me a word of power and I shall use it to divine an image to catjail you with. Beware though that depending on the power levels of said image it may vary between 6 and 24 hours
Russell Wilson
(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 27, 2022 06:28
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Just because a tool is extremely useful for a task doesn't mean it causes the task to happen. jesus christ.
The only purpose of a gun is to kill. Literally the only purpose. It has no other purpose except to kill whatever it is pointed at. Hunting? You killed that animal. Target shooting? Great shot, you killed the paper target with a headshot. Home defense? You killed the person intruding (or more likely, you just killed your spouse or child. Whoops!). Personal defense at a protest or whatever? You probably just got YOURSELF killed because you're carrying a tool of death in public, and if you didn't get yourself killed then if you have to use it, congrats you probably just killed in "self defense". It all comes down to KILLING. That is what guns ARE FOR.
A car has many other purposes in addition to "use as a battering ram to run over protestors". An axe or knife has other uses like "chopping firewood" and "cutting steak" in addition to chopping people and stabbing people.
A gun's ONLY purpose is to kill. Point blank. You can brandish it as a threat because it is intrinsically understood that the only thing you do with a gun is kill with it. That's WHY brandishing is a threat, and subsequently a crime. I don't know why this has to be explained to you.
HonorableTB fucked around with this message at 20:44 on May 27, 2022
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May 27, 2022 20:38
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Seattle had 88 fatal shootings last year and 372 people wounded by gunfire in the one of the bluest cities in one of the bluest states that also has some of the strongest local and state gun restrictions in place nationwide. I don't know if those numbers are better used in comparison to places without such gun restrictions to show how relatively fewer people get shot here vs elsewhere, or to use them as evidence that even these restrictions aren't good enough and more should be done.
Personally I think it should be both. There aren't any gun shops in the city limits, or ammo shops afaik. I'm unsure if you can still get guns at pawn shops, but probably so. I don't normally go to pawn shops but in GA I was able to buy a Mosin Nagant about 12 years back so it's not shocking. But guns here are rather difficult to get compared to elsewhere. No Walmarts in the city limits to sell shotguns, for example.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/592130-seattle-area-sees-record-gun-violence-in-2021/
HonorableTB fucked around with this message at 21:23 on May 27, 2022
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May 27, 2022 21:20
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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If someone with any amount of credibility, and I know it's hard to think of one these days so let's just say Dwayne Johnson, if Dwayne Johnson ran for election in 2024 as an independent with the platform of "If elected I will immediately declare a state of emergency, dissolve Congress, and rule by executive order until this country is set right and people can live without fear and with faith in the future?" what counterarguments would the Republicans and Democrats be able to mount against that?
Remember, things are only going to get worse. After two more years of school shootings, two more years of rising house prices, two more years of rising food prices. If that's not enough, what about in 6 years? How much longer can things keep getting worse before people will be willing to take a chance at a different political system?
The Republicans would immediately draft Johnson into their primary because the chuds would be howling for it. They don't need a counterargument because The Rock says he's going to enact their ultimate goals
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Jun 3, 2022 22:53
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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As someone from Washington State, that has seen Walking Tall, and a wrestling fan; this puts me in an uncomfortable position.
I'd vote for Corporate Heel Rock if he cut promos every time he got in front of a microphone. I bet Mick Foley would too
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Jun 3, 2022 23:19
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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McCormick has just conceded to Oz in the PA race, meaning it's Oz vs Fetterman in the general. I expect a lot of media attention on that race.
Fetterman's cardiologist was talking about the stroke he had a while back and casually dropped that fetterman also has cardiomyopathy
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Jun 4, 2022 00:22
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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whats he doin to help citizens here though
(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 5, 2022 00:17
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Lmao everyone is pissed off and has a bleak outlook for the future and this seems to be a nationwide outlook among everyone and the political class is completely unable to do anything about it. The PNW is the same way. Everything we won in the 2020 protests was just given away at the ballot box. Nothing mattered
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Jun 7, 2022 15:26
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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The last time we had a left leaning populist in a position of national influence and authority before Bernie Sanders was the Kingfish Huey Long and you see what happened to him when he got too big for his pants when it came to challenging FDR and the New Deal.
