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Rantz: Seattle Police Department ‘screwed’ as ‘catastrophic’ losses continue
Sep 11, 2022, 12:00 PM | Updated: 2:05 pm

BY JASON RANTZ
The Jason Rantz Show, 3pm-6pm on KTTH
As the city of Seattle experiences historically high crime, its police
department continues to dwindle and recruitment efforts continue to
fail. One former King County Sheriff puts it bluntly: “we’re screwed.”

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) lost six officers in August,
according to a police source, bringing the year’s total separations to
122 and nearly 500 since the city council opted to defund the police
department in 2020. What’s more alarming is the 350 officers that will
be eligible for retirement at the end of the year. If even a fraction
leaves the department, Seattle may not have a fully functioning police
department.

Union leadership warns the city is on the verge of an unimaginable
public safety crisis.

Rantz: King County refuses to jail dangerous suspects, still blames COVID

A depleted police department
Seattle saw 11 homicides in August, the single deadliest month since
2008, according to SPD records. And the police chief warns the city may
reach a 25-year-high homicide rate by the end of the year.

To Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) president officer Mike Solan,
the crime surge is a result of a depleted police department.

“There’s been a mass exodus of policing. The profession itself is almost
on its last breath. And what happens is that criminals fill the void
when there’s no law enforcement,” Solan warned on the Jason Rantz Show
on KTTH. “And when you connect to funding, and then you connect the
reform laws that were just absolutely catastrophic to our communities,
This is the sad result. And who ends up paying the price? Our communities.”

Before the start of the department’s mass exodus in 2019, which was
hastened in 2020, city leaders hoped for between 1,500 and 1,600
officers. Now, the city revised its numbers down to 1,400. But as of
August 28, the SPD only had 877 deployable officers, according to SPOG.

“These are catastrophic losses,” Solan says.

Solan warns that he’s most “fearful of the 350 that are eligible to
retire” and that “we’re very close” to a decimated SPD.

“We can’t even absorb another 20, 25. I mean, we’re already at or below
minimum safe status levels every patrol shift. People are getting burned
out with just augmenting for patrol watches, because there’s just so
much work out there. And they’ve worked so much. They’re tired. And then
they have all these special events, the stadiums, sporting events,
concerts, just trying to contain the crowds, traffic, all this stuff.
We’re trying to work through and manage post defunding. And it’s very
difficult, but it’s going to take strong leadership on both sides to get
something accomplished to protect the city from a complete disaster.”

Unfortunately, however, recruitment efforts are not yet delivering results.
SPD recruitment efforts are not working

According to an internal document obtained by the Jason Rantz Show on
KTTH, the SPD has only recruited or re-hired 41 officers to date. SPOG
projects that number will be 60 by the end of the year. Solan doesn’t
know how the department will recover at this pace.

“We can barely get any recruits. It’s just, I don’t know. I don’t want
to send a defeatist. I always try to be an optimist. But it’s not
looking good,” he said.

Solan argues it will take a decade to get the department to the staffing
it needs to police a city the size of Seattle. Other law enforcement
experts contacted by the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH concur.

“It’s going to take at least a decade, at a minimum, to get to the level
of 1400 to 1500 people at a minimum,” Solan warns. “And that doesn’t
bode well for the current officers that are here, in terms of having a
safe environment to work in. And then I think, more importantly, it’s
the community that we serve professionally on a daily basis. This crime
surge is here, and it’s real, and it’s only going to get worse.”

The SPD is not the only department struggling with staffing

‘We’re screwed’
The King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) is not fully staffed.

A spokesperson with the office confirmed it experienced 74 separations
so far this year, leaving the department with just 634 deployable staff.
It has 113 open deputy spots that are not being filled fast enough.

Former sheriff John Urqhart saw these problems coming.

“We’re screwed. How long do you think it’s going to take to hire the 500
officers that SPD wants when they can barely hire five a month?” Urqhart
said to the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “The sheriff’s office is down by
115. How long is it going to take to get them back up to some sort of
decent staffing? You know, I hate to be pessimistic, but this is not
going to go away. This is not going to go away.”

‘I don’t know how the city moves forward’
Seattle officers are currently working without a contract. While a fair
contract won’t completely fix the staffing crisis, it’ll help keep more
officers from separating.

“You know, we would like to settle something sooner rather than later
because time is of the essence,” Solan says.

Solan says that SPOG leadership is meeting with Mayor Bruce Harrell’s
team “more often than not,” which gives him hope. He says there’s no
other option than to negotiate a new contract.

“[Signing a contract] would be retaining your current people, which
would then entice laterals or new recruits to come in because you have a
fair wage that was up to today’s standards. The other option is, don’t
have anything and you lose… it would decimate this department. And I
don’t know how the city moves forward.”

Close to a contract?
It appears negotiations are going well. And there’s a general sense from
officers who have spoken to the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH that the city
is moving in a positive direction with the contract.

In leaked conversations exclusively obtained by the Jason Rantz Show on
KTTH, Harrell said he expects to have a contract of substance by the end
of the year. His administration, through his deputy mayor and niece
Monisha Harrell, says it believes the SPD should be released from its
federal consent decree.

“It is very clear that this is not a city that needs the consent decree.
That the improvements that have been made The… that this department is a
world-class department. And that the federal government knows it. All of
our monitoring teams know it. And we’re just trying to cross the T’s and
dot the I’s to make sure that we can get out of this so we can move
beyond that phase,” Harrell said.

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3–6 pm on KTTH
770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast. Follow
@JasonRantz on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Check back frequently
for more news and analysis.