The Seattle City Council, which has been mulling a proposal to defund the Seattle Police Department, drafted a resolution which would both defund the police and create a “civilian led department of community safety & violence prevention.”
While the resolution does not call for the total abolition of the police, it explicitly states the council’s intention of funding “community-led activities” which would “accompany” their effort to defund Seattle Police.
In essence, the resolution would “remove certain functions from the Seattle Police Department and provide funding for a community-led process to inform the structure and function of a new department of community safety & violence prevention,” per the proposal.
In the resolution, the council recognizes “the nation’s and Seattle’s history of racism” and the impacts institutional racism has had on “communities of color and especially in Black communities.”
