Suits: UW students call for more police after trying to defund them
Oct 3, 2022, 12:13 PM
(Photo by Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
(Photo by Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
By now, you’ve probably heard about the weekend shootings in the U District, where four people were shot outside the popular Flowers Bar & Restaurant.
Two more shootings happened Sunday morning, one in the International District and another near the Smith Tower.
5 injured across 3 separate shootings in Seattle early Sunday morning
As tragic as the shootings were, they’ve also created an outcry for more cops from an unexpected place … University of Washington students.
“It’s amazing the young people are calling for [more police] in the district after they woke up to the news. They’re absolutely heartbroken about this entire situation,” Bryan Suits said on the Bryan Suits Show on KTTH. “UW tells us whenever there’s an incident like this, especially after the first week of classes, safety is definitely a concern.”
The Seattle Times reports UW President Ana Mari Cauce called the gun violence a “public health crisis.”
During the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, students circulated a petition looking for the university to cut ties with the UW Police Department and the Seattle Police Department. Now they are looking to get more police on campus.
“The current mental health of our government and our people and the gap between the young people and the city government is really, really showing. There are UW police for the school, but when you step off the campus and you’re in the city of Seattle, and that’s where the problem arises. After calling for defunding the police, there’s now a call for more officers,” Suits said.
Listen to the full clip here:
Listen to the Bryan Suits Show weekday mornings from 6–9 a.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here.
