Todd Herman easily finds money for more King County deputies

It was a eureka moment between sips of coffee when AM 770 KTTH’s Todd Herman found a solution.

“This morning, drinking a cup of coffee, not even the whole cup … I was able to find money for cops in the King County proposed budget,” Herman said.

“Here you go, $300,000 they have proposed in this biennium to increase coordination of the county’s current translation and interpretation systems. OK. Cut the translation system. Done,” he said. “It’s $150,000. I got you one new officer, at least.”

And that’s not all.

“I found another source: The committee to end homelessness reorganization,” Herman said. “It’s a reorganization of an existing committee &#8212 $2,593,650 &#8212 struck. Gone. Why? Because it hasn’t worked … It’s called triaging a budget. It took me five minutes.”

Herman was partially responding to a recent report aboutKing County Deputies failing to respond to a drunk driver. But according to a former King County Deputy that called into Herman’s show, money isn’t the issue with deputy response, or other problems with local law enforcement.

“I was in King County for about 10 years, this was after being a police officer in Boston as well. I was just amazed at the amount of apathy out here with law enforcement,” said Jay, a caller in to the Todd Herman Show. “There is such an anti-police sentiment here … this has been something going on for at least 10 or 15 years here in Seattle and King County.”

“The police are just hated by the Liberals here,” he said. “With the Seattle PI and The Seattle Times and the constant cop bashing going on for the 10 or 15 years, and the administration from both King County and Seattle PD that side with the Liberal media than their own officers, cops have just given up.”

Jay said he was one of those cops who gave up. He said the money was good – he made six figures – and that when he started working with the sheriff’s office in 2001, he was enthusiastic about taking down “bad guys.” That changed, however.

“After about 4 or 5 years, my only mission was to go my entire eight hour shift without my sergeant hearing me on the radio,” Jay said. “I didn’t want to respond to any calls. If there was a bar fight or any kind of violent incident, I didn’t want to put my lights or siren on. I was praying the bad guy was gone by the time I got there so I didn’t have to use force, or put my hands on anybody because I knew my sheriff would throw me under the bus and not back me up.”

“I was hiding, and so were 95 percent of the guys and women I was working with,” he said. “We would back our patrol cars into an alley, or at a park up north and we would hide.”

For Herman, it amounts to putting priorities in the county’s budget. Instead of funding at the top, invest in officers. And not only invest money, invest your support.