Not one candidate who participated in Seattle‘s mayoral forum on Tuesday called for the city’s police department to receive less funding, let alone to “defund the police.”
Only last summer the Seattle City Council endorsed — but did not ultimately adopt — the radical proposal to cut the police department’s budget by 50 percent, the Seattle Times reported.
Some candidates at the Downtown Seattle Association’s mayor discussion instead endorsed raising the city police department’s budget and hiring more cops.
“I think the pendulum has swung against defund the police,” said candidate Lance Randall. “You can see it in these forums—the people who used to talk about it either don’t talk about it anymore or are now actively backpedaling.”
Randall himself suffered from Seattle’s lawlessness last Saturday when he caught two thieves trying to steal a car’s catalytic converter.
When they saw him taking down their car’s license plate number, they fired five shots at him, KOMO News reported.
He ducked behind his car, and a bullet whizzed through a rear-side window, pierced a headrest, and exited through the front window, shattering it.
Randall scolded the Seattle City Council for its support of the defund the police movement, which claims to advocate for black Americans.
“We’ve had several forums, and I feel as though there’s an assumption that people of color do not want police officers in their neighborhoods to protect them,” he said. “We need police officers.”
Seattle has reported 220 shootings so far this year—a pace that, if it continues, will break the city’s all-time record.
Seattle also posted ten homicides through June 28, one of the worst months in the city’s history.
“I guess I’ve grown weary of the City Council and others in the city attempting to speak and act on behalf of black people, without asking and without considering the ramifications of some of these actions,” Randall said.
Former Deputy Mayor Casey Sixkiller also said the city needs more cops after layoffs and widespread resignations have depleted the force.
“Look, we’re down 300 cops — over 20 percent of the SPD workforce,” he said. “People no longer feel safe … It is damaging the reputation of downtown Seattle, and it is sending a message to visitors and tourists and businesses alike that we can’t fix it.”
