Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best retires after city council votes to cut SPD funding

Meghan Walker Ballard

Seattle’s Police Chief Carmen Best announced her retirement Monday evening after Seattle City Council voted to significantly cut police spending.

Seattle City Council decided Monday in a 7-1 vote to cut about $3 million of SPD’s $400 million annual budget this year, which will effectively lay off 100 out of the department’s 1,400 total officers.

The decision will also cut some funding to programs including the Navigation Team, Harbor Patrol, and Mounted Patrol.

Ballard Alliance Executive Director Mike Stewart voiced opposition to the plan to defund the Navigation Team; the Alliance formed an online petition to gain supporters and pressure city councilmembers to vote against the cuts.

“This decision is irresponsible and would have negative impacts on our unsheltered population and on neighborhoods and business districts across Seattle,” the Ballard Alliance wrote in a letter to the community. “Like neighborhoods across the city, Ballard has seen a significant surge in major encampments that deserve the City’s attention.”

Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County today announced that Chief Best’s retirement is, “a loss.” Here’s their statement in full:

Today’s news of the retirement of Chief Carmen Best is a loss.

It does nothing to further our fight for authentic police accountability and the safety of Black lives, that the first Black woman to hold the position of Chief of Police of the Seattle Police Department has been forced out of her job by the Seattle City Council.

Racism is racism.

We demand the Seattle City Council stop prioritizing performative action that solely suggests the appearance of change. We demand transparency and accountability for the series of actions and inactions that led to Chief Best’s resignation. And we demand a successor that serves Black Lives.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan also lamented Chief Best’s retirement news, saying that she freely admits that she wishes Best would stay on, and that she asked her to consider it.

“While I understand the Chief’s reasons for retiring, I also accept her decision with a heavy heart. I believe she has been the leader Seattle and SPD needs and her retirement will be a significant loss for me and the city,” Mayor Durkan said in a statement. “I hope that going forward, all of Seattle can engage in hard and necessary conversations about policing and community safety and that we can do so from a place of mutual respect – even when we disagree.”

Chief Best’s last day will be September 2nd; Mayor Durkan has appointed Deputy Chief Adrian Diaz to serve as Interim Chief of Police beginning in September.

39 thoughts to “Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best retires after city council votes to cut SPD funding”

    1. Crime exists everywhere, do something about it. I was threatened with bodily harm by a crazy guy 2 weeks ago, scared sh**less. I am 72. 2 guys in a PU stopped to help diffuse the situation, thanks gentleman. Today i have Red Pepper Gel, i will not hesitate to use it this time. That’s for me, what will you do??

      PS anyone heard if the criminal that attacked the kid from QFC has been charged yet?
      Any info MYBALLARD. Some people stepped in to help him, we need to do that.

  3. I am surprised that BLM considers Chief Best’s resignation “a loss”. She obviously didn’t have control over her department.

        1. all that is written is not true. So many protests in Seattle haven’t involved breaking plate glass windows and looting. Yet that is how these protests started. The police were responding in a way that is understandable.

        2. that’s not specific , it’s your words. if its recorded, where, a link that says or shows this.
          the footage i saw showed people throwing projectiles at the police, they took it for a time and then responded, its their job. They are First Responders.

    3. Our elected officials set the rules for the police not our chief of police ! She is resigning because our elected officials won’t let the police do there jobs the way they have too do to stop crime in our city ! Remember this during our next election !

  4. What a complete shit show. These kids posing as adults on our city council are all elected. This tells me enough right there. They all wet their pants then folded, like cheap tents, due to the rioting, looting, burning, etc. They welcomed it, asking for it. They used it as ammo. BLM now has over a $BILLION in their bank account. Are they building any schools anywhere? Not at all, but they did manage to run Carmen Best, a black woman + near 30 year veteran, from the force. I guess that black life just didn’t matter, did it. So sad.

      1. Fair question. However, even allowing a person was marginally left of center and not a bloviating reactionary blunderbuss like Paintking, they’d still have trouble getting past the far-left gatekeepers of our local democratic organizations and publications. So, “Why don’t you run for council?” may not be the right question. “Are you far left enough to run for council?” is probably the best first question.

        1. So because the candidates you want elected, don’t get elected, you blame a liberal conspiracy.

          Let me know when a not insane or corrupt conservative candidate runs for District 6 Councilmember. I’m trying to get that odd Mike O’Brien fetishist on here to run. You all like his policies, so why not convince him to run?

          1. I can’t speak for Pork, but there is definitely a liberal political machine in this city that often speaks in the voice you have here — jumping to dramatic conclusions (“conspiracy!”) so as to portray a dissenter as nuts when all that I read in his comment is the factual statement that the machine exists. You’d think you and the rest of the far left would be glad enough at that to just admit it.

            For myself, I don’t really want a conservative to run because those aren’t my politics. But if they did I would hear them out before I jumped right to calling them “insane.” No one likes an absolutist idelogue. And that, sir or madam, is the Truth.

          2. Well thank you Lizzy. You spoke for me just fine. And Truth seems to have a difficult relationship with the, errr, truth. I just went to my profile dashboard and reviewed all my comments to any of the myriad “Mike O’Brien” and “Dan Strauss” sock puppets and I found a whopping ONE time when I responded to them with anything like support – which was to LOL at his snide crop of Strauss’s face in his avatar. I’m not Strauss’s biggest fan, but I’ll state for the record – even though the record is right there for anyone who cared to live in the realm of facts – I think the O’Brien/Strauss creature is a pox on this site. “You like all his policies” is a falacious statement.

          3. Edit to read: “You all like his policies” – results in the same point, though. Grouping me in that bucket is a falacious exercise.

