The Fall of Seattle

Matthew Dowd    @matthewjdowd
As I said on @DeadlineWH with @NicolleDWallace
I feel like our democracy is in a Johnny Cash moment: "How high's the water, mama? Two feet high and risin'." The media does a great job covering Ukraine war, we need to do a better job covering the threat to our democracy.

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The above is a Tweet I saw this past week on Twitter. Whether our media is doing a great job or not could be argued either way. It may even be that the "threat to our democracy" can be argued either way. How serious is that threat? This is what the first year of the pandemic did for many people, especially after the George Floyd tragedy and its subsequent events. 

The March 26 story at Unherd titled "The Fall of Seattle" caught my eye because these past two years I have been following the challenges some of our cities are  facing. "How high is the water, mama?" That is, how bad is it and is it spreading? The subtitle of the piece reads, "After George Floyd died, the city turned on the police."

"The year 2020 saw a 68% spike in homicides, the highest number in 26 years, and the year 2021 saw a 40% surge in 911 calls for shots fired and a 100% surge in drive-by shootings. Petty crime plagues every neighbourhood of the city, and downtown businesses have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund their own security."

Unherd is a British publication that I receive. They have long form essays that present more in depth coverage of issues than what is typical. The purpose of this blog post is to share this story, The Fall of Seattle. It's relevant, and disturbing.

What happened to Seattle? The answer, of course, depends on your politics. In the news section of the Seattle Times, for instance, a reader is unlikely to see any consideration of a link between policing and public safety. 

What many officers found disturbing is exemplified in this anecdote after the initial riots following the George Floyd incident:

The following morning, Magan got called into the office to start investigations of 30 to 40 people who’d been arrested for crimes such as trespass, burglary and property destruction. Five or six hours in, he began to suspect they’d given the police false names. But there was no point looking into it further. “We found out they’d all been released from custody prior to even being questioned,” he says.

If you are an officer, what is the point of putting your life on the line when there are no consequences for law breakers? 

The net result of these policies is that people begin to not feel safe in many of our cities, which then hurts business. Businesses leave, squatters burn empty buildings, and a form of urban blight begins to take hold. 

It begins with a loss of respect for law and order.* 

In the event you missed the article, here is the link: https://bit.ly/3jafVe0 

Related: Duty to Warn: More Carjacking Escapades

* It cannot be denied that some of the backlash against police has been building for a very long time. When officers do misbehave fellow officers rally round the flag and defend their own.