By Steve Pomper
Seattle Police Car burns during 2020 BLM/Antifa riots
One of the most valuable services the NPA provides, among many others, I believe, is a perspective from people, retired cops, who’ve done the job over many years, serving in various capacities in agencies spread out across our great nation.
This perspective came to mind recently when I read a post on a private cop social media page. The post originally came from a pro-police organization called Safe Seattle. Their FB page says, “Safe Seattle promotes honest government and public safety in Seattle.”
The folks at Safe Seattle wanted me to know that “we got this straight from a Seattle cop.” The officer identifies him or herself as “Seattle Police Insider” (SPI). Below you’ll find a perspective from an officer currently serving in one of America’s most challenging cities to work for.
Seattle Cops gather near church during BLM/Antifa riots
The officer emphasizes a consequence of the radical left’s clamor for unending vague “police reforms.” Before the left called to “defund the police,” the big item on their agenda was so-called reform. And part of the police “reform” was to get “better trained, better qualified” cops on the beat.
The cop notes that the left’s supposed push for “police reform” has resulted explicitly in agencies hiring inferior recruits from a less qualified candidate pool. Not many high-quality candidates are interested in becoming cops in leftist-run jurisdictions with their anti-police environments. Who can blame them?
For the anti-cop left, though, it’s not about what works or doesn’t. It’s about what they like or don’t—about what police do. And, since they don’t know law enforcement, they also don’t know what they’re saying.
The officer wrote about “How to make bad cops.” I’ll let the officer speak for him or herself. Safe Seattle has given permission to use the post.
How to make bad cops.
SEATTLE POLICE INSIDER: SPD has lowered hiring standards so much to try to stop the bleeding that officers are getting put into remedial training over and over and over.
The BLEA [Basic Law Enforcement Academy] has become a joke, and the hiring process isn’t better than it was 10 years ago, it’s worse. If someone has a pulse and no felonies on their record, they’re in.
Some of these new kids were never trained on “scary situations” and as a result they panic, freeze up or run. But that’s what you get when BLEA has civilians teaching everything including tactics.
Most civilians run from guns, that’s normal, but we’re SUPPOSED to train that out of our people [i.e., police officers]. That’s how you get cop[s] who will run toward dangerous people and situations, instead of running away.
Great job Seattle City Council! You’re well on the way to making your “All cops are bad” fantasy a reality. You want corrupt cops? This is step one: Hire anyone regardless of ability. Those with integrity will leave when they realize they can’t do the job right. But what about those who can’t do the job right but stay anyway, because they need the paycheck or have nowhere else to go? Those are your bad cops in the making, and you created them.
What the officer writes is difficult if not impossible to argue. This cop nails the issue in a few short paragraphs. The reader can feel the passion that prompted the officer to write this rebuke of the Seattle city government for creating these unintended (intended by some) consequences.
Kshama Sawant, Socialist, Cop-Hating Seattle City Councilwoman, publicly accused two officers of murder
When policing has little political influence, it’s pretty black and white. Police and the courts aim to treat everyone equally. Bad guys go to jail, and good guys are protected. But once politicians and activists make law enforcement political, which the radical left has done for years in Seattle, there is little hope for a quick recovery in staffing.
Once a local government allows partisan politics to interfere, policing is no longer black and white. Local officials skew who’s considered a good guy and who’s a bad guy. When that happens, like pouring an unlevel building foundation, once that’s skewed, everything else will be out of whack—just like policing in radical leftist-run cities.