Community members hold a press conference addressing an upcoming Seattle City Council vote on an agreement between the Seattle Police Officers Guild and the city of Seattle at City Hall, Nov. 13, 2018. (Dorothy Edwards/Crosscut)
As anti-racism protesters filled city streets this past summer with calls for a radical rethinking of public safety, a majority of Seattle City Council members responded by committing to cut the city s police budget by 50%. But making good on that promise has been difficult.
In this, the final episode of This Changes Everything’s focus on efforts to defund the police, host Sara Bernard and reporter David Kroman discuss the political pain and potential ramifications that have come since the council members committed to those cuts.
Torin Bracey chants during a ‘Count Every Vote, Protect Every Person’ rally in Pioneer Square, Nov. 4, 2020. Hundreds of people peacefully marched through Pioneer Square with limited police presence a noticeable difference from the night before, which ended in multiple arrests of protesters. (Dorothy Edwards/Crosscut)
In the midst of the anti-racism protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police last spring, a new cry went out: Defund the police! And in the weeks that followed, Seattle city leaders appeared to be listening.
Members of the Seattle City Council, responding to strong advocacy from inside and outside government, pledged to cut the police force by 50%. Cuts did come, but in the end they were less than revolutionary and the debate became muddled and complex.
Proponents of the nation s Defund Police movement have argued that some police funding could be redirected to fund community programs, which would help improve policing, lower police interactions for at-risk populations and lead to better job satisfaction for police and results for taxpayers. (Matt M. McKnight/Crosscut)
Many activists leading the call to defund the police say the answer to disproportionate policing is to take money from the cops and give it to communities. But change is never as easy as writing new lines in a city budget.
In this episode of This Changes Everything’s look at efforts to defund the police, host Sara Bernard and reporter David Kroman examine emerging community programs that are seeking to take the place of police as a way to dismantle the systemic racism that has long been part of the American criminal justice system.
The endangered southern resident killer whale. (NOAA Fisheries/National Marine Fisheries Service)
If Puget Sound has an animal celebrity, it’s the orca specifically, the southern resident population of killer whales. About 70 individuals divided into three family groups, or pods, make their home in our waters for large parts of the year. Fans from all over the world follow every movement of the southern residents; they mourn every whale death; they rejoice when a new calf joins a pod.
These camper-van-sized whales subsist almost entirely on salmon, which they hunt in the murky sea, using only sound. But the clicks, whistles and honks they employ while hunting are also the building blocks of a rich language we’re only beginning to decode. Some elements are understood by whales all over the world, but each pod has its own unique dialect used only among family members.
A coyote captured in the region by Seattle Urban Carnivore Project camera traps. (Seattle Urban Carnivore Project)
It’s no secret that Washington state is home to many charismatic carnivores wolverines, bobcats, cougars and bears (oh my!). But it might come as a surprise that plenty of them live in our backyards, literally.
For years, healthy populations of coyotes, raccoons, bobcats and otters all have resided within Seattle city limits, while cougars and black bears haunt the suburbs and exurbs (though sometimes a cougar finds its way into Discovery Park). But with the pandemic drastically increasing the amount of time we spend near our houses, more and more people are spotting these animals slinking around the neighborhood.