Official Daily Action for Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021
Today’s daily action is adapted from Decriminalize Seattle. A study published last October (linked below in the Background section) found that police killed more than twice the number of people reported in government databases from 1980 and 2019. The same study found that police kill Black people three and a half times more frequently than they kill white people and that reform efforts such as body cameras, implicit bias training, de-escalation and diversifying police forces have all failed to further meaningfully reduce police violence rates.
With all this information, the City of Seattle’s budget proposal for 2022 allocates $365.4 million to the Seattle Police Department, an increase from 2021’s $363 million. In fact, Mayor Jenny Durkan announced an emergency order to provide hiring bonuses of up to $25,000 for laterally hired and $10,000 for newly hired officers. The budget is undergoing hearings throughout November. Today, we contact our representatives in the City Council to urge them to support the Solidarity Budget, which provides non-violent, community-led solutions to public safety.
Action: Tell City Council to Support the Solidarity Budget
Email the whole city council: [email protected]
Or find and email your councilmembers: https://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council/find-your-district-and-councilmembers
Script
Hello, my name is [NAME] and I live in Seattle in District [NUMBER]. The current budget proposal for 2022 allocates $365.4 million to SPD, an increase from 2021, ignoring sustained and widespread calls to defund the police. I urge you to instead support the Solidarity Budget, by defunding police, courts, and prosecutors, and instead put budgeting in the hands of the community by enacting participatory budgeting. The Solidarity Budget has broad community support: Please fight for a Solidarity Budget and defund the police.
Background
Decriminalize Seattle
https://www.instagram.com/p/CVoZHObPrHG
Summary of City of Seattle 2022 Proposed Budget
https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/FinanceDepartment/22proposedbudget/Charts_and_Tables.pdf
Fatal police violence by race and state in the USA, 1980–2019: a network meta-regression
https://bit.ly/fatal321
Seattle to offer hiring bonuses of up to $25K to attract more police officers, 911 dispatchers
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-to-offer-hiring-bonuses-of-up-to-25k-to-attract-more-police-officers-911-dispatchers/
Solidarity Budget
https://bit.ly/SolidarityBudget2022
