Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has vetoed a city council-approved budget that would cut up to 100 cops and reduce salaries of top department brass, saying lawmakers offered no plan for how to “bridge gaps in police response” with fewer officers on the street.
Durkan on Friday told reporters during a news conference that the reductions in a revised 2020 budget approved earlier this month by the city council would be unwise and said she wants to collaborate with council members to “make changes in a more thoughtful and deliberate way,” the Seattle Times reported.
“The people of Seattle expect us to work together,” Durkan told reporters.
The cuts approved 7-1 by the Seattle City Council would have cut up to 100 police officers from the city’s force of about 1,400 cops, which fell short of a 50 percent reduction that some Black Lives Matter protesters had been seeking. The measures would also slash salaries of police department officials by 40 percent and eliminate an outreach team for the homeless, KOMO reported.
The proposed moves — which would’ve cut less than $4 million of the department’s $400 million annual budget this year — led the city’s police chief, Carmen Best, to step down after just two years on the job.
Durkan’s veto will also put the brakes on roughly $14 million in funding for community organizations. She’s calling for new talks with city council members, who have 30 days to reconsider the vetoed legislation before a new vote that requires a two-thirds majority to override Durkan’s move, the Seattle Times reports.
At the press conference, Durkan appeared alongside Deputy Police Chief Adrian Diaz, who is leading the department until Best formally steps down later this month. Diaz noted an uptick in violent crimes, including increases in homicide, arson and aggravated assault compared to 2019, the newspaper reports.
The number of incidents involving shots fired, for instance, has increased 55 percent since June 1, Diaz said.
“These have resulted in 33 injuries and six deaths,” Diaz said. “They cannot continue.”
Council President M. Lorena González, meanwhile, said she disagreed with Durkan’s veto, but vowed to work with the Democratic mayor on a “long-overdue transformation” of the city’s police department that has “perpetuated trauma and harm on our black, brown and indigenous neighbors.”
