Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best announces retirement after city council slashes budget

Carly Ortiz-Lytle
Washington Examiner
Tue, 11 Aug 2020 16:40 UTC

© AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best

Seattle Chief of Police Carmen Best will leave her post after a summer of unrest in the Emerald City.

Best announced Monday night in a message to the police department that she will retire next month and that she is " confident the department will make it through these difficult times."

Best was appointed to the role of chief of police by Mayor Jenny Durkan in July 2018 and is the first black woman to lead the department.

"I have the credentials. I have the resume. I have the heart," Best said in 2018. "I am the one for this job. I hope the citizens and the mayor and others will see that and make me the permanent police chief."

Best's decision to leave the force comes just hours after the Seattle City Council voted to cut the funding to the SWAT Unit and the Navigation Team, a unit of specially trained police officers who, along with caseworkers, conduct outreach to Seattle's homeless population and remove homeless encampments from public spaces.

© KTTH/Screenshot

Councilmember Lisa Herbold

The funding measure approved by the council will reduce the city's 2020 police budget by about $3 million. The new budget also reduced Best's salary by 6%.

"Why on Earth — for the people who've worked so very hard — would we ever consider not having the best of the best and compensating them fairly?" Best said in a press conference after the cuts were proposed. "I find that absolutely shocking and quite frankly — I think it's punitive and not well thought out. And that's exactly how I feel about it."

After the vote passed, Durkan described the cuts as "unfortunate."

"It is unfortunate Council has refused to engage in a collaborative process to work with the Mayor, Chief Best, and community members to develop a budget and policies that respond to community needs while accounting for — not just acknowledging — the significant labor and legal implications involved in transforming the Seattle Police Department," she said in a statement.

Protests in Seattle escalated to riots and an occupation of a six-block area called the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone" earlier this summer. The mayor suggested the occupied zone could bloom into a "summer of love," before two teenagers were shot and killed there.

Carly Ortiz-Lytle is the Social Media Producer for the Washington Examiner. She is a recent graduate of the University of California Davis, majoring in International Relations.

Comment: Seattle local news outlet KTTH comments:

The woke Seattle City Council is poised to fire officers of color and cut the black police chief's salary to ensure she gets paid less than her white predecessor. How's that for social justice?

Monday's vote is likely to pass, despite the council's best efforts to claim they'll fight for people of color. If those people of color are cops, however, the council deems them unworthy of protection.

Seattle City Council to fire officers of color

The council's Budget Committee passed a series of proposals that will fire up to 100 officers in the short term. Long term, the goal of the council remains defunding the Seattle Police Department by 50%, despite overwhelming opposition to the dangerous and reckless plan.

The council makes this move knowing that newly hired, less experienced officers will be let go first. In the last year or so, the department has been focused on hiring more people of color to better represent different communities. Consequently, the council will force the department to fire minority officers.

Realizing this is a bad look, white Councilmember Lisa Herbold suggests the Seattle Police Department seek permission to exclusively fire white officers. This is, of course, illegal discrimination and flatly racist. It also makes little sense to fire officers who have more experience.

Herbold knows this won't happen. She's merely hoping it'll give her a pass when the public realizes she played a pivotal role in firing people of color. She shouldn't get a pass. Herbold repeatedly makes public statements for political cover, while voting in opposition to promises made to the public.

Council wants black chief paid less than white

Council members like Lorena Gonzalez feign outrage at pay inequity, particularly when it comes to gender and racial wage disparities where white men make more than women of color. Gonzalez, who paid her female staffers less than the white ones when she initially complained, has made this a key issue to address. Now it appears she, and the other council members, are ready to keep independent black women from making too much money.

The Seattle City Council was unhappy with Chief Carmen Best for publicly condemning their dangerous proposals. And a black police chief isn't allowed to criticize council members.

In retaliation, the council is moving forward to cut Best's salary significantly. This means Best would be paid significantly less than her white predecessor Kathleen O'Toole.

"The council, in retaliation for her basically criticizing them about defunding the police and their efforts to reduce the personnel in the Seattle Police Department and services in the city, in retaliation for her criticism they reduced her salary," Best's attorney Anne Bremner told the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH.

Bremner says she's looking at filing a lawsuit over the retaliation.

To be fair, the move to cut Best's salary may not be exclusively in retaliation for criticizing their plan. Herbold previously asked Best for special treatment when a derelict RV was parked in front of her home. Herbold even asked for the chief to investigate a political rival. Best rightly refused. For Herbold, this could be a payback vote.

The police force in Seattle have seen the handwriting on the woke wall, and are quitting in droves.

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