Seattle closed out the month of August with 11 homicides, setting the city on track to break a 25-year record high in deadly shootings, police say.
The city grabbed the national spotlight in 2020 when former Mayor Jenny Durkan proposed a $76 million cut to police funding, according to Seattle P-I. âDefund the policeâ became the battle cry of scores of protestors in the city following the death of George Floyd, and city leaders eventually made cuts to the departmentâs budget, Reuters reported. A 7-1 vote by the city council fell far short of protestorsâ demands and Durkanâs proposal but still slashed the departmentâs budget by $3.5 million and invested $17 million in community safety programs, the outlet noted. The city council later cut the 2021 budget by $35.6 million (9%) from 2019 and in December 2021 cut police funding in the 2022 budget by $7 million, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In 2020, Seattle recorded 53 homicides, the highest in 26 years, according to King 5. 2021 saw a slight decrease with 42 recorded homicides, but there have been 27 homicides so far in 2022, King 5 reported. This puts Seattle on pace to break yet another record in fatal shootings, police say. There were four homicides in just five days in August, Seattle Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz said. âSeattle has reached a heartbreaking milestone. So far this year, SPD officers have responded to as many homicides in the past 8 months as there were in all of 2021. At this rate, we could easily see more homicides this year than there were in 2020, which broke a nearly 30-year homicide record at 53.â Police have also seen a 32% increase in shots fired events compared to this time last year. So far in 2022 there have been 513 shots fired events compared to 391 in 2021.
