Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, joined by Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, announced new measures that address public safety and crowd management at leaders from the Black community and leaders of demonstrations.
For the past week, Durkan and Best have cleared their schedules to meet with leaders of the Black community, other communities of color, demonstrators, and the City’s accountability partners at the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), Office of Police Accountability (OPA), and the Community Police Commission (CPC), to help identify community needs and policy changes that could be quickly enacted in addition to steps that Seattle Police Department (SPD) can do to has committed to build on these efforts including reviewing the SPD budget with special focus on listening community voices throughout the process.
On Saturday, Durkan and City officials met with leadership of Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County and the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle to discuss the long-standing oppression of Black Americans, and their community-focused ideas to force systemic change – Durkan concurred with many of their requests and is working to quickly implement changes, including establishing and ongoing resourcing of a Seattle Black Commission and investing $100 million in community-driven programs for Black youths and adults.
“As part of recent conversations, I’ve committed to identifying at least $100 million to invest communities we have neglected for far too long, including new community-based and community-driven programs that invest in Black youth and adults, employment programs, black owned businesses and providing alternatives to arrest and incarceration.”
In recent days, the City has implemented a series of steps as it relates to police reform:
In the wake of demonstrations and out of concern that the large gatherings may represent a mass COVID-19 exposure event, Durkan announced that the free Citywide testing initiative will expand testing criteria to include those who have participated in demonstrations that began on May 30.
