‘Catch-and-release isn’t working’: SPOG president warns Seattle risks becoming magnet for crime

Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) President Kent Loux warned Seattle risks becoming a magnet for crime if the Seattle City Attorney’s office fails to prosecute misdemeanors as aggressively as surrounding cities.

Loux discussed the many challenges facing the Seattle Police Department (SPD), including what he sees as the impact of Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s policies, on “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio.

“You have issues where the city attorney is there to enforce misdemeanors, gross misdemeanors. The issue is going to be if she is not competitive in comparison to surrounding cities, for example, Bellevue; all the surrounding cities have to do is just enforce their misdemeanors,” Loux said. “If another surrounding city has city prosecutors enforcing their misdemeanors, if they have judges and prosecutors who are going to file and put these people away and serve some time, crime is going to flourish where there’s the least resistance to it. The crime will come here. If you steal a pair of pants in Bellevue and you serve 30 days in jail, you might not do that again. It sends a clear message.”

SPD officer frustration runs deep as Seattle struggles with crime, understaffing

Speaking on behalf of Seattle’s rank-and-file officers, Loux described widespread frustration over staffing shortages and what he sees as a growing threat of businesses leaving the city, largely due to unaddressed crime.

“I get to have a little bit more freedom and flexibility in what I can say and speak about the frustration of the members of the Seattle police officers guild, which is all our officers, detectives, and sergeants. There’s extreme frustration on the street. We’re short-staffed, we’re stretched thin, and it really makes it difficult. We have an uphill battle in a lot of ways. With these business owners, one of my biggest concerns going forward is honestly business flight,” Loux said.

“If I can’t have my officers clean up the streets, are you really going to browse downtown and look at a vacant storefront and say, ‘You know what? I’m going to start a business here, I’m going to expand here.’ Instead, we’re seeing the opposite,” he continued. “So you pick Bellevue, or another municipality surrounding Seattle that enforces its misdemeanors.”

Loux says diversion-first policy fueling catch-and-release cycle

When asked about officers’ morale when they repeatedly arrest the same individuals with little consequence, Loux pointed to Wilson’s emphasis on diversion, saying it plays a role in offenders ending up back on the street. He called it “frustrating” and an “uphill battle” the department is trying to work through.

“It’s a difficult situation, and it’s very frustrating. Why are we arresting the same 10% of the people? We’ve got to get away from this catch-and-release problem,” Loux said. “The other issue is Seattle, a city of our size, we don’t have our own misdemeanor jail, so we are beholden to policies from the King County Jail. We have an uphill battle of booking people into jail. When this new administration came in, there was basically a policy that we’re going to have diversion. We want to prioritize diversions.

“I want to be clear, I’m not saying that we are going to benefit from taking simple users and throwing them in jail for years. But the catch-and-release isn’t working,” he continued. “The short jail stints of hours to a day aren’t doing anything. Can we find a way to couple that with actual, like, real treatment? At some point, you’ve got to start enforcing your misdemeanors and be competitive with these other cities.”

Loux: Officers have no authority to stop ICE, but must prevent confrontations

The conversation shifted to the ongoing controversy over Wilson’s stance on SPD’s interaction with federal immigration agents.

Wilson has said she does not want SPD to aid federal agents in conducting immigration investigations. KIRO host Jake Skorheim asked what kind of position that puts officers in when they are being told not to assist federal agents.

Loux compared the situation to what happened during a Charlottesville-inspired protest in Seattle, where two opposing groups were demonstrating downtown.

“It’s our job as the police to not take a side, to remain apolitical and just keep those two parties apart. Why? Because there’s a flash point,” Loux said. “They’re going to get at it physically, and that’s not safe for either side. How is this ICE controversy any different? It’s putting SPOG members in the middle where we don’t need to be. We’re becoming the political pawn in this.”

“The danger becomes that ICE has an operation that they can do. They have the authority to do that; we don’t have the jurisdiction to stop them,” he continued. “We cannot stop them from doing it. We can disagree with that mission, and we can voice our displeasure with that. However, I think as officers, as SPOG members, we have an obligation to make sure that those two parties don’t interact. We know that if the demonstrators who are anti-ICE and the federal officers … we know that’s a flash point.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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