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Jun 9, 2022 17:25
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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If anyone is interested in a very good podcast on this topic, I'd suggest listening to Robert Evans' "It Could Happen Here". It originally started off as a 9 part series on how exactly a second American Civil War could happen based on a combination of facts, historical precedent, and his own experiences as a war reporter covering two real world civil wars. It was started back up again after a couple of years and is now a daily releasing show, and I can't speak to the quality of the newer episodes but however I highly recommend everyone at least listen to the original nine part series. It's pretty much everywhere podcasts are. Episode length is reasonable too, between 30-40 minutes per ep.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-it-could-happen-here-30717896/
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Jun 9, 2022 21:47
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Patriot Front are an organization of on-the-ground brownshirts.
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Jun 12, 2022 00:22
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Coeur D'Alene is a suburb of Spokane which is one of the major chud centers of Eastern Washington. I'm not surprised by this at all
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Jun 12, 2022 06:52
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Violent crime has gone up a lot in Seattle, along with property crime (which was already high). What is to be done when the police literally refuse to do their jobs?
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...nal-memo-shows/
Seattle police stopped investigating new adult sexual assaults this year posted:
Seattle polices sexual assault and child abuse unit staff has been so depleted that it stopped assigning to detectives this year new cases with adult victims, according to an internal memo sent to interim police Chief Adrian Diaz in April.
The units sergeant put her staffing crisis in stark terms.
The community expects our agency to respond to reports of sexual violence, Sgt. Pamela St. John wrote, and at current staffing levels that objective is unattainable.
Law enforcement agencies here and across the country have grappled with labor shortages during the pandemic and since the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd. But Seattles failure to staff its sexual assault unit stands out from other local police departments and raises questions about the Seattle Police Departments priorities, advocates say.
The memo, sent April 11, emerged amid a wave of new political promises for policing in Seattle. Last fall, Seattle voters elected a new mayor who rejected calls to defund the police and campaigned on a platform to clear public spaces of homeless encampments and strengthen public safety.
Behind the scenes, police leaders confronting an ongoing staffing crisis shored up patrol and positions that respond to homeless encampments, while some investigative units shrunk.
Now the departments lack of attention to its sexual assault unit is threatening the viability of cases, as delayed investigations and evidence collection possibly hinder their outcomes.
In the memo, St. John went on to say that she was not able to assign adult sexual assault cases that came into her unit. Cases involving children and adult cases that had a suspect in custody a fraction of adult sexual assaults reported to police were being prioritized. The unit just had too few detectives.
Those concerns bear out in fewer referrals from the sexual assault unit to prosecutors. King County prosecutors say theyve communicated with the sexual assault unit about understaffing concerns, but little has changed.
Assistant Chief Deanna Nollette in an interview with The Seattle Times and KUOW this week dismissed St. Johns portrayal of what was happening in her unit as not accurate and a gross oversimplification.
Sexual assault cases are still being assigned, but the workload is being triaged based on a number of factors that we would traditionally use to triage those cases, Nollette said.
Nollette emphasized that staffing shortages were being felt across the department. She did not provide an up-to-date count of how many adult sexual assault cases were on hold, although detectives in the unit are keeping a list with dozens of cases.
Other political leaders expressed skepticism at the idea that departmentwide understaffing was to blame for the sexual assault units predicament.
Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, a senior deputy King County prosecutor who has led efforts in the Legislature to improve treatment of sexual assault victims, said the sexual assault units problems were about priorities, not adequate staffing.
I cannot really tell you how pissed I am about this, Dhingra said. Because it is completely unacceptable. This is 2022. We should not be having this conversation about allocating resources for survivors.
The staffing crisis at the Seattle Police Department is not new.
The department has been losing officers since the beginning of 2020, and staff levels plummeted to a new low at the end of 2021. Whereas 2020 began with 1,290 officers in service, by March 2022 those numbers dropped to 968 well below the departments own projections and what the city expected to spend on salaries.
Nollette defended the sexual assault units low staff numbers, saying units across the department felt the impact of the losses. The sexual assault unit wasnt even the most affected, she said.
I could bring anybody in here from anywhere in the department and they would tell you the same story, Nollette said.
Seattle police staffing numbers presented to the Seattle City Council on April 26 show that the reductions in the workforce have not been felt evenly across the department.
According to council central staff, the percent of the force in operations support which includes training and personnel on extended leave and the patrol division has increased while investigative units have thinned. Diaz explained that maintaining patrol numbers wasnt just important for trying to control 911 response times, but also for taking in reports of rape and sexual assault.
If we dont have an officer to respond to sexual assault, were never going to have the followup to be able to investigate it, Diaz told the council. So Ive tried to make sure weve maintained our patrol staffing levels.
