There was a burglary at Seattle Car Tender last night,referred to in these posts:
I sent emails to City Councilors Sawant, Herbold and Mayor Durkan with the following text:
Last night someone stole items from Seattle Car Tender (
http://www.car-tender.com/) a business located outside the CHAZ/CHOP zone. The SPD refused to respond. Please tell me why the police are allowed to pick and choose who they will respond to now.
Herbold's office got back to me in about 20 minutes:
X, thank you for writing Councilmember Herbold. I'm copying Christopher Fisher of SPD and asking him to respond to you. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Aide to Councilmember Herbold
Still waiting to hear from the SPD on that one.
Durkan's office asked me to call them about 4 hours later. In the phone call with an aide I learned
- SPD is not just refusing to cover calls from CHOP, they're refusing to cover calls from all over Capitol Hill. She specifically mentioned businesses on north Broadway and lower Pine St. that called and were ignored.
- The SPD not only didn't respond last night, they didn't notify the SFD about the fire
- Durkan is furious and considering letting the agreement with the police union expire
- They've already started working with BLM leaders, local businesses and various artist collectives to normalize traffic through the area. Most likely 12th Ave will be opened and Pine St. from 12th Ave to 10th Ave will remain closed.
- It sounds like Chief Best has really pissed off Durkan and the city council. In addition to the laws just passed today that bans crowd control devices, that makes chokeholds illegal, and that makes it illegal to cover badge numbers with "mourning bands", there is other more restrictive legislation on tap.
So the SPD really are acting like pouty little babies. Keep the protests coming, we're actually seeing reform legislation get passed. None of this would have happened without the leadership of BLM and the support of thousands of Seattleites.
