Rantz: Seattle Council voting to fire officers of color, cut black chief’s wages
Aug 9, 2020, 9:41 AM | Updated: 8:52 pm
Councilmember Lisa Herbold. (screen grab)
(screen grab)
The woke Seattle City Council is poised to fire officers of color and cut the black police chief’s salary to ensure she gets paid less than her white predecessor. How’s that for social justice?
Monday’s vote is likely to pass, despite the council’s best efforts to claim they’ll fight for people of color. If those people of color are cops, however, the council deems them unworthy of protection.
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Seattle City Council to fire officers of color
The council’s Budget Committee passed a series of proposals that will fire up to 100 officers in the short term. Long term, the goal of the council remains defunding the Seattle Police Department by 50%, despite overwhelming opposition to the dangerous and reckless plan.
The council makes this move knowing that newly hired, less experienced officers will be let go first. In the last year or so, the department has been focused on hiring more people of color to better represent different communities. Consequently, the council will force the department to fire minority officers.
Realizing this is a bad look, white Councilmember Lisa Herbold suggests the Seattle Police Department seek permission to exclusively fire white officers. This is, of course, illegal discrimination and flatly racist. It also makes little sense to fire officers who have more experience.
Herbold knows this won’t happen. She’s merely hoping it’ll give her a pass when the public realizes she played a pivotal role in firing people of color. She shouldn’t get a pass. Herbold repeatedly makes public statements for political cover, while voting in opposition to promises made to the public.
Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold, a supporter of the radical defund movement, suggests the Seattle Police Department fire officers for being white. This wouldn’t just be racist, it would be illegal.
Read: https://t.co/bqpEJrjmrC pic.twitter.com/hxxjS3zXWQ
— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) July 19, 2020
Council wants black chief paid less than white
Council members like Lorena Gonzalez feign outrage at pay inequity, particularly when it comes to gender and racial wage disparities where white men make more than women of color. Gonzalez, who paid her female staffers less than the white ones when she initially complained, has made this a key issue to address. Now it appears she, and the other council members, are ready to keep independent black women from making too much money.
The Seattle City Council was unhappy with Chief Carmen Best for publicly condemning their dangerous proposals. And a black police chief isn’t allowed to criticize council members.
In retaliation, the council is moving forward to cut Best’s salary significantly. This means Best would be paid significantly less than her white predecessor Kathleen O’Toole.
“The council, in retaliation for her basically criticizing them about defunding the police and their efforts to reduce the personnel in the Seattle Police Department and services in the city, in retaliation for her criticism they reduced her salary,” Best’s attorney Anne Bremner told the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH.
Bremner says she’s looking at filing a lawsuit over the retaliation.
To be fair, the move to cut Best’s salary may not be exclusively in retaliation for criticizing their plan. Herbold previously asked Best for special treatment when a derelict RV was parked in front of her home. Herbold even asked for the chief to investigate a political rival. Best rightly refused. For Herbold, this could be a payback vote.
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