On Friday, council members for the first time offered specific proposals and timelines for cutting the department’s budget and creating alternative systems to prevent violence and provide community safety. They also urged Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best to prioritize responding to violent crimes and to deprioritize calls that could disproportionally impact communities of color.
Only one council member, Kshama Sawant, proposed immediate and blunt cuts that could slash close to 50% of the department’s remaining 2020 budget. The rest offered proposals for this year that would slice 100 full-time equivalent positions — out of 1,428 fully trained, probationary and recruited officers — from the department through layoffs and attrition, while shuffling some police functions into other city departments.
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