Re: “Seattle officers ‘undermining’ city’s police alternative, report says,” Oct. 4, Native: If allegations are true that CARE personnel will not be being dispatched to 911 calls involving individuals experiencing psychological sickness and homelessness, and Seattle Police Division officers are canceling them when they’re dispatched, you may assume SPD doesn’t want the 150 officers they’re hoping to rent in 2025; that Seattle residents are discovering SPD’s response to crime utterly satisfactory, and so they don’t have extra vital issues to do; that they’re unconcerned concerning the subsequent potential information story about an officer capturing and killing an individual experiencing a psychological well being disaster. Lots of people who reside, work, do enterprise, store and recreate in Seattle really feel otherwise. You don’t clear up homelessness or drug habit with citations and arrests. You clear up them by connecting individuals with providers they want – exactly what CARE was created to do.
If there’s an issue with collaboration between SPD and CARE, let’s hear it and repair it. If it is a tactic to realize leverage in negotiations for renewal of the CARE program, don’t sabotage a program born out of an pressing want to supply options to armed police response within the course of. It helps nobody, together with cops.
Christa Quackenbush, Shoreline
