Police don't want to talk about concerns

By Debbie Smith

You know how "some people" protest in the streets for one cause or another and they turn over cars, break windows and loot businesses, lie in the street to block cars and generally create havoc?

Pretty disgusting, isn't it? I always thought so. If you are one of "those people" then you might as well stop reading right now because you probably won't like what I write.

I've always considered myself a very reasonable sort of person. When I saw actions such as these, I used to wonder what sense it made? What "point" were they getting across with such violence? Why didn't they use a more peaceful, common sense approach to solving their problems?

Well, I still don't know the answer to that but I have come to the place where I might now understand "why" they do what they do. I still disagree with it and condemn the violent actions. I would never encourage it nor would I even remotely consider such methods myself. I still feel it is stupid.

However...

The past year I have tried, in vain I might add, to get a response from the city and/or our Seattle Police Department administration to some huge concerns that I have raised.

Nothing. (Well, I must say that one man from the Mayor's office - not the Mayor himself - has tried to converse with me several times.)

Meanwhile, I sit by and watch as the city and the chief's make one decision after another that both hinders our officers in the way they do their job as well as creates a safety issue for them.

How do they get away with that? I have a stack of letters, e-mails, notes and articles an inch thick that I have tried to present to the "powers that be" and it only grows by the day.

Do I have to turn over a car to get attention?

Maybe light a fire in one of those pretty "outhouses" downtown?

Break a window at Starbucks and steal a Mocha? (Well, the Mocha part sounds good!)

I don't know what else to do. And yet, it is only a matter of time before something tragic will come from all the ridiculous procedures and ideas that "they" have put into place.

One of our cops will die.

I hate to even mouth those words, let alone type them.

But that is how I feel.

By now you all know that the police officers finally agreed on a contract. They are now, though I imagine it is only a matter of time, the highest paid officers in the state.

I might ask, "Why did it take so long!" It should have been a no-brainer.

But that isn't the point here.

Regarding one man cars and

not enough officers:

I doubt that any officer who is approaching a house in the dead of night while responding to a call of a woman screaming is thinking of how well paid he is. He is alone. He is supposed to, by department procedure, wait for his backup to come. But he can hear screams coming from the house and they are getting more frantic. Does he wait? I doubt it. He jumps out of his car and approaches the house, cautiously. Then out of nowhere, a drug-crazed man bursts through the front door and takes aim at the officer's head with a handgun. He screams at the officer to leave.

Does he pause and think, "Gee, I am sure glad I am so highly paid for this stuff!"

No.

But at that moment, all those new policies that the city and police department have recently adopted come into play.

He is one man. There are fewer and fewer two-man cars anymore. I think the reasoning behind that one was that they could patrol more areas if they split everybody up. That's "their reasoning," not the common sense one. Besides, there aren't enough officers to cover the city anyway, let alone put two of them in one car.

But this officer would have had his "backup" nearby instead of facing a gunman alone if he'd had a partner.

Regarding statistics:

The police department recently put a new software system into place that supposedly has great potential to track crime using statistics that the officers put into it after every call. Tons of statistics! Statistics are a big thing nowadays. Have you ever heard the mayor say something like, "Seattle has the lowest crime in 40 years," "Seattle is one of a very few police departments in the country with an accreditation certificate."

Those are just two of many statements I have heard from him that tell me that someone is getting buffaloed.

So, did the chief tell you that our officers are spending much more time "entering data" for this new system and are not available for calls from the public? No, an officer will not deliberately ignore your calls for help, but then he is probably not "patrolling" your neighborhood as much as he used to because he is entering statistics into this new program that was made in Canada, by the way. Is there some reason we couldn't have had Microsoft make us one since they are right in our own backyard? It might have been easier to use. From what I hear, this new one is atrocious. And I'll bet it cost a fortune. "Oh, you'll get used to it", they are told.

Argh! What ever happened to common sense?

No response:

I called the Ask the Mayor Show on the Seattle Channel a few weeks ago. My turn came up and I proudly announced that I was from West Seattle. I then asked if the mayor knew why there was "an exodus" of police officers leaving the department.

Then I was cut off.

The mayor immediately replied with great certainty that there was no exodus and that, in fact, the numbers were growing, although slowly.

Having looked into this very subject for some time, I knew differently, but was I allowed to respond? No. I called the number back and asked why I was cut off after I asked the question. A very polite person replied, "That's how the mayor likes it." Sound fair?

I recently tried to talk to the chief of police. Would he speak to me? Nope. His secretary told me, after she put me on hold to talk to him, that he said to tell me that he didn't think it would be beneficial to talk to me. Beneficial to whom?

I cringe when the mayor or the chief come on TV and tell the public, you and me, something that I know is not true. The vast majority of the public does not know any differently and I am beginning to feel that that is just what the mayor and chief are counting on.

And yet, we believe them. (Well, I am no longer that gullible but I still believe that we all should be able to believe those who run our city. We can't.)

New districts and shifts:

I read an article about the new sectors and shifts that the police department has imposed on the officers. I also heard the stories of the families who are suffering because of them.

But I forget. The goal of the department and city is not to help the officers do the best they can but to manipulate those statistics! Gotta look good. To whom?

I guess this is the latest new thing that someone came up with to make patrolling our streets more efficient.

Did anyone pay attention to the fact that at least one of the new sectors is divided by a freeway? I don't think I would feel very comforted knowing that someone is breaking into my house and the officer has to come from the other side of I-5! There must be some sense to it, right?

There are so many other issues that "directly effect" the public, let alone the officers - "our" officers, but they are too many to mention here.

Believe me. You, the public, are being flamboozled. And there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it! No one listens and, it seems, no one cares.

Maybe we should go downtown and turn over a few cars?

Debbie Smith

West Seattle