When I arrived in Seattle 9 years ago, I fell in love with this area. Granted, I had never lived in such a densely populated place, and it still makes me feel claustrophobic every once in a while. My only other negative impressions at the time were that everything was obscenely expensive, traffic was a nightmare, and, until I came here, I had never seen homeless encampments on the edges of interstates before.
I was able to sit in my privilege and not think about those things very much, because I could see mountains on the horizon, eagles flying overhead, and there were dense forests and gorgeous waterways close at hand. The politics of the region made me feel right at home. The wide variety of special events that were available throughout the year meant that there was always something interesting to do.
And I absolutely loved bridgetending here. Upon arrival, I was trained on 5 different drawbridges, and only one of them at the time seemed like it was located in a sketchy area. I have lived at three different addresses in these 9 years, and I felt safe at every location. (I wouldn’t wander around alone at night, but I’ve never felt particularly comfortable doing that anywhere, with the possible exception of my college campuses in the 80’s.)
I can honestly say that this time in the Pacific Northwest has been the happiest in my entire life. I have no regrets about moving here. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made.
But it’s 2023, and the world is a much different place.
All over the US, roadside homeless encampments seem to be ubiquitous these days. Traffic is even worse, and things are expensive everywhere. The neighbors I knew and loved at my first Seattle address have moved to the country, because they were hearing gunshots every night, and no sirens whatsoever.
I witness more scary incidents on my drawbridges than ever before, and the police only seem to be showing up if I mention weapons or bloodshed. I only feel safe on one out of five bridges these days. Two of them I completely refuse to work on anymore.
Recently, a coworker was surrounded by a gang of men who were climbing over the locked city property fence to get to him. They came at him, in broad daylight, without any hesitation. Not only did the police not come, but they didn’t even stop at their adjacent encampment after the fact, even though these guys had been breaking into our supply shed on a daily basis for weeks, and now were on the verge of assault. (Fortunately my coworker managed to talk his way out of that situation. But these men were so bold because they knew the cops weren’t coming. They get it and take full advantage of it.)
Not even the inmates run this asylum anymore.
Not that law enforcement inspires confidence around here anyway. The Seattle Police Department has been under a Department of Justice Consent Decree due to excessive force since 2012. As far as I can tell, only 13 other cities have had that dubious honor. (And you’d think that information would be easy to obtain, but it really isn’t. I looked everywhere for definitive answers, and the only thing I could come up with was this article on the National Police Funding Database.)
According to the Police Shootings Database that is maintained by the Washington Post, as of the day before this writing, 1,039 Americans have been shot and killed by the police in the past 12 months. And since the pandemic and the insurrection, those statistics aren’t likely to improve, because people are leaving police forces in droves. The officers that are left behind are overwhelmed, exhausted, and increasingly outnumbered, and are therefore on the defensive.
Here in Seattle, police vacancies are at an all time high. According to this article, if the department were fully staffed, there would be 1,400 cops on the payroll. Currently, there are 954, the lowest number in 30 years, and that’s not even adjusting for the rapid increase in population. Seattle’s Sexual Assault Unit has only 5 detectives for the whole city. This metropolis is losing more officers than it is hiring, and things are getting so desperate that they’re offering a $30k incentive for experienced lateral transfers, and 7.5k for new recruits. Unfortunately, no one is interested because the department has such a bad reputation.
On a recent weekend, due to multiple events, including two nights’ worth of Taylor Swift concerts which drew 1.15 million people, Seattle was briefly the most densely populated place on earth. That’s the weekend that most residents suspect that the police chose to stage a sick out. There’s no proof, but if they didn’t, it was a very strange coincidence, because 50 percent of all patrol officers and 30 percent of all special events officers called in sick for those two days.
I get it. They’re overworked, overwhelmed, and universally disrespected. But all that stunt proved to the public was that they can’t be counted upon. There is no blue line, thin or otherwise. This is turning into the Wild Wild West. It’s really scary.
In the 9 years I’ve been here, I’ve only been pulled over by a police officer once, and that’s remarkable, given my lead foot. (I was only given a warning, which probably had more to do with my white privilege than anything else.) You rarely see cops on the road anymore, and people are driving accordingly.
While it’s nice not to be bothered by law enforcement, I’d rather get a traffic ticket every day of the week if it meant they’d actually show up when I call 911. They can’t even be bothered to come for the nightly drag races in front of our house, even though they’re well aware of them, and innocent bystanders have been known to get killed.
Where’s Shane when you need him? Oh, yeah. He rode off into the sunset.
But the rule of law doesn’t seem to be the solution, anyway, because there’s a dearth of correctional officers as well. Even if criminals are jailed, they’re increasingly subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. According to this article, Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, which has a staff vacancy rate of 53%, has kept its prisoners on lockdown since early March, and this institution is the rule, not the exception.
Increasingly, lockdowns happen due to lack of staff rather than due to anything the inmates have done. The walls at Waupun are covered in feces and blood, there’s bird droppings everywhere, and there’s no ventilation or air conditioning. They’re not allowed visitors or access to the law library. They are denied showers, exercise and medical care. There is no toilet paper. In the federal prison system, nurses, teachers and cooks have been pressed into guard duty.
The isolation, boredom, and anxiety, as well as the unsanitary conditions, have led to a deterioration in mental health. There is a backlog in psychological services and medical care. Prisoners are increasingly likely to cut themselves or attempt suicide to get much-needed medical attention. What a nightmare.
About 12 years ago, my brother-in-law tried to bully me into becoming a corrections officer in Georgia, because I was between jobs and it was starting to freak him out. You don’t have to know me well to understand what a bad idea that would have been. I am starting to think that my family knows me even less than the average random stranger. In this age of increasing uncertainty, that doesn’t exactly provide comfort.
To date, there is no tracking system for the number of lockdowns that occur in federal or state prison systems. Who knows what’s going on in there. What we’re all starting to see out here is scary enough.
Now is the perfect time to stay at home and read a good book. Try mine! http://amzn.to/2mlPVh5
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