At the top of the departments priorities for investigating adult sexual assault cases are those with suspects in custody, according to an internal response to St. Johns memo a small portion of the cases the unit typically sees.
Now, the unit maintains a list of new adult sexual assault cases its simply unable to investigate for lack of detectives, according to internal communications at the department obtained by KUOW.
Currently, the sexual assault unit has five detectives to respond to sexual assault and child abuse reports for the entire city, which has had 225 sex offenses reported so far this year, according to the departments crime data. Yet other units that dont investigate violent crime have more staff.
The departments Alternative Response Team the unit that responds to homeless encampment removals is now staffed by twice the number of officers on the sexual assault unit after an additional seven patrol officers were added to the unit this year. The departments general investigations unit, which investigates property crime, has 12 detectives. Far more property crimes are reported to Seattle police each year than sexual assault, but they are simpler to investigate.
When you have businesses that are the single biggest loss leaders in the country telling you, We are going to close our businesses and leave the city of Seattle if we dont do something about the crime, we have a responsibility as a department to try to do what we can do to support them with policing, Nollette said.
The department has allowed investigative units, including the sexual assault unit, to fall from 16% of the total sworn force in 2020 to 14% currently, while the proportion of police in areas including patrol, leadership and operations support has increased.
The understaffing in the sexual assault unit has drained the morale of its employees, most of whom are overworked and burned out, according to a detective in the unit who requested anonymity because SPD policy prohibited them from speaking with the media. While detectives struggle to make a dent in large child abuse and sexual assault caseloads, the department has also drafted them to work security and traffic control at sporting events.
Sgt. St. John wrote the memo after a KUOW story in April that showed Seattle police were investigating few adult sexual assault cases while struggling to meet the demand required by law to quickly resolve cases involving children. St. John declined to comment for this story.
At the time St. John wrote the memo, 30 adult cases were waiting to be assigned to detectives, and 116 alerts showing that identifiable DNA from rape kits had been uploaded to a federal database and needed attention, St. John wrote to Diaz.
The sexual assault unit had historically been staffed with 10 to 12 detectives, St. John wrote, but that the unit could start chipping away at the backlog of adult sexual assault cases with eight.
Mayor Bruce Harrell declined to be interviewed for this story, though mayoral spokesperson Jamie Housen said that a detective had been added to the sexual assault unit this year.
Mayor Harrell has been unequivocal that SPD needs more officers to ensure specialty units are well staffed so that investigations are completed swiftly and thoroughly, Housen said by email.
Since St. Johns April 11 memo, detectives have started to receive assignments for new cases with adult victims, but the number of cases that are waiting to be investigated has grown. Even with an added detective, adult assignments are still falling by the wayside, according to the detective inside the sexual assault and child abuse unit.
There are now 48 adult assault cases that arent being investigated, according to the detective.
Since 2020, King County prosecutors have seen fewer sexual assault cases referred to their office from Seattle police. Between January and April of 2020, Seattle police referred 123 sexual assault and child abuse cases to prosecutors. In the same time period this year, prosecutors have received just 72 cases from Seattle police.
Ben Santos, chair of the King County Prosecuting Attorneys Special Assault Unit, said hes discussed the problem with St. John. He said on more than one occasion shes described dozens of cases sitting on her desk, unable to be assigned because of a lack of detectives.
[Seattle police leaders] are having to make really difficult choices right now, given that homicide and violent crime rates are up, Santos said. We have done our best to try and let people know what that means on the sexual assault side it means that these cases are not being investigated the way they should be.
He said if detectives are getting assigned a case later than they normally would, it makes it challenging to collect evidence thats temporary in nature, including surveillance video, third-party witnesses, and physical evidence.
I really think that to a degree the investigations themselves suffer, he said.
As do the victims. Santos said hes received reports that victims who go to Harborview Medical Center for treatment after being sexually assaulted can end up waiting hours to file a report with a Seattle officer.
Increasingly, victims of sexual assault who report their cases to Seattle police arent hearing anything back, said Mary Ellen Stone, CEO of the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center.
Seattles slowdown in investigating adult rape cases doesnt match what Stone has seen from other local law enforcement agencies.
We work with 38 jurisdictions, and while everybodys dealing with backlogs and everybodys dealing with staffing shortages, were not seeing something similar from other jurisdictions, Stone said.
Seattle City Council public safety committee chair Lisa Herbold said in an email she had been communicating with advocates who have raised the alarm about victims whose cases are not being investigated, though she was unaware of any policy within Seattle police to stop assigning adult rape cases to detectives.
