[consumer451]

Accurate, but as OP, I didn't post this as "local news."

I posted this because it is objective evidence against the arguments made by the current US federal government for sending troops into Seattle ~"to quell the violence."

I believe that this threat is unprecedented since the mid 1800's, has impacts on the tech sector, how other countries behave going forward, and world history in general.

If I am off-base here, I would genuinely like to hear the counter arguments.

[prewett]

The article pointedly does not go into why the decrease happened, or what the trend has been. It would be consistent with the facts in the article if the City of Seattle saw Trump's actions with other cities and said, "we don't want that, maybe we should re-fund the police." Or perhaps Seattle never actually de-funded them in the first place, and has just focused efforts on reducing violent crime, because they were wanting to do that anyway and/or because they wanted to avoid giving Trump any excuse to send troops to Seattle. I am appalled at Trump, but this article does not necessarily prove him wrong.

[consumer451]

> maybe we should re-fund the police.

When I first heard "de-fund the police" as a slogan, I figured that phrase must have been run by Frank Luntz, just to make sure it made progressives (this includes myself, to some extent) sound as dumb as possible. I mean, he could not have focus-grouped a better phrase. It's hilarious, if you think that dark humor is funny.

All that aside, the reality is:

> In one version of the story, yes-ish. Parking enforcement and 911 call center response were moved out of the police department. Restructuring the 911 system has become an important step in many cities' efforts to reduce armed police response to civilians. Dispatchers are the gatekeepers of the criminal justice system: They are tasked with identifying true public safety emergencies and deciding what resources—armed or unarmed—should respond. (Parking enforcement was later moved back into the police department.)

> But in another version of the story, no. While the police department lost a little over 10% of its budget between 2020 and 2021 (mostly because 911 dispatch and parking enforcement were moved), it has been closing that gap since.

> Tellingly, not a single sworn officer has lost their job or pay due to budget constraints. In fact, the department has consistently received more funding for hiring than it can spend. And yet, the myth that the police department was defunded persists, partly because budgets are convoluted and boring, and because it's an easy answer for the police departments' woes.

https://www.kuow.org/stories/did-seattle-defund-the-police

It's crazy how hard, under Biden, that NPR station had to dance around the simple objective fact that: No. Seattle did not "de-fund the police." Actually, SPD got more money than they could spend.