Change Washington wants your thoughts on how the city council can end the tragic crime crisis in Seattle

Last month Seattle voters elected a new city council with a majority of its members promising to support law enforcement and pass tougher criminal laws. Because voters in 2021 and 2023 elections expressed their frustration over failed progressive policies, seven of the nine members were not on the council when the anti-police proposals were passed in 2020 and 2021.

As we prepare for the new year when the new city councilmembers are sworn in, Change Washington is very interested in what our followers believe the council must do to reduce crime. 

Please take a moment to fill out the very short survey to tell us about your thoughts on crime in Seattle. 

TAKE OUR SURVEY

We will post the results before the holiday break and pass on your suggestions to the members of the new council.

The new council will be very busy in 2024 as members seek to undue the failed radical progressive policies of the past which led to record-breaking crime rates. Please help us focus on what you believe is important, by filling out our brief survey.

Your input is valuable as crime rates (like overdose death rates) tragically continue to break records in Seattle.

Last week a stabbing victim from a June assault died from the injuries suffered in the attack. This marked the 70^th homicide victim in the City of Seattle during 2023, breaking a 29-year record set in 1994.

And even more disturbing is the fact that recent data revealed that 75% of the murders in Seattle go unsolved, primarily due to the severe shortage of officers. The national average is around 50%.

The recent spike in murders comes after two decades of relatively few homicides. In 2019, Seattle completed a 19-year run of having 32 or fewer killings (most years were between 16 to 20) in the city.

This number leaped to 52 homicides in 2020, 42 in 2021, 52 again during 2022, before breaking records this year.

Last week there were only a few mentions of 2023’s tragic mark in the local media. Most of the reports on the record-breaking violence included progressive politicians’ contentions that the only cause for the giant leap in murders was guns (despite the multiple gun restrictions imposed in the past decade by the Seattle City Council and progressive state lawmakers in Olympia).

A statement from Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office declared, “This record trend of homicides is extremely concerning and shows there is more work to be done to keep Seattle residents and communities safe, take guns off our streets (our emphasis), and hold those who cause harm accountable for their actions.” 

Yet others contend that focusing on guns is irresponsible because it ignores a couple important facts:

• There wasn’t suddenly a massive increase in the number of guns in Seattle during 2020 when murder initially increased by 50%, and the number of guns in Seattle is approximately the same today as it was in 2016 when there was only 16 murders in the city.
• There are guns in every city in the country. Yet while the Federal Bureau of Investigations states that violent crime is dropping in nearly all cities in the country, it continues to increase in Seattle.

Other cities the size of Seattle (such as Boston, MA) have more than 1,500 police officers. Seattle currently has 850. Efforts to attract more officers (with large signing bonuses) to the city have fallen flat as 100 more officers left the department in 2023. 

And who could blame them?  No police officer would want to work for a city council which rushed to pass major “defund the police” measures demanded by extreme and violent rioters, completely ignored the thoughts of the police chief (the first Black woman to hold the position) before passing major reform, allow councilmembers to call police officers “murderers,” and then refuse for nearly three years to bargain a new contract with the police officers’ union.

Please take the time today to fill out the survey. Your continued involvement in the process is necessary if we want to take back our city from the failed progressive policies which have negatively impacted so many Seattle residents.

Thank You!