  7. Hurrrahh!!!! This is great for me and my hobo friends! Thank you city council, especially Dan Strauss! No Navigation Team, no police, no rules, no accountability… yay!

    I’m so happy I could sing!!! And a 1 and a 2 and a 3…

    No rules,
    No police,
    No plan,
    No law enforcement,
    No need to refuse services,
    No one can tell me to do anything,
    Free groceries at QFC,
    Free stuff at Bartell,
    More opportunity for assaulting random Ballardites,
    Free of any law enforcement,
    Free meth, Just kidding! You need to pay for it in cash or bike parts.
    Free food at St. Luke’s….

    1. I would pay good money to see you attempt to spend one night on “Easy Street” with other homeless people.

      The over/under would probably be sundown. Side bets on how quickly you wet your Newt Gingrich nighties.

      1. Are you saying homeless people are violent? Nonsense. We’re all safety conscious and mentally sane. Clean too. Hepatitis A-OK! I’m 100% behind the progressives and activists that enable my drug use and camping anywhere. Heck I love them!!!
        Just like St. Lukes that gives me free food but I can’t throw my trash on their property anymore? What the heck? We homeless druggies you feed have entitlements like the Ballard Commons, Truth’s private property and throwing our garbage anywhere. Next thing you know they’ll not allow us to stand up pee in front of children at the Commons anymore. Oppressive laws. Let’s protest activists! I can’t stand up pee in front of children or throw my trash on St. Lukes property! Aaargh….

      3. Thank you Truth for finally admitting it! It isn’t “Easy Street!” So with that acknowledgment why do you continue to pretend like it is? If you know how bad it is why are you still backing encampments and slum conditions at Ballard Commons where the “residents” are routinely beaten and robbed? Why are you backing 50 people sharing a toilet in the middle of a COVID and Hep-A outbreak without running water?

        The problem is the “advocates” for the homeless in Seattle are promoting the exact opposite. They have no plans or desire to put the homeless in homes and as soon as Dan Strauss or Durkan attempt to house the homeless they are attacked by the rest of the city council and the navigation teams are defunded.

        Come to Ballard Commons at 2:00AM and tell us with a straight face this is the solution.

        1. Easy there neighbor. We drug addicts who live on the streets by choice don’t want our advocates to connect the truth by logic. No sir. We rely on virtue signals and guilt to guide their progressive policies so we don’t have to abide by rules. Please, please stop using harmful logic to describe how much they are enabling homelessness while virtue signalling that they are helping homelessness. It’s not helpful to our cause. We simply can’t have laws or any interference in our meth addled hacky sack games and shoplifting practices. I beg you, stop with the logic and attacking their ignorance! We rely on it to thrive.
          Please. Pretty please with crystal meth on top, no more.
          Promise not to steal your bike and packages for a week (a whole week!!!).
          Ack ack ackk haaahaaaaaa <— hobo druggie cackle..

        2. Come to Ballard Commons at 2:00AM and tell us with a straight face this is the solution.

          It’s not and no one claims it is, except apparently you when trying to make a point.

          Thank you Truth for finally admitting it! It isn’t “Easy Street!” So with that acknowledgment why do you continue to pretend like it is?

          Harley Lever is the one claiming that the homeless are homeless by choice and living the simple life out on the street. I’m challenging him to put his money where his mouth is and spend a night out on “Easy Street”.

          Of course, we all know he’s nothing more than a pompous snowflake and wouldn’t last a minute.

          1. Hahahaaaaaa (cackle, cackle, cackle)….
            Did you think Hep-A would clear us out Truth? Nah. All of us were offered shelter multiple times, beds with social distancing and mental health services in new facility. More of us refused, preferring to stay in Hep-A conditions than accepted help. You progressive fools forget that many of us are mentally ill and severely addicted so no chance of us just accepting shelter. Wtf would we do that for?? Where would I cook meth? How would I eat? Why would I change anything? Don’t you realize I’m too mentally ill to make a good decision?

            Thanks progressives! Thanks a million times over. Don’t change! Please never change. I won’t.

          2. Did you wash your Newts so you’re ready to try again tonight to live the high life on “Easy Street”? Maybe this time bring your Ron Paul sleeping bag so you don’t get cold!

      4. “I would pay good money to see you attempt to spend one night on “Easy Street” with other homeless people”

        Money? Dude, all you need his some sweet smack.

  8. She seemed to be very competent, but an inside the box thinker. The irony is that she got the job through community pressure from the AA community who opposed a nation wide search…and now she’s lost her job through more community conflict.

    1. The “community conflict” you mention was created by durkin, for telling the Chief to stand down her officers. Allowing rampant destruction, over and over. If she had a backbone she would resign.

    1. Nooooo!!!!! They are my #1 enablers! They got SPD Chief to leave, next the Mayor, then City Council Prez becomes the Mayor and it’s a a free for all!!

      So excited just gotta sing, and a 1 and a 2 and a 3…

      Who likes progressives?
      Drug addicts like progressives,
      Who likes activists the appropriate Black Lives as an excuse to protest their white guilt under the premise of social justice?
      I like activists the appropriate Black Lives as an excuse to protest their white guilt under the premise of social justice,
      Who likes progressives that are against racism but are actually racist themselves?
      Black people don’t like progressives that are against racism but are actually racist themselves, like firing SPD Chief Best,
      Who likes activists that support no sweeps of any kind?
      Homeless drug addicts like activists that support no sweeps of any kind,
      “I march for the BIPOC oppressed by the police…” OK, whatever you say snowflake, gimme some meth!!

  11. This is too bad she is a great person and this will effect how long it takes for a officer to come when you call the police for anything ! Remember this at election time ! You thought it took to long for the police to come now just wait tell the cut takes effect !

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