It’s hard to know if a 15-yo is beyond redemption.
In any case, they won’t be held in an adult prison until they’re 21.
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Chief of Police is gone, as he should be. Now he can spend more time with the family.
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Good. Not sure the interim replacement is a good fit. No experience policing a large city.
Well the last one wasn’t a good fit at all since he wasn’t even in the city.
Apparently his Chicago home that he visited on weekends and holidays was TWO jobs ago, not even last one he employed by.
As noted by @zeebamom above, his wife is a professor at DePaul in Chicago. Perhaps she encouraged him to take the out-of-town gigs.
Tenured or tenure track faculty are often very place-bound, since there are few such jobs open generally.
Police officers can work in many locations, but a police officer who advances to the point of being a candidate for police chief of a large jurisdiction has fewer possible locations, and these do not necessarily have job openings at any given time. I.e. the job is very place-limited.
Basically, this situation illustrates an inefficiency in the labor market with respect to those who are married and in professions where jobs tend to be place-bound or place-limited. If the sets of locations for each spouse’s jobs do not intersect, that can result in career limitations for one or both spouses, and/or the spouses being away from each other much of the time.
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I don’t have an issue with the police chief not making Seattle his permanent home. It’s obvious that he considers this a temporary job, and I don’t blame him, as the turnover for police chiefs has been ridiculous. I also don’t think the amount of time he’s spent visiting his real home in Chicago has been excessive.
I do think that traveling to attend seven conferences in six months, being gone for 47 days already for the year (actually, I’d heard that was just since April, but I don’t know) is too much. And supposedly he was getting ready to take much of August off. I was listening to our former sheriff talk about this. He said you have to resist the temptation of being invited to speak and attend all these conferences, as it is very flattering, because the main thing is to actually be present in the city.
Furthering his career and making public national appearances doesn’t help this city. My question is, are these police chiefs just figureheads, with no meaningful function, and it’s irrelevant whether they’re present or not? And if the interim chief was in charge during the communications breakdown, seems that he had been responsible for that, and now he’s acting chief. I don’t know how that’s going to work out. I hope it does.
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4 Chiefs in 2.5 years. Something is broken. Who would want to take this job?
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I suspect there’s more to this story. A reporter asked the mayor why she had apparently tried to fire the chief two times previously (which she denied, but perhaps she had considered it). If she has been looking at firing him for awhile, there could be something else going on that she’s not willing to reveal due to concern of the legality of speaking about it.
No doubt we’ll eventually find out. I feel bad for her, because she obviously has more knowledge of the situation, and everyone is attacking her.
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Seattle was under a consent decree from the DOJ. The 2012 consent decree was specifically designed to address various officer activities, including (1) use of force, (2) crisis intervention, (3) stops and detentions, (4) bias-free policing, and (5) effective supervision. It was terminated in. 2025 by the Trump DOJ.
So. From the satirical site, The Needling:
“Today Mayor Katie Wilson announced she’s already fired Seattle’s next police chief after he somehow teargassed Capitol Hill, deleted public records, hired someone to have an affair on the job with, and threatened to fight a reporter all before 9 a.m.”
Honestly, I think the problem lies in both who they choose, and that the department itself still has issues (the head of the union is awful) that the consent decree was supposed to fix.
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Seattle isn’t exactly law enforcement friendly.
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I recognizethat your son (?) is in a force somewhere.
The friendliness of the city to the police is debatable. The head of the union (might have resigned) is or was corrupt, and there’s been a number of shoot first, ask questions later incidents. The police have been slow to respond to certain activities within the city that should be high on the list to take care of. My daughter and SIL live in one of the areas, so I know of what I speak.
The starting pay is higher than that for teachers.
anything more and I’m in the political territory.
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Correct, and doing very well thankfully.
I’m not saying the SPD isn’t flawed. It most certainly is. But the history of the last six years doesn’t make it a particularly attractive landing spot for recruited leadership positions, or rookie recruits. Many of the most qualified candidates will look to different departments. It’s become a self fulfilling prophecy. A cursory search showed SPD is facing a $1.7M budget shortfall, and recruiting is barely keeping pace with retirements and transfers. Apparently Seattle has the lowest per capita headcount in the nation.
I’ve asked my son if he’s ever considered switching to an agency with higher pay and a large signing bonus. He said no, those places need to offer that money for a reason. It’s going to take a long time to overcome the perception of Seattle. Some of the most attractive agencies still struggle to recruit. Unattractive agencies are like Sisyphus.
P.S. I’m no fan of unions. Union bosses are usually jerks.
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