The East Precinct is down about three sergeants and two or three officers from last year, according to the latest “Sworn Staffing, Finances and Performance Metrics Report” from the Seattle Police Department. Meanwhile, exits from the city’s total police force have slowed since last summer, officials say, and response times for the most serious 911 calls have stabilized — though, especially in the East Precinct, lower priority response times have gotten significantly worse.
Officials are discussing the report Tuesday morning at a session of the Seattle City Council’s Public Safety and Human Services Committee.
According to the report for the first quarter of 2023 through March, the East Precinct currently stands at 69 officers assigned to 911 duties managed by nine sergeants. Those totals are down from the summer of 2022 when SPD reported a dozen sergeants in East along with 71 officers and reflect what the report describes as a slow effort by Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office to implement a new marketing and hiring initiative.
CHS reported here on the efforts hoped to grow the police force by 1,500 officers by 2027. Harrell and Chief Adrian Diaz won wide support over concerns Seattle police officer staffing levels had reached what the administration said was “their lowest in more than 30 years” in the wake of the COVID crisis and 2020 Black Lives Matter and anti-police protests.
2022 marked the city’s highest violent crime rate in 15 years. Statistics for the East Precinct mirrored the citywide peak in violent crime totals as reports across the Central District and Capitol Hill climbed 8% vs 2021 — but the numbers also backed up Diaz’s contention that late 2022 showed signs of improvement.
Through April, 2023’s Seattle crime totals have slightly trailed last year’s levels.
(Source: SPD)
Police around Capitol Hill and the Central District are also now slower than ever to respond to lower priority calls.
In the East Precinct, response times to high priority 911 calls have so far remained steady year over year, in the first quarter of 2023 the times for Priority 2 and Priority 3 calls cratered hugely. According to the SPD numbers, the median Priority 2 response time has reached nearly 26 minutes, about 30% slower than 2022. Priority 3 calls in the first quarter, meanwhile, reached a near comical median of an hour and four minutes — up more than 40%, so far.
“Based on these mixed outcomes,” the SPD report reads, “it is difficult to identify an overarching trend in the department’s progress toward its response time goals.”
Why did East Precinct officers have the second slowest response times to Priority 2 and Priority 3 calls but the second fastest to Priority 1 dispatches? It’s likely an issue of proximity and volume. The East Precinct headquarters location at 12th and Pine is centrally located in the densely packed precinct. Meanwhile, East Precinct cops have more work to do. There have been about 7 crimes a month reported per officer across Seattle’s other police precincts but 8 per officer in the East Precinct. Those poor cops in the North Precinct, meanwhile, carry the heaviest load with 10 reported crimes per month per officer.
The full 2023 first quarter report is below:
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8 crimes per month per officer. So, roughly 2 per week?
Obviously, crimes aren’t planned out on a reasonable work schedule, but that honestly does not seem like a lot. Are there comparisons to other cities or suburbs or comparisons over time?
Looking at it another way…69 officers x 8 a month / 30 days = 18ish reported crimes a day in EP. Split staffing into multiple shifts and uneven distribution of incidents it’s no wonder response times are down. We made this bed, hope you’re comfortable in it (not you specifically, DD).
That’s still <1 reported crime per hour.
Does that mean the non-emergency line is functioning again? Because I had to call it twice in the last year and it was discontinued. The message directed me to a website to submit a request and I never received any response either time.
After 2020, I never thought I’d say this but I want more cops. I want honest, not-racit cops who arrest people who shoot guns in my neighborhood. I want people to be able to walk my neighborhood without fearing being shot. I want a cop to actually show up and take a report when someone has been robbed, and I want them to solve the crime.
Yes, I also want crime prevention programs and community supports and programs. I want to live in a world that doesn’t need jails. But that’s going to take a long time, and I don’t see many working very hard (including Team ACAB) to make that happen. Until we all live in a magic crime-free shangri-la, we’re going to need cops.
Eureka!
The movement wasn’t all people saying abolish police all together. A lot of it is what you’re saying you want but republicans push back against that, too, because it’s crazy we want police to actually do their jobs and protect people while not also murdering, yet apparently they don’t HAVE to protect us (according to US courts) while being able to shoot just about anyone they want as long as they can make up an excuse for it.
Reforming the system would be long and difficult, but we shouldn’t also just give up because our police force are still being butt hurt about us still not approving of them.
Kudos to the Defund Police movement from 2020 and the morale hit it generated towards SPD. You made this.
The defund movement never made any notable impact to the number of cops. Most cops that left were due to not wanting to get vaccinated, so probably weren’t the people best suited to protect our community in the first place.
Fast forward to today and you have Bruce Harrell refusing to negotiate with City employee unions for new contract and pay raises, which include the Seattle Police Department.
His continual offer of a 1% cost of living raises in a time of 10%+ inflation is insulting at best, especially considering neighboring jurisdictions are giving 10% cost of living raises.
The police are forbidden by law from striking, so instead they are all leaving to go elsewhere and nobody wants to sign on to SPD when Super Genius Bruce is offering effective pay cuts.
Other City employees are growing fatigued of months of multiple negotiations for reasonable cost of living raises while Bruce is holding steady at 1% for reasons unknown, though rumors are he’s trying to weaken City unions. A lot are leaving, the rest will eventually strike for the first time in decades. Bruce “Union Busting” Harrell will be a guaranteed one termer in an extremely pro-union City.
You can blame the defund movement until you’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t make it true. Blame Bruce, the buck stops with him on this one.