Seattle Records Deadliest Month in Recent History after ‘Defund the Police’ Push

Seattle recorded its deadliest month in recent history during August after the city’s Democrat leadership bowed to the “Defund the Police” movement and slashed the law enforcement budget.

The “woke” Washington State city is currently on track to set a 25-year record high in fatal shootings, according to police.

“This is one of our highest years, and we are on pace to exceed the last two years, and this has been a concerning trend,” Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz said last week of fatal shootings in the city, according to King 5.

“We are passing our 25-year high that happened just two years ago.”

The Seattle Police Department confirmed that it recorded 11 homicides for the month of August.

Police data shows that August 2022 had the highest number of homicides recorded in a single month since at least 2008.

2008 is the furthest back on the Seattle Police Department’s Crime Dashboard can go, meaning it could be the highest number in decades.

The previous record in the city was nine homicides in June 2021.

Seattle had averaged roughly three homicides every August between 2008 and 2021.

This year’s August saw a roughly 267% increase compared to the previous 14-year average.

In 2020, the year that the city embraced violent Black Lives Matter rioting, Seattle notched its highest number of homicides in 26 years, at 53.

Last year saw 42 homicides in the city, while 2022 has already recorded 27, King 5 reported.

Seattle’s data on homicides follows a national trend from 2020.

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FBI data show murders increased by nearly 30% in 2020, marking the largest single-year increase in killings since the agency began tracking the crimes.

The data shows murders disproportionately affected black Americans, at a more than 32% increase compared to 2019.

Experts have continually pointed to the far-left “Defund the Police movement, the pandemic and its lockdowns, and the Ferguson effect for the rise in crimes in 2020.

Seattle became a focal point of the defund movement in 2020.

During the summer of 2020, then-Mayor Jenny Durkan, a Democrat, announced that the city would defund the police department by $76 million.

The move came as violent riots and looting tore communities apart in Democrat-led cities across the country following the killing of George Floyd.

Other liberal leaders in the city, such as socialist Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, pushed for the department to be further defunded that year by 50%, or about $85 million.

As crime increased in the city since 2020, the police department in Seattle has faced steep staffing shortages.

The shortage problem has affected nearly all law enforcement agencies in King County, where Seattle is located.

Diaz told King 5 that the staffing shortages since 2020 have fanned the flames of crime in the city with fewer officers available to respond to calls and patrol the streets.

Seattle is far from alone in dealing with police staffing issues.

Across the United States, cities have reported more of the same since the 2020 riots that called for police departments to be defunded.

Philadelphia, for example, is bracing for at least 800 police department members to leave the force over the next few years while it’s already operating at 20% below its targeted staffing level.

And in Chicago, police reported the lowest number of employees in recent history at the end of March.

Experts are warning that law-abiding citizens are now paying the price for police officers being “demonized” by the “woke” Left.

“Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a very difficult time in American history in the last two years,” National Fraternal Order of Police President Patrick Yoes said at the Faith & Blue conference in Washington, D.C., last month.

“America’s law enforcement has been demonized by many.

“It has created a rift within this country and eroded the very trust of the institution and the profession of law enforcement.

“And we’re paying for it,” Yoes asserted.

“We’re paying for it in our communities with higher crime.

“And we’re also paying for it in law enforcement officers.”

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By Frank Bergman

Frank Bergman is a political/economic journalist living on the east coast. Aside from news reporting, Bergman also conducts interviews with researchers and material experts and investigates influential individuals and organizations in the sociopolitical world.

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