With the way we treat them, it’s no wonder we don’t have enough Seattle cops

In Seattle, there is an awful lot of de-policing going on, for a variety of reasons. A lot of it is because when a cop does a great job, command still finds a way to punish them. Remember when the cop tackled the ice axe man downtown Seattle before anyone was harmed? That cop was going to be suspended for failure to de-escalate the situation. Command is just not letting Seattle cops do their jobs.

We also have politicians who are vilifying Seattle cops. Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant had the audacity to call cops murderers after a shooting in which the cops were exonerated. She’s being sued for that, and I hope she loses big time. That crossed the line to where she slandered these cops.

And then you have the public who all too often does the same thing — especially Seattle hipsters. There was a guy on a light rail train in Capitol Hill this week who did enough to attract a King County Sheriff deputy and some Sound Transit security workers. The cops encountered him and he didn’t respond to any of their commands. Eventually they took the guy down to the ground. One of those Seattle hipsters — I don’t know what this guy looks like, but I can picture him, with his skinny jeans and t-shirt and horn-rimmed glasses and goatee — made a video of it that has gone viral. He posted this video all so that people can vilify cops.

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In the video, the hipster recording the clip just goes after the cops, swearing at them, while another fellow hipster chants, “Police state, police state.” The hipster making the video is so focused on the suspect’s glasses. The cops didn’t just break the guy’s glasses, they (in high-pitched hipster voice) totally shattered his glasses. Yeah, that’s what happens when the cops have to take you to the ground while you’re fighting them. Look, the cops gave the guy a chance to leave. He was screaming and yelling on the train. The other passengers were frightened enough that they were calling for security. And then when security responded, you get a hipster recording this video with his f-bombs talking about how the cops “totally shattered his glasses.”

Is there any wonder why de-policing is going on? Is it any wonder why we don’t have enough police officers on the street in Seattle? The Seattle cops feel like they’re not allowed to do their jobs anymore. You’ve got politicians calling them murderers when they’re not. You have hipsters who are recording cops just doing their job, getting a confrontational guy off the train. Then we wonder why we can’t get a cop to respond to something like the Target store rampage, when everyone is hating on them to this extent?

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