Harrell at a One Seattle day of service event earlier this year (Image: City of Seattle)
As his effort to name a new leader for the Seattle Police Department enters its “final phases,” Mayor Bruce Harrell is touting the strength of community input in the process even as his office faces a new mini scandal over the mayor’s leaked off the cuff comments to department officers in recent meetings held to try to patch up the relationship between City Hall and its officers of the peace.
Conservative media outlet KTTH reported on the leaked statements including conversations with officers in which Harrell “blasted” the city’s approach to homelessness and said he is planning to back challengers targeting some members of the Seattle City Council.
“You should know that when I ran for office, six council members of nine, six did not support me, and if that weren’t bad enough, I didn’t get the support of one colleague in a Democratic legislative district. If that weren’t enough, Pramila Jayapal, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, AOC… they all loaded up and supported my opponent,” Harrell reportedly told officers in one session reported by KTTH.
The comments are much different than Harrell’s “One Seattle” campaign the first-year mayor has positioned as a theme for a city coming together to recover from the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter and anti-police protests. The Central District-born Harrell defeated former City Council president Lorena González last year on a centrist platform that included a “reimagining” that would eradicate bad officers from SPD and change who is responding in cases where armed police aren’t necessary and a homelessness plan that included increased resources for shelter and housing.
The report on the leaks comes as the Harrell administration says its process to name a new SPD chief is entering the final stretch and touting community involvement in the process:
The City of Seattle held seven police chief community conversations and a public survey collected resident input on what matters most. Empower Initiative facilitated the first five community conversations in July and two supplemental sessions were held with community partners in August for additional feedback. Over more than three months, community members delivered additional public input through the City’s Chief of Police Search survey.
Across July community meetings, an estimated 47% of participants were Black, 33% were youth or young adults, and the Central District was the most represented neighborhood, the administration announced.
But it’s not clear what impact the community process will have on the selection process.
In May, Harrell formed a 14-member search committee to identify candidates to lead the department and launched a new “community survey” to identify “what priorities and qualities matter most to residents.”
CHS reported here on the search including Mayor Harrell’s championing of current Interim Chief Adrian Diaz to apply for the job. Diaz’s run as interim chief began in 2020 after Carmen Best’s decision to resign over what she said were frustrations with efforts to lay off police officers following criticism of her response to her handling of CHOP and the 2020 protests. Best said she could not be part of any layoffs. Then-Mayor Jenny Durkan piled on, levying heavy criticism on the city council.
In a report on 2021 community surveys regarding crime in the city, respondents in the East Precinct including Capitol Hill and the Central District continued to rate Seattle Police poorly and expressed some of the most cynical views in the city about the legitimacy and trustworthiness of the department.
The city charter requires the mayor’s office to conduct a search and name three finalists. The final candidate must then be approved by the city council.
This week, the administration announced the committee will submit “the top three candidates as determined by the competitive examination” to the mayor “for his consideration” by September 8th:
These three finalists will engage in a series of stakeholder interviews, which will culminate in a candidate question and answer session on the evening of September 15. This session will be televised on the Seattle Channel, where candidates will be asked a series of questions submitted by community members. Questions for the candidate address can be submitted here.
The KTTH report, meanwhile, reveals there is more on Harrell’s mind in regards to SPD than just a new leader. In the leaks, KTTH includes Harrell’s insistence that Seattle should no longer be subject to the federal consent decree slapped on SPD in 2018 after findings of bias and improper use of force and his hopes that a new contract can be nailed down with the Seattle Police Officer Guild union by the end of the year.
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Pet peeve: when people refer to money/resources they oversee for employment yet refer to it as their own:
“I get one vote out of nine, and they criticize my removal efforts. So I’m funding an organization that seems to be working against what I’m trying to do,” Harrell said
It is encouraging to hear Harrell wants to push even harder against the bullsh*t that is destroying the city. We need to hand out more bus tickets back to Florida,Texas and Arizona to “our new neighbors” that migrated here to so drugs and smash windows
It’s hardly a scandal when the Mayor semi-publicly voices the same frustration that the majority of Seattleites feel, who voted him into office. we get it, he gets it.
Frankly I appreciate Mayor Harrell even more after reading his comments.
I do too. He has been doing a great job, especially on the homeless issue.
I’m disappointed to read that Pramila Jaypal worked against Harrell’s election. It’s no surprise that the leftist national politicians (Sanders, Warren) did so, but their endorsements have little impact. But Jaypal is reasonably moderate and should have recognized that Harrell is too.
She is not reasonably moderate
She is chair of the progressive caucus. How is that moderate?
He’s right.
I am with Bruce Harrell. It’s about time these things are called out. There is a group of people (a few council members and several homeless advocates) who are helping to create the chaotic atmosphere in Seattle for their own personal and political goals(?) that are counter productive to providing a healthy living environment. The policies here are attracting people who are well aware of the term Freeattle.
Hard to believe the Democratic leadership supported Gonzales with her rudderless “no coercive removal” position on the homeless. They missed the mood of Seattle by a mile.
Thanks, Bruce!