The police department has planned to add yet another detective to the sexual assault unit this month to deal with caseload and staffing concerns, according to Nollette. But the long-term solution to understaffing in the sexual assault unit was to increase hiring across the department, Nollette said.
To that end, Harrell announced an initiative to increase police hires last month, while last week the council approved a proposal from Herbold to free up more than $1 million in unspent salary savings to fund new police hiring incentives and recruitment.
Advocates have stressed, however, that theyd like to see more transparency in how SPD allocates the resources it already has.
On Tuesday, a man reported to police that he had been raped at knifepoint.
His report was added to the list of stalled cases.
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Jun 13, 2022 17:37
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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take away their money and give it to people and departments that actually help people 
We did. We defunded them by a poo poo ton in 2020 and guess what happened
the libs voted to give it all right back to them in the most recent elections by electing a pro-cop mayor who is determined to hire 30% more cops, say hello to mayor bruce harrell
https://mynorthwest.com/3407618/mayor-harrell-seattle-comprehensive-plan-police-officers-hiring/
Mayor Bootlicker posted:
As the Seattle Police Department has continued to struggle with low staffing and high turnover amid growing concerns over public safety, Mayor Bruce Harrell believes that bringing more officers into the fold will require a multi-faceted approach in the months ahead.
Mayor Harrell unveils plan to ramp up police presence downtown amid surge in violence
Currently, SPD has over 900 sworn officers on duty, well short of its goal of having between 1,400 and 1,600. And while offering hiring bonuses was a sizable focus of the previous mayoral administration, Harrell believes those types of financial incentives are a small piece of a larger puzzle.
“The notion of incentive bonuses has come up — I’m not fully convinced that is the enticer,” he told KIRO Newsradio’s Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin. “We’re talking to the officers themselves and talking to public safety advocates. What is it that motivates you? Is it being on a great team, being appreciated, being respected, having the opportunity to build trust in schools with children?”
“What we’re looking at is a comprehensive package that we’ll develop before the budget,” he added. “We want to know that.”
And as Harrell pointed out, based on his own conversations with officers, “sometimes it’s not the money, it’s the other intangibles.”
So, what will entice officers to come to Seattle from other departments? Harrell says the city itself should be a significant selling point.
“This is still a phenomenal city,” he noted. “You want an industry, whether it’s high-tech, or biotech, or maritime, or port, or manufacturing, we have it here; freshwater, saltwater, mountains. We compete because we are the best city in this country and that’s not me being an evangelist, that’s just data.”
As for the officers who either left the department or were terminated as part of the COVID vaccine mandate for city employees, Harrell expressed that hiring them back is not currently under consideration.
“On the vaccine issue, I believe that we mandated it for a reason,” he explained. “I understand why someone may not want it and I support our first responders, make no mistake about this, but I think the data and the science would suggest that the vaccine is the way to go, and so I expect to lead by example.”
“I’m going to make this clear too, I don’t beg police officers to come back — I’m not in the begging business,” Harrell added. “We’re giving you an opportunity to protect and serve, if that’s what you want to do, in one of the greatest cities.”
That said, the mayor acknowledged concerns among many departing officers who have cited low morale and a lack of support from city hall as a reason for leaving the department, while stressing that improving morale is a two-way street.
“There’s one thing you have control of — you know what that is? Your own attitude, your own morale,” Harrell said. “When organizations say, ‘Well, we’ve got a morale problem,’ that’s something you have control over every single day you get out the bed. You have the ability to control your own attitude.”
“So I’m not begging officers to come back,” he clarified. “I’m inspiring them to come back.”
Seattle is not as progressive as many believe, it's every bit as liberal and NIMBY as San Francisco, quite possibly more so.
HonorableTB fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Jun 13, 2022
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Jun 13, 2022 17:59
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Moral absolutism means what it says on the tin. I’d call someone who starts a war of conquest to claim glory and resources for the “deserving” absolutist. There are clear moral claims being made that, while repugnant to us, are how a 1930s German racist would justify invading Poland, for example.
But that’s only an illustration of the definition, not an attempt to derail. It’s one that applies in a lot of contexts and no, I’m not claiming all moral absolutists are equally bad.
How do you categorize the Winter War?
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Jun 14, 2022 07:21
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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May 10, 2024 16:02
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- HonorableTB
- Dec 22, 2006
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Does Elon have American citizenship? If so, DeSantis is technically correct that he's an African-American, the worst kind of correct
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Jun 16, 2022 06:44
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May 16, 2022 03:34
