REVEALED: Seattle Mayor utilizes officers from defunded homeless response team for personal protection

During cuts to the Seattle Police Department’s finances final 12 months in response to the “defund the police” motion, Seattle City Council voted to chop the Seattle Police Department’s Navigation Team that had the accountability of clearing town’s violent homeless encampents and referring campers to social companies.

However, it has been revealed that Seattle police officers who had been on the Navigation Team have been reassigned to offer personal protection for Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, regardless of a major improve in violent crime all through the encampments and a lower in deployable officers citywide because of early retirements and resignations within the wake of the defund the police motion.

Multiple sources inside SPD confirmed that officers from the previous Navigation Team and North Precinct patrol present 24/7 safety exterior of Mayor Jenny Durkan’s multi-million greenback residence in an upscale Seattle neighborhood.

An uptick in protection got here after Seattle metropolis councilmember, Kshama Sawant, led a military of Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists to the Mayor’s residence through the 2020 George Floyd riots to stress Durkan to additional defund the police. Sawant is now going through a recall within the subsequent election over the results of her actions, together with different violations the Washington State Supreme Court discovered to be credible.

Durkan initially opposed the defunding of the Navigation Team, although she supported different police defunding measures. Recently, following the mass resignations from the police division and spiking crime together with homicides, even Durkan has sounded the alarm on the critically low ranges of police within the metropolis.

The choice made by Seattle City Council to chop the Navigation Team resulted in encampments overrunning taxpayer-funded parks, colleges, and sidewalks; which has resulted in residents struggling from unsafe circumstances by the hands of elected officers.

Last week, a person was shot to loss of life close to a homeless encampment in Gas Works Park, a well-liked space for festivals, residents and vacationers. It was most just lately the location of an occasion celebrating the growth draft of the latest NHL franchise, The Kraken.

Earlier this month, town of Seattle moved a lethal encampment out of Courthouse Park which was located subsequent to the King County Courthouse only a few blocks away from Seattle City Hall. There was frequent crime within the encampment, inside and surrounding the courthouse together with homicides, tried murders, tried rapes.

In May, a homeless man with a number of priors, kicked a 67-year-old man’s canine to loss of life after assaulting the proprietor throughout an tried theft at Courthouse Park.

In addition, a pair was brutally assaulted and a person was killed after making an attempt to retrieve stolen belongings at an encampent in South Lake Union in July, based on Kiro 7 News.

The homeless encampents have drastically unfold all through town because of Seattle’s failed progressive insurance policies and have resulted in decades-long annual occasions being cancelled over security issues.

The most up-to-date casualty was cross-country meets at Lower Woodland Park in Green Lake, the place 1000’s of runners prepare and compete. The metropolis denied permits for competitions this 12 months citing security issues as a result of giant homeless encampment located throughout the park. The Green Lake homeless encampment that town refuses to take away lies inside Seattle PD’s North Precinct, the identical precinct that gives personal protection for Mayor Durkan.

According to KOMO News, “The city has denied permits for leagues to host meets at Lower Woodland, on the south end of Green Lake, and the ban will likely last the season.”

Jim Neff, a neighborhood working coach, informed The Seattle Times: “It’s the mecca for cross country in Seattle. It’s known everywhere as an extremely challenging course, so runners come from all over to test themselves against it.”

In addition, town of Seattle has refused to deal with and take away a violent homeless encampment located at Broadview-Thompson Elementary School, regardless of mother and father fearing for the security of their youngsters. The faculty was compelled to bear lockdowns because of homeless residents getting into the constructing. Broadview-Thompson can be underneath the identical precinct as Mayor Durkan.

With town’s inaction, together with Seattle police officers not policing the encampements, the listing of violence throughout the encampments continues to develop exponentially. Seattle residents worry for their security, not from the pandemic, however from the world’s campers.