Seattle police union lambasts mayor for $25K officer hiring bonuses after pushing defund movement

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Seattle’s police union is lambasting the city's mayor for granting up to $25,000 hiring bonuses for police officers as part of a last-ditch attempt to amend staffing shortages brought on by the defund the police movement and exacerbated by the COVID-19 vaccine mandate before she leaves office next year. 

Mayor Jenny Durkan, who is not seeking a second term, issued an executive order Friday creating an immediate incentive program for the hiring of 911 dispatchers and police officers, citing a "civil emergency" as staffing shortages have worsened with the onset of the vaccine mandate. 

The order allows the Seattle Police Department to offer police officer candidates a hiring incentive of up to $25,000, depending on experience and training level, to be paid after beginning employment. New recruits may be given up to a $10,000 incentive, half of which will be paid in the first appropriate paycheck and the second half to come upon the completion of a probation period. 

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The Seattle Police Officers Guild, representing some 1,300 officers and sergeants, argued that the move is too little, too late for the mayor and other politicians the union accuses of "politically betraying" the police department as violent demonstrations broke out after George Floyd’s death. 

"The result of this betrayal has caused 350 police officers to flee Seattle since the riots. Many of these former police employees left for lower paying agencies just to escape Seattle’s toxic political climate," Mike Solan, president of the union, said in a statement. "We also have another 100 officers now off the street due to the Mayor’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate and another 130 officers currently unavailable for service who are out on extended leave. When totaled, that is just under half the department gone/unavailable in almost two years. Seattle’s current police staffing crisis was caused by our current politicians and sadly it all could’ve been avoided. This political betrayal will forever be their legacy."

Durkan, a Democrat, has been highly criticized for her handling of CHOP/CHAZ, an about six-block autonomous protest zone that included an abandoned police precinct in the Capitol district. The mayor allowed the no-cop zone to persist for weeks in the summer of 2020, until several shootings prompted city crews to eventually clear out makeshift barriers and tents from the space. 

Just days before Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, Seattle politicians "launched a public relations campaign to convince our Seattle community that the Seattle Police Department had met all Department of Justice settlement agreement benchmarks of reform," Solan said. 

"They boasted that the Seattle Police Department was the modeled reformed police agency for other police agencies to emulate," he continued, noting the contrast after Floyd’s death when the city council pivoted to instead defunding the police department. "As a result, outside agencies from across the nation flew into Seattle to learn from our Department of Justice reform work."

Seattle is experiencing a 35% year-to-date increase compared to 2020 in shots fired incidents and a 76% year-to-date increase in shots fired compared to 2019, and also a 29% year-to-date increase in nonfatal shootings compared to 2020, according to the mayor’s office. 

As preexisting staffing shortages worsened with the additional vaccine mandate, the Seattle Police Department is at its lowest level of deployable officers, 1,015. Priority 1 response times have increased by almost one minute on average, and priority 2 calls have increased by almost 13 minutes. Seattle’s communication center has redirected its resources to maintain acceptable 911 call answering performance times, spending 40% more in overtime than the year prior, the mayor’s office said. 

In her order, Durkan said she had previously transmitted legislation to the city council on July 29 this year regarding hiring incentives for the Seattle Police Department, "however Council declined to consider the legislation, and took no action to address the public safety crisis." 

Voters will decide between mayoral candidates Bruce Harrell and Lorena Gonzalez on Tuesday. 

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The police union's board said it "would like to suggest to our current and soon to be newly elected politicians that if you want to hire new and lateral police officers, we suggest you also take care of your current officers." 

"These officers worked during the pandemic, are feeling the impacts of dangerous staffing levels and are without a union contract," their statement said. "SPOG is looking forward to working with our new mayor and the current/new city council members to remedy our city’s issues. Seattle deserves public safety, and is worth saving."