A driver was busted for DUI after crashing their car into a construction site at MLK and Union in 2016
The Seattle Police Department has announced it will roll out a DUI emphasis team for the first time in the city since 2019.
SPD says the effort will run through the holiday season in December and will mean a DUI squad active on the city’s streets nightly from 6 PM to 4 AM.’
“We hope our community makes safe driving choices this holiday season. Make a plan, use rideshare or a taxi, or use a designated driver,” supervisor Sgt. Tom Heller said in the announcement. “Pro tip: the designated driver needs to be actually sober, not just the least intoxicated person in the car.”
In late 2020 facing staffing issues, SPD disbanded its DUI squad, which had been in operation for 50 years. The officers from the unit were reassigned to regular patrol duties.
The temporary restoration of a DUI team comes as SPD Chief Shon Barnes and outgoing Mayor Bruce Harrell have said the department is finally making progress on its hiring and retention goals after ranks dropped coming out of the pandemic and the 2020 protests.
DUI incidents reported across Seattle over the past week
SPD Assistant Chief Robert Brown told the crowd at a recent Capitol Hill community crime forum that the turnaround in SPD hiring will begin to pay dividends in the year ahead as there will be more officers to deploy to cover the city’s round-the-clock shifts. Boosted salaries and generous bonuses have been a core to the change.
The temporary DUI squad could also be a hopeful sign after years of reduced police services as ranks dwindled coming out of the pandemic. Seattle cops, in one example, stopped making “low risk” traffic stops for issues like expired tabs in 2022.
Many of SPD’s cuts and reductions along the way eliminated resources valued by the community including some of the department’s most public-facing aspects. Changes like the still locked down East Precinct lobby remain stuck in SPD’s post-pandemic transition.
DUI, meanwhile, remains a costly and dangerous element on Seattle streets despite the growth of public transit options and ride app services. Over the past holiday week, Seattle Police investigated 21 DUI cases in the city.
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Does that include other cops who have DUIs? Because several in SPD are DUI guys
Lived experience, ammirite
I’m glad I’ve had this reprieve over the last several years.
“Pro tip: the designated driver needs to be actually sober, not just the least intoxicated person in the car.” LMAO
That cracked me up too. You KNOW they run into that alllll the time.
The linked article says the elimination of low risk traffic stops was made not because of SPD staffing issues but because the city discovered that these laws were being applied with bias disproportionately across the city.
The East Precinct remains locked-down not because of SPD staffing or budget issues (if you look through the window there’s always an officer sitting at the front desk). It’s because SPD remains terrified of the neighborhood they indiscriminately bombed and gassed five years ago.
The hiring of more SPD officers is no cause for celebration. Study after study has shown that the majority of the services SPD officers have historically performed could be done more safely and less expensively by civilians.
The reason we don’t have large teams of civilian responders yet is because of Bruce Harrell and his reactionary council’s unwavering support for the right-wing Seattle Police Officer’s Guild.
Thanks for that informative and unbiased screed.
Happens to be mostly true. I don’t know about the too afraid to deal with the public. But the rest is true.
So instead of firing racist homophobic cops, we get people speeding, running stop signs and red lights, especially putting pedestrians in danger.
Thank you for reminding us about how the police are understaffed.
The crowd of thugs who out numbered the police by a considerable margin who were threatening people with guns, shooting up cars, killing children and throwing fire bombs?
Let us not forget how they also blocked the fire department, etc. For more reminders look at any articles that cover the cities attempt to avoid being liable for abandoning a section of the city to a bunch of thugs.
We need to massively increase the current number of police officers on the street.
This next bit is total BS, “Study after study has shown that the majority of the services SPD officers”.
It should be something like “interview after interview shows that the fire department, ambulance service, and others rely on police officers and will tell you that they are in no way prepared or able to take on the tasks that officers provide.”
I suspect you also have no idea what a “sworn officer” is, nor have a clue about any of the privileges you have when interacting with one vs your interactions with other public employees.
Innovation? We should shift the Jump Start tax to fund public safety. That would be a better use of the funds that would lead to a better outcome. Fully funding the police could lead to less confrontational outcomes which could do more for everyone.
Wilson has a handful of months to get the homeless off the street, maybe she will come up with some innovative solutions that we have not seen before.